Nothing Slick About San Jose's Christmass In The Park

Click on the Illustration Above
To fully enjoy the details

A funky and folksy conglomeration of decorative community effort put on by every organization in town, from girl scout troops to your  local Flavored Tobacco Addiction Abuse Group.

Nobody tries to make San Jose's Christmas in the Park into something it isn't.

I never miss it.

San Francisco Field Trip: Please Pass the Shrimp (San Francisco Zoo)

It's the Shrimp that Keep Us In The Pink
Click on the illustration above
To fully enjoy the beautiful details

These flamingos always give me the feeling I'm in an altered universe. I mean..... would we turn pink if we ate enough shrimp?

One of my favorite ways to play tourist in any city I'm visiting, is to go to the zoo. Zoo's tend to be spacious, beautiful places that have evolved over time. People of all ages, who live in that exotic place I've traveled to, are there, enjoying time with their families. Traveling with a kid? They'll find play time they may be missing as they zip around exhibits. A lot of zoos, like  San Francisco Zoo have great playgrounds and children's zoos for maximum other-kid interaction as well.

In this setting, people who live there are relaxed and ready to chat about what they find beautiful in this specialized environment -perhaps the landscaping or design. Often they suggest other fun places to go or eat. In zoo's I've also been know to pickup tidbits about local politics I might not hear in the made-for-tourists meccas farther downtown.

Oh, and there are animals there too! Animals I might not have seen in other zoos. San Francisco Zoo is home to an exhibit of twin grizzly bears, a pair that wildlife rescue folk weren't able to re-release. They are darling. The Magellanic penguin breeding program is one of the most successful in the world. Plus the little tuxedoed cuties are a kick to watch, every one so individual. I hung out for a half an hour today during feeding time, as every single penguin was hand fed their requisite two fish - and if they didn't take two that fact was noted on the keepers clip board. Eagle Island and Devil the white penguin (a one-winged survivor of a tangle with a cut fishing line - most marine animals in this situation don't make it) are two other favorites of mine. Devil is particularly appealing when he plays with - woops I mean interacts with - his keeper.

Even though it's not particularly far from home, I always feel like I'm on a wonderful trip when I visit the San Francisco Zoo. I love the gorgeous landscaping and appreciate the effort that's gone into making the animals feel comfortable and relaxed.

Field Trip: Training Home from Burlingame

After an afternoon out enjoying the sights of Burlingame Avenue, my daughter dropped me off at the Burlingame Train Station. Cal Train comes every half an hour and I was able to take it on to my destination in Menlo Park.

Waiting at the station I chatted, in casual California strangers style, with Alex and his mother. Alex, aged two and a half explained to me the concept of what benches were for. He and his family were headed to the library on the train, a regular exciting event in his family. We enjoyed looking down the tracks for the train together, while exercising great caution in the matter of the train's inability to stop suddenly.

Alex and his mother also shared a train song with me and I, in return, performed Train is a'Comin' for him. About the time I got to the end, the train did indeed arrive in the station. At which point my new comrade lost all interest in anything as plebian as a song.

What better way could their possibly be to head to the library than aboard a passenger train? Will any other experiences in the rest of Alex's life really equal the excitement of it?

Related Links - Youtube of my performance of Train is a' Comin'

A New Nightgown for the Winter Holidays

Kaity Rose seems happy with her newly sewn nightie

You may enjoy the technical illustrated how-to's in my previous posting about tucks.

When practicing tucks sewing for a future nightgown of my own, I sewed a new nightgown for a favorite little friend, Kaity Rose. (KRose will share her new nightie with her comrade, Holly the Dolly.)

I used this free download of the nightgown for the American Girl Samantha  doll for this charmer.

I talked about this project, created a descriptive audio tutorial about making tucks and shared a number of ideas for avoiding tucks sewing pinfalls in the December Enchanted by Sewing Podcast. The show is freely available in the iTunes store for download to a mobile device, or you can listen on the web without downloading by clicking on this link.

Calling All Vests!

