642 Things to Write About: Describe nearly drowning.

Under the water you see only black. Invisible siren's hands pull you down; water replaces the air in your lungs. For a moment, all is peaceful. Calm. You accept your fate, that you will die here in this black water, not more than fifty feet away from your mother. You wonder if you will be missed, if anyone notices that you're nowhere near the surface of the water. Another set of invisible hands tears you away from the siren; you are free. You take in your first new breath of salty sea air.

This entry comes from a journal called 642 Things to Write About. One of my new goals is to complete at least one exercise from this book each day. I really like this journal because the topics range from real-life based writing to fictional writing, with some prompts that could be either. I will be adding some of my writing exercises to this blog for your comments/criticism.

Homemade Mac & Cheese

Wednesdays are crazy for me because I clean for my mom on that day, which doesn't leave me much time for crafting. Today's creation is a simple homemade macaroni and cheese dish, only important because it's the first I've ever made. 

I cooked a box of elbow noodles. I mixed two eggs, a cup of heavy cream, a tablespoon of melted butter, salt, and pepper. I poured the mixture over the noodles and stirred in some shredded cheese. Then I baked the dish until the cheese was golden.

From-Scratch Southern Family Dinner

I usually avoid eating fried foods, so tonight's dinner was a treat. I don't like the taste of most fried foods, but I do like fried chicken. So I decided to make chicken tenders, mashed potatoes, and fresh green beans.

I would love to have a cooking show or channel on Youtube, but I'd be terrible at it. I'm a messy chef, and I could probably never tell you exactly what I did to make something. Even if I use a recipe, I don't follow it to the letter.

The Chicken

- Chicken breast tenderloins

- 2 eggs

- flour, sugar, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, paprika, Italian seasoning, garlic powder

- 1/2 vegetable oil, 1/2 extra virgin olive oil

The Potatoes

- 6 red potatoes (skins on)

- salt, pepper, Italian seasoning

- 2 tbsp butter

- whipping cream

- 1 tbsp minced garlic

- parmesan cheese

The Green Beans

- 1/2 lb fresh green beans

- 1 tbsp olive oil

- smidgen of butter

- dried onion flakes

It was all yummy too! 

The Bag That Pride Re-Created

Do you remember The Bag That Failure Made? Let me refresh your memory.

Fail Bag is quite photogenic.

It was this bag, and although you can't see from the picture, it was poorly constructed. If I opened it, it lost its shape and was difficult to close. The ends of the zippers poked out if they weren't tucked in just right. My friend Caitlin is leaving for the Peace Corps soon, and I just couldn't give her the Fail Bag. But I wasn't sure what else to do. I put it away, and I chatted with some friends about it, all of whom assured me she's would appreciate the bag anyway.

I love my friends, but they were missing the point where I wasn't proud of the bag and felt ashamed to give it to someone as a gift. After one of these conversations, I went to bed but couldn't sleep. Then it hit me. The zipper was the part that gave me the most trouble because it was the last thing I put on the bag. What if I put the zipper on first, before there was a bag?

This was only a shocking revelation because I didn't look up any tutorials for bag making. I had figured it wouldn't be that hard to make a zippered pouch. I probably did it completely backwards and wrong. I started trying to take Fail Bag apart so I could remake it using the same materials, but as poorly constructed as it was, it seemed perfectly content on remaining a bag.

So new plan. Make a completely different bag, starting with the zipper and working my way from there. The fabric I used was really thick, which was part of the problem with Fail Bag. Hemming the fabric make it thick and bulgy in places. I decided to use a different attack mode for this fabric. I lucked out and bought a square of fabric that had overlocked edges, so I used those edges for the zipper part. That meant they would be exposed, but I think they look better than a shitty hem would.

Pinned and ready!

Here it us, under the needle!

I stitched the sides of the bag to the zipper, and then I stitched the bottom of the bag. I used a simple straight stitch, and then I put a zigzag stitch over the first seam. I did the same for the other two sides.

Everything was going well until this happened.

Thankfully, it was not due to a problem with my machine. As I was guiding the fabric through, the machine collided with my hand, causing the needle to become loose and pop off. I stopped, put the needle back on, and re-did the stitching. I thought my luck had turned sour when I pulled the bag out from the machine, cut the thread, and then realized there wasn't a seam like there should have been. It turned out that my bobbin had run empty. However, I did finish the project. :-)
 

Fail Bag is on the left, and the new bag is on the right.

Works-In-Progress: Stuffed Animals!

