Rachelle Keller

What is the Legal Definition of ‘Ice Cream’?

2011-03-11T00:56:00.000-07:00

I never thought I would have to ask that question.

I was at the grocery store. I wanted ice cream. Not just any ice cream, chocolate ice cream. The suggestion had been put into my head during a recent Twitter conversation—I'm easily influenced when it comes to dessert foods.

The ice cream selection at the local supermarket is unbelievable…it's huge! I don't buy ice cream very often but I do know that I can just pass the frozen yogurt, ‘lite’, soy, rice, non-dairy, sorbet, and otherwise marked package right by. If I'm going to eat ice cream, I want ice cream, full-fat and full-flavor.

This particular grocery store didn't carry my favorite (and trusted) brand, Blue Bunny, so I was forced to find an alternative. Pint-sized premiums like Ben & Jerrys, Haagen Dazs, or Starbucks were out. A pint is [almost] too much to eat in one sitting but since any amount left in a pint is "too little to save, I might as well eat it all…" I have absolutely no self-control when it comes to pints.
But, hey, Dreyer’s/Edy’s is a good brand, right? Of course!

Image via Dreyers.com

Choosing a flavor is the next hurdle for me. Just plain chocolate? Maybe, but how about some “brownie” chunks to make it really delicious? Enter Dreyer’s/Edy’s ”Fun Flavors” Double Fudge Brownie.

"Chocolate lovers, this is for you! Chunks of chocolaty brownies and swirls of fudge in chocolate flavor frozen dairy dessert.”

What a delightful-sounding flavor. That was my best choice. FYI, the Girl Scout Cookie “Fun Flavors” weren't out yet or I'd be munching on a bowl of Samoa's or Thin Mints “Fun Flavors” instead. Or would I?

Remember When Ice Cream Was Ice Cream?

I was scooping up a pre-midnight snack of Double Fudge Brownie goodness when I noticed the carton label said, in really small letters on the back label, “Frozen dairy dessert.”

I'm sorrry…what?

“Frozen dairy dessert.”

Okay. Why is this, for whatever reason, not ice cream? Why can't it just be ice cream? After all, what I really wanted was ice cream. What makes this not ice cream? I'm truly incensed that I was duped into buying “frozen dairy dessert”!

So what is the legal definition of ice cream? I decided to Google that, of course. I took the first hit because the URL was intriguing as all get out: http://www.newsnshit.com/2006/09/legal-definition-of-ice-cream.html. LOL…"news‘n’shit.com"—I'm just jealous I didn't think of it first. That link has enough explanation to keep me happy:

“In accordance with the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, the Food and Drug Administration enforces a set of standards which regulate the labeling of food products.

Ice cream is defined as a frozen food made from a mixture of dairy products, containing at least 10% milkfat.”

The ”Fun Flavors” “Frozen Dairy Dessert” labeled products have 45 out of 150 calories of fat-per-serving. The “Grand” products are the real-deal ice cream with 70 out of 150 calories of fat-per-serving.

“Frozen dairy dessert”…honestly…

Image via Mashable.com

The Wendy's Frosty, if you will notice, is also a “Frozen dairy dessert”, and it says so right on the menu boards at the restaurants. Here's a fun Wikipedia factoid you may not know about the Frosty:

“The Frosty was invented at Wendy's owner Dave Thomas' request by dairyman E.M. "Bill" Barker. When the first Wendy's opened in 1969, chocolate was the only flavor available. The actual flavor of the original Frosty is a mixture of chocolate and vanilla. Dave Thomas thought that 100% chocolate was too overpowering a flavor when paired with a Wendy's burger and fries meal. The second Frosty flavor, vanilla, was introduced in 2006.”

Dairy Queen's regular soft-serve is 95% fat-free and is not “ice cream”.

Baskin Robbins sells real ice cream, as always, in scoops. In 2008 they introduced "Soft Serve". If you will notice on their site, Baskin Robbins is very careful to not use the term “ice cream” with anything related to their Soft Serve products.