Manufacturer is Timeless Treasures
Collection:Cabin Fever Flannel
Source: Fabric.Com

I see I'm not the only sewist who found this Bird print on a creamy background of 100% flannel appealing. There are just seven yards left at fabric.com. This fabric feels great. I have it cut out for a comfortable warm, lined fitted vest I hope to get sewn up soon. The theme for my January Enchanted By Sewing Podcast will be vests. If you have a favorite vest pattern you'd like to see featured in the January podcast, let me know by emailing me at Enchanted By Sewing AT Gmail.Com (or post a response here). I'm also hoping listeners and readers will send in photos of vests they've made and would like to see featured in the show notes.

Holiday Greeting From The Land of Fruits and Nuts

Go ahead and Click on the Illustration Above
For all the Nutty Details!

Ho Ho Ho from California!


Hope you don't crack up from meetin' too many nuts this holiday season.

Cracking Nuts at the Opera House

Oh Please Click on the Illustration Above to
Enjoy the full beauty of this theatre
Awaiting the Show
Nutcracker Ballet, Warm Memorial Opera House San Francisco

This San Francisco ballet has undergone a major transformation since I last attended a performance of the Nutcracker at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. The costumes have been upgraded with a more Edwardian look and Clara's relationship with her godfather and the Nutcracker Prince is an improvement. She shifts between doll-playing-girlhood, into a dream within a dream of maidenhood, that seems more natural to me. I also liked the conversion of the Sugar Plum fairies final pas de deux and solos with her cavalier into roles for Clara and the prince. The dancing in these parts was just plain more interesting.

I don't want to spoil things for anybody, but whoever came up with the idea of having the Russian dancers burst through the windows of what appears to be faberge eggs needs to get the stupendous award!

Sewing Basket Overload!

I was buried under my sewing basket.

• So many in-progress projects to finish.
Shall I list them? Would that make a difference?

• So many new and improving skills I'm working on. Another list?

• So many tee shirts, pants and purses that I could zip through quickly, if I didn't have a life: work, school, family, hiking, and reading novels.
All of them are equally important, eh?

Oh wait, it supposed to be fun. That's why I sew!

Guess I'll just wear that red plaid dress I made a few years back to that special event this week, and put the self-imposed deadlines on hold.

My only plan for the future, is to keep the enchantment in my sewing.

I'll Have a Bluuuuuue Schist Christmas, Without You!

 Blue Schist is a rare beauty made from volcanic basalt. This patch at Edgewood, metamorphosed at high pressure and low temperature from deeply subducted oceanic crust.

   

California Christmas Berry (Toyon)

Please Click on the Illustration Above

To Enjoy the Full Beauty of

Heteromeles arbutifolia

California Toyon Berries

European settlers were pleased to find a familiar plant from back home, when they saw these beautiful red berries and jagged leaves all over the hills of their young settlement in Southern California. I mean, come on, everybody knows holly when they see it!

And so.... that's why the California film industry didn't take off in the community of Toyonwood.

Chrismika Preparations

After cutting down a tree at a farm on Highway 92, just east of Half Moon Bay, we went home to light the last candle on the menorah, make latkes and play the dreidel game.

Holiday Bakery: Hangin' with the Danes

Who needs distant travel for a cultural experience? The Copenhagen Bakery in nearby Burlingame is a lovely place to stop in on a local field trip. Their holiday windows are more than inviting and their cardomom raisin bread is pretty durn good too.

'Round home travel is the best kind.

CA Coast Range: Smack Dab in the Middle

Every time I come out of class at Cañada College,
 I get to see this marvelous view of the CA Coast Range.

Chock full of blu schist, serpentinite, and chert rocks these mountains are part of an accretionary wedge of the same ancient volcanic arc from which the Sierra Nevada batholith formed.

Go ahead and click on the illustration above
for a lovely  up close and personal view of
The CA coast range from Cañada College

Sinuous Los Trancos Creek

Click on the illustration above
for an up close and personal view
of Los Trancos Creek

The trail up Windy Hill has more than it's share of moments.

