New Tomato and Mushrooms!

I have a tomato and mushroom to add to the shop! Sorry for the lag in posts. I took some pictures today, but they didn't turn out that great. I was trying to avoid going up to the loft to take photos because it's just so hot! Tomorrow may very well reach 100°F, and most of us Seattle folk don't have air conditioning. I would love to take the pillows out to a big green lawn and get some pics (perhaps inspired by the shrooms in this post), but I don't believe we have any green grass around here these days, only yellow. Oh well, maybe some day.

I made a smaller version of the tomato. This one is the same size as my Angry Blueberry. I didn't have enough red to make a large one, so I shrunk the pattern. Heehee! I quite like the size of it. I did a test wash of the blueberry to make sure I can label it machine washable. It was a tight squeeze to get it through the door of our front-loading washer, but it washed up perfectly. Yay!


I made the button mushroom first. What do you think? I think it turned out well for my first try. Generally first tries turn out rubbish, but I don't think I'll be altering this pattern much at all! This is actually made of pants material. The body is twill and the gills are corduroy. So if I ever find myself with a load of khaki and corduroy pants, you know what I'll be making...

Guess I didn't get a good picture of the red mushroom. Here's a shot of the underside. I shortened and widened the stem to make it more super mario-ish. Hopefully I can get some better pics tomorrow and add them to the shop. Only two items left in the shop as of today. Yikes! Time to bust a move!

My Tomato

I made this over the weekend. It's not finished yet. I ran out of stuffing, so it's nearly done. I couldn't wait to share :)
I think this may be the first item in my shop. Except for the thread, it's made entirely of repurposed or recycled materials. I'm very happy with it. It turned out better than I expected. I need to figure out what to price it at. Anyone care to throw in their two cents? Let's not compare to made in china prices. $40, $50, $60...? too high?


On a somewhat related note, basil goes with tomatoes...
On my second night in Seattle, Joanna and I went to this cheap phở place down the street for dinner. I think it's only $4.75 a bowl or something. They always give you bean sprouts and thai basil with the soup. So, I took the basil stems home, stuck them in water...and a week later they started rooting. I just planted them a few days ago and they seem to be thriving. I've tried this a few times before, but they always seemed to die when I put them in pots. So yay, we have thai basil! I got some mint from the market yesterday that I'm going to try to grow, too.

Day Five: Bismarck, ND to Bozeman, MT

Yesterday it was the world's largest buffalo. Today I visited the world's largest holstein cow. It's located in New Salem, North Dakota and she's called Salem Sue. Really nice view from here. Australia has it's Big Things, but the midwest has it's fair share, too. Here we have The World's Largest Things.


View from Salem Sue's perch.


The yellow in these pics is sunflowers, fields of sunflowers. I drove past several sunflower farms, but this one was the most vibrant.


From the world's largest holstein cow to the world's largest metal sculpture. This is called Geese in Flight. It's part the Enchanted Highway, a 32 mile stretch of road leading south from Interstate 94 to the town of Regent. A guy named Gary Greff wanted people to visit his town of Regent, so he created a series of giant odd metal sculptures along the road to the town. This Geese in Flight one is right off the interstate.


If you were wondering where Home On The Range was, it's in North Dakota.


I didn't know I'd be passing through Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I hadn't expected to see such a spectacular view. This is the Painted Canyon overlook at the visitor center.


Not much to see during the Montana stretch. Quite a bit of mining, very windy and some rain. It was a long drive.

Day Four: Minneapolis to Bismarck, ND

I had originally planned to go to the Mall of America while I was in Minneapolis. Not because I wanted to shop, but just to see it since I'm here. But this morning I decided that I didn't really want to go all that much. So I skipped the mall and went on my way. I considered taking a detour to go see the World's Largest Ball of Twine made by a single person. But I decided to stick to the things closer to the interstate. I was disappointed to find out that I was very near the SPAM museum in Minnesota yesterday. Oh well...I hit some traffic just outside of Minneapolis, and wondered if I should have gone to see the ball of twine. I stopped for gas at Fergus Falls where there was this Continental Divide monument. It's just next to a gas station, no one really pays attention. kind of boring....


