Back to the fabrics

I like this see-sawing between yarn and fabric projects. What I do with them feels different and it's nice (for my wrists and eyesight!) to keep mixing it up...

Pulled together a new little bottlecap monster while watching the rest of House season 7. Ugh. Don't get me started. Stupid House. Stupid. Anyway, while watching stuff I whipped him up- cheated and used a sewing machine to hold the curls in place. The feet are wire with tips dipped in crayon again. This time I did some floss wrapping till it met the fabric- definitely helped. The fingers are still flexible- presumably the fellow could hold a pencil- haven't tried yet. Have settled on the key for crayon dipping- it needs to be at a mid-range temperature that I can't maintain over or off a flame. So I wind up melting a crayon and then dipping repeatedly till I find the right window (of about 1-2 minutes?) where the crayon will be liquidly enough to form a smooth surface and yet thick enough that a blob will stay on the wire...

Also, this guy has ~$0.40 in change in him which gives him pleasing weight. Yay for weighting things with nickels and pennies!


Speaking of fabric projects... while the Catan quilt isn't done, most of the fun "quilt" aspects of it are... now it's just stupid snaps everywhere. This lead me to feeling clear enough of conscience to persue the idea of a new quilt project... Wound up spending a lot of time Sunday morning "planning" a quilt based off of this lovely quilt pattern... But after jumping in the shower I realized how it was not to be... The idea of making some arbitrary geometric quilt based off of some random pattern just isn't... me. It doesn't feel "true" to myself, as corny as that sounds.

All is not sadness and woe however! In that very same shower I remembered that I already had another quilt project in the works! Yes! That ancient Pythagorean Proofs Quilt idea!

Looking at what I have so far, I'd say I'm halfway done with the applique... And there's lots of odds and ends of space filling between the blocks that I'll somehow have to come up with fabric piecings for, which makes me happy to think about.
Left to do:

• Finish lower left applique (one edge left of green square)
  
• Re-do upper left applique & embroider text/proof
  
• Make 2 more proofs
  
• Figure out how to lay out the proofs
  

So... there's that to be excited about. I also started ever so slightly to entertain the idea for a 4 bit adder quilt showing the logic gates (a lot of XOR and AND gates)... but that's far down the line, and also might not come together... There's also the idea of the Starcraft quilt, if I can ever get/find the unit screen shots/artwork I need for it!

In conclusion, some more of the new purple curl monster... His eyes are magical- A pair of lovely beads I randomly found hiding in my bead box- they look like drops of oil! He perches on the edge of the molding above the TV between the den and the kitchen. This pleases me.

A little failure, a dash of winning.

I've been having a string of cooking failures lately. Some really awful mango bread that either didn't rise and/or didn't have the right ratios. This evening I tried to make crackers and they wound up taking like undercooked flour because... well, that's probably what they were... but golly gee was I happy with them! Who cares what they *taste* like- it's all about how they look!

Normally when I have a big "thing" I plan on, I don't want to share too much about it because of the whole threat of failure. I've already blabbed enough in person about my dinner party idea, so no reason not to mention it here-- I'm working on a Aliens themed dinner. Aiming for several courses & really fancy stuff. Not a litteral translation of the film, but a sort of mood feeling.... Unfortunately the "facehugger" course had been really stumping me. It was too vital of stage to leave out and yet.. nothing I could think of really conveyed the vibe...

Then I was saved! Google Reader randomly tossed up a killer blog post from Juggling Frogs about how to make your own cookie cutters. Instantly the dish crystalized in my mind. I started working on the cutter Saturday night, gave myself a lovely nick in my thumb, took of Sunday, and finished it tonight- Monday.

The recipe I tried tonight was no better then edible playdough. I'm not concerned however- the important part was that the cutter held up after several uses and as expected- draping the "skins" over tinfoil balls provides the perfect "crawling" effect I was hoping for! Anyone have any good cracker recipe suggestions?



The actual dish/course will probably just be the crackers and some nice cheese... perhaps a soup course instead... haven't decided yet. Am aiming for exceptionally light and crispy facehuggers in the end...

[Update : I actually had the Aliens dinner party on 6/16/2012! Read about it here]
As stated above- am not winning much with other cooking... was psyched to make some avocado bread, but then got lazy.. was going to settle on avocado cookies but by the time I got around to cutting into my avocado it had started rotting on the inside! Ewww! Had already pulled out half my ingrediants so I was forced into a more mundane cookie... managed a minor rebellion by using marshmallows rather then the called for chopped walnuts... I will confess to their tastyness, but really... how can you go wrong with a stick of butter? That's a low bar.




