Fashion Cookies

As another holiday project this year, I invited the Exec Board of our college Fashion Club for dinner. Of course, there was another project... the students cut out and decorated Sugar Cookies. I had made the cookie cutters out of 'Flashing' (found at Home Depot. The images were fashion clothing and accessories. Basically, I took drawings of clothing, etc, and scaled them to the size I wanted. Then I bent the flashing around the outer shape and used duct tape to hold everything in place, and to cover the top sharp edge.

Here are the cookies prior to decorating..


Now... the decorating.. and the results.. and the cast of characters.

From Vogue Magazine to Bows

Every holiday season, I host a creative party for the "Ladies from the Hood", (my friends from two neighborhoods ago). And.. we always do a craft. These year, we made bows from fashion magazines.

The steps are as follows:




1. Choose pages from magazines for their color, and cut strips 3/4 inch wide. The instructions called for three strips at 11 inches, three strips at 9 inches and three strips at 7 inches. Plus, one small strip at 3 inches. (Note: After making the first bow, I decided to use 1 inch strips and five of each size).

2. Then, twist and fold the strips as below, and secure with two-way sticky tape. The instructions called for creating three layers each with three parts. In the end, you roll the last short strip of three inches into a tube and place in the center.

Here are some of the bows.. and the process and the 'girls'.

Non-Traditional Christmas Tree

I can't believe the month of December has flown by without an entry here, but it is a crazy month with final exams at the college, holiday prep and family and friend celebrations.

So... for the past six years, I have been challenging myself by creating a non-traditional Christmas tree. This is yet another creative challenge I give myself.


This year... I draped my tree using window screening. Basically, I start with a Victorian frame (that I use most years). Then, I cut three rectangles of silver window screening, and ran basting threads of fish line along each long end of the rectangles. After that, I pulled the basting threads to gather the rectangles around the stand in tiers. I placed evergreen cuttings on top of each tier, and chili lights (what else for the southwest area I live in?).
Here is the tree in process...

To top the tree, I used a tumbleweed that a friend retrieved for me in Utah. (yes, friends know of my crazy ways).


Here are some close-up shots so you can see the screening



I'm already thinking about next year.. what shall I do?

Amazing Knitting Machine

A friend sent me the link to this blog... This is a pretty amazing knitting machine. It is an interactive sock project, where the knitting occurs when people blow through a straw.


http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/11/interactive_knitting_machine.html

or

Untitled Sock Project from Pol Pla on Vimeo.

Quilts and Family Heritage

I'm in Canada now, visiting my parents and family. Before I left, my mom called and asked me to take a photo of a quilt my grandmother had made to give me for my wedding, many years ago.

The quilt is a Dresden quilt pattern, and many of the fabrics used were from my childhood clothing. Apparently, my grandmother Koehler cut out two sets of everything, and my mom just found the second set. So now, she (mom) wants to look at how grandma put everything together.

These family treasures will stay with us forever.

Fun on the Streets of San Diego

On Friday night, during a gallery hop, I noticed two fun things on the streets of San Diego.
Here the first...
Mona Lisa, a clothing boutique that offers alterations AND internet.


The Secret Squirrel Society?? If nothing else, a good sense of humor.

Mesa Students at Photoshoot

A few weeks ago, I took my Photoshop class to a local photo studio DK3 Studios, here in San Diego. We shot images of the students posing, so that we could use them in Photoshop. Thanks to Dave King for his generous spirit with our students.





Below you can see a few of their poses. Needless to say, we had fun. I'll have to post a few of the Photoshop images, once the students pull the pose off of the photo.

The Big Sock... working towards a Guinness Book World Record

At Newton's Fall Machine Knitting seminar last weekend, I had the pleasure to participate in The Big Sock. This is an effort to knit the world's biggest sock, and set a new Guinness Book World record.

The sock is composed of 1500 stitches knitted with ten circular needles. This makes it 23 times larger than a typical sock (which starts with 64 stitches).
The project originated in Hastings England and is now traveling the U.S. This is the first time it is on the west coast, and is moving to Stitches in Hartford next week.

The current world record is a sock that measures 16 feet tall.

Creative use of IPad

A few weeks ago, I went to the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. As I was meandering through the art galleries, I heard organ music in the distance. As a lover of music, I was drawn to locate the source and enjoy the sounds not only audibly, but visually as well.

Imagine my surprise (and delight) to see the organist, David Hegarty, playing the organ and using his Ipad as his "music book". Every few minutes, he would tap the screen to turn the page. As an avid Mac girl, yet again, I am amazed at all the creative applications I see with Mac people.

I emailed David and asked him to tell me more. This is what he said:

The iPad is a great repository for printed music. I scan the music and then load it into the ForScore app on the iPad. The scores can be arranged into set-lists for specific performances. And there's no awkward page turning—just a quick tap of the screen turns the page. There's even provision for making performance notes in various colors on the page. I can store hundreds of compositions in the iPad without lugging around bulky notebooks. Revolutionary!

Check out David's site

Here are a few shots of David and the organ:

David...

turning the page...

Playing...

Pumpkins as Inspiration: Glass and Color

Last weekend, I spent time in the San Francisco bay area. One of the activities was visiting a pumpkin patch. But this was not a typical pumpkin patch. Rather, it was what I would call a couture version of a pumpkin patch.




Welcome to the world of glass art pumpkins. Everywhere you looked you saw inspiration and color. It was similar to being in a candy shop, and it certainly was a feast for the eyes.



So… began the search for my pumpkin… Below you can see some of the candidates. Instead of one larger one, I finally settled for a set of three smaller ones, and they have been dubbed, Larry, Curly and Moe. I’ll post of picture of them as we get closer to Hallowe’en. In the meantime, enjoy my shots of couture pumpkins.

Knitters in the City (of San Francisco)

Last weekend I was having lunch at a little creperie in San Francisco. I happened to glance over at another table, and immediately had to smile, as lo and behold was a group of hand knitters, happily knitting away amidst chatter and laughs.

Given the nature of creative and yarn people, I knew the women wouldn’t mind a little intrusion, so I walked over to chat with them and find out more about the communal nature of group.

Meet ‘the Knit Wits’, (a newly dubbed name, by the way). This is a group of women who meet every Sunday at a little creperie restaurant near the yarn store called Atelier which is located on Divisadero in the city. The ladies have been meeting for two years. Their projects varied from scarves to hats to shrugs, and beyond. The knitting was well advanced in technique.

Here you can see a few of the projects members were working on.