Return of the Quilt

There is nothing like watching a few episodes of "Horders" on Netflix Streaming to make you want to throw away everything you own.

I have to admit I harbor some serious hoarding tendencies, for example, I just never throw anything away. My excuse always is something along the lines of "I can't throw away [object] I'm going to use it to make [other object].

However, I currently spend about 0% of my time turning my things into other things. So either the stuff has to go or I had better get cracking.

With this in mind I came up with my T-Shirt Quilt. This one is a funny one, because I already had a t-shirt quilt.

But I still had several bags of ill fitting memory-filled t-shirts piling up in my closet for a potential t-shirt quilt expansion. I had to draw a line in the sand, it was now or never.

So I sorted all of my t-shirts, and took a seam ripper to my old quilt and went looking for pattern inspiration on Pinterest (you may remember my obsession). I found this beautiful pattern "Bizzy Kid" from Cluck Cluck Sew Patterns.

Isn't it fun, bright, interesting and yet very quilt-y?

I went through many different design phases, having a great time with the colored pencils an my ruler. Eventually I came up with this:

The quilt will be one-sided, maybe with a fleece back? I'm planning to use t-shirts to make the whole front, eliminating that in-between purple fabric that I had in my original. Some of the pieces will be solid colors, others will have the patterns of the t-shirts on them.

I've started to dive in, cutting and sewing some of the blocks for the expanded quilt. I'll give you an update as I progress further. Fingers crossed that it turns out well.

~Claire Out

Grease Monkey

The other day, shortly after starting my new job, it was pointed out to me that my break light was out on one side. 'Curses!' I thought. After several weeks of bordom and unemployment, and it is now that suddenly when faced with a full schedule that I have a broken car? The same kindly person who pointed this out, suggested I go to a car parts store and buy a new bulb. It was much cheaper, he said, than taking the car into a shop. I thanked him and told him I would do just that.

The following weekend, I went to an auto zone. I tried to blend in with the locals, projecting an attitude of mechanical brilliance. 'Sure, I change my own oil all the time', my stance suggested. In fact, pretty much the only things I know about cars I've learned from watching Top Gear and Grease.

Luckily, in these kinds of places, it is safe to rely on the expertise of the folks behind the counter. All I needed to provide were the key words, 'break light bulb', and the year and make and model of my car (which I keenly had thought to look up before I came into the store) and they quickly appeared with exactly what I needed.

Two cute little bulbs for less than $10. I left my wrench wielding brethren to go to immediately home and get to work on my 'ride'.

Two weeks later, a good samaritan pulls up next to me and mentions that my break light is out. Shoot. Still hadn't gotten around to that.

I got out of work freakishly early today, with the sun shining and no other excuses in sight I gathered my materials.

Un-pictured, is my car's manual that gave me the step by step procedure to fix my break light.

The first step was to unscrewed the two screws on the side (you can make out the bottom one in this picture) and remove the whole light.

I unscrewed both screws but despite my pulling, the light didn't really want to pop out. I was stuck on the first step. If my auto-zone friends would be so disappointed. I ended up using my screwdriver to sort of pry the pointy side of the light out. Finally the two pins that hold that side in, were free and I was looking at something like this.

I double checked the manual, to make sure I was changing the right bulb gave a twist and revealed this:

Then I just had to pull out that bulb and replace it with another. Twist the socket back in place, pop the whole light fixture back in, screw it in place and stand back to look at a job well done.

A job well done on the wrong side.

I strongly suspect this is exactly why they give you two light bulbs in the packet.

I went on to do the exact same steps on the other side. It went much quicker and now I have two brand new break lights. I'll have to wait until I can recruit another set of eyes to check to see that my lights are both working, but I am ready to call it a success until proven otherwise.

While not exactly the most challenging mechanical feat, it is pretty satisfying to know that it only takes 1 Claire to change a lightbulb.

~Claire Out.

Value and Worth

The other day a friend of mine posted a link on her facebook page. It was a list of advice. Always being open to helpful advice, I browsed on over. There were some very reasonable and thoughtful suggestions. And many of them confirmed ideas and principals that I already try to live by.

One segment gave me pause. Here is a play by play re-enactment of my brain while reading this part of the article:

“If you want love, give love.”

Check. I have a lot of love in my life. I love my family very much, I love my friends, and I love my fiancé, and let me tell you, I feel their love coming back at me every day.

“If you want friends, be friendly.”