Next time, I'll go Dreyer's Grand…except they don't put Girl Scout Cookies in that. I’ll have to pick up a box of Samoas or Thin Mints on the way out of the store and add them myself!
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Cream_dessert_02.jpg File:Ice Cream dessert 02.jpg Author: Lotus Head from Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

http://www.dreyers.com/brand/funflavors/flavor.asp?b=1420&f=2859 Quote and image, dreyers.com Double Fudge Brownie information page.

http://mashable.com/2010/05/25/wendys-social-media/ May 25, 2010, Wendy’s Frosty Gets a Social Media Infusion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_Queen Wikipedia, Dairy Queen: Products: Frozen Yogurt

Requiem for a Dream—Further Proof that I'm Completely “Losing It”

2011-02-17T23:24:00.000-07:00

I deleted the first paragraph I wrote because it was how I thought this story started. But after backtracking along the chain of events that brought me to this subject, I realized that it wasn't how things began…

The “real” story:

A few days ago, and I don’t know why—I was probably avoiding doing something I was supposed to be doing at the time—I got caught in the Wikipedia vortex, clicking around on the blue hyperlinks just to see what useless facts I could feed my already-overstuffed brain. And Wikipedia did not disappoint! I ran across the following under some random subject and the header “In Film”:

“In the film Requiem for a Dream, Ellen Burstyn portrays Sara Goldfarb, an elderly widow who becomes addicted to weight-loss amphetamine pills. After suffering from amphetamine psychosis, she is hospitalized against her will, undergoes electro-convulsive therapy, and later on was confined at a mental asylum.” —Wikipedia Entry

“Now,” I asked myself, “what could be more interesting than psychosis, electro-convulsive therapy, and a mental asylum?” I had neither seen nor heard of this movie so it begged further investigation—although I’m pretty sure I was supposed to be doing something else at the time…

Requiem for a Dream / OST

The Wiki movie plot description was full of drug-induced psychosis—fun for the entire family! The film is centered around dreams, delusions, drug deals gone bad, mayhem, addiction, and a refrigerator that is a “menacing, living monster.”

From the plot description I decided that I'd probably rather read the book.

But every film needs a soundtrack, right? Oh yes, the Wikipedia entry has a “Soundtrack” header too—and that, my friends, is what started my own journey down the proverbial rabbit hole…

“The soundtrack has been widely praised and has subsequently been used in various forms in trailers for other films, including The Da Vinci Code, Sunshine, Lost, I Am Legend, Babylon A.D., and Zathura. A version of the recurring theme was reorchestrated for the film trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.” —Wikipedia entry

You see, I always wanted to know where that really cool “movie trailer” music came from because it usually isn’t on the official soundtrack, I assume because the soundtrack is sometimes not finished for the trailer release. So I did a general search…I'm usually pretty good at ferreting out this kind of information. I found that the track I was looking for on the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack was “Lux Aeterna” (Link goes to a sample track at Amazon because not everyone uses iTunes).

So I gave it a listen and it sounded so familiar. It was driving me crazy because I had heard it before…recently…and not in a movie trailer. The familiar track in my head was not the one from above. The track going through my head was much more orchestral and forceful. I spent probably a good hour-and-a-half trying to match the tune in my head to one in the iTunes database. I came close, but not exactly right on. Eventually I gave up. I'm sure if I heard it again I'd know…

And I did hear it again! Last night I was listening to Pandora Radio on my iPhone—becasue there is an app for that—and that very “Lux Aeterna” track was played complete with the display picture shown above. Excited, I held up the iPhone for BigAL to see and asked if we had that soundtrack archived somewhere. He looked at me like I had sprouted antennae or something and said, “Yes.” But I couldn't leave well enough alone. I handed him my ear buds and asked him to listen and tell me where I had heard that track before. After all, he would know.

(Well…he did know, and I'm not sure I even want to admit this, but here goes…)

“That's my ringtone.” He said flatly…

Silence.

Then the slapping sound of an epic facepalm…ouch…he's had that ringtone for years!

I've not felt quite the same since.

Since then I have learned that “Requiem for a Dream” is actually ”Lux Aeterna”, remastered as “Requiem for a Tower”, for the trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and is often used in other trailers for movies and video games.

(Dear YouTube, it is not funny that as I search for the following music track/video that you display ads asking, “Are you at risk for Alzheimer's?”)

Give it a listen. This track can make anything sound epic…even a ringtone…or a facepalm.