Fungus Amongus: The Pink Ones Are Toxic

Hiking Windy Hill 

Click on the toxic princess above

to really enjoy the details

But don't touch, 

if you run into  her on a post-rain hike

As was hoped for, we got a bit of those storms the Oregonians were so kind as to send down our way. Two guesses as to what quick crop the rain brings out in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

I chatted with a mushroom gathering fella close to the end of my hike at Windy Hill Open Space Preserve today. You aren't actually supposed to gather mushrooms in the Open Space, but what do you say? My husband saw another couple with at the top of the hill with collecting bags as well. Hopefully enough people are concerned about the possibility of eating the wrong 'shroom that the area doesn't get stripped of it's fungus-bearing potential.

This man was gathering mushrooms under an oak tree. I asked him about this pink beauty I'd snapped on my camera phone further up the hill. He knew just the spot she grew.

"Oh those are very toxic," he said in an English thick with a mellifluous some-kinda-European accent I couldn't place. "They are so toxic that if you even touch them with your fingers, the toxins will enter your bloodstream and .... " he made a vague gesture as to where I might now be, had I had the nerve to perhaps prop up this little pink-topped native plant to enhance her photographic possibilities. The location of his casual gesture was somewhere down the side of the trail in a rather steep ravine.

Don't eat the pink ones.

We've Got the Power! Marsh Hawks for Christmas

co-published with A California Christmas Cottage

Click on the illustration above
To Enjoy The Lovely Details

Rehearsal at The Bing

Technicos: Imperfect Tucks Are Not the End of the World

Some of my tucks were slightly off grain
Some were a little skewed
Hey, these were the first I'd made outside of
making tucks that came pre-printed on a pattern piece
And the doll whose nightgown will be incorporating this
charming detail, won't care!

I'm a Type B, so I don't usually stress about perfection and doing things in a totally standardized way. At least that's what I've always thought about myself. But I noticed that I was letting myself get kind of intimidated by my plaid and fitting crusade in regards to my CA Romance Dress project. So I decided a couple of things.

1) I still plan to finish it in time for a mid December performance I'm going to with my daughter. But a little break might not hurt
2) I'm going to quit worrying about alterations. I talked with Susan about the sleeve fitting we were planning to work on, and I decided to just pin my test sleeve to the dress once I get the bodice and skirt basted up, see if it looks OK, then cut the sleeve and run with it. We could spend way too much time fooling with every detail of this pattern. Enough is enough. Neither of us wants to get overly caught up in pattern alteration and drafting. We just want to sew stuff that makes us feel good and improve our sewing skills along the way!
3) I decided I needed a very brief break from the CA Romance Dress. Just a little time to play with tucks!

My December podcast theme will be night wear. I'm already sewing a flannel nightshirt for my husband (well it's cut out anyway) and I have a flannel nightgown cutout for myself. Actually I cut it out a couple of years ago(!). I found it and another of the same pattern and material in my inventory. I did machine embroidery on the yokes for each last year and got one sewed up. So nightie number two needs to get finished this month. Those two garments will give me some practical material for the 'cast, but..... as usual I'm distracted by a technique we worked on in class. I bet you can guess that's tucks!

It's so tempting to cut out another nightgown - a cool cotton one this time, with a tucked bodice or yoke. Hold on! When will I finish my dress, get back to my planned tee shirts and get on with jeans sewing? How about I just practice some technique sewing to polish up those fun tucks we practiced on paper in Fashion 110? Then, when I've gotten past a few other planned projects I'll be that much smarter.


BTW sample sewing is a blast when you sew for a doll. Have you ever noticed how non-picky a doll is? They'll wear anything! I saved only a few of my daughter's books and only two toys. One was an American Girl doll and the other an 18" Engelpuppen doll (a German model). And dolls wear nightgowns that would look lovely with tucks. I downloaded classic retired American Girl Doll Patterns for free! They're big files and you may want to avoid doing more than one at a time. Thanks to Pleasant Rowland and the rest of American Girl for sharing these patterns.

I used an old cotton sheet, from that day last summer when I cleaned out the linen closet (there's room to fold the pillowcases now!) , to practice my tucks. If I called it vintage fabric, would it sound classier? It was pleasant working with that soft old fabric, and wondering how many times it had been slept on over the years.