Another check. I’m a pretty friendly person. People have mentioned to me I smile a lot, and I find myself with some pretty amazing people in my ranks of friends.

“If you want money,”

Ohh, I want money. I am barely able to pay my rent each month. Will this sentence hold the key to the equation that I’ve been obviously missing?

“provide value.”

Ooof. Value you say?

This stuck with me enough to echo in my head as I fell asleep that night. It wiggled into my brain so much that I thought about it the next day.

Do I provide value? Do I provide worth in my day-to-day interaction with the world?

Honestly, no.

(Then I took a few hours to wallow in that terrifying realization.)

I provide nothing of value, nothing of worth. Does that mean that I am worthless? Yuck. I don’t want to believe that. I don’t want to be wasting precious seconds of my short time here on earth NOT doing something of value.

(I took another hour to let that dark thought rattle around in my brain before switching into solution mode.)

How do I make myself the kind of person who provides value? At this point, it has very little to do with the money (what initially lead me down this rabbit hole) it has to do with me doing something with my life.

The first thing I can think to do is to define what I think provides value. A pretty big question. A very loaded question. A question that I seriously doubt has one correct answer.

While thinking about this question, the things of value I was brainstorming were understandably pretty spread out across the board. Upon further reflection, I found the things of value were coming from three distinct groups of people. So without further ado, I give you the people who (in my opinion) provide value.

(In order that I thought of them… which probably means nothing)

Explorers:

These are the people at the tops of their field; they are on the cutting edge of the known and the unknown. They draw conclusions, connections and creations from research, observation and brain-power. They explore new cultures, new planets and new ideas. They invent new technologies, new medicines, shed new perspective on history, and start all over again with new questions. These people expand humanity’s knowledge of the universe in which we live. I would say that is of value.

Examples: Inventors, Chemists, Historians, and Philosophers.

Community Servers:

These people are what allow civilization to exist. They work hard every day, to keep citizens safe, healthy and nurtured. They climb burning buildings, get coughed on (and heaven knows what else), they walk down dangerous streets and stand in front of a room full of high school students who would just as soon not be there. They perform what is so often a painful, dangerous, difficult and thankless task so that we all can enjoy the rewards of trains that run on time, knowledge in children’s heads, safe streets, and flowing sewers. These people maintain and expand civilization. I would say that is of value.

Examples: Fire Fighters, Teachers, Police Officers, Doctors and Parents.

Leaders:

This was the last category I thought of. I had a few remaining examples of things of value and people who have done valuable things that didn’t fit well into either of the above categories. These are the people who inspire everyone else. They inspire change, they inspire awe, they inspire people to question themselves or to believe in themselves. These people hit a chord that resonates with someone else, and in the case of great leaders resonates with a great number of people, often regardless of time or distance. These are the people who shape the world by focusing the consciousness of many towards a shared experience, aesthetic or ideal. These people inspire others. I would say that is of value.

Examples: Martin Luther King Jr., Joanne Rowling, Winston Churchill, Leonardo Da Vinci, Johann Bach.

So you see, I have a pretty broad spectrum of value-laden options available to me. It seems clear that you do not have to pick just one category to remain in for the entirety of your life. You can switch roles mid-stream or even occupy all the roles at the same time. This is just phase one of providing value: defining value. Next I will need to choose a course of action and execute (something notoriously difficult for my generation). Are there any categories I missed? Any recommendations about what genre might be a good fit for me to start exploring?

~Claire Out.

New Reci-peas

One of my Christmas gifts I got from my parents this year was the cookbook "Peas and Thank You." It is written by Sarah Mathany who keeps a great food blog of the same name. It is a cook book full of great vegan recipes that look and taste like really good versions of your ol' favorites.

Obviously I'm not going to post up any of these recipes, but I am going to show you some tantalizing pictures.

Asian Salad

I will admit that due to ingredient availability and vegan-ism not being on top of my priorities right now some of these meals were downgraded to vegetarian in the process.

Home made pizza. Mmmm cheese.

I've been enjoying trying these new reci-peas as I attempt to eat a little more healthfully in the new year. So if you are looking for a little inspiration, or something new to inspire healthy eating as New Years Resolutions start to be tested, check into her extensive free recipies on her blog. Her Tofu and Mushroom Lettuce Cups are awesome. Even if you are not wild about Tofu.

~Claire Out.

P.S. Italian is going great. I just finished a mile marker that has me 3/4 of the way through my current program. I'm excited to finish up in the next month or so, and then go back and seriously master all of these concepts.

