I'm not dead yet...

Sorry for dropping off the face of the blogosphere for a bit, life is crazy.  I don't much feel like giving a recap of everything that has been going on, but I'll give a few highlights:

1. My apartment has a new roof!  This is exciting because now it won't rain into our bathroom anymore.  They still have to come back to fix the bathroom ceiling, but at least there haven't been any pieces of it falling on us recently.

2. Rebuilding Day is over!!!!!  (This is the crazy home repair volunteer day that the non-profit where I am doing AmeriCorps does every year.)  Repairing 30 houses in one day requires a crazy amount of planning and preparation, and we have basically been working on nothing else since January.  The event was Saturday, April 30th, and I am so glad it's over!  Of course we are still dealing with all kinds of wrap-up things, but the day itself was great.  Now of course we're going to be having a ton of smaller projects, so the work continues.

3. I had an unexpected amount of free time yesterday, so I decided to try my hand at watercolors again.  I walked to the art supply store to get some masking fluid (which I had been wanting to try) some nice watercolor paper that isn't really textured (I had no idea how much I disliked textured watercolor paper until I used this) and a new watercolor tray.  I used watercolors I already had, as I have accumulated a handful of tubes and a couple of sets over the years.  I also used watercolor pencils for small details and some regular colored pencils for texture, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  Maybe I will do some more?

Mad scientist ninja stitcher

So this is basically just me rambling about my recent burst of craftiness.  If that isn't something you want to read...umm...stop reading.

So I recently got this hooded vest/dress thing at the thrift store down the street.  I liked it because it was comfy and has pockets, but I'm not really crazy about hoods unless they are on sweatshirts.  Also, the pockets are kind of awkwardly high, and the color is kind of boring.  Also, there is a zipper that runs about halfway down, which adds an extra element of challenge to re-designing this thing.  So here is the ultimate plan (in the order in which the ideas came to me):

1. Embroider something on it!  I spent most of our Stitch 'n Bitch time yesterday doing this.  I am nowhere near done, but as you can see there are some green, gold, and brown leaves starting on the shoulder there.

2. Cut off the hood and make it into a cowl somehow!  You would be amazed at how many online tutorials there aren't for this kind of thing.  I found one video that uses a regular hooded sweatshirt (not a zip-up) but the end result is kind of a weird scoop-necked thing.  I watched it to get a general idea, then just went for it.   As you can see, I didn't mess it up too horribly yet!  It mostly resembles a cowl now, I just need to get some buttons so I can close the neck when I'm wearing it but have it open when I need to get it on and off.  Right now there are just safety pins, which are not a long-term solution.

3. Move the pockets!  I haven't started this yet, but I am confident that with the careful application of a seam ripper, I will be triumphant.  The pockets are currently somewhere between my naval and my chest, which is just a weird location.  I am hoping to relocate them (possibly reshape them, too) to a more comfortable position lower down and further apart.  We'll see.

Anyway, my room is now a disaster area, because I had to move things to have space to set up the sewing machine, plus there is a bunch of laundry and all the stuff that I just haven't put away from whenever I was last using it.  I feel like a mad scientist, if sewing can be considered mad science.

I promise I will post better pictures when this is actually finished.  Someday...

Drip. Drip. Drip. THUNK.

I love spring, I really do.  But I will never be crazy about unpredictable weather, at least not when I have to drive in it.

So I left the office half an hour early today because it was supposed to storm, and since it's usually a 45 minute drive home (because of traffic more than distance) I wanted to get out of there before it got too bad.  MISTAKE.  Almost as soon as I left it started pouring, and by the time I got onto the parkway (if you didn't read last week's post, that's the highway that runs through Pittsburgh) it was bucketing down rain and hailing.  Normally nobody likes to drive through the tunnel (there are several tunnels in Pittsburgh, but I only have to drive through one of them) but today it was a relief to be out of the deluge for a few minutes.  The weather hadn't improved any by the time I got out of the tunnel, and there was also some flash flooding/giant puddles going on.  Basically that means that every once in a while I would drive through a large patch of water and pretty much get blinded by the sheet of water that splashed up onto my windshield.  I have never been more terrified while driving, at least not recently.

