Art Journal

Nature Ramblings ~ Past Times Time Travel ~ Romancing Daily Life
Showing posts with label how to. Show all posts
Showing posts with label how to. Show all posts

Monday, September 7, 2015

New York Field Trip - Time Travel, Casual Art, Friendly Folks NYC Move How To Notes

I got to go along to New York, to help my daughter move there for graduate school. Good thing this worked out, as just before leaving she developed a stress fracture in her foot. So we learned about accessible transportation* in New York as well!

We spent two weeks at a budget hotel in Queens, waiting for Rosalinda’s Upper East Side Manhattan apartment to open up. Luckily we found it on the first day - we used a broker, which is common Saw a number that would have worked. Hers is a little more old style/classic first Manhattan apartment than others we saw. Little less costly than the others, but similar rents to those around here in San Francisco Bay Area.  Ikea guys came first evening with bed and table and chairs!



Front of Rosalinda’s building. Pre-war construction. High ceilings.

She has a “fifth floor walkup”. That means no elevator and you schlepp your groceries and stuff mailed from home up, up, up. It took me 2.5 hours to move up the stuff from boxes at home. With Rosalinda’s busted foot, she stayed below with box cutter, repacking in our essential Target handled bins. and had them ready for me upon return trips. Highest humidity day. I had to stop and rest from heat both top and bottom!! I sure appreciate my health in a situation like this. Good to know I can do a hard thing.



Great family scene in Queens - where we stayed in hotel. East Indian (Punjabi and Gujarti speakers), Latino and African American neighborhoods side by side. Lots of languages to hear. People sit on their stoops at night and visit. Very friendly and I could always say ‘hi’ when taking my after supper walk. Practiced my Spanish nearly every day on my trip- walking, on subway, and with one of guys assembling bed (who spoke no English). Interesting to see Italian and Indian heritage workers speaking excellent Spanish with coworkers. I didn’t know before that 25% of people there are Spanish speaking. On bus Rosalinda observed that my Spanish was much improved. Starts to flow naturally when I use it casually like that.



Bodegas about every two blocks in Queens. Really good produce and meat. Lots of high quality produce all along streets too. Also all-fruit smoothie carts. Often fruit in carts better price than in stores. And good.



Queensboro Bridge from the hotel window, I watched the commute traffic morning and evening. They definitely go into work later. Traffic moves pretty well still at 7:30 a.m.

Kinda Christmas’y look in the evenings.



We DID get tired of the hotel - refrigerator and microwave,  but only one chair and a desk other than bed. Rosalinda elevated her foot and ate on the bed often two meals a day. It was so great to have a table and chairs when we moved to apartment.

Might have been worth paying 40$ to have somebody else ‘pick’ the Ikae furniture. We had two carts like this. It meant Rosalinda did things with her foot she shouldn’t have to avoid having me get knocked to floor by boxes.You have to go TO Ikea to get delivery date you want. Otherwise it takes 2-3 weeks if you online order.


Moving to Manhattan with an incomplete foot is challenging - but there are a lot of payoffs. The East River is a five to ten minute walk from Rosalinda’s new apartment. There is a walkway and a park with a dog area BUSTLING with cute little dogs, sunbathing and benches all along the river. It’s a real neighborhood scene both day and night.



Central Park is very accessible from Rosalinda’s place too. Six and a half blocks. Easy walk or, when you are minimizing walking, - as Rosalinda is working to do now - you take a cross town bus and can keep the walking to about a half a mile to see Central Park scenes like this. You can rent these wind powered boats, or bring your own. You can also rent a sloop in the boathouse to keep your own boat. This is the “Conservatory Water”. The Alice and Wonderland statue is at one end. Also the Hans Christian Anderson statue, where there are weekly H.C.A. readings. I had a nice talk in Spanish with a man from Argentina (his home language is Italian but he was happy to speak Spanish) about H.C. Anderson when we were both photo’ing there.



Lot of great tile art in the subways.While Rosalinda in class,  I got off at 23’rd street station returning on the R Line (back from the free Staten Island Ferry) to photo many hats at the 23’rd street station.