Exciting News

Well my new year has started out even better than I had expected when my boyfriend Mike asked me to marry him. We're engaged!

I am so excited, it has taken me almost a week to trust myself to be able to write about it. I was so overwhelmed, shocked and excited that for several days afterwards I wasn't able to form full sentences. Not aloud, not in my mind, nothing. No a single clear thought could form before it was overwhelmed by my excitement.

First, let me tell you The Story of Our Engagement.

Mike and I went to Disneyland on Thursday in order to celebrate our four-year anniversary. Not only is Disneyland a fun (and magical) place to spend a day, but it is also were we met, working together in Tomorrowland.

Because Disneyland is a special place for us I totally bought Mike's story that we were going there to celebrate four years together and for no other reason. My first clue that something else was brewing was when we went to park. I offered to pay the (somewhat ludicrous) parking fee, and began to search the backpack for my wallet. Mike freaked out a little as I started randomly opening pockets, which made me think there might be something in there I wasn't supposed to see.

I put that in the back of my mind, assuming it was a little card or gift to celebrate our anniversary. I thought it couldn't possibly be a ring because Mike intended to talk to my parents before he proposed, and I knew they hadn't had that chat yet. Instead I focused on having a fun day at the park, not at all a challenging task.

Waiting for the Alice in Wonderland ride, one of my childhood favorites.

About to go on an Adventure in Adventureland

Looking oh-so-cool in my 3D glasses waiting for the new Star Tours

The Matterhorn!

Right around five o'clock we found ourselves in Tomorrowland, and Mike suggested we go on Astro Orbitor, the ride we used to work on together. This was Mike's first ride request of the day and I was happy to oblige.

Waiting in line Mike got quiet.

Those of you who know Mike know he isn't exactly a chatterbox anyway, but he started responding to my prompts of conversation with single syllables. I made a mental note that his blood sugar was probably low and we should grab a snack after the ride.

Mike lead us to a rocket on the opposite side of the control tower, then went to go 'drop off the backpack'. He was gone a long time, and I grew suspicious, something was up.

He did return and we flew around on a rocket ship for our alotted minute or so. The sun had just gone down and you could see all the lights making the park glow. It was beautiful. (The time of day was apparently carefully chosen by Mike).

We struggled out of our rocket ship and Mike said he wanted the cast member to take a picture of us. I followed him around to the place where our backpack had been left and prepared to be photographed.

Mike walked over to me and said something along the lines of, "Ever since I've met you four years ago I've been so happy." And honestly that is the last of the words that I remember because it was then that I realized what was happening. He got down on one knee, opened up a ring box and asked to marry me.

I said yes.

I cried, I shook, I smiled, I hugged him, people shouted congratulations, we posed for another picture, it is absolutely a blur of happiness and tears in my memory.

I had to find a place to sit down and get a grip. It turned out that he talked to my parents just after Christmas this year without me knowing about it at all. Good job sneaky parents! We talked about how happy we were, how different it felt and how odd it was that we were currently inside of a story that we were going to tell for the rest of our lives.

I called my parents and brother and giggle-cried into the phone. They congratulated me politely listened to my babbled happiness. We sat in front of the Sleeping Beauty's castle for a while as I collected myself. We were both emotionally drained and footsore from so much walking. We took it very easy, sitting, shopping for cookies, and enjoying being engaged until our dinner reservation at the Blue Bayou.

For those of you who do not know the blue bayou is a restaurant inside of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. (It is at the start of the ride, it isn't as if you are seated next to an animatronic Jonny Depp.) It is beautifully lit by colorful lanterns and you hear the water go flowing by. We got a table right next to the water because Mike mentioned when he made the reservation that we were getting engaged.

Please ignore the terrible sound.

Unfortunately, the staff of the restaurant thought that we were getting engaged there and were holding their breath the whole night until (after desert!!) I shared with our waitress that we had just gotten engaged. She told us she was so relieved, everyone was waiting and hoping that Mike hadn't gotten cold feet.

OOPS. Obviously we have a lot to learn about the etiquette of being engaged. She didn't even have the ring as a clue since I was wearing it on my pinky finger. (It is being resized now and I miss it. I can't wait to get to wear it!)

After a delicious dinner, and an all around wonderful day we headed home. Mike had a bottle of wine chilling in the fridge that had had chosen for this occasion. We had time for one small toast before we said goodnight. (The bottle was tackled with more gusto the following day with dinner.)

