It’s been awhile…

Design, Miscellaneous

I’ve been pretty bad about the posting lately, so I thought I should remedy that. On the good side, I’ve been busy with a lot of fun things, so yea!

So here are some of the things that have been taking up my time:

Sewing: I took some more classes from Treadle Yard Goods. The photo you are seeing is a button up shirt that I made in one of my classes. I accidentally sewed the ruffle on backward, but this shirt actually fits me properly! This is the first thing I’ve made that is properly fitted. I will post a picture of me in the shirt when I get the ruffle fixed.

I also have a dress and skirt in the works that I have just finished a muslin for. Now it’s time for the fun part, fabric shopping!

Design: I think I may have posted about this a bit before, but I have been working with Seppy Yoon from Fight in a Box on a design for their game, End of the Line. We have gotten some good feedback on the designs, and I’ll post more about this at another time.

Health: I am currently training to run in Grandma’s Half Marathon in Duluth on June 20th. I won’t lie, training is rough. It’s really made me feel old with all these new aches and pains I’ve been experiencing, but it has definitely upped my running ability. Last week I ran 12 miles! I remember whining when I had to run the mile in school; now a mile is nothing!

  

The Ice Caves

Miscellaneous, Photography

Last weekend, I took a trip up to Duluth to spend time with my bestie. It was great! Lots of dancing, girly movies/tv shows, and chatting about life.

On Saturday, we trekked out to see the ice caves in Wisconsin. It was not exactly what I was expecting to see (I was thinking more caves, less shoreline), but it was still pretty. And after the amazing weather we had this week, I’m glad I got to see them before they all melted. As you can see, there were TONS of people there. We waited in line for a shuttle for about an hour. And taking pictures with nobody in them, was difficult. I either had to shoot up high or get really close to things. If you missed them this year, maybe you will be able to check them out next year. Although I’m interested in seeing what the islands look like in the summer when the are not covered in ice!

walk icicles cave arch

Girls’ Weekend!

Artwork, Miscellaneous

It’s been awhile, huh? I have been really busy lately, but not so much with things that I can show you. Or maybe I should be more honest. I have not been busy with things that I want to show you!

One of the new things I tried this year was Bollywood dancing. It was really fun! Unfortunately, taking two dance classes per week is a bit much for me. Since I already signed up for belly dance, I’m going to keep going with it. But in the future, I may take a few more Bollywood classes.

This past weekend was our girls’ holiday get-together. In addition to our usual shopping, gorging ourselves with delicious food and drinks, and playing games, we decided to try one of those group painting classes that seem to be so popular now.

We went to The Paint Pub, hence the photo of a painting. There were things that I liked about the class, and things that I didn’t like. First for the likes: The instructor was very personable, and did a really good job of entertaining everyone and keeping the mood light. I also liked that the space was covered in paintings that they offer for future classes. Good marketing, but also inspiring. I had never taken an art class before where everyone was painting the exact same thing, so that was fun. It was interesting to see how everyone was painting from the exact same perspective, the exact same thing, but the paintings all looked different.

Now for the dislikes: This place offered food and drinks. The table space was small, so I felt like there was a pretty good chance that I got paint in the sandwich of the woman who was sitting next to me. Eww! And I looked at my wine glass after class, and there were paint specks inside of it. The paint is non-toxic, but it’s still kind of gross. Although the instruction was good, I felt like it was a little too dumbed down. It was basically, paint this, now this, now this, and now you’re done. At one point, I thought we were painting the trees in the foreground, but it turned out to be the trees right before the foreground, which messed up my spacing. Not a huge deal, but it would have been nice to get a little more idea of what part we were on and where we were.

Overall, it was a good time, and I would go back again if anyone wanted to. But I think I’ll probably just stick to painting on my own.

(null)

2015!

Miscellaneous

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a great holiday season full of family, friends, and fun. I know I did!

This year for the holidays, I made Nick a new pair of pajamas! I realized that I did not alter the pattern from the last time that I made these for him, so I had a lot of fabric to remove, since the pattern is tall enough for me and has enough extra on the bottom of the shirt, that it could almost reach his knees before hemming. (I’ll have to remember to alter this for next time.)

For this new pair, Nick had some requests. Since I’ve made poor buttonholes in the past, he requested that I not give him any functional buttons. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t have been able to get them over his head, so he had to have at least one button that was real. Because of the sewing classes that I just took, that one button is the best buttonhole that I’ve ever made. It even stays closed! So amazing…

He also requested that I make him a mandarin collar, which I have never made before. After looking at photos of collars online, I freehand cut the collar that went with original pattern. I think it actually turned out good. This set was an improvement on the last few pairs I’ve made for him. Hopefully the next pair will be high enough quality that it could compete with a store-bought pair.

Nickjamas

Board Game Design

Miscellaneous

Thanks to my wonderful husband, I have been introduced to Seppy Yoon, the Game Designer/Co-Owner of Fight in a Box. I’ve been helping him design some artwork for one of his games, End of the Line, which is a really fun post-apocalyptic game about standing in line to get goods. (If you get a chance to play it, I recommend it!)

These are some of my logo designs that I have been working on. The set of icons at the top is my favorite, but we’re not quite sure if we’ll be able to fit them into the game. The theme Seppy is going for is Cold War/Fallout. So I’ve been trying to get a bit of a retro feel going.

It’s been a lot of fun and a little stressful too. For part of the design, I have to make characters, which is not one of my strong points. But it’s good to challenge yourself, right? When I get something that’s not to embarrassing to show off, I’ll post it!

EOTL-Logos