Quick update! Etsy site is OPEN!

Ok, folks, I have finally done it, I've broke down and asked my roommate to take some pictures and I've put up for sale 6 of the cutest sheep ever!

Head on over to my Etsy site at Laughing Coyote Quilts & Mercantile and have a look!

They wanna go home with yooooooou.

I'll be sweet and loving if you just take me home.

Don't make me beg, I don't got a mouth. :(

Look! It's (almost) a sewing room!

Sooo, after much procrastination, I have finally almost maybe finished the dang sewing room.  Just have a few odds and ends to organize, and .... well, I'll let you see the little issue in a moment.  Shall we have a little tour?

Ok, so here's is the view as you walk into the room, as you can see, there's still a few things here and there that need to be sorted out, but it looks a HECK of alot better than it did.

So, ever sewing room should have an ironing board, and this one is no exception.  Mine is on this spiffy over the door contraption that doubles as a place to hand stuff.

Here we have an EXCELLENT example of re-purposing.  The white cabinet on the left has been a towel hamper/medicine chest, and a clothes storage cabinet.  Now it's holding the over flow of my fabric.  The book shelf on the right is a new addition because I realized the built in shelves weren't big enough for my collection of crafty books.  On top of the bookshelf are some quilting squares, and a dress that I've been meaning to finish for a while with a few other unfinished project that I dug up while going through all the stuff in the room.

Here we have a several things, here that I need to find a better place for, but for those of you that are looking for a design board in your room, you might notice the space that is above the bookshelf and the baskets of yarn (and BOTH of those baskets are full of yarn).  I have hung a piece of polyester quilt batting that should do the trick.

Half of the bookshelves of DOOM with some of my collection of books.  Below that is a built in that supposed to be a desk, but I have found it's a great place to store sewing machines that you aren't using at the moment (sorry, forgot to take a picture of that).  Below that is storage for things that I don't use all the time like my lightbox and quilt batting (I love sewing but I'm SLOW).

If you've read the blog before, you'll have probably seen a shot similar to this.  It's the book case of fabric.... Oooooooh, and next to it is another re-purposed piece of furniture, this hold all the little odds and ends stuff like scissors and pens and such.

And what Dressing Matilda blog post would be complete without a picture of the gal herself? (Ok, a lot of them, actually looking back at things).  Behind her is the other bookshelf.  The drawers underneath the bookshelf house the pattern collection (which I sometimes think is larger than the fabric collection).

Various quilty stuff is hung up on the accessible, but out of the way.

Look, more fabric.  This one in a curio like cabinet that matches the book shelf.  Eventually there will be things that are moved out of here, and I'll put some of the little doo-dads (buttons, snaps) etc here, but for now, it's almost all fabric all the time.  Next to it is yet again a re-purposed cabinet (waste not, want not) that used to be a free standing pantry. The top of it has some of my pirate collection (actually it's sort of all over the place in here, but you can see it best in this picture.

This is the cabinet opened, we've got lace, and ribbon, and all sorts of trim in there.  And a few works in progress.  You can also see the top of the dress I've been working on (more about that later).

Here is my dress top, like I said, ready for the skirt that I am still working on.  My problem? Well, I don't have a proper set of hoops so until I get those done, I can't figure out how long the skirt needs to be so,  well you get the point.  This is the closet in the room, my sewing room used to be a bedroom, so of course I had to figure out what to do with it......

Lucky for us we have a LOT of costumes, so it's getting put to good use.  Underpinning and accessories in the drawers and hanging thingie and clothes hanging up.

Ok, not the best picture, but you can see what else we have used the closet for, those are bolts of fabric, anything that is over, oh four yards or so.  And they go all the way across the closet and there are a few bolts going back the other way.

So, here we have my bulletin/inspiration board, and some more things I have to finish up.  Like making clothes for all those poor rag dolls so they can go up on Etsy, and getting photos done of the poor sheep in the top plastic box so they can go to home too.

So, you might notice that there is one thing missing from the sewing room.  A sewing machine.  Well, here is where it's SUPPOSED to go.....

However, the sewing machine is right now out in the front room? Why? Well, you'll notice the TV in the closet picture above? I love watching TV while I sew, but I don't have a DVD player or anything to go with the TV in the closet, so until I can get around to getting one of those (or break down and get a wireless DVR) I'm designing in the sewing room and sewing in the front room.  Sigh.

Hope you've enjoyed the tour.  Look for more detailed information on the dress (and that pirate coat) soon!

Not about sewing, but something I had to say...

Ok.  I've become a TOTAL Twitter nerd.  I check it as much as possible and I just love being able to keep in touch with people.

The folks on Twitter are AWESOME and I have to share what happened this weekend because of Twitter somewhere and show my appreciation in a longer version than I could have put on Twitter, so here goes.