I have been so touched by the congratulations of friends and family as news of our engagement has gotten out. We have been basking in phone calls, texts, Facebook posts and hugs. I am so grateful for all the people in our lives.

Basically I am thrilled to be engaged. I'm amazed at how different it feels thinking about wanting to marry Mike to having the question asked and answered. I am constantly astounded at my good luck for having been in exactly the right place at the right time to have met him. I am so thankful for all of our years together so far, and am looking forward to many many more.

~Claire Out.

New Coat of Paint

Happy New Year everyone!

Before I get to far ahead of myself talking about the new year ahead (which I suspect will be a great one), I want to take a moment to write about a recent home improvement project I worked on and share a few lessons I learned.

It wasn't my own home I improved this time, but my parents'. You see, as a young woman on a budget I was thinking of things I could give as gifts that maybe made use of my time instead of my wallet. One of those gifts this year was for my Mom.

Though I haven’t lived at home for many years my old bedroom looked pretty much exactly as it had when I was going to high school. My mom has begun using it as an at-home office, but she worked at my old desk and surrounded by Claire stuff. Including (but not limited to) a decoupage wall of magazines and posters.

My parents had to sleep in there during a recent renovation, and my father complained about all of the eyes watching him sleep. Yikes.

My mom is a busy woman and therefore the functional (all be it teenage-claire-tainted) bedroom remained unchanged. So my gift to my dear old mum for Christmas this year was to proved her with a much more aesthetically pleasing guest bedroom and office space.

My plan:

1. To remove the poster wall (my parents wisely had me hang up boards before I started decoupage-ing an entire wall of my bedroom)

2. To fill in any holes left by screws, or push pins.

3. To paint the room.

My Mom and I picked out some colors we liked at Thanksgiving. She decided on the bottom one, “Sierra Monkey Flower” by Dutch Boy. I liked it because it is a pretty neutral yellow and looked great in the sample picture with all of those wood tones, also it has the word Monkey in the name…

(The one on the bottom)

I ended up getting a Low VOC, primer included, eggshell finish, Dutch Boy paint that was color matched to the sample. Which brings me to lesson one.

LESSON 1: Most rooms need a single gallon of paint.

I seriously overbought on paint. I went with three gallons based on some weird internet equation. Seriously overkill.

One of the problems with the room is that it has so much furniture. After moving some of it into another room, we were tapped out of space. So, I decided to push the corner desk and bed into the middle of the room and work around the edges.

LESSON 2: If at all possible remove all the furniture from the room.

Some of the edges were almost too small for me to open up the step stool (sideways). And I had to walk all the way around the edge to get more paint. It was pretty frustrating.

Once the furniture was moved into position, I started taking down the wall. The boards were attached with simple wood screws. I removed them easily and took down one board at a time. Here it is halfway removed.

(Yes that is a Star Wars: Episode One poster you see, thank-you-very-much. I’ll argue with anyone that it is the best of the prequels.)

Once all the boards were down I also removed all the light switch and outlet covers from the walls. Then, I went around the room and patched up the holes with DAP spackle. I got the cool kind that changes from pink to white when it dries.

I even removed the old intercom (that has never worked in my memory) and patched that hole. You can see the intercom in the far left of this picture.

All of this patching, and spackling was done the day before to allow plenty of time to dry before I applied paint.

The next day I began actually painting! This bedroom had not been painted since before I was born. The light yellow color was chosen because they didn’t know if I was going to be a boy or a girl. There were crayon markings in one corner. Needless to say, it was time for an update.

So I prepped the room with painters tape and drop cloths, which leads me to my next point,

LESSON 3: Painter’s tape is for the weak.

Long before my first coat of paint was done, the painters tape had come unstuck. It was difficult to put back on now that wet paint had become part of the equation. I used a small brush to ‘cut in’ around the ceiling, doorway and windows and should have done the same for the bottom moldings too. (I learned to cut in at YHL by watching this video.)

Here is a picture of my progress. On the right you can see the wall with a single coat of paint, and on the right you can see a patched, but unpainted original wall color.

So as you can see the paint was a wee bit brighter than I imagined. I suspect our color matching was a bit off. The color did mellowed out a little when everything dried, and the important thing is that my mom likes the color.

Lesson 4: Check the color match.

I don’t really know how to do this, but I am certain there is a way. Something could probably have been fixed at the hardware store.

