Podcasts

Howdy folks - for some reason I didn't get myself in gear for today's post so I asked my super awesome husband to fill in for me. Here are his favorite podcasts he listens to while walking the pupster, Coco.

And, there's a small picture of the neck cozy I knitted for him - in England, it's called a snood (which cracks me up to no end)!! 

Anyway, here are Alex's favorite podcasts....JCoy


The Nerdist

In an era full of too many snarky hipsters, Chris Hardwick is a breath of fresh air. Tirelessly optimistic, hilariously funny, he is also a great interviewer. He usually talks with creative types who show a passion for what they do. Very inspiring. 

Pointless with Kevin Perriera
Kevin knows way too much about too wide a variety of subjects. He only has 13 Podcasts under his belt, but the number of subgenres of music I've learned of from his show is crazy. He was talking about Trap music months before the Harlem Shuffle dropped.

Doug Loves Movies
I love movies too!

Jeff Rubin Show
Another Q&A show. Jeff specializes in more underground type artists. 

Shrunken Head Lounge
All the latest and greatest surf music! From well known to obscure, only the finest reverb drenched music will be heard here.

Luck o' the Irish with ThimbleGirls

We've been branching out into creating patterns at ThimbleGirls.  We are launching next week with a lucky shamrock banner.  
Here's a sneak peak!

As the crow flies....

Howdy All!

Well with a weekend of Daytona Nationwide and Sprint Cup then an evening with Oscars (which I turned off after the special effects awards - soooo boring!) - it was the perfect time to finish up a couple of projects. I'll share more on Thursday but today we have the Crow Quilt.

I found the fabric at Joann Fabric during Halloween with no idea what I was going to do with it. I'm not too into black or monochromatic quilts but I bought it nonetheless.

I decided to do a quilt and mix it with other blacks and greys and have a row of patchwork with a row of crows.

After quilting it last week, I wish I would have made the non-crow material smaller so it didn't compete so much but oh well...next time.

Here's the front:

Here's the back:

The photos make some of the material look yellow but it's just the sun shining on it! Yes, sun at 5pm in Seattle - whuuuut?

And yes, I get the irony of showing a Halloween quilt on a so.close.you.can.almost.taste.it.spring.day...


"As the crow flies" is an idiom for the shortest route between two points; or the geodesic distance. - Thus your super fun fact from wikipedia! Make it happen people! JCoy

I’ve been into making music for most of my life. Growing up we had one of those toy organs. I soon graduated to violin, guitar, and bass. I’ve recently become interested the hows and whys of what makes one guitar sound different from another. This led me to experimenting with actually making a guitar. This is the first one.

 

Like a lot of bluesmen, I made this guitar from a cigar box. It has 3 strings and I play it with a slide. It is electric. There is a pickup inside the guitar and it plays LOUD! I keep it in open G tuning and play it with a brass slide.

I am currently designing my next guitar. It will look and play like a more conventional electric guitar. I love surf music and I am planning on making this the ultimate surf guitar. The shape will be similar to a Fender Jaguar, but it will have 3 pickups and have a more stable vibrato bar. Here is a preliminary sketch.

 

Here is the wood I’ll be using. I decided to be kind of a locavore with the wood so I’m using local Washington State Red Alder. Here is what the wood looks like.

 

Over the next month I’ll be collecting the many pieces of electronics and hardware needed to complete the guitar. I’m planning on putting it together and finishing it by mid-April. Stay tuned for further developments!

A.C.

From the Chalkboard!

Anonymous

~xoxo J.M.Riley

Brushing Up On Crafty Skills

When I haven't used a crafty skill for a while I like to take it for a test ride to get back in the groove of things.  With embroidery this is easily done; unlike knitting, needles are inexpensive.  Embroidery thread and hoops are cheap as well, and any scrap of cotton will do to practice stitches.

I like to use Marie-Noelle Bayard's Embroidery Techniques & Patterns as a reference when I'm working on my stitches.  She has created an ingenius Appendix that gives you a snap shot of all the stitches that she shows you how to do in the book.  Brilliant!

Over the last few days I have been testing out new stitches, as well as a few that I needed to brush up on.