2011-02-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

It's the first week of February and, as expected, here in Utah it's bone-chilling pee-freezing cold:

Photo from the archives of http://www.icanhazcheezeburger.com

‘Nuff said.

A Trip to the Local “Big” Book Store

2010-11-17T16:40:00.000-07:00

I know that when I put things off for a long time it seems to take much longer to do them when I do get around to doing them. This includes “shopping”. I had the car and was out-and-about today. Really I just had to go to the post office but as long as I was out…

“Why not go to Barnes & Noble?” I thought. It has been a very long time since I last browsed a large bookstore. Really, it was just an excuse to see if there was a new issue of Step-by-Step Wire Jewelry magazine. That's as good a reason as any.

The local Barnes & Noble is an older location, you can see in the photo that it isn't fancy. It certainly isn't fancy enough to have a Starbuck’s Café! Or maybe they just feel the need to add Starbuck’s aroma to the customer's book-browsing experience. Actually, I think this location has smaller overall square-footage than many of the newer locations. Hence the lack of really comfy chairs for the aforementioned book-browsing experience.

But I was there for a magazine…or so I thought. The magazine racks are really cramped and close together. Not a whole lot of room for “personal space” while browsing. The jewelry and wire magazines were located in the worst possible place; bottom shelf all the way at the back, top row. The magazine titles can't be seen from a standing position because backing up far enough to see isn't possible without getting really “friendly” with anyone standing behind or running into the next row of magazine racks. This was definitely a sit-on-the-floor magazine rack location. Did they even have Step-by-Step Wire Jewelry once I got myself comfy on the floor? They did not. Not a single issue unless the “Best of Step-by-Step Wire Jewelry” counts—and it doesn't because the “Best of…” really contains projects from the issues that I already own. No Starbuck’s, no Step-by-Step. What kind of an establishment are they running here anyway?

I was already on the floor so in what looked like a half-assed attempt at yoga moves, I sat cross-legged and bent all the way over to the side leaning on one elbow while reaching out with the other arm to check behind other magazines to see if there was some mistake. Nope, no magazine. They had a new Bead & Button but I didn't feel like getting that magazine at the time. I should have, the trip would have been way more productive.

Did I leave? No. I hadn't been to Barnes & Noble for a very long time and I was going to make the best of the trip. I looked through all the different categories, mostly non-fiction, though the “dark romances” looked pretty tempting—I should read more. The jewelry books in the craft section were “meh”, nothing I couldn't live without—hardly any books on seed-beading. They had mostly metalcraft and collage jewelry books. I don't really need those.

During much of my browsing experience I found myself saying, “That's available for Kindle…that's available for Kindle…” (There's a Kindle iPhone/iPad app for that). In the past I would have come out with a book…any book, usually a bargain book. The combination of electronic files and lack of storage space has changed the book-buying part of my world forever. I just don't have room for more books.

In the end I spent way too much time browsing the store only to leave empty-handed. If I went more often, maybe every two weeks or so, I wouldn't take so long just looking and catching up on the new stuff!

How about you? Do you spend too much time just “browsing” stores like that, or am I just weird?

I'm actually proud of myself for getting in the car and leaving rather than repeating the time-consuming browsing experience across the way at the local Michael’s!

Jewelry Class In-a-Box

2010-11-13T13:11:00.000-07:00

Jewelry Class In-a-Box!

I have always been crafty and love to work with my hands. I love needle arts, crochet is my favorite and the first of the arts that I learned at the tender age of 6.

I started beading just four short years ago. I was looking for something to do for "extra income", something fun and crafty. I found my passion at the local Joann Craft and Fabrics in Kissimmee, Florida, in a package called Jewelry Class in-a-Box. Hey, it was on sale—something like 40 or 50% off. Couldn't pass THAT up! I had really not made any type of beaded item before. I had done some on-loom bead weaving and had made a couple of crochet necklaces from yarn but had never created a strung beaded object so it was all new to me.

The kit came with glass pearls, crystals, bugle beads, metal beads, beading wire, crimps, clasps, head 7 eye pins, earring findings, a bead board, and some round-nose-type pliers. I followed the written instructions carefully and was delighted to find that I had just produced my own professional-looking beaded and crimped necklace and earrings although they were very simple. The pastel colors of the beads were not the greatest, and now I know that the quality of the beads was also not that great. But I had done it. I had made jewelry, and I saw that it was good...very good! Not bad for an initial $15.00 or so investment.