I stopped at the Fargo visitor center. They have a walk of fame with 100 celebrity hand/foot prints in cement. Here are a few. Hmm, Bill Gates and I wear the same size glove.


The Space Aliens bar and grill in Fargo.


Today's drive was pretty easy. Just six hours on I-94. The speed limit in North Dakota is 75 (120 km/h), but I drive slower than that. I don't like the way my car sounds at 75mph. It's a nice drive unless you're running low on gas. I forgot to get gas when I stopped in jamestown to see the world's largest buffalo. Then I drove past fields and farms and exits with no gas stations. I was worried I'd be stuck by the side of the road with a mobile phone with no signal. But I did find a gas station and all was well.



I made a stop in Jamestown, North Dakota to see the World's Largest Buffalo and Frontier Village.




Frontier Village was a nice stop on the way. It was free, so worth the price. I was amused with the mannequins.




Inside one room schoolhouse.


Nearby Frontier Fort. It's mainly a gift shop and restaurant with some buffalo in the back that you can feed. Also a strange "museum" that looks more like it's used for storage.


The Space Aliens restaurant in Bismarck is right by my hotel. I decided I had to check it out.

Day Three: Chicago to Minneapolis

This morning I enjoyed my complimentary continental breakfast while reading my complimentary USA Today and used the complimentary internet to book a night at another Hampton Inn. IKEA was just down the road...I planned it this way, haha. I couldn't buy anything, but looking is still fun. Green is my new color. I love this bed, and IKEA fabrics.

Today's lunch. Yummy, swedish meatballs and a lingonberry slushie.




Most of the drive today was through Wisconsin. I stopped at DeForest to visit Sissy the Cow at Ehlenbach's Cheese Chalet.


Just down the street from the Cheese Chalet is the Citgo gas station with the Pink Elephant wearing glasses. I love silly stuff like this. It makes the drive less monotonous.


The sun was behind the elephant, so it was hard to get pictures from the front of it. You can see where it is in relation to the gas station in this one.


My king size bed for tonight. Lady at desk not as friendly as at the last one, but still glad to have a nice room for tonight. And looking forward to breakfast.

Pear Bean Bag

I made this bean bag cover about 10 years ago. I really wish I had taken some more pictures of it when it was new. I'd seen a pear bean bag in an magazine, but it was something like $200. I'm a bit amazed that I made this back then when I didn't even really know how to sew. I even put a zipper on the bottom of it to make it removable. I've since stuffed more styrofoam peanuts in it and now it doesn't fit through the zipper. And the fleece is all stretched out now, but I still love it.

Byron Bay

On the way to Byron we stopped in Ballina and saw the Big Prawn.

Anyway...on to Byron Bay! We stayed 2 nights at the Cape Byron YHA. It was decent, but I wouldn't call it nice. Though the young people seem to like it. I felt very old. Speaking of old....one morning Aileen and I were eating breakfast and this stupid Canadian girl started chatting with us. Then she asked Aileen if I was her mom. What the fuck!! I know the sun ages you, but I didn't think I looked that old. Well, it certainly put me in a bad mood and I'm still quite offended. Also there was a giant cockroach in the food shelves. I was less freaked out than I would have been if I found one of that size back stateside.



Anyway...so Byron Bay is another beach town. We've been slowly heading north from Sydney up the coast. It's got a lot of hippies and surfers.





James met us on Friday and we moved to more private and rustic accomodation for the weekend.


We put some chicken kabobs on the barbie and roasted some veg pretty late at night. It was a good meal until we realized the chicken wasn't completely cooked.





I made this sea turtle.




This is the Byron Bay market on Sunday.

Coffs Harbour

My email's definetly not working. So I'll be starting a new one pretty soon. Carrie, I'll try and give you a call when I get to Tasmania tomorrow-ish. Hope to talk soon!

This internet is sloooowwwww....I'll try to upload as many pics as I can. After New Castle we made a short stop in Port Macquarie. The YHA hostel kind of sucked. We arrived by bus after midnight and promply left for Coffs Harbour the next afternoon.
Coffs Harbour was really nice and hostel there was much more comfortable that Port Macquarie. Two places of strange tourist attractions...the Big Banana and the Clog Barn.