All the cookies are gone now, over half consumed by me alone... I'd feel guilty, but Adam and I went on a kick-ass 12 mile urban hike this weekend from our front steps to the South San Francisco BART stop. It was glorious! We saw parts of SF we'd never seen before - both good and bad. So... yeah... I'm feeling pretty great right now.

End of Winter

A moment of silence, please. MidWinter, the tabletop game I've been playing since the end of October 2010, came to a close this last weekend. Good times, good times. Everything wrapped up neatly and my character became a princess, then lived unhappily ever after. Winning all around.

Fitting that we're heading into Spring now. Having a spot of sunshine here and there in the city now, but it's still a pinch too chilly for my taste. That just means its easier to hang around inside guilt free!



Tried my hand at cookies a bit ago... made mint monstrosities. I blame the mortar and pestal I picked up for no good reason and then felt inclined to abuse. I ground up some rosemary and then probably twice the number of mint leaves I needed. Hey, I'm learning...



While sitting around inside looking at the sunshine, but fearing the bite of cold the actual outdoors inflicts, I crocheted another monster. Came out way, way, way to similar to the previous guy I made, so I am sad about that. Again, fell back on old ways and he's 4 different shades of mossy-ness.

His only redeeming quality, other then the sweet Elvis curls, is the fact that he has quite a number of pennies in his guts. This means he is exceptionally pleasing to hold. Weight adds much to a monster, I feel. I also like the use of beads for "toes" and his eyes-- I have a bag of super cheap white plastic pearls, which I can now paint with nail polish for a great range of eyes. Always important!



Should be noted that the fantastic green yarn of his back was picked up in Paris. Hurray for travel yarns being put to use!

Final notes:

My sisters both randomly passed through town at the same time this last weekend. Very fun. Can't say we got along great growing up, but absence (and brief visits) make the heart grow fonder. They are also both growing up to be far more awesome then originally anticipated. The sorority girl is kicking butt on her path towards her biochem-ish PhD. The punk has mellowed and matured enough to get into med school. And here I thought they'd just major in English ;)

Made more bread.

• First set was sad. Finished off the second half of the squid ink packet. Stuff is crazy potent. Tried to make "blueberry" flavored bread. It didn't work/taste like anything. I read blog posts that warned me it would be so, but I had to try. The color wasn't even that striking... wound up tossing a lot of it.
  
  
• Next set was better. Didn't put the boiling water on the lower rack this time and the crust came out rather ugly like. Also, photography of this set was a total failure. It was however the tastiest bread so far. Beets again, with the other half being bananas and (WAY TOO MUCH) rosemary. All the bread reeked of rosemary, but the taste was not harmed. The bananas in the bread were not noticeable, but I put chunks of banana in both types and it tasted super yummy. New goal now is to A) make smaller batches of bread and B) get more interesting fruit in there somehow... am thinking mangos next.
  
  

Beet & Squid Ink Bread

Did you know you can *easily* buy squid ink in the Mission?? I bought two little packets of the stuff for $2 at Lucca! The only hard part was getting the attention of the very nice gentlemen behind the counter....



So my driving interest in baking at the moment is visuals. I want something that looks awesome. I also want something that'll taste awesome-- as in crazy. My friend Mikey is fantastic at making delicious things-- which he documents over at his blog. In fact, I'd say my sudden urge for baking came from him- the fine fellow had a fun sandwich party which featured sandwich rolls made by him. Crazy good.

However-- I'm only interested at the moment in making things I can't buy....



Squid ink was chosen for my upcoming need for very black dinner food. The beets were chosen because I have grown to *love* beets at restaurants and I had a whispering memory of my friend Mel making tasty beet cupcakes...

All the recipes for squid ink bread out there on the internet were way over my head. There are a number of beet bread recipes and this one over at Taste For Adventure appealed to me the most.

My modifications (intentional or not) were as such:

I only had 1 cup of beets instead of 1.5 cups

I totally forgot to add the oil in the bread. Oops

Only added 1 tsp of salt to the mix to start with

Before adding the beet puree I eyeballed separating out 1/3 of the dough and putting it aside

Added the puree to the 2/3 portion. Never added more salt to it

Mixed ~1/2 the ink packet with 1/3? cup water then added it to the 1/3 portion. Waaay to wet. Added more flour and also some extra salt randomly

After letting it rest for an hour I divided the beet portion in half.