Colin Cunningham (@Cunninghamcolin) and Christopher Gorham (@Chris_Gorham) are GODS!

Here's what happened.

My roommate (see post below, she's the one with the donkey) has been battleing Chronic Pancreatitis for 8 years now.  Her issues usually involve a lot of low level pain with infrequent bouts of over the top excrutiating pain.  Usually once she has one of these "big attacks" she's ok for a while.

About three weeks ago I would say, everything started ramping up.  The pain was worse, the attacks were more numberous (6 in one day a few weeks ago); everything just got worse. She even ended up in the ER for a while but on Friday her doctor decided that she was going to get to the bottom of this because her Gastro doc hadn't really been able to diagnose what was going on.

This is where the Fab Mr. Cunningham and Gorham come in.

See, my roommate simply ADORES these guys (I'm a pretty big fan myself, but this is not about me) so I decide, what the heck, I'm going to send a tweet to them to see if they'll maybe send some well wishes her way.

Chris got back to her first and it was a lovely, simple well wish tweet:

		Christopher Gorham
		@Chris_Gorham
@tgardner0128 Hope you're feeling better soon!
03:43 AM - 23 Jun 12 via Echofon

She was sooo happy to see it cause no offense to our favorite Skitter killer, she's liked Chris longer (and once got to work with his co-star Piper Perabo on a movie here in Texas, but that's another story).

Colin's tweet was awesome, as you can see from the copy of it below.

Colin Cunningham @CunninghamColin @tgardner0128 Hey gorgeous! Just a little tweet to say that you're wonderful and to get well soon!! Don't be afraid. Kick its ass! 05:28 PM - 23 Jun 12 via web

So, you might want to know how she's doing.  Well, as of right now she's still in the hospital, but there is a small glimmer of hope that she'll be out and back home today (we'll see). She's feeling better (except about what happened on Falling Skies last night). She's got a new Gastroenterologist who is interested in taking a look at her case, but thinks her issue isn't her pancreas, so in a way we are back to square one, in a way we have someone new to help in the fight.

What I really wanted to say with this post though is this: THANK YOU to two AMAZING celebs who took time out of their schedule to send some well wishes to one of their fans. We will forever remember this.  I know that Tracy would say this for herself, if she had a blog.

You guys rock.

Everyone should watch Colin Cunningham on Falling Skies and Christopher Gorham on Covert Affairs. Keep these AWESOME folks working!

A Little teaser....

Ok, ok, I know, I KNOW, I keep saying that I'm going to post a blog post on this one and not my other blog (bluepheonixinn.blogspot.com, which is very gamer geek), but really I have been uber busy and uber overwhelmed with ye olde sewing room.

You see, we had a yard sale at the house right after I got back from my trip (I Know that was in March) and we moved a ton of stuff into my sewing room for "temporary" storage. Well, I'm lazy what can I say and while I HAVE been working on stuff, I haven't finished organizing so that I can put stuff on my good buddy Matilda.  Or figure out a way to make Matilda closer to my proportions (which really isn't that hard, just have to wrap some batting around her until her measurements match mine).

Anywho, I've got some pictures that I can put up, some OLD pictures of stuff that I have done and ONE picture of the dress I'm working on right now.

Ok, so here's me in my Rennissance Court dress (please note that I really can't stand that hat and have since replaced the dern thing!).

This dress took me about three years to put together, and you will notice all of the needlework on it.  Not the most period correct thing in the universe, but it's an attention-getter!  This photo was taken at Texas Rennissance Festival in "Houston" about.... 7 years ago? Maybe more.  Still wear it on occasion and hope to wear it down there if we get to go for my birthday-ish weekend.

This one is NOT me.  This is my roommate, but I did make this dress for her. *

 

It's from Dallas Heritage Village and we made it for their 1893 exhibit.

And finally, this is what I'm working on right now.

Which is defintely not on Matilda.  This is a pattern from Harriet's  collection of Civil War patterns, this one based on a 1857/58 dress.  The good thing about these patterns is while there are an expectation of some level of experience in garmet construction, the pattern mostly comes up to my size (cause I am most certainly NOT a petite wallflower, farm girl through and through!).

Ok, so look for more soon.  We are SUPPOSED to clear out the sewing room this weekend so hopefully I'll be able to post some more soon.

*Yes, I know that I don't have a picture up yet, but I'm at work and I thought I had a copy of it here, but I don't.  It'll be up soon. :P

Dispatches from Manila 2: HJ and the very long day

Ok, first off. I would like to introduce you to HJ.

This is HJ at the Dallas Airport ready to leave for our big trip to Manila.

