Hope you can see this Olinda. I’m trying Flickr for videos. So awesome! I can hide them from public searches and no password required!!

I’ve been scarce around the internet, reading and writing.

On Thursday night my friend, Olinda, noticed my website was down. It happens sometimes. It’s the second time, that I know of, this year. It happened a handful of times last year. And a handful of times before that. It’s sort of frustrating. So I changed web hosts. Everything moved over without a glitch (I think).

Then on the weekends we’re usually out and about so posting is rare.

But the big monkey wrench in posting came when I was reading Mary at Confessions of a Craft Addict. She was saying her site had issues on Internet Explorer. So I opened up IE to take a look. And then being curious, I checked my site. CRAP. I knew my site wasn’t “up to code”. I just never fixed it before . But for some reason, now, I was determined to get it right. So that’s what I’ve been doing for days. DAYS! I’ve been looking at code so much, my head hurts. But I was determined to have it fixed. I couldn’t stop. Not even for a silly old thing like my head exploding.

But now it’s all fixed and it even validates! Well everything except the galleries. But I’ll fix that some other time.

So what’s that have to do with the picture of the shirt? That shirt is a prime example of how stubborn I can get when I’m determined to do something.

It was supposed to be a gift for my nephew. I bought organic fabric specifically for him. And I bought fabric paint. I had grand ideas for trying out freezer paper stenciling. But right away I knew I was on the wrong track and I should have stopped. But I didn’t, even with the obstacles in my way, I just barreled on through.

First of all the fabric is too stiff. I should have used a knit because the pattern is basically a t-shirt, except for where the snaps at the shoulder should be. But knowing this, I didn’t stop. I just kept going along.

And then I noticed I cut two fronts out instead of a front and a back. But…I kept going.

Then I thought the size seemed awfully small. But march, march, march. Must not stop now. I just figured, it was all screwed up, so why not just see how it comes out.

But I stopped at the snaps. I didn’t want to waste snaps on a hopeless shirt.

I then washed it a couple of times hoping that would soften it up and I don’t know…magically make the front piece into a back piece? I don’t know what I was thinking.

Project Notes
Pattern: shirt 5 from Japanese craft book ISBN 4418051244
Fabric: stiff as a board organic cotton
Size: 100cm

Oh and let me end with a random video of Isabelle because I know Olinda is missing Isabelle.

The video is from a couple of weekends ago. My friend, Lorraine, came down from Oregon and we went out to dinner. A whole bunch of us girls and Alan. There was live music and Isabelle was dancing and clapping. I couldn’t get any of the clapping on video but I did get a little dancing.

Which reminds me. I want to get a small teeny camera that does video as well (for when I always forget my big heavy camera). I’ve been looking at some super inexpensive ones that are 6 and 7 MP. Does anyone have any experience on how good the quality of the video looks like on those things?

I’ve been feeling a bit scatter brained lately so this post is all over the place.

How was everyone’s weekend? We didn’t do anything except buy toilet paper and stuff like that from Target. Wow, how exciting huh?

Well we did play with binoculars.

They’re screaming fun! (Well for Isabelle)

Oh and I did get sewing done! Not this one but a tank top.

This one is the alteration on the pattern I showed before, in muslin, from ISBN 4579111494. I liked the band at the bottom but wanted it a little thinner than my test shirt. But I went overboard and made it too thin. I still love it. Well except for the color. What can brown do for you?

Oh and because this post isn’t random enough, here’s the drawing:

And also to make this post even more random and all over the place, here’s a video.

We were in the car and Isabelle was singing “Happy Birthday” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider”. It was so cute that I grabbed Alan’s cell phone and started recording. But when we got home, I checked the clip, and realized you can’t hear her. So I edited it just to the last bit where I’m singing and Isabelle is doing the hand motions. (Password: izzybear)

Itsy Bitsy Spider from Kuky Ideas on Vimeo.

Alan’s off I don’t know where. It’s not that he disappeared, it’s that I can’t remember what city he’s in. He’s somewhere six hours south of us at a paintball tournament. He left yesterday morning. I think he took his computer with him and maybe he has internet access so I’m going to post a bunch of our beach pictures so he can miss us even more than he already misses us.

We went to this beach in Pacifica with Olinda. The night before, Isabelle kept bringing sewing thread to me saying “kite!” I dug a kite out from the garage and she ran around the house happily with it trailing behind her. So we decided that a trip to the beach was in order. We could do some kite flying and sand throwing.

Isn’t our kite pretty? We couldn’t manage to get it very high into the air though. Other people had no problems with their kites. Our kite sucks. I guess it just looks pretty but isn’t as functional, though I swear I remember flying it really high before.

Maybe it wasn’t windy enough for our pretty sucky kite.

Isabelle didn’t mind. She had fun playing with sand. She always does. The only thing is, she doesn’t like it under her feet at first. It took her a while to agree to have her shoes taken off.

I don’t know why she’s so picky about how the sand feels seeing as she’ll lie on it. She gets it everywhere, even in her diaper. How does she manage that? It probably didn’t help that at one point she fell into the hole Alan dug. I missed it but Olinda said it was hilarious.

Only picture of me. I really need to remember to get in front of the camera and not always stay behind it.

And the video (password: izzybear):

Beach from Kuky Ideas on Vimeo.

I have beach pictures, zoo pictures, and sewing to show but just thought I’d pop in and share a little drawing and a video. This little clip been sitting on my desktop since October! It’s one of those little clips that I think, oh I’ll put that up tomorrow. Or next week. And next thing you know, five months have gone by. I’m a goober. The password again is: izzybear

Headbanging Good Time from Kuky Ideas on Vimeo.

Isabelle turned another month older on Alan’s birthday. Here’s our monthly family picture.

She’s getting so tall. She can reach the pedals on her tricycle now.

And I know she hasn’t had little chubby baby fat legs for a while. They’re skinny little girl legs. But in this picture it’s soooo apparent.

And finally, a video I’ve been meaning to share from last month. I turned away for a second and Isabelle had grabbed my camera. Not a cheapo I don’t care about camera, but my camera that I love and use all the time. But instead of grabbing it away from her, I just held my breath, hoped for the best, and grabbed the camcorder. And here’s the video (totally worth the feeling of terror to capture this moment on video). Password :izzybear

My Little Photographer from Kuky Ideas on Vimeo.

She enjoyed playing with my camera so much and it was so cute that I dug up my old i-zone Polaroid camera. And now she plays with that instead. She stands there saying “cheese“, “snapping pictures”, and working the little switch.

I’ve been trying to get a picture of her doing that for a month. Every single time she does it, I grab my real camera, and try to take a picture. But once she sees the real camera, of course, she wants to hold the real thing. She stops saying “cheese” with the little i-zone and tries to chase me down to get the real camera. Finally…FINALLY today I got this picture of my little wannabe photographer.

Go to month twenty nine.

Isabelle is so funny. I wish I had this on tape. But sometimes she does things so quickly I cannot grab a camera fast enough.

Yes. She tickles herself and laughs. And yes she actually says “tee-cull” as she’s tickling herself. Hee hee!

I keep meaning to upload videos of other things she does that make me laugh or put a smile on my face. I want to put them on here so I can always watch them whenever I want. But I always say tomorrow then get distracted. Well today, I managed to focus and actually got a few of them off the camcorder.

* Update * I’ve added a password: izzybear. I’ve decided I don’t want my videos search-able on Vimeo but I do want to share them with anyone who reads my blog. I’m new to Vimeo so I don’t think that option is available. This is the only solution I think.

My Funny Quirky Baby from Kuky Ideas on Vimeo.