Master's Degree

Well, I am waiting for the BART after a delicious dinner with wine pairing at Millenium with some friends from out of town. Tonight I check in to assert that I will be making felt, twisting fiber, weaving cloth, and spinning yarns--both types (all types?).

Now I am saturated, however, and must space out and get myself home to bed. Happy April to you. I suppose this was the April Fool's trick: I said I would start and I didn't exactly. April Fool!

Back at It

Well, Spring appears to have sprung since last I did anything useful here. Yesterday it was very, very hot in the East Bay which I am unhappy about, though I am in the minority on this. I have been crazy busy and away from home on the weekends for a while but plan to resume a month-long project again starting my entries about it tomorrow for the new month. The new project is the finishing of the Master's degree. Yay!

Will you want to check in? That depends upon how bored you are, though the project involves fiber arts and making stuff as well as writing about it, so you might be interested. You never know. If not, come back at the end of the month.

March Sixth

Well, we made lots of food and had a lovely time. I also started two new dresses. Music was played over the weekend. I made Moo cards with pictures of things I have made on them, even though I have no use for them really. I invented an idea for a business. We had yummy snacks at Rudy's Can't Fail. We got a brand new toilet seat and have a date with Home Depot to look at refinishing our tub. We were clearly too busy to post!

A fancy brunch!

Homemade cilantro pesto. Delicious!

Yes, it was a lot of food. The poached egg was perfect.

We also made a pot of black beans and roasted butternut squash. Some extra squash is ready for soup on Monday while I finish the dresses. See!!?? Stuff is happening and we shall try to record it. Even if this is not a formal month like February, we will make things around here.

Day 2.3

I know, I know. I skipped two whole days with no thought of what to do. I watched movies (The Fingersmith and The Social Network) and ate out at Mangia Mangia. But I *also* wrote a song off the top of my head while playing with my cat, Zazu. I was working it out and changing it while I sang it and it needs some work, but I really have nothing else to show for my evening except for it so I wanted to post it. Well, I kind of have done it, though an unnecessary tag exists at the beginning. Please ignore said tag and simply be amused by the song about the cat and her cat dancer fetish. And ignore the rephrasing and everything (or think of it as the folk process in action and be amazed or inspired or something).

Also, I realize I owe something for 2.1 and 2.2 though I don't know if the true love does (he has no clear plan). Don't feel you have to download....

20110303 185825.m4a

There is some nice unexpected rhyming I think. I see potential. Wanna jam?

Day Twenty-Eight

So here we find ourselves finished with a (short) month of art/making stuff/whatever. Phew. That took some effort. And it isn't even all the cool stuff we did this month. I am going to be mulling over what comes next, and will let the universe know what our plan is. In the meantime, here is the work of our final day. We also went Balkan dancing so it was kind of a late night of finishing up.

This is a dish cloth I made from a pattern I found on Ravelry. We were knitted a dish cloth recently and I really like using it, so I though this would be fun and useful. It's pretty fast though it has a number of ends to sew in (I hid them for the picture.... don't tell).

The true love added text to a border he did earlier in the month.

 Well, there you have it. Thanks for keeping us motivated and (somewhat) honest!

Day Twenty-Seven

Yet more lines of letters.  They say that one can actually string them together in predetermined combinations to form words.  We shall see, we shall see...

Yesterday's fimo hearts are today's book cover. This is a card for recently married friends.

It looks ever so much smarter against a black background, doncha know.

Day Twenty-Six

Well, we are coming to a close on our hearts, although Heart-henge still has failed to become a reality. There are only two postings left. Sigh. We will continue in March with something, though it may be much less visual or tangible. Tune in for more info. In the meantime you can see the winding down occur...

So sleepy but very diligent is he.

Step one of a two step process. Thanks to the polymer clay goddess for the materials. Some of these will be further worked into something else for the next day. My hands are still a little pink...

Day Twenty-Five

I made felt around a rock! Here is the tutorial I used. It was easy peasy.

It had a heart trapped in the felt.

He only got so far after a long day. He is most disciplined.

Day Twenty-Four

True love managed to do something cool even at a very late and tired hour.

I nearly cheesed out to do two the next day but then was inspired to do some awesome crushagami in bed.

Day Twenty-Four

I dragged the true love in last night and we worked on an XTC song we both like using GarageBand. It is still very rough with many errors but since we put in so much time in to it on a school night (for him at least) I am posting it anyway. We may end up doing a month of music for March. Very alliterative indeed! And this will doubtless return in a more finished form, especially with more harmony and such. Yay! Don't forget you must download to listen...

Mayor of Simpleton.m4a

 

This is a add-on heart: an old valentine I made for the true love that I just found while cleaning. The song is about love but there ain't no heart in it.

Day Twenty-Two

So I was incredibly inspired by Pomplamoose yesterday (and continue to be so) and decided to get my hands dirty with Garage Band. This is the very imperfect result of many hours of fun by a first time mixer-of-tracks. It was very fun to do and I look forward to doing more of this. Today I am going to look for a book about it to help me out.

I was able to showcase many instruments, all of which *I* got to play. Just what I have always dreamed of doing! This is a song by a band that was a favorite during college and I still like them: Poi Dog Pondering. Enjoy. And listen for the word "heart". You will have to download it and then play it (was struggling with how to post it-also, turn the volume down).

Big Beautiful Spoon.m4a

On a side note, you may have noticed the month is drawing to a close. I think I want to continue with making stuff but don't think I want to do hearts. Any suggestions for the next month? I would love to hear them.  Music? Just plain making stuff? Rabbits? The sky's the limit.

Day Twenty-One

Idea totally stolen from Etsy homepage but I changed the material at least. Consider it an homage. We used some of them for dinner too!

Day Twenty

The true love came home and I felt happy but unenergetic to say the least.. 

Day Nineteen

This one is a little bit of a make up since I was not feeling very motivated that day. Oops. This was a collaboration and many of the pics were so fun I just threw a bunch in! We started with hearts and then kind of went from there. Thanks go out my fellow bean and seed artists!

 

Day Eighteen

Well, I will confess there was a good deal of alcohol involved in the shooting of this film, if you hadn''t already figured that out. Luckily we had a really good musician on guitar and lead vocals to make it sound like something verging on music (they rest of us were reading the lyrics on the screen). I have sung *much* better than this but my off keyness makes it feel a little more old timey. Or something. As do the many times I come in early.

The guitarist racked his brains all evening to come up with something for us to collaborate on that had the word "heart" in it. An excellent choice and I chose this take because everyone sounds good except for me and I will take one for the team. I hope you have enjoyed the silliness. Our least musical participant rocked the steel drum and tambourine. Our host rocked the banjoloid. I played her accordion. The true love is away so he was not involved and can not veto :) My hat is off to the band for being so game. I hope they never get to see this video...

Note: The video will not upload in entirety so you are missing the awesome finale. Sigh.

Day Seventeen