HJ as you can see is a California Sea Lion. His name is HJ because I got him for my roommate when we went to see a House Jacks concert in San Francisco a few years back.  Much like Flat Stanley, HJ is a traveling fool and we try to take him with us whenever we go on any trip (except to reenactments, he doesn't really like the gun fire).

So, for those of you who don't know, if you leave Dallas and head to Manila, you are pretty much in for a looooooong trip.  According to the travel books, you commonly lay over in Hawaii or Japan. We got to lay over in Japan.  In Tokoyo at Narita Airport.  I am used to going through airports like LAX and DFW where you can kind of sort of maybe if you squint your eyes see the town you are connecting through waaaaaay off in the distance.  Not so much in Narita.

Here are the photos from our gate:

See, no twinkling lights or Hello Kitties floating in the background, or nothing.

Soooo, in order to let you know that we are REALLY in Japan, I put up HJ in the window and took a picture of our plane as we waited.

I know, that could TOTALLY be any where.  Japan Airlines does not just fly in Japan.  Buuut, does anywhere have an assortment of odd and unique Kit Kat bars?

No, they do not.  Apparently, even though Josh Gates swears that Pringles is the most common food on the planet, Kit Kats might be a close second.

Soo, it takes something like 27 hours from the time I leave the house with SuperShuttle, sit around at DFW, have a 4 hour lay over in Japan, get to Manila and get through customs and get to where we are staying.  You would think that would be the longest day of my life.....

But with views like this, it wasn't so bad.

Most of these are pictures from my condo, the last one is from my office building looking back to where we are staying.

But like I said, this isn't the longest day.  The second Saturday I was there was a very, very long day.  I had woke up at around 7pm Manila time on Friday (we work the same hours as normal hours in the US so everything is backwards, and I'm beginning to feel a bit vampiric after two weeks of this) and gone to work for my normal shift.  We got to leave early because of a server issue, so I was home around 3 in the morning instead of my usual 6.  I laid down for a couple of hours so I could get up and talk to my roommate before I left on my big adventure.

My supervisor and I had been invited by some of the folks where we are working to have a tour of Intermuros, Old Manila.  This is a very historic area, and you can find lots of information about it on the web.  It sort of reminded me a little of the French Quarter in New Orleans since the architecture is similar and it's hot as heck as you walk around.

Soooo, I meet my supervisor about 10 am downstairs, walk to one of the cafes and grab what we like to call breakner (breakfast at dinner time) and then around 11 am we head over to meet the two girls that are going to make sure that we manage to get across half of Metro Manila to meet up with our "tour group" from work.

Except instead of two people, there is only one. So we sit down and wait.

And Wait.

And Wait.

Apparently Manila is like most LARGE cities in the world, traffic is HORRENDOUS, add to that, apparently 99.9% of the population get their pay checks bi-monthly on the 15th and 30th and you can kind of see why it took our second person almost an hour to get to the meet up point.  Oh, and apparently there was some kind of protest or something.

Anyway, and that point we decided that we are going to get a taxi to take us to where we are meeting up instead of taking Jeepneys and trains and such trying to get there to meet everyone at 1 pm.

What's a Jeepney you might ask? I'll tell you in a bit, cause that WILL come into play in a little bit.

So, we are finally off to Intermuros, which as I said is sort of like the French Quarter in New Orleans, we walked around and saw the sites and somewhere on my little baby camera I have pictures to prove where we were. 

But really, we got to see Manila Cathedral, and St Augustin's (which is an awsome 400 baroque church).  They had to practically peel me away from all the Santo's costumes in the museum at St Augustin's.

After St Augustin's we went to Fort Santiago.  This is a very important place in Manila and Philippines history for several different reasons.  The National Hero Jose Rizal was held at the Fort before he was executed for speaking out against Spanish colonial rule in 1896.

Now, I'm not in the best shape, unless you count pear-like which I suppose is a shape of some sorts, so the amount of walking that we had been doing was at that point starting to really get to me.  Add to that the fact that I have started in the last few months to take high blood pressure medicine which means that when I get dehydrated I really, truly ill. Add a sprinkling of high 90 degree heat and who knows how many double digit percentages of humidity to the party and you really have a recipe for disaster. But, luckily I have we have the incomparable Rommel for our tour guide who was kind enough to walk several blocks away to get me water so I could venture on.

And venture on we did.

Our next stop was Rizal Park, but since that was about a half mile or more hike from our present location we decided to take that most uniquely Philippines mode of conveyance, the Jeepney.

Cue history lesson (don't worry, it's short)....

The Philippines is a lovely archipeligo that has had a very unfortunte history, they have been administered by several colonial powers including the US (who was only there from the very late 1800's to the 1940's).  When we left (right after WWII) we left some lovely parting gift to the people of the nation: several thousands of pounds of suplus Jeeps.