There are many excellent opportunities for time travel at The Cloisters and next door Fort Tyron.

I’ve always wanted to see the Unicorn Tapestries. But I had no idea what a wonderful museum they live in. I went back to “The Cloisters” for a second visit on one of the days Rosalinda was in Orientation all day. Fort Tyron Park next to the Cloisters is right on The Hudson - gorgeous gardens, benches and views. I ate my lunch there on my second visit before heading into Cloisters. The museum itself is a fantasy of an Abbey, created from pieces of monastical buidlings from all over Europe, transformed into the sense of one building. Beautiful secret enclosed gardens too.

Plus I got to fully enjoy the Unicorn Tapestries collection.

It’s part of the Metropoliton Museum of Art and I used my Met ticket from another day, to get in. Both museums have a ‘recommended’ price, so you can offer less and they take it with a smile. Same with Natural History Museum and City of New York Museum - both of which I squeezed int when Rosalinda was resting foot in the afternoons.

Museum Record for Unicorn in Captivity tapestry - http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/467642
~ ~ ~

*To locate accessible Bus and Subway info - use the MTA trip planner and check the Accessible box. Currently about 25% of subways are accessible - but we found that rerouting and maintenance can alter that. Busses worked best for foot injury for my daughter. Pleasant riding busses too and it helped us learn the geography of the city better.
http://tripplanner.mta.info/MyTrip/ui_web/customplanner/TripPlanner.aspx

Saturday, July 25, 2015

How To Invite Fairies to Live in your Garden (Tutorial)


Fairy magic adds enchantment to my gardening life


Wegman's Nursey ( Redwood City)  helped me prepare for fairies

How To Invite Fairies to Live in your Garden
Ice plant and succulents enhance this tea party garden

1)Find a nice pot - I got mine in my Wegman's Fairy Garden Class /Workshop.
 You might get creative here and re-purpose a pot, large bowl, can, or any open vessel you already have. Fairies are not picky. Make sure you have a hole in the bottom, or some kind of drainage.
2) Fill the pot nearly full with potting soil

3) Decide on a story you want to tell in your garden - the sleeping green fairy below had a very warm bike ride to a cool lake. He parked his cycle, walked across the stepping stones over the lake, and is enjoying a  snooze next to some frog friends on a leaf that's big enough to serve all of them as a little island bench in the lake
4) Pick out a few little outdoor or indoor plants to enhance the story. Tiny ground cover  plants might work well. In my Wegman's class, I included Australian violets/Australian bluebell and some Irish moss. I had some spider plants at home that had shot out spider plant babies, so I added several of those as well. 

In other fairy habitats - such as the tea party themed one above - I've been using (flowering) ice plant, thyme and a lot of the succulents I've been repurposing from pots. With these I often use pea gravel to fill in as a natural stream or landscape. Non-miniature plants like geranium/pelargonium and iris stems can stand in for trees.

5) Find a fairy, and some items that she or he might enjoy. I used a
There are Fairies at  the Bottom of My Garden
fairy, a leaf bridge with frogs, and a fairy bicycle. You could also use little toys - like tiny dolls. You don't even have to include a fairy. Just creating the perfect environment , may well encourage a fairy to move in with you. Just because you don't see one, doesn't mean they aren't living there.
 6) Rocks, gravel, broken pottery shards, sand and other textures add greatly to the story. In the Fairy Garden class I went too we had access to crushed blue and green glass (you can buy bags of it) and broken shards from a turquoise pot. Those items made me think lake when I spotted them.
Waiting for fairies Just because you don't see them, doesn't mean they aren't living there.
Fairy garden is in-progress - keeping my eyes peeled for additions
If children live in or visit your house, make sure they have access to and maintenance rights over the fairy garden.

My fairy gardens live on my patio. I hand water them when it gets dry. Small garden like these are great during our drought, because they takes very little water. In fact, when we often re-purpose leftover water from other domestic events for watering our pots.

