Tuesday, November 9, 2010

halloween, pt 1

Had a fantastic Halloween weekend in New Orleans. (I took my Pentax, so have been waiting to get my film processed before posting about it, and still have another roll to finish.)

We had weekend passes to the Voodoo festival. We saw Jonsi (who was wonderful!), a bit of Weezer, Muse, Florence and the Machine, White Rabbits, Janelle Monae (had a stage and time change, then started 45 minutes late, but was still good), Interpol (one of our favourite bands, always good live) and MGMT.

The venue, City Park, was great. Although the main stages were out in the open and got quite hot in the middle of the day, there were lots of nice big trees and shaded areas to sit. Pretty good food stalls too, lots of local food.

We also fit in a visit to the aquarium, and a couple of very tasty meals in the French Quarter at Deanie's Seafood (incredible charbroiled oysters and BBQ shrimp) and Crescent City Brewhouse (nice beers brewed in-house, and good food to match –
we had a deli platter, more baked oysters and hot wings. Yum).

Hope you had an enjoyable Halloween. And if you want to see, there are more photos on Flickr.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

top no. 3

For this one, I had an idea of what I wanted to make, but no existing pattern, so decided to customise/draft it myself. I used this pattern to get the basic shape, but changed the neckline, made the armholes bigger and took out the darts. I made a muslin to test the shape and fit, making notes of more changes. I re-traced the final pattern, then cut it from my fabric.

I followed this online tutorial for the button placket (my first buttons and button holes!) I drafted it on my computer, and used the print out as my pattern for cutting the fabric, and as a guide for the button placement. Once the placket was done, I sewed the top together, and finished the armholes and neckline with bias tape. Last step was sewing in the buttons by hand.

BAM! Top no. 3 finished! Feels great to learn and make new things.

back online!

We went to pick up my computer last night, after it had spent two weeks at the Apple store getting assessed/repaired. When the girl came back out with a computer that wasn't mine, we were a bit confused... She checked with someone else, and they told us that because the repair costs were so high, they decided to replace it.

Now I have a slick new MacBook Pro, AND all the data from my old one (really relieved about this). So very thankful I spent the extra money on an extended warranty when I bought my computer. I will recommend to anyone buying a mac: get AppleCare too, if you can. It's worth it if something goes really wrong.

Thank you Apple, I love you.