Anyway, despite all this, the day was not ruined: by the time I got to my neighborhood the rain had basically stopped, for the time being, and so I went to the grocery store, then came home and baked cookies.  Gluten-free oatmeal white chocolate chip cranberry cookies, to be precise.  The storm picked back up again for a while, but I have cookies, my roommate is making cupcakes (which are also gluten-free!) that somehow involve peanut butter, marshmallow fluff, and buttercream frosting.  And we're having another Stitch 'n Bitch tonight (which is good, because there will be more people to get fat from our baking!)

So all in all, a kind of crazy day is turning out pretty well.

(Oh, and in case you're wondering...the title of this blog is in reference to the ceiling above our shower.  I knew it had been leaking for a while, but last Friday it finally decided to actually have a plaster cave-in.  So now there's a lovely big hole above our shower, and every once in a while the dripping from the rain is punctuated by the sound of grit falling.  This is the other reason weather is not particularly in my good books).

Everyday Adventures

So I'm taking a cue from Jennasaurus and posting about an everyday sort of adventure that happened to me today (this is what happens when I'm at the office, waiting for a meeting that doesn't start for at least two hours but which we are already completely prepared for...I write silly blogs)

So a few days ago one of my roommates, Sarah, asked me if I worked near the airport because she had a flight that was leaving at 9:30 in the morning and wasn't sure about taking the bus.  Now, I had never driven to the airport before, but I knew it was in the general direction of my office, just further away.  So this morning I drove her to the airport, which was pretty straightforward.  It looked something like this:

 

(A is where I started, B is the airport)

The real adventure started after I left the airport.  My route should have gone something like this:

 

And mostly, it did.  Everything was going beautifully until I got on the exit for where the office is.

Now, here's the thing about driving and me: I have a terrible sense of direction.  If I haven't driven somewhere at least 3 times (and that's driven, it doesn't work if I'm just riding in the car) I can't remember how to get there.  I'm also not good at making logical conclusions based on driving in places I should be familiar with, aka which way I should go when I exit from the opposite direction.  So almost as soon as I exited, I got in a line of cars.  I saw one sign (for the line of cars I was in, on the left) that said "Crafton".  I saw one on the right (which had no cars in it) which said "Green Tree".  Now, I knew that Green Tree is where we tell everybody our office is, so I got into the right lane and turned.  I immediately realized that I had just turned the wrong way, since at least I am observant enough to recognize landmarks I drive by on a regular basis.  Unfortunately, I was driving the wrong way past those landmarks, and that stretch of road has several lanes and is very busy, so there are not many good places to turn around.  At some point (after several failed attempts to turn around) I realized that I could turn onto a road that I usually take on my way home from work, so I logically assumed I could just take the same route, but backwards.

One critically important wrong turn later, I learned to my chagrin that apparently I couldn't.

I think I turned too early, or wasn't thinking clearly, but in any case I found myself on the parkway (which is what everyone around here calls the combination of highways and interstates that meld and run through the city) going the WRONG WAY.  I took the first exit intending to just turn around and find a way to get on the parkway going the correct way, but then I couldn't a way back to the parkway or a particularly good place to pull over.  At this point, I was just waiting for an opportunity to pull out my GPS, which probably would have saved me a lot of trouble if I had just used it in the first place.  When I finally found a place to pull over and plugged in the address, I noticed that the sign for the street in front of me: Mansfield Ave.

That's right, everyone.  After driving in some kind of crazy road tornado (this is Pittsburgh, after all) I somehow managed to end up where I needed to be...even if I was coming from the wrong direction.

 

Morals of the story:

1. Don't offer to give anyone a ride to the airport, ever
2. If you have a GPS, there is probably a good reason.  USE IT.

Despite the rocky start, today is not all bad: I get to sew dinosaurs with a bunch of my friends/roommates (who will be knitting or crocheting, mostly) tonight.  We're trying to host a weekly Stitch 'n Bitch at our apartment, and I've heard rumors that ice cream will be involved.  Now if only this meeting would just start and then be done so I can go home....

HOORAY!!!!

GUYS I SOLD SOME DINOSAURS ON ETSY.  TO SOMEONE I DON'T KNOW.

Ok, so I'll stop with the caps lock and bold, but I'm so excited!  It was great to get a few sales right away from my friends, and I had been selling them to friends over the summer outside of Etsy...but it's so affirming to know that people want to buy my dinosaurs even if they don't know me!  Now of course I'm sitting at the office wishing I was at home sewing, because it's a custom order so I get to make some new ones. :)

Also, have a picture of the cardboard house I made for work last week:

Oh, and some crazy person is in the picture too.

