Bake Sale!

Ugh, after five hours of straight bakin' (seriously, no breaks in that business!) I'm ready to check out. For tomorrow's fundraiser bake sale for the Esch*, I'll be taking Orange Chocolate Pinwheels, sugar cookies (which may or may not be frosted, depending on how sparky I'm feeling tomorrow morning), and chocolate chip walnut cookies. 

Sheep and moon sugar cookies cooling, a plate of reject cookies that will stay safe in my home. Sugar cookies don't look like much when they're not frosted, do they?

If you want some of these delectable treats, kick on over to See Jane Run (3910 24th Street at Sanchez) in San Francisco today/Saturday for snackems. This will be happening rain or rain, since it is going to rain. Chris and I will be there from noon to two (or so) with our baked wonder. 
Time for bed!


*Eschy (Bryce) is taking part in the Wildflower Triathalon and is doing all she can to raise money to fight AIDS. See her fundraiser site!

Mexico Pictures--Our Digs

The resort-type place we stayed at (thank you, Tom and Anna Maria) was super beautiful and really close to the beach, and with a gargantuan pool that spanned two or three city blocks and sat on three different levels. Some of the days, we just kicked around the resort either hanging at the pool or snorkeling. Or sleeping. We napped and ate a lot! This is the last batch of photos for your perusal, so I hope you enjoy them!

Two words: Pool Bar!

The whole place looked like a highly cultivated jungle, it was really pretty to walk around.

Our little segment of beach was great to walk on, but not so hot for swimming. As you can see, there is a pumice-like quality to the area.

By the pool, well manicured.

The wake generated by our snorkeling boat on our way to the reefs. Yes, I was singing "Rio" (there are pictures of that as well).

Sunrise on our little section of beach.

ahhh, so wonderful. 

These are baby versions of fish we saw a lot of when we went snorkeling. These were in a tide-pool-like situation the morning we were watching the sunrise.

A nice jogger took this for us. We had a great time!

Mexico Pictures--Chichen Itza and nearby areas

We signed up for a day trip to Chichen Itza, a pre-Hispanic city in the middle of the Yucatan peninsula. It is one of the new seven wonders of the world (as established in 2007) and is super neat. On our way to Chichen Itza, we traveled through a colonial town (Valladolid) that I totally want to check out more, and stopped at a Mayan "village" for food, shopping, and cenote time!

The cenote! This is one of the big attractions in that village. There is a cenote in Chichen Itza too, but I don't believe you're permitted to swim there. That one is just for sacrificing. 

Well, jumping in was the natural thing to do. :)

See where that one dude is standing on the second highest level? That is where I jumped in from. (Blue Streak trained me well for this.)

Cenotes are limestone sinkholes--this one was 50 meters deep, so it was more or less like swimming in a quarry. Whoa!

The ballfield area in Chichen Itza.

The Observatory, where all kinds of astronomical shenanigans took place.

Chris and an unidentified structure (our tour guide was letting us wander solo at that point). Doesn't it look like there is a face in the building? Eek!

In front of el Castillo.

This shot is required.

El Castillo! We were pretty tuckered out at this time, and Chris was just barely putting up with me. What a champ...

Then we got back on the bus with all the liquored up people. (liquor was served on the bus, not in Chichen Itza) We weren't allowed to climb on any of the pyramids or touch anything, as the Federal government no longer permits it here, possibly at any of the ruins. What a drag!

Updates! Mexico pictures--Playa del Carmen

Sweet business, I didn't realize it had been over a month since I last posted something. 50% of my February was spent ailing with some miserable sickness and the other half was spent trying desperately to catch up on everything I was losing control over. I'm healthy now, and was healthy for the whole trip to Mexico, so I guess I can't complain about anything. 

Here are some pictures from our week-long trip to Playa del Carmen in Mexico! We had a  great time, though I am now seriously behind in my sewing--in the month of February, I only managed to make a bed-pocket for Chris and finish Jennifer's skirt (which has its own set of complications). I'm still in the process of bargaining with myself about my 2011 Sewing Resolution (nope, didn't forget) to sew one garment per month, as well as really wanting to keep up with the Sew Weekly challenges. Later, later....

Chris in his super awesome beach clothes.

A wonderful helado de coco. mmmm!

Cycle tracks in Playa del Carmen.

The most delicious chicken tamales we purchased from a street vendor. There was a whole chicken wing in that thing, bone and all!

