Hectic Week

Last night and the night before was dominated by the Edwardian Ball. Good times were had, sketches made, and trinkets purchased. I currently have a minor headache though due to the lack of sleep so I don't feel like shuffling together all the scans and photos to go with it. Next post, next post...

Short version: it was fun- though not as fun as previous years. Lost my black pen relatively early Saturday night and there is NO way you can draw folks at the ball without copious amounts of black. Also- Friday has lots of stuff going on to walk about and see, but Saturday is all show for which I will always buy VIP tickets for. Why?

My, what a lovely performance that only the balcony folks and a handful of the lower class can see!

My sleep depravation starts before this weekend though. Finally felt the crafting itch and spur of the moment like made this fellow.

That wasn't really what I had planned for the evening, but I'm happy with the results. More scorpion like then spider like, alas. Dug out a new soldering iron tip and practiced not sucking... looks like I need more practice (I've no complaint how the bug looks, but my joints are sloppy and my technique horrid) Did a better job this time with getting the legs to line up and whatnot. Magnets! Magnets solve everything! I used one to hold the fellow in place while I worked, which also happend to be the final offset hight from the surface I wanted so I knew the legs were all sitting correctly. It also helped that I soundly sanded and then wiped down where I was soldering to on the bullet casing.

Was happy to bring him into work. Nothing says "Rebecca sits here!" like little monsters and bullet bugs. Calming. Pleasing.

The fellow has already lost half a leg though- testament to my shitty soldering job. I think I'll bring the iron into work and just fix him there though. Walking down the street holding him is and odd feeling. Work itself has been going well enough. Not sure what to say. Oh! I guess I could say that I've been making bugs at home and fixing them at work all week long. Ha! A joke! Bugs & bugs! Hahahaha.a...aha.... I'm going to take a nap now. My head hurts.

Starting 2013

A lot has been going on. One example: starting my new job at Rdio. There's a lot that will be going on. One example : this Friday & Saturday is the Edwardian Ball.

Tonight I went to Dr. Sketchy's. The model was lovely and her outfit crazy. The theme was the artist Basquiat which was... confusing.

Also there has been some gaming going on. While waiting anxiously for the next 4th Terminus game I've picked up FTL. Haven't beaten it yet, but I find the distraction it provides to be pleasing.

...sketches made during last session's game...

Natural History Museums

There are a couple facts that I don't mind restating over and over again. Have I mentioned I love my Kindle? Well, today's fact is that I love Natural History Museums. They're like zoos, only better! So much less guilt and the animals hold still so you can sketch them!

This year I managed to visit six Natural History Museums : Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (Paris, France), American Museum of Natural History (New York, USA) (been there before), Smithsonian (Washington D.C, USA), Muséum d'histoire naturelle (Geneva, Switzerland), Natur-Museum Luzern (Lucerne, Switzerland), Museum Mensch und Natur (Munich, Germany)

When I travel, I always look up two things at every location : yarn stores and Natural History Museums. Doesn't matter how many of them I've been to, I adore going to the next (or the same one again!) At NHMs I'm happy to wander and look, even if I can't read the signage... but I love even more the chance to sit down for several hours and sketch. A snippet from some travel ranting I wrote explains part of the not-sketching appeal :

... but in a nature or science museum, you are displaying information. Part of that display is equipment or dead animals, but how you show it and what you chose to say about it are in themselves a vital part of the exhibit. What you chose to show and neglect to mention- this is interesting. What is highlighted across a wide selection- interesting. It frames subjects in unique ways at each location, and it says something about the place you are visiting.

Why rant about that now? Well, Adam just recently made a quasi-spur-of-the-moment purchase (as much as someone like him can) and we now have a lovely, sleek, new Canon MG8220 Printer/Scanner. This means I can scan my lovely little backlog of sketches done at some of these museums!

Smithsonian     May 2012

I've dreamed of going to the Smithsonian for many years and finally got my chance to this summer. Would have loved to spend more time there, but I also really enjoyed the other museums and monuments we visited while there. I gotta' say I was pleased with the layout of the NHM, the way there was lots of glass and open space around the specimens. It was far too crowded for sketching though, and I remember finding a nook with a good view to be hard. I especially loved my loose giraffe sketch, for which you can see the subject of in this photo.