15 minutes after that I took one of the beet portions, rolled it out (poorly), rolled out the ink dough (poorly) and then sorta hackishly twisted them together. Let everything rest another 30 min

I feel the resulting bread was extremely satisfactory. The squid ink preformed ok visually (I need a darker black for my dinner party though) but had very little taste. The beet looked great and had a very distinctive & pleasant taste. Yay beets!



It should be noted that I was compelled to start this randomly one Monday night and the bread didn't get out of the oven until 12:37am. Lame. Had some at night, and then more in the morning. The half of twisted loaf that was left was brought to work and consumed-- amusing to me that it actually wasn't vegetarian safe. The beet only loaf was brought to work the day after and consumed (little to no negative side effects for being a day old! Win!).

So... yeah... there's that...

Slacking as a method of forward movement

Turns out when there's things I've promised I'd do, I get a great uptick in productivity. This of course only applies for productivity not related to said promises. It's unsustainable long term, but it can feel good. I just have to out-run the guilt.


This weekend was brought to you by unsent and unwritten letters & packages as well as un planned group vacations. (It now being Tuesday, I can confess the surge has worn off... now I just want to sleep to avoid doing promised things)

The weekend started off well- Friday night I went to see Puscifer at the Palace of Fine Arts. Great show but criminy- one of the worst audiences I've endured in a long time. Boo. Late night anticts by not-me resulted in Adam and I failing to get to dim sum the next day. This lead me to deciding it would be a good idea if I made steamed buns....



I followed this recipe which I approve of. For fillings I experimented with peanut-butter and apples (bad), spinach and Gouda (VERY bad- I blame the Gouda), beans and cheese (good), black berries and blue berries (good), and egg and beans (meh). Next time those buns are going to be half the size and the fillings just as wacky. I am not thwarted by bad ideas!

The rest of the weekend was spent pleasantly. A lot of it was spent bitching about the weather. SF has made me so weak- give me a gust of chilly wind and I whine worse then a 5 year old denied a pony. Capitalized on indoor time by finishing off the last of my hex hemming for the Settlers of Catan game. Yes- I am now done sewing down the hexes! WOOT! One could now hypothetically play a game with all the titles...


Am far from done with the quilt though. Need to sew snaps onto the hexes, need to "quilt" more tiles, need to sew hexes onto the titles and then I need to address all the other problems that come with making one's own set-- player pieces, ports, numbers for the titles... Am not dishearten by it. At the very least the quilt basic (ocean tiles + the few hexes that can snap to it) has been actively serving as a vital piece to our whole bed set-up. Did you know that SF gets really fucking cold at night?

Life in February

Went out to Colorado last week for work. Not sure if I mentioned it, but my company was acqu-hired by these guys last month. They're based in Boulder, Colorado but, no, I will not be moving out there.

Turns out everyone in Colorado (at least the Boulder & Fort Colins portions I visited) is crazy nice. Like... kinda' spooky nice. I hadn't realized how jaded I had become living in SF...

Work is still working along though. We're still using the Play framework (1.2.4) and I gotta' say I'm a huge fan. Several people on the team have become slightly disillusioned about aspects of the framework but not me. As long as you're willing to accept that their testing framework should be taken with a very large pinch of salt and that you're going to have to brush up against more static methods then you'd like, it's great.

Also, we are using git and I've sorta' pushed myself to the front of managing our transition from the basic "working off the master branch" to something more like the git-flow behavior. I've had at least two nights of intense git dreams now... not nightmares, but not exactly restful. I still haven't mastered rebasing, but other then that I'm finally starting to feel pretty damn comfortable with it. It helps that we're using FishEye and it visualizes everything fantastically. Also, we're using Crucible for code reviews. THAT is super awesome.

Just switched some UI code the other day from a janky "jquery hacking at stuff in Spine" over to Knockout. OMG Squee! I've talked about Knockout before and I gotta' say- it still rocks. Working with it just feels right. Like a fuzzy code blanket that you wrap yourself in and sigh, knowing that everything will be alright.

We're still using Coffeescript and it still makes me mutter under my breath. I don't have any problem using it myself, but I apparently have a problem accepting that folks are going to write code in the Coffescript way which means no method ()s and using the words "and" and "or" in their conditionals... and that conditionals/control structures sometimes go *after* the statement they're controlling.... It's like... like... WHY? Why? I refuse to believe you gain anything by leaving off method ()s-- it just makes it harder to read. Coffeescript CAN be written in the "usual" way. Maybe if you don't know how to program the "English" style of coding is helpful, but personally I've learned to read code that looks like Java, JavaScript and C++ and have optimized my code skimming/scanning behavior for things that match that.

