I heart my adopted neighborhoods

I live in an affordable part of town that isn't exactly a neighborhood, it's in between a bunch of freeways. So I've adopted a few nearby neighborhoods and was thinking this weekend how I love the restaurants and business and feel the need to share.
Let's start with Northpark at Zensei sushi. Ridiculously yummy fish and super nice people. We go there every week - it's that good. Then right around the corner there's Sea Rocket Bistro which features local fish and has yummy vegetarian entrees, a beer lover's selection of brews, and little plates with tastes of food for only $2. We watched Christmas Vacation (who doesn't love a little Chevy Chase for the holidays?) as we ate dinner at Sea Rocket's movie night (thursdays) last week. Then onto Linkery which is a meat lover and beer drinker's heaven (I don't usually eat meat but the few vegetarian things they have on the menu are very good). They also do the local food thing.

Then onto Hillcrest where I had the best time on Sunday. In addition to the cactus for the backyard, asparagus, apple cider, and curry flavored hummus, I picked up a christmas present and a most amazing belt. The belt was handmade by Chi Stylez and is super stylin and is flat because it snaps instead of buckles (say goodbye to the buckle lump - I just lost 3 lbs by buying this belt). I can't stop raving about how cool this is - it's beyond me in coolness - I'm going to have to work on upgrading my style to keep up with it.

Then the present (which was the reason I went to the market in the first place). There was this barley wine the man enjoyed a few months ago but just couldn't part with the cool-looking empty bottle. So BottleHood reworked it for me into a pencil holder. Check out the other stuff they make on etsy - old bottles to vases, drinking glasses, candle holders... I'm all in on upcycling. Last night I spent 20 minutes looking through our liquor collection thinking "if I just finish the bailey's that's a bottle we could do something with", "there's not very much tequila left...", etc. Drinking for the sake of upcycling? Things could be worse.
Then over in Normal Heights there's Tao, a restuarant that serves yummy Asian food, with a specialties of fresh made tofu. It's tiny and Saturday night we gladly put our name on the list for a table. As there's no space to wait inside, they called us when the table was ready, and in the meantime we just had to go over to the Irish bar across the street. If you're not into Irish bars, LeStats (a coffee shop that often has live music performances) is also across the street. Tao is the kind of place that gives you a little salad before and scoop of ice cream after your meal, included. And the chef has come out to say hello to us and ask how the meal was every time I've been there.
As you can tell, I just love small restaurants. I'm so spoiled from going to these little places with super nice staff, that I feel kind of weird going to a "regular" restaurant where no one talks to me. At Zensei, everyone who works there says good night to me when I leave, and it seems like that's the way things should be.

Sewing at long last

I took this project on an embarrassingly long time ago, and have just finished 1 out of 2 large towels, and none of the small ones. The idea is to take these much loved, well used towels with ragged edges and add edges (essentially quilt binding). Soon I can give these kidnapped towels back to their rightful owner in their new, improved state.

This is in line the movement of reusing, updating, and improving (refashioning) things we already own instead of going out and buying new things. While I haven't officially refashioned anything else lately, I did mend an old coat (seam had come out of the shoulder) and have some ideas for sewing holiday and baby shower gifts that I may be able to pull off in time... But first, I have a few more towels to work on.