American Museum of Natural History     September 2012

Have been here before, not one of my higher rated museums... This time some of the mammal halls were closed so I spent most my time with the birds. The taxidermy isn't that bad and I was able to sit out of most foot traffic while sketching.

There is a special place in my heart for friendly encounters I've had in museums while sketching. The first time in New York, someone handed me his card and we chatted about my sketching which he was very complimentary of. This time a young boy and his family came over. All but the father spoke some European language I was not clear on, but the kid didn't let that stop him. I handed over paper and pencils as I always do and he sat with me in front of the Prairie Grouses and sketched. (His choice bird was actually part of the illustrated backdrop, rather then one of the stuffed specimens which was... odd). He actually sat and finished his sketch, despite his siblings antsy-ness. The father was very supportive, which was great.

Museum of Man and Nature     November 2012

The best part about this museum is that it's right next to the Nymphenburg Palace which is worth a visit on it's own. Tiny, but delightful. Very open, lots of seating, almost no English. Meh. Win some, lose some. I spent all my time in one set of rooms and had burned myself out sketching before I realized there was another set of rooms with even *more* animals! There was a gannet and I failed to draw it! So sad! On the up side, I feel my sketches from here came out really well... freakishly well, given how rusty I was at that point...

I should note that while I sketched the Schuhschnabel (Shoebill) bird there was a video looping on the screen I used as a table. This meant I saw a cycle of cute little birds and then suddenly there'd be a monsterous closeup of the Schuhschnabel, face filling the screen and looking right at me around the edge of my paper, snapping it's bill. Turns out that those fellows are scary as fuck on the other side of a zoom lens when you're not expecting it.

Good times.

Successes

My friend Suko hosted a Christmas cookie swap- my first ever. After consulting with Adam's mother on a number of traditional recipes, I decided to throw caution to the wind and cook in the Rebecca fashion.

The creative process went as such: I had a jar of bacon bits because I was at the grocery store one time and thought "Why not!" Then T-3 days to cookies I had been making bread and while holding the fridge door open seeking inspiration, I came upon the jar. Day of cookies had me frantic for a guiding flavor ingredient. My essence of orange? Lots and lots of rosemary? What could stand up to and out amongst a sea of sweets? Savory! When everyone zigs, I must zag! And what gets more savory then delicious bacon? Done!

The sugar/flour/butter ratio was lifted from a cook book because while I have my ratio guide book I still have not produced success using it. The amount of bacon bits added was... random. Not really too taste since I didn't taste the mixture till long after. There was beet thrown in for color and then a dash (a half dash more then needed actually) of squid ink to even out the color (based on results from my mini test batch).

The cookies were rolled as thin as possible (since that's what the original recipe I lifted called for) and was an excellent decision. It keeps the bacon flavor frm being overwhelming and lets you nosh on as many cookies as you wish nearly gilt free. How can something so tiny be bad for you? It made cookie production obnoxious though. The dough is a bitch to work with and I had to freeze and re-freeze the dough nearly every step of the way. Mix, freeze, roll out & cut, freeze, pull off of wax paper & cook.

I used and immediately regretted my awesome dual unicorn cookie cutters for the cookie swap. This lead me to labeling them as "Christmas Unicorn Meat Cookies". Waaaaay to much work though. When I hacked into my frozen dough lump for the New Year's party friends were throwing, I went with the much simpler "roll out dough, slice cookies from it" strategy. Actually looks best when cut into thin strips but even that was too much work.

The following recipe makes a LOT of cookies... I'd recommend cutting it in half, if not more. Mix the sugars & butter, then mix everything else. Bake at 350° for ~14 min.

• 1g squid ink
• 99g white sugar
• 226g butter
• 40g brown sugar
• 256g flour
• 30g bacon bits
• 37g finely grated raw beet

In other news, as I hurry to write this post, today Adam and I are currently at cooking 100% of our meals this year. Success! Clam sause, squid ink, linguine, and home made rolls. Here's hoping we can hold to our plan of one home cooked meal a week...