Have a fantastic day everyone!  I have to go back to pretending to work while dreaming about dinosaurs.

Little bits of life

Hey there everyone!  I know I have some new followers, so I figured I should maybe post an update (I am notoriously bad at updating this blog).  This past week has been kind of awesome, mostly just because of random little things that make the world better.  Since I tend to ramble on and forget things I was going to say, I'm going to try to make this a list.  A list of little bits that make life lovely, if you will.

So here goes:

1. Etsy.  I have been trying to be as active as possible with my new Etsy shop, and so far it has been fun.  I made three sales right away to people I know in real life, so although I am still waiting for my first "found through Etsy" sale I at least know people are interested.  I have also met a bunch of swell people through the Etsian newbie team, which is there to help new sellers get connected.  I also re-connected with my friend Laura who sells on Etsy and is an amazing artist.

2. Blog love!  It is great that you all are following along with my life, I am super excited about that.  I am not the best at blogging regularly, but I will try to do so more often.  But not so often as to be obnoxious.  I have also been featured on some blogs, so I should probably return the favor sometime with full-post features.  For now though, I would like to highlight my friend Jihan who is a great blogger and lover of cute things.  We worked at summer camp together, where we put the "ARRR!!!" in "ARRRts and crafts".  She also has an Etsy shop and is part of the reason I finally motivated myself to get my shop together and start selling.  She did a blog post about me which includes a picture I haven't seen in years, it is great!
I have also met another lover of cute and crafty things on Etsy, Jennasaurusfun.  She makes all kinds of whimsical crocheted things, plus her name is awesome and she also featured me on her blog!

3. So I'm an AmeriCorps member, and I'm serving with a non-profit that does home repairs.  We've spent a lot of time in the office recently, and I get pretty burned out when I spend the whole day doing meaningless work at a computer.  I just don't care all that much about volunteer recruitment or sponsor packets, as it turns out.  However, this past Wednesday and Thursday I got to do something which is right up my alley: build a house out of cardboard.  I know, I know, that sounds weird.  But I never realized until I graduated that I really enjoyed having assignments like "make a 3D miniature version of a room you spend a lot of time in, using only paper" and have that be my "job".  When my boss asked me to take on this "art project" I jumped at the chance.  It was a display for an event my organization had to be at, and although I wasn't there I have been told the house was a big success.  It's going to be hard to go back to typing up boring things now, but for two days I was actually excited to go the office.

4. My Pittsburgh friends are the best!  On Wednesday night we had our first weekly "Stitch and Bitch" which was exactly what it sounds like.  Two of my roommates plus two other friends who knit and I sat around our living room making crafty things (I was working on a dinosaur) and talking about life.  We also had cupcakes (gluten-free, with about as much frosting as cupcake) and ice cream.  Next week we are hoping to have more people, as we have other friends who knit, crochet, and sew.

5. I got to see two of my current favorite music groups in concert on Tuesday.  Not like one of those huge stadium concerts, but a small one.  Pearl And The Beard has a new CD which I got to buy before the official release, plus I talked to one of the band members about the three-person sweater (this is a real thing!) which she knitted and which is featured on the new CD's album artwork.  I also got to see Brad Yoder again, although I get to see him randomly in a non-musical context (he lives with some of my friends) it is always good to see him in concert.

6. Sending off some dinosaurs to my friend Jake, who commissioned them from me a while ago.  I received payment for them today, so I will be sending them off on Monday.  Since they haven't been featured online anywhere, here are some pictures:

 

 

 

Okay, so I got carried away and put up pictures of most of the things I have just mentioned which rock my world.  I don't have any pictures of the cardboard house, but rest assured that whenever I do you will see them.  I think that's all for now, hope this monster of a blog post didn't overwhelm you!

Taking the Plunge

I've been working at setting up an Etsy shop for quite a while now.  I actually registered for Etsy back in August, spent a good long time forgetting about it or not wanting to figure out PayPal, figured out PayPal and made a shop in January.  Then today I decided to stop worrying about how many things I had ready to sell or whether or not I am ready to ship things, and I decided to just go for it and list some things. 

That was a long-winded way of saying: PocketTheSaurus is now open for business!  If you or anyone you know would like to own a pocket-sized, handmade stuffed dinosaur, please visit me on Etsy!