Halloween Party 2014

There are four of us in our neighborhood. Every year, one (or two of us some years) hosts a Halloween party. Sometimes kids are invited, sometimes it's a couples thing, but there needs to be at least one party in our neighborhood -- it's tradition. I was really not feeling up to it this year, one of us just had a baby, the other is going through some allergy stuff, so I somehow bamboozled Kelli into hosting in her backyard this year if I helped. Awesome is what it was. Because the yard is huge, we could invite as many people as we wanted to. Door to door fliers were... I wasn't willing to do that, so we decided to put it out on Facebook and specify that people tell their neighbors who weren't on there about the party. There were people who swear they knew nothing about it until they drove by, which was crummy. I told my carpool kids to tell they families, --at the last minute we almost sent out an email to the Relief Society group, but at that point it was only two days away. Anyway next time maybe I will recruit kids to do the fliers. I don't want ANYONE left out EVER! Anyway a big load of people came. 

 We supplied hot dogs and hot chocolate, and asked everyone who came, to bring a dish to share. We also specified that you had to come in costume or you'd have to sing karaoke. One of my more brilliant ideas. Not really. Great costumes showed up! Recognize the guy in red (you won't if you're younger than 40 apparently -I  thought it was great. I'm 42)?

We also did some games for the kids --pin the bow-tie on the skeleton, bean bag toss, some card games, mummify your friends with T.P.  There are probably some great pictures floating around about now of the Bishop mummified. The toilet paper started getting thrown all over the yard, so that game ended a little quickly...

 Audrey, the friend who just had the baby, overachieved as usual, and sewed costumes for almost her whole family of 8 (of course the older boys wanted to do their own thing). Adorable melty Olaf.

 Frozen was of course a huge deal this year. 

 I loved seeing this costume on this girl - if you know the story, it's the younger sister, the one without the showy talent -who actually ends up being the great hero of the story. You love both sisters, but you're glad the younger one gets her moment.

 Ari knew what she wanted to be -- every year she has a very strong opinion of her own. This year it was an elf princess. I made her a Lothlorien broach for her cloak (and the cloak actually).

 I loved that the older kids dressed up too.

 Another little Elsa.

 Kai was a ceiling fan. Notice Thor on the left? He's from a  "Whole family of Supers! Looks like I hit the Jackpot!" (name that movie) --you'll see his parents in a minute.

 This is Audrey --remember her from Frozen?

 Youngest in the Superhero family --he had a late nap and didn't want to wear his Clark glasses.

 Here's the fourth friend --half of the superhero parents. She loves Wonder Woman. This is a fabulous role model for girls actually --wait --I have an article. This is actually part of why I was Merida this year. I'm OK with her being a tomboy, know that's not all I have to be --it's not a choice between tomboy and princess! 

 Kelli has a great fire pit that came in handy when it cooled off later. We were sweating as we set up, but I was glad for the fire later.

 Tia was "The seven seas". But her "C's" got a little munched soon.

Anyway, we had a great time. Now I need to talk Kelli into hosting a hoedown. 

Tweet

Dining chair re-do.

 When we bought these chairs it was with the hope that they'd be maintenance free for the long term. That didn't really work out for us. I recovered two of them and the bench that we bought with them a couple of years ago, and now the rest of them are tearing up too. We thought we were being sold leather seats, but you know how that goes. Luckily, recovering is simple if a little muscle intensive. 

 I don't know if you can see the cracks in this chair's vinyl?

Here? Anyway it looks worse in real life. 

I found this home dec fabric in JoAnn's and it was love at first sight. I asked them to order in enough for me to do all of the chairs while I was at it. First step is taking off the seat from the base. Usually a few screws is all that holds it on there. It's easy then to cut your fabric around the shape of the actual seat, with a little overlap to staple to the other side. 