In conclusion: MEAT COOKIES! SO GOOD TO EAT! ... so gross to make ...

Christmas Gift Quilt

The Christmas season has been survived. Let there be rejoicing! Now I can share with the 'Net what I've been spending the last month working on.

This quilt is based on the "Nough Said" Layer Cake Quilt posted over on the Moda Bake Shop site and was designed by the talented Cindy Sharp. It's a ~ 67" x 67" machine pieced quilt made for my youngest sister Lindsey. I did a bit of hand quilting of the yellow & orange diagonals, but not all of them due to time. Oops.

Lindsey knew I was working on a quilt for her but I didn't discuss much with her beyond collecting the initial input. She wanted "Arizona" colors: turquoise, red, tan. And black, which I forgot. She likes "traditional" looking quilts and "geometric" ones... presumably she would have liked more triangles but I had just seen Cindy's quilt posted when I was about to start and couldn't shake the urge to try it. It's my first quilt pattern followed and I've learned a lot.

There were some hiccups along the way. First the flooding of the basement, which mangled a couple squares. Then my killer cold, which made bending over a sewing machine and breathing at the same time rather difficult. Then I bought not enough border fabric- first time ever. Then I ran out of time quilting the already limited area I planned to quilt. I purchased fabric 11/15, finished cutting 11/28, started piecing 12/12, finished piecing 12/19, and wrapped it up on 12/23.

Overall I'd rank it as a success. Never would have gotten it done in time if I hadn't been unemployed. I've no desire to rush anything like that again, but I am interested in perhaps trying another one at a slower pace that I get to keep this time. Never mind the fact that the Catan Quilt still isn't "officially" done-- not all the tiles have snaps, nor have all the snap bases been added to the quilt.

I'm most happy with the border- which came about due to two failures on my part. First- I've never cut 2.5" squares before and it's soooooooo easy to do that I cut quite a number more then I needed. I wound up with enough to edge the entire quilt, and then some. I also, as mentioned, didn't nab enough border fabric and was forced to fill in the gaps with scrap yellow/orange pieces. These things combined really makes the quilt pop I feel. The strong blue/orange contract is definitely a Rebecca-ism I couldn't prevent from leaking in.

I wish I'd gotten better "final product" photos. Alas. The colors are somewhere between the flash brightened images and the blurry muted no-flash images. I hope the images remain available- they're in a Google+ album... not sure how good of long-term that solution is. Not pictured (how?!) is the backing fabric which was a PERFECT print of cow skulls, lizards, and red diamonds. Very Arizona and it matched the top colors dead on.

Some of the things learned along the way:

• Iron. Iron everything. Iron before sewing, iron after sewing. Leave the iron on the entire time you're at the machine.
• Rotary cutting is amazing. I already knew this, but it was a refresher course. Also- having exactly the right plastic guide shapes helps a lot.
• It never hurts to have & cut extra pieces
• Always collect input from others when picking out fabric in the store- even if you only have strangers on hand
• Never spare thread. Always sacrifice thread in place of time/effort. Tangle? SNIP IT- don't bother to untangle it. Always cut more then you think you need when quilting by hand.
• Quilting cotton is not that expensive. DO NOT SKIMP. Having extra is so calming and I *know* I'll find a use for it- in this case it was "sooner" rather then "later".

The important thing is that Lindsey claims to love the quilt. She said it was a good "Rebecca take on Lindsey interests" or something like that. I hope she enjoys it and puts it to good use while studying.

Happy Holidays : 2012

Christmas is almost there. Hard to feel the season in San Francisco with its year-round crowds of shoppers, non-stop sunshine, and international and not particularly "seasonal" selection of food. Adam and I did at least secure a tree on the 2nd to get in the spirit of things.

I miss our midget tree of last year with its popcorn and yarn. This year has candy canes, official glass ornaments, and Adam's dapper hat as a tree topper for lack of anything better.