Now the people of the Philippines are very industrous, hard working folks that make the most of what they have, so they took those Jeeps, cut them in half, extend them with sheet metal and then put them into services as something between a taxi and a bus.

And they are by far the safest things on the road.

So away we went to Rizal Park, which was very nice, being right off of Manila Bay there was a great breeze and since it was getting towards late afternoon the heat was beginning to go down a bit. So we walked around, and somewhere there are photos of this (I promise, coming soon!).

By this time it was like 5 or 6 pm and I was starving (hadn't eaten since 10 that morning) and so was the rest of us so we headed to the nearest place to eat and sit down somewhere in the AC (Woooo) and plot our next step.

Janice and I were pretty much ok with going back to the condo at that point, but we were convinced that we needed to go to the Mall of Asia.  Apparently there was some very big fireworks competition there and that weekend was the last weekend of it.

So, after we ate, and said goodby two of our number we hailed a taxi and away we went.

So, I like shopping A LOT and growing up in Los Angeles I'm used to large malls (Del Amo mall ROCKS!) but nothing really prepared me for this mall.  Over 7 THOUSAND shops spread out over several city blocks and people everywhere.

I'm going to breeze through this next part, partially because I've been working on this post on and off for a few WEEKS now and partially because some parts of it are a bit of a blur.

Let's just suffice it to say that the fireworks were pretty good, the place was packed and we were on our way to grab another taxi by around 9 pm.....

That's where all of the fun started....

So, we went to the taxi stand and the line is long, like half a block long and this is the only authorized place to get a taxi.  We could hire a private car to head out to our lodgings, but the rates these folks are quoting is about three to four times as much as we paid to get from our place to Intermuros (which is farther than where we were at that point).  So we decided to wait.

And Wait....

And Wait....

Did I mention earlier that there was some kind of protest going on, and a big fireworks spectacular?

Well, we waiting in that line until.... oh, I don't know, around 11 and finally decided that we weren't going to be getting a taxi anytime soon, altough there were people coming out of the mall and flagging taxis down that weren't playing by the rules and standing in line.

So we decide to head over and see if we can get a Jeepney to at least head out of there.....

No Jeepneys. :(

So we finally go stand on the side of main entrance street (mind you the mall closed at 10 pm, and there were STILL people being dropped off at 11) and finally managed to convince someone to take us back to where we were staying for the grand total of 1000 pesos (it had only cost about 200 pesos to get to Intermuros).

I was back in my room at.... 12:30.

By far one of the longest days of my life......

Dispatches from Manila

Hi all!

I am in Manila, Philippines for a few weeks on business so the focus of the blog is going to shift for just a little bit.

Don't worry, I have projects with me, so I'm acutally going to be able to work on some stuff and show it off too!

Anywho, I am working the night shift so we are corresponding with the US folks working back home.

Which means that I go to work at 9 o'clock at night and get back to my temporary digs around 6:30 in the morning, kind of like in Coyote Ugly.

So, while we did say Good Morning to each other first thing after we wake up and Good Night when we all go our seperate ways I have decided that the world is no longer divided into day and night.....

Oh no my friends......

The world is divided into "Time I'm Awake and At Work", "Time that I'm Awake and NOT at Work" and "Time when I'm sleeping".

I find it much less confusing.....

Which these days is a GOOD Thing.

After New Year's update (not really about sewing, but we'll get back to that)

Happy belated New Year's everyone!

Also, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyful Yule, Happy Kwanzaa and Happy (?) Festivus!

I know, I know.  I haven't posted in a while, but I've been busy with the holidays and such and just haven't gotten a chance to make any progress.

But I just wanted to be the first to announce that we have added to our family.

Ya see, we had adopted a chicken from the zoo that my roommate works at.  Her name is Veronica (or Ms. V if  your.... never mind).

She's sooooo cute. She's an Andalusian chicken.

But she was all by herself and so we went on Monday and got her two friends, a Jersey Giant and a Buff Orpington chicken (photos coming as soon as I'm home BEFORE night fall).

The Jersey Giant has been named Virgilia (after Virgilia Hazard from North & South).  The Buff Orpington's name is Taywin after a kender in my DragonLance campaign.

Oh, did I mention my DragonLance Campaign? I started a blog for it at bluephoenixinn.blogspot.com.  Don't have much there yet (don't have time to write for the same reason I don't have time to sew).


But, with the holidays done and everything packed up and the house back in shape, I will be back in the sewing room this weekend, look for an actual sewing report this weekend (got to show off the dress I'm working on after all...).

UPDATE to the Update!

I've got pictures in:

Veronica in the front, then Taywin and Virgilia back in the back.

Veronica and Taywin