My parents and I collectively babysit my niece and nephew most weekends, and they're the most of-the-wall five and six year old you'd ever meet. I've spent loads of time with kids this age while student teaching and babysitting. Your average kindergartener's main areas of interest include animals, zombies, farting (seriously, what does the school cafeteria even feed them?), and Netflix.

Yesterday alone produced gems such as my nephew announcing to everyone that he was going to fart, and then he made a ran for the front door. My parents were always pretty permissive with their own kids, and now more so with my sister's kids. So the kids get to do pretty much whatever they want all weekend, including drawing on the walls, tv, computer monitor, my dad's clothes, my craft table, and every important document that arrives in the mail.

This was the first time I'd been home for a babysitting weekend since I moved in with my parents mid-April, and I wanted to rein the kids in. I want them to express their creativity, but not on the walls or furniture. I also wanted to reduce their "screen time" as much as possible; I've always hated how my sister and parents use the tv and iPad to occupy the children. At their age, it's more appropriate for them to play with toys and art materials. So I decided to start on a new project and involve the kids in it.

Yesterday, I posted photos of my niece and nephew drawing. I've saved their drawings (an elephant and a reindeer), and I've begun making stuffed animals from the drawings. First, I used their drawings as a guide to make a template for the stuffed animal. I tried to stay as true to their drawings as I could.

My niece's most detailed drawing was of this elephant, so it's the one I chose to work with.

See the drawing on the right? He wasn't very interested in drawing; he was just sweet enough to do a few for me because I asked him to.

Next, I selected fabric for each toy. I did not buy new fabric for this project; instead I have a modest collection of cloth and old clothes I rescued from a Goodwill clearance center. I chose two articles of clothing that were no longer wearable, but still useable for the project.

At first you don't notice...

...but this poor cardigan is eaten up with holes.

Okay, honestly, the only problem with this shirt was that I thought it was ugly and couldn't pass up getting this much fabric for like a quarter. This shirt would be flattering on exactly no one.

After I selected the fabric, I cut two pieces of each fabric to make the front and back side of the elephant and the reindeer.

I also added details to the template along the way.

 My next step will be to practice machine sewing curved lines with samples of each type of fabric. My last stuffed animal was hand-stitched, which is fine for decorative purposes, but it wouldn't last ten minutes in the hands of my munchkins. ;)

New Project: Sneak Peek!

I'm babysitting today, so that means I don't really have time for crafting since I don't have much in the way of kid-friendly supplies. I did, however, give the kiddos markers and paper for drawing, and I'm going to use them as inspiration for my own upcoming project.

Any guesses about what I'm up to? ;)

The Bag That Failure Made

You might remember this post, where I revealed a sneak peek at a gift I've been making for a friend. You might have guessed that it would require sewing. Yesterday, I was ready to give up on machine sewing for good. I was in tears, trying desperately to make one of the two sewing machines I possess work.

But then I found this delightful lady, Tanya Johnson on YouTube. She is pretty much my favorite person right now. 

Isn't she delightful? I paid more attention to her than any other sewing guide I watched. She has videos for several different types of sewing machines. You can check out her channel here. Her video was especially helpful because I don't know enough about sewing machines to know what all the parts are called, and she had a guide that was specific to my machine. I really do need a series of videos and tutorials that are idiot-proof.

After running through a few test fabrics, I got to work making my mystery gift for Caitlin, who is leaving at the end of the month for her Peace Corps journey. The fabric I chose was upholstery grade, which has the bonus of being durable with the drawback of being thick and hard to sew together. I also chose a thread that matched one of the colors in the fabric to better hide that I am shit at sewing.

I put my favorite album on the stereo and set to work.  (Fun facts: It is Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins, and I've worn out or given away at least three copies of the album in the past ten years.)

My first seam!!!

Even I know to press my seams. ;)

I was feeling really good about myself. I was nostalgic for my teen-self's musical taste and general badassery (and the fact that fourteen year old me could sew shit). Then tragedy struck:

What the fuck is this even?

 It was the same thing the machine kept doing that had me convinced it was broken anyway, despite my best efforts. But I realized that it's probably been my mistake all along. I set to it with a seam ripper and some scissors and fixed it. Then it was time to add the zipper. I'm not sure why I decided that my first time making a thing in ten years needed to include a zipper, but it did. This is probably the shittiest zipper installation known to man.

I finished making the bag (didn't you guess?!) right as the album was coming to a close. I am proud of how it looks, but I'm not sure if it's functional. Is it okay to give someone a handmade gift with instructions not to actually use it?
 

The front/back.

The back/front.