Cat on a Tomato

Over the weekend, I was sitting on the couch having my morning coffee and toast. I had my plate sitting on top of the tomato next to me when Ava came hunting for crumbs. She loves bread. If you leave a loaf of bread or package of cookies out on the counter, be assured that pretty soon there will be a hole in the package and chunks of your food missing. There were a few instances when I came home from the store with groceries, dropped them inside the front hall while I ran to fetch the mail, and in that minute while I was at the mailbox Ava had already burgled my grocery sack and found the bread or seafood. Thanks to plastic, she doesn't get very far, but I do like to watch her try! She's also bitten into bags of tortillas and dried soba noodles. Maybe she loves carbs just like the rest of us.

So back to the tomato...Ava stepped onto the tomato looking for my toast. In the many months since I created the big tomato, neither of the cats has ever ventured on top of it. I was thrilled to pieces when Ave discovered how comfy the tomato was! She stopped looking for my toast and curled up and went to sleep. Awww...

More cats, less crafts

I just had to share this quick snap. I just came downstairs and found the kitties recreating my blog header in real life. Heehee! Please excuse the mess.

Cute Things

I meant to post this earlier, as they were too cute not to share. My friend Becky made these wonderful little creatures for me for my birthday! Cute cute cute! I love them all!

I don't mean to be heavy on the Nemo pics, but he tends to hang around me more than Ava does. And sometimes I just can't help snapping a photo. Aww...


A few days ago Nemo and Ava were fighting around the living room curtains. As usual, Nemo got himself stuck in the curtain...like so.


But...on Saturday Nemo got stuck again and this time managed to yank the entire curtain down and pull the screws out of the wall. we had to patch the holes back up and run to home depot for some wall anchors to put the curtains back up. yeah, it was a pain, but it was pretty funny. Also, sometimes he likes to sit on my toilet.

Fabric Love

My fabric arrived today! That was fast. Yay!! Look how pretty and so nicely packaged. The thing with nice fabrics is that it's so hard to start cutting it. So the top right pic is all my new fabrics! It doesn't look like much, but there's probably about 12 yards of fabric in those two stacks. I also have a few duvets and bed sheets stocked in the craft cave (my office). All I need now are some solid black fabric and some zippers.

The package made it here in one piece, but barely. The fabric was busting to get out!

This is not a very good picture, but this is the japanese fabric I got at pacific fabrics the other day. It's a nice linen/cotten blend and I can't wait to use it. It's the three little pigs! How cute is that? Next time I visit japan I'm definitely checking out some fabric and craft stores. But who knows when that will be given the current economic situation.


I never did post updated pictures of the craft room. So...this is the current condition of the craft cave. Messy and cramped. You can see why we call it the cave. It's so small and dark. Even during the day it's pretty dark. Actually, this picture was taken in the afternoon. I have to bring in an extra lamp to have enough light. It's also the coldest room in the house, so sometimes it's hard to go work in there, the dark, cold, tiny "craft room".

And yes, I keep my bananas in the craft cave. The temperature in there is just right for banana storage. I also keep potatoes in the there.


Random cat picture...Nemo says cheers

Kitty Stories

Ava and Nemo have provide a few camera-worthy moments recently. I popped in a Harry Potter movie the other night and started making a pair of pajama pants. Pajama pants are one of the easiest pieces of clothing to make, and you don't really need a pattern. But I was lazy and the pattern was only a dollar.

Both of the cats love crafting. They come visit me when I'm working in the craft cave, and they like to hang around when I craft in the living room. Ava especially likes to sleep on my creations, as evidenced when I made my bed sheet skirt. In the future, things for my shop (if I ever get around to adding more items) will be cut in cat-free zones, namely the loft for larger pieces and my desk for smaller pieces. No offense to ava and nemo, but some people are strongly allergic to cats, and I can't be shipping items that ava has been sleeping on, however cute it may be.

this is Ava looking for something to eat in the kitchen.

Yesterday Nemo came bounding into the room very strangely. He was walking kind of weird, jumping around and looking behind him. I thought he was just playing until I saw a big piece of poop hanging from his butt. I caught this video of poor Nemo trying to alleviate this discomfort before Joanna put on some gloves and removed the dingleberry for him. I took a disinfectant to the floor afterward.

Nemo and his butt problem from craft berry on Vimeo.

One Tomato, Two Tomatoes!