After almost a full day spent painting, I had finished.

Lesson 5: Entertainment.

I played “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” on audio book while I was painting. It was a great way to stay entertained without being tempted to look at anything like you would with a movie. (The book is brutal, but very good by the way.)

Here are some pictures of the completed room. Taken at night, because, like I said, the painting took all day.

Ta-Da, poster free!

The room looks pretty good overall. Much more grown up and put-together. With the huge desk sold, and a new one on it’s way in, this room is heading towards being a much more functional bedroom and office. I think the new paint revealed how shabby the ceiling looked. So a fresh coat of paint on the ceiling may be on my to-do list next time I visit. Also there are discussions of new closet doors and perhaps fresh moldings? Oh-ho-ho dare to dream.

Have you tackled any home improvement projects lately? Have you ever tried to tackle anyone else’s home?

~Claire Out.

Blanket

Earlier this summer I found out a good friend of mine from high school and her husband were expecting a baby girl! I was surprised and thrilled by the news. She is the first of my high school friends to become pregnant and I am so excited to be able to meet her daughter someday soon.

Unfortunately for me, they live on the other side of the country, but I wanted to do something for her and her baby girl. (She is expected to arrive any day now!) So I set out to make a blanket.

Now I have never made a baby blanket before. In fact my only experience with sewing outside of disastrous projects in girl scouts was to make a t-shirt quilt. (A project that took three very large rooms, days of work and not a few swear words before it was finished.) The lesson I had learned from that disaster was to keep it simple.

My plan was basically to sew two pieces of fabric together with quilting in the middle, can't get much more simple than that right?

I did a quick internet search for my usual crafting go-to's like Jo-Anne's or Michael's, but all of them were quite a significant drive away. I looked a little closer to home and found Sew Modern. It is a cute, bright little store with tons of beautiful fabric. I was nervous at first that in such a small store I would stand out as a non-craft-doer and be ridiculed by the staff. (I have issues...) But the sales people were incredibly helpful, friendly and non-judgmental. I dug deep into my brain for old crafting terms such at 'yard' 'embroidery thread' and 'batting'.

Here is what I came home with: A yard each of a pink and a pretty light green egg pattern fabric, a yard of cotton batting, and white embroidery thread. I already had on hand needles, pins and white thread from a sewing kit my mom thoughtfully put together for me when I went off to college. (Thanks mom!)

Since I got one yard of everything I didn't really have to cut anything. I just ironed the pieces before I put the two fabric pieces face to face so that the 'pretty sides' were together. (So when I turned the whole thing inside out later it would have the nice sides facing out.) Then I place the batting over both pieces and pinned three of the sides of the square. Then I got to work sewing.

Did I mention I don't own a sewing machine? I don't. So it took quite some time to get around the edge. I used a back stitch, (which I didn't know was called a back stitch until I did a quick internet search just now) all the way around on three sides and most of the way along the fourth side. It took quite a long time is far less regular and straight as a sewing machine would make, but has that cozy home-made look. Then I turned the blanket inside out.

When I turned it inside out some of the corners got bunched up with too much fabric. My solution was to turn the blanket inside out again, snip off the corner of fabric closer to where my stitches were and then turn the blanket right side out again. Problem solved. I then sewed up the hole that I had used to turn things right side out. This was by far my favorite step, because it started looking like a blanket instead of like a hairy thing with pins in it.

However, it needed something to hold all of the pieces together. Otherwise it would have that loose duvet-inside-a duvet-cover feeling instead of that secure quilt feeling. So I ironed the blanket again, and got out my white embroidery thread. (And after a quick trip back to sew modern, my embroidery needle, oops.) I marked out regular points across the quilt and sewed little knots. It turns out I was doing my own version of a "French Knot" to make little dots of white across the blanket and hold everything together.

Then I tried my shaky (and tired) hand at some real embroidery. Now I used to do cross stitching under the watchful eye of my grandmother, but I don't know if I had ever embroidered anything before. But it was important for me to add this little message to the blanket for the my friends and their new baby. I attempted a stem stich, marked out my pattern with a pencil and went to town.

I'm pretty proud of how it all turned out. While I don't think that you could possibly confuse my blanket with one bought at the store, I think that's part of it's charm. It's not-quite-square edges, weird made-up stitches and newbie embroidery show the love that went into making it. Congratulations Petra and David I'm wishing you the best. Happy Holiday's and Happy New Year!

~Claire Out