Books
Both these Disney Garden books inspire my theme gardening style, which is so vital for a fairy gardener. I like the tabbed-cookbook style of DISNEY'S GARDENING WITH MICKEY when I want to quickly review the steps for creating a hanging basket or well illustrated how-tos for small topiaries. (There's lots of good info for larger topiaries and garden sculpting as well - I just haven't tried it out) In addition, there is good gardening (yard or pots) basic techniques as well as many recommendations for plants that work well for specific themes and temperatures. I highly recommend it, because I have used it a lot over a period of several years.

I also turn regularly to my Secrets of Disney's Glorious Gardens book. It has a lot of similar techniques and information as DISNEY'S GARDENING WITH MICKEY and it also has lovely, lovely photos that inspire me. So when I want to sit down and just get ideas for themes or gardening styles, I pour through the photos in this book.
                
Fairy magic is adding enchantment to my life, when it comes to gardening.

~ ~ ~
There are Fairies at the Bottom of My Garden

Saturday, July 4, 2015

There are Fairies at the Bottom of My Garden-California Patio Garden that is)


Fairy magic adds  enchantment to my gardening lif
There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
They often have a dance on summer nights;
The butterflies and bees
Make a lovely little breeze,
And the rabbits stand about and hold the lights.
Did you know that they could sit upon the moonbeams
And pick a little star to make a fan,
And dance away up there
In the middle of the air
Well, they can!


There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
You cannot think how beautiful they are;
They all stand up and sing
When the fairy queen and king
Come gently floating down upon their car.
The king is very proud and handsome;
The queen, now can you guess who that would be?
She's a little girl all day
But at night she steals away.
Well, it's me!
      "There are Fairies at the Bottom of our Garden" - Liza Lehmann, 1917
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liza_Lehmann

Enjoy the Comedy Julie Andrews singing There are Fairies at the Bottom of Our Garden

                     

Fairy magic adds  enchantment to my gardening life



Sunday, February 8, 2015

Drafting my Back Block - Learning Pattern Work with Moulage/French Pattern Drafting

Version 1 of my Back Pattern Block Draft
I'm taking Lynda Maynard's Moulage class at Cañada College. Moulage is the traditional style of pattern drafting used in France. Lynda studied pattern drafting, among other things, with Kenneth King. We're using a printed version of Kenneth King's Moulage book. 

On the web I can only find Kenneth King's Moulage Book on CD http://www.kennethdking.com/book/#moulage

We'll be creating a skin-tight, fitted moulage and then a sloper - a moulage that includes minimal wearing ease. We'll also be drafting sleeve patterns/slopers to work with these. My sewing buddy Susan and I, are very excited about those sleeves! Susan was featured in last month's Enchanted By Sewing Audio/Podcast - A Very Fitting Sewing Day With Susan

We've begun by drafting our back pattern blocks.

To get to this point, we followed Kenneth King's/Lynda's directions. Those included:

1) Taking careful measurements of, and recording, many dimensions of our bodies - front and back. I think there are about 20 measurements between our neck to the floor, with most of them centering around the torso. This is not something you can do for yourself. You need at least one buddy. It reminded me of the measurements we took when we made our dress form kits. (I produced a podcast about creating Dress Forms)

2) Using these measurements in a number of formulas, to create a sheet of calculations. Again we made a careful record. It was definitely worth my time to triple-check that I had
a) transferred the right measurement into the formula
b) done the math correctly
We rounded up all of our math to the nearest 1/8'th of an inch. 1/8'th of an inch is the smallest measurement on most rulers.
The book includes metric directions as well.
3) Next we followed  Kenneth King's/Lynda's directions to draft the back block you see here, using the calculations. Once more I'm went back and triple-checked, to be sure I was using the correct calculations in my draft.

Lynda reviewed our work not only for correctness, but also to make adjustments for various figure types. She adjusted the line in many of our shoulder drafts down at an angle. I'd guess that you might see the need for this later on in the process, if you're doing this work on your own.

Next we'll be drafting our front block.

After that, we'll work up a version in muslin.

This is one of those processes that takes a lot more time than I'd expect, but it's going to be well worth it for me.