One of our many iguana friends.

The Ultimate Romper...

No, I don't have it. I'm looking for it, or for a pattern for it. Mostly I'm looking for a pattern for it, since last week's foray at H&M reminded me that ready-to-wear pieces that cover my top and bottom are not proportioned correctly (that's right, their fault, not butternut-squash-me) and they are going for the "fancy romper" vibe. No. Sport romper, that's where it's at!

 Image from Vilexa Boutique

Never in velour, never that tight.
My dream romper is something that has shorter shorts, short sleeves (capped?), and probably buttons for the top part, and a collar, I think. It is in a medium weight cotton or some other nice fabric that will wear soft and stand up to my spilling ways, and has some elastic gathering at the waist for definition.
Oh, and it is probably plaid.

image from Fabricana's Etsy shop

Have you seen a pattern like that? I haven't. Keep an eye out, okay?

What does your ultimate romper look like? Details, please!

Cover Your Fireplace! If you're so inclined...

Being as I've been deliriously sick all week, I've had a lot of time at home. Most of that time was spent sleeping, but when you wake up at 2pm on a Thursday, you are suddenly grabbed with the urge to "do something". There was no way that I was getting dressed, so I figured I would show you some pictures from my last project which might come in handy for your home, or for a friend's. As Chris pointed out, many of our friends in houses have fireplaces they cannot use for one reason or another, including our friend Bryce. She had brought up the idea of covering the plyboard that blocks her fireplace with a fabric version of a fire, but I didn't get to act on that until a couple of months later.
What helped me jump in was this awesome black paper/fabric I have that I thought would be really awesome as the background, since most other fabrics wouldn't look cold enough to be the cavernous space around a fire.

I had originally wanted to use a red paisley as the majority of the fire's area, but couldn't find one that suited my vision so I turned to my wall o' fabric and willed myself to be open minded. The "red" section of my fabric wall claims almost as much space as the "blue" section, so there was a lot of awesome stuff to choose from. I ended up using some impulse buys from shopping days gone by, fabric/old-saris-cholis-etc my friend Preet donated to my sewing cause months ago (ever handy), and some of my favorite quilting fabric that I bought for love of the designs. This is a good opportunity to use fabric pieces of any size you have lying around.

Each flame tongue was cut, then had its seams pressed under, had the seams stitched under, then was placed on the fire background to be stitched on. It was annoying, but a good exercise in patience. The seam stitching made the final stitching part a lot easier, so I'm glad I did that even if the small fabric pieces kept junking up my machine.

The logs were the final part to go on, though I suppose it would look pretty neat to have them overlap with the fire more. I took some liberties with the wood selection: it was originally supposed to be faux bois, but I was feeling punchy so I used this animal print I had on hand. Bryce thinks it looks more like stone than wood, but I'm still a fan. Oh, the fire had to be stitched to the outline in there too. That's important.

And then we put it in front of her fireplace! (disregard the off-measurements--we never established what was length and what was height.)

So, if you have a fireplace to cover, make this project your own!

Bethie's dress and some sewing resolutions

Remarkably, I finished Bethie's dress in a week; specifically, the week after Christmas. Also known as the week when I was both physically sick and sick of sewing. But, I have now completed my first dress using an unprinted pattern! It is also the oldest pattern I have used to date, being from 1954.

Beth tried it on when we dropped it off, and though I would like to take it back and alter it a bit (re-do the darts to their original width instead of the less deep version seen here, shorten it another inch or two), Beth seemed unwilling to give the dress back. I guess that is a good thing?

This is the first project of the new year, and it brings me to my sewing resolutions: 

• I vow to create one to two "big" projects per month, and 
• I vow to create more things for myself. 

A "big" project means an article of clothing, not just a tote bag or traveling pouch. In spite of sewing for the past three years (anniversary of my first Craft Center class this month!), I still only have two dresses and two shirts I have made for myself. I never wear the shirts because of awkward fit issues and unforgiveable rookie-sewing mistakes, but I wear the grey dress bi-weekly and the green dress whenever I can rustle up an occasion. (There was also a drop-waist 60s dress fiasco in there; no pictures were taken and I donated it to good will because it made me look like frumpy maid)

So, more projects and more things I get to keep in 2011! Once I finish my to-do list for others... :)

Oh, and I'm also going to be more active or something. And leave my house more to hang out with you. Yeah!