He's just hanging out, waiting for me to finish up gaming.
Labels:
MI,
wyoming
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Awhile back I joined International Geek Girl Pen Pals (you don't have to be a girl to join, by the way) to try the whole pen pal thing. I've never actually had one as a kid, so better late than never.
Anyway, for September I was paired up with someone so, after some delays, we exchanged addresses to send each other something geeky. I spent a little bit of the afternoon decorating the box I'm sending with some gaming (video and tabletop) pictures. Even if they're not perfect, I had a lot of fun. Hopefully my pen pal enjoys the surprise inside!
Labels:
Grand Rapids,
MI
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Labels:
arduino,
MI,
wyoming
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Adafruit has a tiny, adorable microcontroller, Gemma. I ordered one as soon as it was available and it finally arrived today, as well as some neopixels.
After some issues getting my Windows machine to run the drivers (Windows 7 is very angry about non-digitally signed drivers), I was finally up and running with a few neopixels daisy chained, rotating colors.
I have one project lined up for the little gemma, but at such a cheap price I'm really looking forward to integrating more into other things.
Labels:
artprize,
Grand Rapids,
MI
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I took a stroll around downtown Grand Rapids, since the weather was pretty nice and all my usual haunts are filled with people due to Artprize. While I was walking around, I came across a lightpole that was yarn bombed.
A little further down Division, I came across another...
...and another. Pretty soon all the trees and fixtures were yarn-bombed, including part of an Artprize sign.
Apparently this is an Artprize entry. I am amused.
Labels:
Kentwood,
Leki,
MI
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Labels:
Food,
MI,
wyoming
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I had intended to start baking earlier in the day, but instead I sat around playing animal crossing and looking outside at the rain....
Eventually, at around 7pm or so, I started baking some chocolate twinkies and granola. I even whipped up a lemon bars batch and was going to start in on some chocolate chip cookies, but Chris reminded me it was probably a little late to get too far into binge baking.
So, just a few things this evening. Maybe if the weather is still cold this week I'll bake a few other things.
Labels:
Food,
MI,
wyoming
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Chris was making Chili tonight and discovered we were out of chili seasoning. So I looked online to see if we had the ingredients to make our own and voila, we did. I found a handy recipe on allrecipes and got to mixing. Chris thinks the seasoning might be sort of mild, but we'll see. If so, we'll know to adjust for future mixes.
Labels:
artprize,
Grand Rapids,
MI
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Took a walk through the skywalk today and saw several Artprize installations going up. There are lots of interesting things through the hallway between the Amway Grand and Devos Hall.
Labels:
Grand Rapids,
MI
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Labels:
Food,
Grand Rapids,
MI
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While I was walking back to work from an appointment, I stumbled across a fancy pasta shop - The Local Epicurean. Admittedly, I don't walk up and down Division often, they may have been there for awhile, but given that the chocolate bar is in the process of being set up, I'm inclined to think they're new to this spot.
Regardless, the whole shop had a ton of fancy flavored pasta, cheeses, oils, and sauces. You can even custom order fresh pasta. That's something I'd love to do sometime.
I picked up a few bags of pasta to make dinner tonight and it was delicious!
Labels:
Grand Rapids,
MI
comments (0)
Now that the indoor portion of the Downtown Market is open, we swung by to check things out. The building is a pretty nice setup, although the way they want traffic to flow feels a little awkward. Maybe it was due to everyone meandering every which way.
Anyway, there are a lot of cute stands inside, mostly selling ingredients to cook food, although there is some prepared food as well. I can see stopping in there when it gets colder since it's almost right next door to my work.
Labels:
craft,
Doctor Who,
MI,
sewing,
wyoming
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Now that we're back from up north and I have a little more time, I wanted to finish working on the Doctor Who pillow I'd started earlier.
The original Tardis didn't come out so well, but it was an excellent learning opportunity.
I learned pretty quickly that the original setting I had were crappy but I didn't have to use a blanket stitch. I could still use the zig-zag stitch and not bunch things up (setting information below).
I soon started to get the hang of it, and while things are perfect, they're a lot better than Tardis #1.
Anyway, here's a slideshow of all of the steps, plus materials and measurements.
Find an image to trace...
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3770/9693881035_c68621da23.jpgtrace!
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7335/9697108482_83f6f83ec7.jpgonce traced, then cut out and get ready to iron...
Ironing
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3762/9697107800_e419ee0372.jpgwith an iron, fuse the Heat n Bond Lite to the fabric
cut everything out
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3756/9693880285_768573772e.jpgonce cool, cut out the shapes
Lay everything out
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2841/9697107356_6d8dcdba67.jpgto ensure it looks good and all the small pieces fit
Iron On
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5545/9693976337_3f71efebb4.jpgremove paper backing and iron onto fabric
Fuse-N Tear
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2870/9693952873_a7f7bfa740.jpgonce all pieces are ironed on, cool, flip over, and iron on Fuse-N Tear stabilizer
Applique in progress
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2807/9693952381_0f21df1188.jpgstitching all of the different pieces down
laying everything out one last time
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3671/9693952207_4692a2212d.jpgjust to ensure everything still looks ok
pin the pillow
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7362/9693952667_e663e1e52b.jpgpin the two pieces of fabric together, wrong side out
Tardis side
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7416/9693882489_f96814e1da.jpgTardis side of the pillow
upclose Tardis
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3815/9693881297_d8a9e5944c.jpgDalek side
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7345/9693882103_df5926d476.jpgDalek side of the pillow
up close Dalek
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5331/9693881855_518382a672.jpg
Materials used:
- Fusible Heat 'n Bond Lite (adhesive)
- Pellon Fuse-N-Tear
- fabric and thread
- PolyFill (polyester fiber filling)
Measurements & Sewing Machine Settings:
- 14.5" x 14.5" pillow fabric
- 3" tall Dalek & Tardis
- Applique pieces placed 3" from the edges of the fabric
- zig-zag stitch set to stitch width of 3.0 and stitch length of 0.2 for edges
- zig-zag stitch set to stitch width of 2.0 and stitch length of 0.2 for smaller detail pieces (like eggs on the Dalek skirt)
Labels:
MI,
saugatuck,
Saugatuck Dunes State Park
comments (0)
It's been a few years since we've been to Saugatuck Dunes State Park. In fact, I didn't even remember we'd been there before.
I wanted to take advantage of the fact that most people are in school or at work, so we drove out to the dunes to do a little hiking.
We hiked out to Lake Michigan and enjoyed the sun and sound of the waves for awhile. It was very relaxing, although I do regret not bringing something larger than a hoodie to hide from the sun with.
There were even a handful of shells washed up on the beach, which were fun to collect and reminded me of visiting my grandparents in Florida.
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