I experimented with simple, easy to draw tucks
These are one inch apart
In retrospect, I think maybe more pins would keep the tucks straighter

I think this is about an 1/8 inch seam on the tucks
I think an expert sewer might like to pintuck a doll's nightgown,
but pin tucks would be more work to measure and might be more challenging to sew
There's enough to the basic experience without adding pin tucks

I had marked my tucks with air soluble marker
But you know that inch will often bond with the fabric when pressed
So I rinsed that marker out before pressing
Yeah, right those tucks aren't perfect.
But dolls wont' care, and I got some experience working with this technique

Also, sample sewing was good because it got me thinking about
how a pattern piece might lay on my completed tucked fabric.
If I were making a nightgown bodice for myself,
I might want to do extra tucking so that I could get a really symmetrical look

A Musical Evening at Christmas Cottage

I was off rehearsing with  the rest of Stanford Symphonic Chorus this evening, for the new year opening weekend performance at Stanford's spectacular new Bing Concert Hall (they call it "The Bing"). So I had no idea what had been happening elsewhere. 

Turns out that 'whilst I was inhaling the fumes of fresh resins and the crystal tones of the instrumentalists, a fine time was also being had by all  back in Christmas Cottage.

Fa la la la.

(co-published with A California Christmas Cottage)

Toy Shelf: Environmentally Conscientious Elves

What could be s a better look for the holiday tree?
Fuyu persimmons are both edible and biodegradable

When it comes to holiday decorations out here in California, we're always fans of the natural look.  During the festive season, the local elven brother and sisterhood follow environmentally sustainable decoration harvesting practices.


(co-published with A California Christmas Cottage)

San Francisquito Creek in Full Spate

Go ahead and click on the illustration above for an up close and personal view
of San Francisquito Creek viewed from one of the local bike bridges

Thanks to my friend Judy for sending all that rain down from Grant's Pass. We can 'most always use the wet stuff down California way. San Francisquito Creek creek, over which the bike bridges between Palo Alto and Menlo Park cross, provides an excellent view of what the recent storms have gifted us with.

Plain Sewing: Another Season's Nightshirt

December means nightshirt and nightgown sewing. In California, our cool weather has just come in and we're noticing seam and fabric deficiencies in last seasons nightwear.

Though Simplicity 9898 is out of print
There are many of this older pattern for sale on the web
And the big 4 pattern companies carry new versions
of this same pattern style

Wonder how many times I've made this flannel nightshirt for my husband? It's the ultimate, no-fashion item. I sew them and he wears them out. We turn the worn out nightshirts into cleaning and polishing rags, just as families have for generation after generation.

I'm getting down to brass tacks today, cutting another of these oh-so-practical garments.

Toy Shelf: Santa Doll and Friends

You better not shout,

You better not cry,

You better not pout,

I'm tellin' you why
...a rather unjolly old Christmas myth, don't you think?

I got up very early on the first day of December to visit the toy shelf in the Christmas Cottage.

You can imagine how surprised I was to find that Santa Claus had already shown up.

He'd gotten right down to work, checking with the kids to see what they're hoping for this holiday.

Don't believe what you may have heard about that naughty or nice stuff. He could care less about how they've been behaving. Every kid qualifies for love from Santa.

You can shout.

You can cry.

No matter what, Santa's comin' by.


(co-published with A California Christmas Cottage)

Persimmons on Parade

Thanks to my good neighbor Jen, we have persimmons this year. I know I could buy them at the downtown Farmer's Market, good ones too. But, around here, buying persimmons is like having to buy lemons. It feels wrong.

I scored both types that grow in the area, Fuyu and Hachiya. We actually have a Fuyu tree in our yard, and we used to get a lot of fruit from it. But no more. The squirrels scored all but one pathetic half of a fruit. Or maybe it was the raccoons. They were certainly busy with our small tomato patch this year.

But, luckily for me I scored with the homegrown persimmons. Of course, as y'all know, the Fuyu are the kind you eat hard. You can eat them out of hand, but we are pretty partial to them in our regular big supper salads. Tonight we had our first local crab salad of the year. Hooray for crab season! The pairing of persimmon and crab is right up there with apples and honey, mashed potatoes and gravy, or apples and cheddar cheese. Some flavors were just meant to go together.