Tomato two is finished! I'm already about halfway through tomato number three. And I'm trying out a persimmon with some cheap broadcloth fabric that was on sale at Joann's. I'm not sure it will work, might be too thin. Orange bed linen is pretty hard to come by at the thrift shop. I've seen purple...maybe I should try an eggplant. Red has been pretty easy. So I had to resort to purchasing new fabric to make the persimmon ottoman. Hope to have pics soon. The weather is gloomy and wet today. I guess I'd better get used to it. I'll be staying in and crafting all weekend. I've also added another leaf to the tomato. Next version will hopefully be less star-like.


And once again, more cat photos... I've seen a few very large spiders, mostly downstairs. The good thing about having the cats is they like to play with them and then eat them. Or leave them for the vacuum. This spider was pretty resilient, so it gave the kitties a fair amount of entertainment. It was big. You can see it in the bottom photo.

Bed Sheet Skirt

I made my first piece of clothing, and I love it! I found this fitted sheet at Goodwill and decided that it must become a skirt. I got this pattern at Joann's for two dollars, McCall's M5591. It wasn't hard. It just took me a while to decipher the pattern instructions. I have a hard time with patternspeak, and I haven't been sewing for very long. It has pockets!

the fabric is pretty thin, so I had to improvise a lining for it. I made the lining too short, but it does the job. It's like a miniskirt inside another skirt. The lining and the yellow band at the bottom are from another bed sheet. I've become a familiar face in the linen section of Goodwill.



It's a comfortable skirt.

Crafts and Cats

Joanna made a pillow! It's made from a fuzzy velour-type shirt. She just cut the arms and shoulder parts off and sewed it together and stuffed it. Nemo approves.

This is the kitties playing hide and seek with the big pillows.

And mac n'cheese was buy one get one free. And they're Arthur shaped! I really had to buy some. Buy the way, his head is all that's left of him. He's currently hanging on the banister.

Taking a break from not working...

I may not be employed at the moment, but I am working. I'm trying to build up my portfolio, learn some flash, and practice designing logos. And now i'm taking a break.
Ava and my tomato...how cute. She's been sleeping there for a few hours.

my office/kitchen table/sewing table. it's much messier now.

something i'm working on...

Arthur + Table Cloth = One Sweet Pillow

So, I've sent my resume out and I'm trying to work on my portfolio and learn some new graphics programs, but all that stuff isn't fun. I'm giving myself a few hours a day to work on some crafts. I've been wanting to make some giant pillows like this for a while. Here's the first of hopefully many...

This is before I dismembered and eviscerated Arthur. Nemo tried to eat his ear. He could do it, too. He already ate the ears off my wombat.

The fabric is a tablecloth I got at goodwill for $2.00. And I used the stuffing from a king-size pillow and most of Arthur, also goodwill finds. These things require a ridiculous amount of stuffing. Here's a deflated Arthuer and the finished pillow.

Bye!

First concert in Seattle

One of Joanna's friends had an extra ticket to see Radiohead last night. She was going to go with him, but she hurt her neck/back, so she asked me if I wanted to go. Hell yeah I'll go! The White River Amphitheatre is on an indian reservation; there were lots of casinos and boarded up booths that sell fireworks. It took us two hours to get to the place because of traffic. The weather could have been better. The rain had stopped for the first half of the show, but by the time we left the rain was really coming down and we were pretty soaked. All well worth it. Radiohead rocked the house as usual.


This is Nemo, one of my other roommates, in his favorite box.

A Place I Call Home

My new home, the one with the red door. And a view of the street from the balcony. I'm in the middle of a job search, so just a short quick post for now.


And this is one of my new roommates.

Tucson, Arizona

Another look at my Tucson roommates...




Shannon is a friend of Carrie and Comron's. She was nice enough to keep me entertained while while I was house-sitting.

One night I went to dinner with Shannon, Cesar, and Eric, who all work with Comron. The food was good. I love me some fish tacos!



Eric said there was a place to take a really nice photo. So we all ended up at Truly Nolan Pest Control trying to take a picture of Eric stealing the cheese from the mousetrap.

Tucson, Arizona

The day after the wedding, Carrie and Comron had an open house before they left for their honeymoon that evening. So we all gathered at their home for burgers and beer. And I moved from the Windmill to their guest bedroom to start my house-sitting duties.





After we dropped off the newlyweds at the airport, we returned to the Windmill to see about some dinner. A group of us ended up at La Parrilla Suiza.



I am such a great photographer.


Me and some Pauls.


And these were my charges for the week, Elliot and Oliver. Awww...aren't they cute? Oliver is under the bed. He always slept there at night.