XL t-shirt to toddler dress

98% finished! I must be the world's slowest sewer... Took me all evening to make this (I've still got to deal with tying off some threads). And 3 of the seams I didn't have to worry about because I reused the t-shirt hems! Anyways, this is a shirt for a Tea, made from one of her Uncle's t-shirts. It was put in the "too big" pile after he became healthier, which means it was ripe for the picking. The flowers was a fat quarter from the quilting pile.
The top was made for a 3-year old who lives 3,000 miles away. Gosh I hope it fits! The fantastic tutorial, found on SewMamaSew, describes lots of test-fitting and pinning in place, which I wasn't able to do. I fear it might be too small, but I really have no idea. It was my first time pleating and gathering, and it worked just fine. I have fabric picked out for many more (adult size this time) tops. Some will have t-shirts as bodies like this one, others will be entirely quilting cotton from the stash.
Proud to have my first, actual, refashion to post on wardrobe refashion. I've been posting, but it's been either very slightly modified stuff (resizing basically) or items made from scratch (like my dress and baby shower gifts). But there's a lot of pride that I've been honest and true with the not buying anything new part of the pact. I have so much... Was lucky enough to have built a nice wardrobe about 5 years ago, and that's enough!
Speaking of which, I discovered a nice blouse now has stains on the armpits (blasted San Diego weather) and so I will throw that in the refashion box. Try to cut out the stained part and while I'm at it change the long sleeves to short sleeves... which should be interesting as I'm fairly intimidated to try to set in sleeves, but there's nothing to lose. Can't wear it as is. Suppose I could put on ruffles now that I know how to do that. =)

The wardrobe refashioning begins

I'm taking the Wardrobe Refashion challenge. It's a commitment to not purchase new clothes, instead clothes should be handmade (by yourself or others) from scratch, or better yet, reworked from existing clothing. I thought the not buying anything new part would be easy, but I did have to put on mental blinders when I went into Target the other day. (Don't walk through the clothes section!!!)
My main hope is that the challenge would be additional motivation to sew/knit/refashion more frequently. And here is my first (tiny) completed project since I've been in the challenge. My loved one had the sensibility to improve his health and fitness last year and lost about 35 lbs. (It's amazing how motivated people can be when they see their lab values and tangible metrics showing the unhealthy path they are on... When given the choice of taking expensive drugs with side effects or changing lifestyle by increasing exercise and paying attention to what you eat -- what would you do? He changed his ways and feels better across the board: sleep, digestive, in addition to moving himself way out of the range of concern on those lab values.)
So I help downsize one of his old, much-loved t-shirts. Very simple, but made him happy.
Now onto one of the other projects on my infinite loop of my crafty "to do" list. I'm seriously consdering dropping pieces of paper into a brown bag for each project and pulling randomly. Or maybe you gentle readers can steer me in the right direction. Give me a color, theme, etc. and I guarantee I've got something brewing that I could work on that fits right in...

Why knitting?

I had always been around knitters (my aunt and my mother) but I didn't really consider doing it myself. I worked for a shop that received knitting magazines and paged through lots of them but none made an impact... until I saw the bikini in the 99 spring/summer issue of Vogue Knitting. My boss showed me how to knit continental style and I got serious for a few years. Serious to the point of waking up early and knitting while sitting in bed before getting ready for work. Now I make a few little things every year as gifts.

Back to the bikini. I never made it. It's not a style I would wear. And you have to sew in a lining - far too much trouble. I never intended to make it; it was the concept that sucked me in. That something sexy or young could be created. I did buy yarn for a Lily Chin bikini/tankini which I might actually wear. Here's the mess it might someday be made of - a handpainted ribbon from Tess's Designer Yarns.

Tess's was having design contests back when they were a young company (yarn sells better when it's shown in samples and with patterns). I bought some gorgeous cultivated silk/wool blend and intended to design something (that was back in my serious phase). I didn't, but did make a lovely tank from that same issue of VK in 99 (my aunt made me yet another from that issue). I don't wear it because it's too short, but when I was rifling through yarn this afternoon I found 1 full ball plus part of another! Just this morning I was counseling a friend who had been asked to make a scarf longer and talking about how many options she has. My knitting to-do list just got longer, but it's a beautiful yarn and top and it will be great to start wearing it! Extra points for being an upcycling project. =)

As time passed, I did eventually make something sexy and I did design a few items myself. Nothing contest worthy, but the sexy a super soft, lacy white lingerie top that was appreciated by the bride-to-be. And I stopped falling for every knitted garment shown with a bikini, and started laughing at them. Check out this long-sleeve wool sweater (shown worn on top of a bikini-clad model of course!).