I had a difficult time keeping Long and Short Stitch even but I like the multi hued green look.  Star Stitch gave me fast, easy, and pleasing results!  I'll probably put stars on all my embroidery for a little punch :)

For whatever reason, Lazy Daisy does not come easy to me.  I totally understand it, I just can't make it look as good as the picture.  Heart french knots!  These used to scare me, but once I got them down, I love doing them!  Really need to practice Bullion Stitch more.  It's all neat and knobby but I ran out of thread and wanted to try Russian Stitch a little more.

Blanket Stitch is a stitch that I remember using in Jr. High for a Home Ec project.  We made hot pads shaped like pea pods.  Yes, my Mom still has it! 

The dole drums of winter are a perfect time to brush up on neglected crafty skills!  What will you do today?

~xoxo J.M.Riley

It's never too early!

My birthday's a month away but that doesn't stop me from dreaming up what I would love to get!
I really like being gifted art prints from etsy.
I have a dozen already and I haven't run out of wall space yet!
Here's a few that would make me happy to own!

From left to right:

I am the Boss Ostrich by Spara Fuori

Orange Robot by The Fox and The Teacup

Henry by Heather Mattoon

Midsummer by Kristiana Parn

Let your soul shine by bitowhimsey

Seahorse by Beanie Marie


Earth without art is just eh...(found online)...JCoy

An Amaryllis To Admire

I hosted Thanksgiving this past year and as a host gift my Mom gave me an Amaryllis bulb.  I had never grown an Amaryllis before and was excited to try it.  They grow fast, and by fast I mean inches per day!  Mine had barely started to get a bud on it when catastrophy struck.  I moved my little Amaryllis to the floor by the sliding glass window to bathe in the tepid Pacific Northwest sun.  Everything was fine until my brindle pup Ella spotted a strange man in our yard and went APE NUTS barking at him.  Unfortunately, little Amaryllis was in the way and got completely knocked out of its' container and the bulb slightly damaged.  I didn't think it would recover, but this is the little Amaryllis that could!

 

Here are the pictures leading up to full bloom:

 

The painting in the background is an oil painting by Petro Vermaak Lotriet.  Her paintings are absolutely gorgeous. 

 

~xoxo J.M.Riley

Documentary Reviews

Whenever the sewing machine acts up, there's two things you can do - fight it or leave it. I fought it a couple of times over the weekend before finally deciding to give up and try another day. Which means that there is no fun crafty post today.
When Alex and Coco go for their nightly walk, I turn on netflix and find a documentary to watch (while knitting so at least a little bit of craftiness is happening). Here are a couple of the latest ones I've watched:

• A Man Named Pearl: Incredibly inspirational! A story about a man living in a very depressed small town in South Carolina who decided to be a topiary artist. His 3 acre garden is now the main attraction in Bishopville. I loved his gentle way and how he tries to connect with kids. I really wish I could bottle his seemingly endless energy. 
• Holes in my Shoes - The Jack Beers Story: This man, who grew up in a tenement in New York, was living proof that if you work hard enough, you can do anything. That, and luck favors the prepared. He was a teenage bodybuilder who made money showing off his prowess, he started welding and become an engineer working on Rockefeller Center and the Empire State building (among other buildings), worked on the Manhattan Project where he invented a machine that cut one part of production by 80%, and became an actor later in life. Plus, he was still able to rip a phonebook in half at 94! Incredible life story!
• The Great Happiness Space: A very depressing film about women who pay men ("hosts") to "hang out" with them. This Japanese film will definitely raise your eyebrows - half way through the movie, it's revealed that the women who pay for this "service" work in the sex industry themselves. Just a horrible cycle of misery. But, I did wind up watching the whole thing...
• Ai Weiwai: Never Sorry: The Chinese artist who is working hard to make the Chinese government more transparent and who was behind the Bird Nest for the Beijing Olympics is featured in this film. As a westerner, it was difficult to watch this movie - I honestly could not believe the abuse this man puts up with at the hands of the Chinese government; however, he does go out of his way to push his government's buttons. I came away from this movie very grateful for the freedoms we have here. A must see for everyone - we do not want to go backward giving up too many of our freedoms!! For the outside of one of his exhibits, he has 5000 backpacks representing the 5000 children killed in the Sichuan earthquake - it is a very haunting image.  
• The Parking Lot Movie: A goofy movie about what happens when you have highly educated dudes working as parking attendants and the abuse they put up with from the seemingly "better" class of folks who park at the lot. If you work in the service industry, you will definitely relate to these guys. 