My goals for the class are:

A) To make a new fit garment for my dress form, Conchita. I'll also be removing some of Conchita's padding and batting, to fill out that fit garment correctly. Gosh, wouldn't it be great if it were that straightforward for people to lose weight?

B) To create clear plastic transparencies I can use when altering commercial patterns. Lynda says the material she uses for this is from Tap Plastics ( Tap  Plastics:
24 1/2"  by  45"  by  .020  smooth/matte  polypropylene  sheet  SKU#20346)

C) Down the road... I might use these block in some way, in conjunction with draping my own patterns

Learning more about what makes patterns come together is the kind of thing that keeps me . . .
Enchanted by Sewing!
~ ~ ~
My Buddy Susan and I share what we've each learned about getting a good fit with our sewing patterns. In Last month's Enchanted By Sewing Audio/Podcast  Susan described key things she learned from sewing fit classes (Also we had a lot of fun chatting) A Very Fitting Sewing Day With Susan (Download or just listen on Line) http://enchantedbysewing.blogspot.com/2015/01/ench-by-sew-028-very-fitting-sewing-day.html

Enchanted By Sewing Audio/Podcast - Dress Forms (Download or just listen on Line) 
http://enchantedbysewing.blogspot.com/2013/09/ench-by-sew-12-dress-forms.html


Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Scraps: Scrunchies or Chou Chous? Green Sewing for the New Year

Two Completed Chou Chous
(along with a fabric covered book) I made for gifts
~ ~ ~ 
Web Resources 
Enchanted by Sewing Show Notes and Links to Shows http://www.enchantedbysewing.blogspot.com/2014/12/ench-by-sew-027-festive-holiday-tees.html

Audio-Only Link http://ec.libsyn.com/p/7/1/3/713e354889f7b167/FINALcastFestiveTeaAndTeesdec2014.mp3?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d06c98e3ed7cf5d5260&c_id=8063812

What is a Chou-Chou or a Scrunchie? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrunchie

Although I made chou-chous for holiday gifts, they are a perfect cleanup-for-the-New-Year or anytime, sewing cleanup/recycling project. You can't get more green than using up scraps of fabric that are too pretty to toss. You can also use the ends of stained or recycled clothing. You can even repurpose old worn elastic!



Here's the idea in picture form, to help you follow along with the Technicos segment of that show.




I can never toss really pretty scraps
But at some point, I need to use them!

I measure out 10 inches of 1/4 inch elastic

I fold a 20 (or slightly longer) tube of scrap fabric
This one isn't perfectly straight and it has one edge hemmed  as a result
of a long-ago project trim. No problem

I pieced on one extra scrap, to make the tube about the
right width
An extra seam at an odd place isn't a problem
when you are scrunching up the fabric anyway

 I cut a piece of string longer than the length of the tube

And lay it inside the tube, along the fold line

Stitch down one side of the tube and across just ONE open end
Make sure not to catch the string when you sew the long side
But DO catch it when you sew across the open end

At this point, I chose not to trim along the seam line,
to give a sausage-like look to the finished chou-chou

Push the sewn across end down into the tube



Pull the string end through the tube, so the outside pulls through
Note that this is a very thick, fabric like chou-chou
That's because I chose not to trim the seam after I sewed it,
to give that sausage-like appearance.
Remember, the chou-chou fabric tube should be about twice as long as the elastic,
so that the fabric scrunches up
You also want enough elastic to be able to double the band around the hair
Otherwise, it will slide off.

Open the sewn-across end, by snipping off the string
Now you have two open ends
Add a safety pin to your 10" of elastic
Pull the elastic through your tube
I set the zig-zab stitch on my machine
I caught up/secured my elastic end on both ends
with a zig-zag stitch.
Be careful not to lose the elastic ends  down either end of the tube, at this point!
Then I sewed the two secured ends together
When I doubled the finishing off seam back to get a neater finish
I broke my needle
So after that, I wrapped my second, neatening seam with a hand stitch
That takes less time than changing my machine needle!








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