 It doesn't need to overlap much as you see here. Just so that you can pull tight without danger of unraveling the edge. A handheld, non electric staple gun is plenty for this work, although I use a sledge hammer for the stubborn staples that don't go all the way in. 

Then you place your seat back on the base, and screw it back on. This is where you sweat a bit. Odds are, you won't get the screws back into exactly the same place so it takes some muscle. Kind of a good thing if they go somewhere else to be honest, because it keeps the holes from being stripped so the screws fall back out again. 

 Finished product. If you really want to make it look nice and professional, trim the corners of excess fabric before stapling around the base. I never do this because I'm lazy and know I will probably have to do it again someday, but wrinkles in the corners are kind of a giveaway that you did it yourself. My strategies are: "pullitreallytight" and "hopethatnobodylookstooclose!".

 I like how they turned out, although I was hoping to put some print cushions on the sofa, and that dream is dead with how busy this fabric already is. I bought some cushion covers from IKEA that I'll be taking back. Oh well. More money back in my account right? 

Tweet

Quilts as art?

I stole an hour the other day, and went to the Springville Museum of Art. It's housed in a beautiful old Spanish style building near the center of town, and in the past I've catered wedding receptions inside. It's a popular choice. When I go, I always take a little time outside first looking at the gardens.

They have a great collection of perennials supplemented with annuals. This time of year most have gone to seed pods, but I still like the textures. 

 Once I got inside, I was happy to see I hadn't missed this year's quilt show. It may surprise people from other parts of the country, but there is some great artwork done in this format. Above, the wall quilt has got the feeling of the canyon I love running and biking in although it is based off of somewhere back east. 

 I love the blazing border fabric on this large quilt -- and the happy sunset town. 

 I also like the kind of random feel of the shapes in this Japanese style quilt, and how the quilting builds a rattan-like texture around the other color. 

 This wall hanging made me wish I had grown up to be a hippie in a VW bus living on nuts and seeds. I'm hoping I can get this across: when I was a little kid and took dance classes, they had a water cooler with these paper cups with a flower print on them that looked a little like this hanging --not much. Anyway, I remember staring at the print on that paper cup and thinking about the field where those flowers grew, and wishing I could live in that field. When I thought of free spirits, and gypsies and hippies later on, I associated them with that field and have always felt a little bit jealous. Don't think I'm too weird OK? We all want a little less responsibility in our lives sometimes right?

 This artist went way out there. I took this picture for the kids to see. They used real shells and sea-stars along with extra fibers, embroidery, quilting and piecing to get the depth of effect and layers in this wall hanging. 

 This artist stated that he was new to the medium, and so drew heavily on techniques he used in stained glass, which he'd worked with before. I could easily see that here. 

 I liked the composition of this quilt, but what made it amazing was what I saw when I got up close:

Not only quilted, but embroidered designs. Just lovely.

This artist said she was inspired by the random circles of a rug she saw, and then drew her own design. Ironically, it is really HARD to make anything look random.  

 This was an absolutely gorgeous quilt. I probably should have taken a detail shot too, but it's the overall effect that I loved. 

 The museum had a pretty detailed bio of the maker of the quilt (with a really bad picture! unfortunate lighting!) who had recently passed away. It reminded me of the New Testament lady Dorcas in the book of Acts who died and all of the widows showed all of her clothing and good works she had done and made while she was alive, and then Peter raised her from the dead. This was another one of these ladies. 

 In addition to the quilt show, they had a big exhibit of Soviet era art upstairs. I will spare you all of the military art and just show two that I liked. Here's the first. For a woman who hefts such huge loaves into and out of an oven regularly, she's a graceful, well proportioned looking thing isn't she? That's good weight-lifting for you! Those are HUGE loaves. She must have a big family. Or, maybe that was their main food source for the day. I like how the artist included the child in the picture too --like acknowledging the nurture involved in her work. 

 I was drawn to this one because it reminded me of snowshoeing up Whiting Canyon. All of that snow on the trees, but then the cheerful sunshine up ahead. 