Be the change you want to see in the world! (or something like that) Gandhi ~ JCoy

Top 20 Robots

Every since I was a kid I have loved robots. From real life robots to works of science fiction, robots are incredibly cool. Shiny die-cast metal toys were the gateway drug. Now anything with a robot in it has my immediate attention.  And so I give you my top 20 robots of all time.

A couple of ground rules: No cyborgs, they must be full robot. This disqualifies Robocop and Steve Austin. All robots must not be directly operated by a human- no mecha or gundam. OK, here goes!

20. V.I.N.CENT- The true hero of Disney’s 1979 sci-fi creep-out The Black Hole.

19. Tom Servo- A robot with a gumball machine for a head that cracks wise at bad movies? Yes please!

18. KITT- This robot is a car that belongs to David Hasselhoff and is voiced by Mr. Feeney himself, William Daniels. Does it get better than that?

17. Cylons- Whether it’s the old school “toasters” or ex-Victoria’s Secret models, the Battlestar Galactica’s protagonists are awesome.

16. Mega Man- The numbered Mega Man games are some of the best video games ever.

15. Cookie Robots- From Despicable Me. They’re robots. And they’re cookies. Win-win.

14. D.J. Roomba- The best robot on Parks and Recreation, he’s a Roomba with and iPod and speaker dock strapped to the top.

13. Iron Giant- Before he made The Incredibles, Brad Bird directed this amazing movie.

12. Optimus Prime- He’s a truck that turns into a giant robot that fights other robots. The movies are garbage but they got one thing right. They added flames to Optimus’ paint job.

11. Terminator- The scariest robot in the countdown because he will not stop until you are dead. Note: not a cyborg as he claims, he is a robot with meat attached to it.

10. ED-209- The coolest robot/worst cop in the Robocop franchise.

9. Ash- From Alien. The robot that you didn’t know was a robot until it was too late.

8. Robby the Robot- The classic 1950’s movie robot.

7. Fembots- Yeah Baby!

6. Pin*Bot- Because pinball is the best.

5. Asimo- He’s real, he can walk and kick a football.

4. GLaDOS- From the video game Portal. Smart, funny and she wants to kill you.

3. MechaGodzilla- It never actually beats Godzilla but can you really ever lose with a giant lizard robot?

2. Goldar aka Ambassador Magma-When I was a kid there was a show that broadcasted old Flash Gordon serials and Japanese sci-fi. This was my first exposure to the awesomeness of Godzilla, Star Blazers, Ultra Man, Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot, and my favorite, The Space Giants. Goldar was a golden long haired robot that could transform in to a rocket ship and then become giant sized. The kid protagonist of the show had a whistle that he could blow to summon Goldar! Amazing!

1. R2D2-You can’t lose when R2 has your back!

From the Chalkboard!

Mark Twain

 

 

~xoxo J.M.Riley

Valentine Hangover

There is a very real possibility that you are suffering from a Valentine hangover right now.  Cards, flowers, chocolates, gah!  Get away!  But let's be real.  Love isn't meant to be celebrated just one day out of the year, it is supposed to be practiced year round.  Samual Lover said "Come live in my heart and pay no rent".  He didn't mean for a day! 

 

The beauties below are the perfect prints to hang as a fresh reminder that love is a posey that never fades, no matter what the day or season.

1. Wish you were here by London Dream  2. Apple Love by Photography by Karina
3. Western "Love" by Sammys Photography  4. Beautiful Love by Rykauna's Ruffles

What is love?

Since today is Valentine's Day most minds are on love.  If you want to stump someone, tongue tie them, get a blank or pensive stare, ask them: What is love, and what does it mean to you?  Most people will smile bashfully and say, "I don't know...."  They have a hard time pinning it down.  However, persistence often pays off and when I asked a few people (and some fuzzy friends):  What is love, and what does it mean to you?  This is what they said: 

His girlfriend is flying in from AZ today.

Love is giving and not expecting gifts.

Love is patient & kind and happy thoughts and things for others.

Walking in the door hearing Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, DAAAAAAAAA

It is the light despite the shadow.



So, what is love, and what does it mean to you?

 ~xoxo J.M.Riley