I've said it before in the office, but reading Coffeescript feels like reading a Cormac McCarthy novel-- I'm sure there's a great story/stuff there, but WHY? You can leave off the quote marks in English and ()s in code and I can figure out what you mean but it's not helping anything. It's just really fucking annoying.

Also- no {}s? WTF.

Speaking of questionable ideas, I've for some reason started to express interest in cooking. Talk about being a late bloomer. It helps that I bought an immersion blender aka spinning blades of death machine. That's fun.

It's not fra-la-la-la cook anything interest though. I've got 1.5 very specific dinner party plan ideas with specific dishes I need to learn to cook. So... yeah, I'm working on that....

In fact, I'm so dedicated to the plan, I'm shelling out ridiculous $$$$ x more to take a pasta making class at Flour + Water (it comes with a dinner so I guess that makes it reasonable?). I'm also going to the Gastronomy event at the Exploratorium.... So we'll see how this all goes....

But with every up, there is a down... Increase in programming thoughts + cooking = decrease in ... ? Sewing? Drawing? (could it get any infrequent?) I'll probably miss the gardening boat this spring...

StarCraft Pillow & Music

I first played StarCraft back in... a while ago... 2000? I was working as a camp councilor at the ACE computer camp down at Stanford that summer and I remember staying up late at night delighting in how creepy the sound effects were as I played through mission after mission. I've never stopped loving the Zerg since.

Was totally rocking that SC2 beta back at the very start, and have been playing it off and on since with my friends. I'm no pro (or Gold league even... would call myself a mid-range Silver) and I never even finished the campaign... but I enjoy the game and enjoy my friends who enjoy the game even more. A particular gentleman- the most talented of us lot- has taught Adam and I the delight in watching the league Korean gamers play. Starcraft- the only pro-sport I'll actually watch/follow along. Huh.



Anyway, this friend of ours aged and to celebrate it I made a pillow following this free pattern over at Sew, Mama, Sew!. While he can kick butt as any race, he tends to favor the (boring) Terrans.


Shout-out to my friend Katie for helping me pick out the fabric on super short notice (did you know JoAnne's cutting table closes 10 minutes before the store does?)

I've got enough for another one- think I'll give it a try. The blue would look good in our den. I of course plan to follow up with my own Zerg pillow and then I guess I'm obligated to make a Protoss one eventually... It's Adam's race of choice (figures, yes?)

Yes, this one is... less then ideal. Turns out one should probably applique and *then* cut the square out... because laying down applique straight is a bit "tricky"... Live and learn.

--

Speaking of wrapping stuff up that happened last month-- I now feel capable of sharing my Febuary/January 2012 playlist. It's got some songs I knew I liked, but it's mostly new things I've scrapped together during that period of time. While it takes work, I am a fan of combing through Rdio.com's weekly releases listening to random songs here and there. It's labor intensive but worth it for me since things like Pandora never seemed to work out (Last.fm's stations by tag is my other search of choice)

Feburary/Jaunary 2012 Rdio.com playlist

Warning : contains several NSFW tracks

It's the first playlist where I've actually ordered stuff a bit-

• First we start off with a touch of moody music-- I appreciate the yearning sound I hear in Cheerleader, and the sadness of Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime....
  
• That goes on for a while and we eventually end up with Nine Inch Nails, we're finally, like, "Really?" and wrap up that leg of the playlist with Super Saiyan
  
• A confused story begins to unwind... in my mind I feel it's totally reasonable to string together Over At The Frankenstein Place, Cheerleader, Two Against One + more... it's a story of loss, unhappiness, angst, and frustration which life and oneself... culminating with The Hill....
  
• ... after *that* downer, we're, like, "Fuck it, lets turn this up" and lurch over to Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me, Bad Girls, and more. So much more. Note the artful transition from "real" hip-hop by Jay Z & Kanye West into delicious Nerd Core tracks. In my mind, they sound the same. Special attention must be drawn to the Former Fat Boys tracks-- a totally random yet delightful find during February
  
• Narratives and energy are hard to maintain so it starts to fumble towards the end... The last highlight(s) would be the two (spread out) tracks from the Arkham City EP which basically sounds like Batman quotes & Dubstep- a fitting conclusion to my confused nerd core leg of the playlist.
  
• Let us note that the playlist concludes with Prelude- the opening track to some random crazy metal album. Why does Rdio have so many of these? I keep wanting to like crazy (death?) metal... but I just can't bring myself to tollerate the screaming for an entire track...