I used some of the ripe Hachiya (you never want to eat those astringent guys until they are good and mushy) in a persimmon cake for Thanksgiving. I lost my original recipe, but there are variants on the web and I just played around with what I found. I'm not actually sure what I ended up putting in other than buttermilk, plenty of persimmon, dark raisins, local walnuts, and no oil or butter. It's basically a very minimal any-kind-of-oil-or-butter with 3 ripe persimmons (about a cup and a half of fruit). Delicious. That is what fruit cake should taste like, not heavy but dense and rich with fruit.

I'm partial to these little darlings in a smoothie with frozen bannana, milk and vanila as well. Heaven. I better freeze up those other two Hachiya's right now so I can have one tomorrow. BTW if the Fuyu get over ripe they work in any of the same way as their astringint cousins. That's why we planted a Fuyu tree. You get the value of both types of fruit.

Good simple California eating. Could food grow any better?

Technicos: Don't be Mad - Be Plaid

Though Vogue 8810 is a relatively straightforward pattern I've made before (in a straight skirted version), The CA Romance Dress is challenging for several reasons:

1) Susan's helping me to alter the pattern for an improved fit. I wrote about that in "Further Adventures of the CA Romance Dress".  I liked this dress shape before, but I'm liking the new tissue shape I saw in the mirror even more. Could I have been happy making this dress without these changes, working on my own pinning in front of the bathroom mirror? You bet I could. But I'm taking classes and it's a great chance to learn more about fitting techniques. I'm going to feel majorly couture wearing this creation!

2) I'm making this version with a wide bias cut skirt.  I'm using plaid fabric. Oh boy - plaid.

3) I'm working with only 4 yards of fabric, the bare minimum for the full-skirted version. (I won't be able to squeak the full-length sleeve out, you betcha).And BTW did I mention I'm using plaid fabric?

What helped? Pattern weights combined with pins. The pattern and fabric on these great big skirt pieces tends to shift about. Just as soon as I'd have it pinned on one side, it shifted on the other. So I switched to  laying out a whole lot of pattern weights first, moving them around and around, shifting and moving the fabric as I went until all the lines all around the piece seemed to be lining up.

After all the pattern weights were in place, then I pinned. And I used lots and lots of pins.

Previously I thought pattern weights were just for people who used them instead of pins. Now I think they made it possible for me to do some challenging plaid matching. Thanks to Kathleen and her husband who made these pattern weights for our sewing lab at school!

A Couple of Other Things I learned:

* After I already started cutting another Sewing Lab inhabitant suggested next time I make bigger seam allowances (maybe an inch instead of 5/8 inch), so that I can tweak the plaid matchup a little if the fabric pulls slightly out of do-wacky when I'm cutting. Would have been a good idea, but too late.

* Richard suggested that I stay/reinforcement stitch my bias-cut seams (in this case, the skirt side seams) when I was fretting about the challenges of that newly stretchy cross-cut side moving around on my when matching up those seams where the plaids come together in a diagonal manner. He also told me not to stress it too much when it comes to plaids, and just to enjoy it!

He's right. It's not a contest. The point is to have fun.

My fabric isn't, of course, wide enough to cut both sides of
the full bias-cut skirt front or back
So I cut each skirt piece - front and back- out twice
A total of four skirt pieces to cut
That 'flip!" note reminds me that I want to
cut mirror images of each piece.
I'm sure you'd never make a mistake doing that, but I sure have!

When I pin the pattern to the plaids, I pin on the seam line
Not the cutting line
The fabric can shift between the cutting and seam line

I test to make sure that I've still got plaids matching over and over
as I lay out each piece

It's not enough just to get the  seam's matching
We try to get all the plaids matching around the entire piece
THEN we work to matchup the plaids on this piece with plaids on the
pieces this will be sewn to. That would be
skirt front to skirt back, skirt top to dress  bodice, in this case

Notice I used pattern weights not only around the edges, but in the middle too. It helped really get the pattern to lay flat. (The pattern is in the middle here, I've already cut one piece and now it's flipped over. I put pins through the grainline to make sure it's laying straight, though the plaid matching makes that pretty durn  likely as well.