Now look up close. All of that sunshine? About four brushstrokes created it. How did he do that?

Tweet

I got the guts up to go to the primo yoga

Two weeks ago I went to yoga with a friend of mine at this really nice place up in the Riverwoods. It's a cute boutique with clothes I could never afford to buy, and then in the back is a beautiful yoga studio. I've got some pictures here, but not pictures of the actual class, because that, of course, would make me a really annoying nerd. People all doing these focused movements to clear their head, and then "click click" --yeah, didn't do that.

This class though, part of the time I just looked around with my jaw dropped at the stuff people were doing. Think handstands with the splits in the air, twisting around with your arms wrapped around your back and stuff.... but hey --I did a headstand that I held for a really long time, totally controlled. If you know me in Tae Bo classes, I'm not the balance girl. I run over and hold onto the wall for balance stuff, so one of the reasons I really need yoga. I hadn't done a headstand like that in a decade. I just had my focus for the first time in forever.

Here's the cute dressing rooms --there are hand painted flowers inside. Back to the class. The teacher uses all Sanskrit names for things, so I had to peek at other people to figure out what to do most of the time, but I started to recognize down dog, and up dog, and warrior poses --no I can't tell you the names, the dog ones sound like "luka", but I recognize them when I hear them. Good enough. The music? She's playing U2 and Pearl Jam along with the exotic world music stuff you usually hear in yoga. That really resonates with me --I know I'm dating myself. Whatever.

So I wanted to tell you, my friend went to do a century bike race this weekend, and guess what? I went by myself! I did it. Even though I really am pretty sure I'm not cool enough for this class or this studio, I still went. I was so excited, I ran out of the house without my mat. Nerd. They had some to borrow, and they were frankly much better quality than my Wal-mart special (sigh), but when I went to put it back and looked for the sanitizing wipes? There weren't any. Not even an empty canister. Yuck. This isn't your waltzy schmaltzy yoga, you really sweat on those mats. Also I've been reading about gym equipment lately on some bodybuilding sites and all the stuff you can catch...eeew.


Here's where you enter the actual studio from the shop. There are some big puffy brightly colored round cusshions you can sit on, and some rattan couches, and pictures of yogis....why don't I decorate my house like this? It makes me so happy. I guess people might think I was a freak. I'm serious though, I love it--it reminds me of gardens in San Diego.

So this time I had the borrowed mat, and it was turquoise with little squares on it, and my eyes kept going out of focus weird, and the squares popped out like I was wearing 3-d glasses. Why do you think that was? Do you think I was tapping into my inner psychadelic self? Or do you think it was maybe too early in the morning? hmmmm. Anyways, I did OK this second class. I missed a couple of moves because I couldn't figure out what I was doing soon enough, but the teacher came over and spotted me in a "feathered peacock pose"at least that's what it looks like, but I wasn't (noone was) against a wall. That was cool. But for the real inversion time, I needed to go against a wall.


There's the shop (it's like I take time out for commercials huh?). So the only spot against the wall was over in the corner, in kind of like a little annex part of the room, and then I kind of felt like a little add on part of the class...that felt a little pathetic. I did the handstands though. Suddenly I discovered that handstands are HARD! There is some serious shoulder strength needed to maintain it. I really thought it was just a balance issue, but I think now, that if I keep practicing, my shoulders will build up, and I'll be able to control it eventually, just like standing up and walking around. This may sound like a bummer, but it's an encouraging thing for me. Strength --I can do strength. So, the night yoga classes aren't working for me anymore, because I'm gone tues. and wed. already, and it's the last thing I want to do to leave the family again on thurs. nights. Maybe once a week yoga on Sat. (with the occasional podcast) isn't going to get me very far, but I figure it's better than nothing, and I'm loving it. I'm hoping Jenny will get some day classes at Omega someday. I'd be all over that.

Tweet