Spending my free time getting pummeled by a cough & cold. Ick. Did manage to get a lot of gift shopping done early though, which is nice. Presents wrapped more then 24 hours in advance! How novel!

All craft energies (which have not been lost to said cold) are being channeled into secret home-made-gift which will be mentioned after the 25th.

In other news I accepted an offer at Rdio. Am very psyched for a number of reasons. Some of which are : everyone I've met so far has been super awesome, I actually use the service on a daily (near hourly!) basis, and it's approx. 10 blocks away from where I live. My first day should be Jan. 7th... wow...

On that note, let me link to the top songs stuck in my head this month on repeat.

• Thrift Shop (feat. Wanz) by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
  Just too much fun. TOO. MUCH. FUN. (I enjoy several other tracks on The Heist as well- Ten Thousand Hours, Same Love, Wing$, Starting Over)
• Revival (DJ Skee & THX Remix) by Neil Davidge
  Good electronic/techno music is soothing to the soul

The joy of a fine looking gentleman

Dr. Sketchy's was last night*! Again I must state that it makes me stupidly happy to attend the event and that ever lasting mad props needs to go out to Alice Stribling and Diane Olivier for all the hard work they put into organizing it.

Last night's theme was Dapper Tweed Gentlemen and our models were the delightful Colin Fahrion and heavenly Randal Alan, both of whom I'm sure I've seen about the city at some point†. Colin runs SF Tweed Ride, something I'm going to keep an eye on going forward. They were ambitious models who struck great poses and held them like pros. Costume changes abound and a hearty soundtrack (of course featuring Fighting Trousers) made it one of the best Dr. Sketchy's in a long time- and there have been some mighty fun ones this year so that's no trivial feat!

Brought my Inkling pen out in full force (also intentionally forgetting my pen purse at home so that I couldn't back out). The sketches definitely were weaker no doubt in part due to lack of practice but also because the ballpoint ink in the pen isn't that fancy and the sketch looked a little weak. Oogled some lovely brush pens people were doing and had to struggle to not convert. Wonder if I can get different/heavier/darker ink...

I cheated and used pencil for the rough base sketching, but I think it helped more then hurt. The No Maps picture was my entry into the 60 Days Around The World contest and I placed first! Booyah. I pieced together the bits to resemble the original sketch, but a lot is missing. Digital coloring is so not my thing... The gentlemen are in their shorts because the 2 20 minute poses were somewhat "Strip Poker" themed. There was a brawl poise pair for the 10 minutes as well as a billards shoot and a penny farthing mounting. Shirts were ripped, umbrellas used, and the line "Lay back and think of England" put to good use.

Finally found the photography of Mr. Johnny Crash, our session photographer. He takes great photos, people. Seriously, check him out. His Dr. Sketchys SF gallery is a great representation of how awesome it is to attend the event.

One of the things he has started to do this year is photographing the contest entries as well as the winners. Very kind of him- nothing makes you feel more like a winner then getting your photo taken. And let me say, I know this, for I shall be a smug bitch and now proceed to list/link to the (small) set of photos of me winning. (for the record, there used to be two sessions a month)

• April 2012 : The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence : Oversized easter bonnets
• May 2012 : Mistress Marla Spankx : At the rodeo [entry]
• June 2012 : Penny and Tali aka The Pregnant Ladies : Fertility goddess
• July 2012: Derby Girls : Vampires and/or zombies from True Blood [entry]
• September 2012 : Wonder Woman : Using her lasso of truth [entry]
• December 2012 : Dapper Tweed Gentlemen : Around the World in 60 Days [entry]

Thus concludes my gloating.

Now, seriously, if you enjoy sketching or dapper gentlemen, you should go check out Johnny Crash's gallery for this session

_{* Written Wed 12/5/12, delayed in posting so that Johnny Crash might update his photo gallery for further images for me to link to.
† Saw Randle at the Dicken's Fair on 12/09/12. He was well dressed and "acting" in the home of Charles Dickens- a set from which I'd been shooed away from in previous years by being called a street urchin while I looked through the window. :)}