From that point on I was totally and completely hooked!

Making “Stuffies” for Cat Toys Etc.

2010-09-05T14:03:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted for a while and I know how much y'all love to see what I'm doing. It won't be fancy because I'm using my phone so bear with me (or bare with me—it's hot in here). Also, I wasn't planning on making a cat toy. It just sort of happened as I realized the design was one-sided. I didn't want to start over and I knew the cats wouldn't care if it were one-sided or not.

First, some iTunes.

I'll be using a design and tutorial from Urban Threads for “Stuffies (in the hoop)” .

Next, I'll plan and gather supplies; thread, hoop, scissors, felt…

I'm going to use baby-blue EcoFelt (made from recycled pop bottles—woo!) with a dark royal blue contrast stitching for the details.

It's still the same light-blue felt, trust me. My objective here was to stitch the outlines so I could cut them out. I failed a bit on the bottom one as you can see, but it will work out. No worries.

See? These pieces turned out okay. Those stitches were just cut lines and are completely gone now. This is what I was going for: two nicely cut-out pieces!

Now I have some backing in the hoop and I've stitched the shape out again. I'll put one of the cut-out shapes inside this line. The little X in the center is a sanity-check mark indicating the center of the hoop. I don't want to hit the hoop while sewing—don't ask how I know this. Better safe than sorry!

I was sweating a bit over hoping I had the shape oriented correctly. This piece uses three digital files. I hadn't switched to "file 3" when I should have. But it worked out okay, unless I was expecting a live fish.

The in-between step was kind of boring. Basically I attached the other cut-out shape to the back of the hoop and the first shape. The machine did the rest. Now I have two shapes sewn together into a little "pocket". But what to fill it with? I just realized I have NO stuffing, it's Sunday, and everything is closed!

Since this is a "test" piece now I'm going to stuff this little wad of fresh and dried catnip into the nose area using this wooden skewer and hope I can finish before the cat wakes up. I will finish stuffing it with small bits & strips of plastic grocery bag hoping for that satisfying crinkle sound cats love.

My embroidery machine, being industrial, does not double as a sewing machine and it's so not worth threading the sewing machine for a 1-inch closing seam on felt. I'm going to use the good ol' time-tested needle & thread.( *poke* OW!)

There! The open seam has been sewn shut and I have trimmed up the edges so they don't look so rough. There it is, a nice stuffed fishie—and made with recycled items too! How earth-friendly is that?

I have already hooped up and stitched one two-sided—easy peasy for me! And while doing that I realized that two-sided doesn't have to mean fish bones on both sides. What about personalization on the reverse side. Wouldn't Twinkles love his own personalized fishie? Yup, my brain fills up with ideas even as I work.

Now…where's that cat?

Update 11:00 pm: The catnip fishie is a success but not according to my cat, she thinks she's too good for it. My dad's little semi-feral tabby, however, was tossing it into the air, dancing, stalking, whirling, twirling, pouncing…you get the idea. She was delighted! And this is the cat that doesn't really react to catnip. Must make more…

-- Posted From My iPhone

Teva® Dozer Sandal Review

2010-07-16T10:09:00.000-06:00

When I find a great product, I tend to replace it with the same product. I found these Teva® Dozer Sandals over a year ago and I'm shopping for a new pair, not because the old ones are worn out and useless, but because the older ones are just looking a little…well…worn.

I must not be a normal woman, I really hate shopping for shoes. I used to have a rather large shoe collection—not because I needed a shoe to match every handbag that matches every outfit, but because the shoes I bought were uncomfortable. My feet never enjoyed being crushed into a shape that the “Good Lord” did not intend—and I have never considered paying ridiculous amounts of money for a single pair of shoes that would do just that! Sorry Jimmy Choo. Shoes are an investment in my feet and my overall well-being. I also like to eat.

Last year I knew I'd be spending a lot of time on my feet, especially on race weekends. The "fashion" sneakers I had just weren't going to cut it. No cushion, no arch support, cute, but uncomfortable. I found myself in one of those large shoe warehouse stores looking for something better for my feet. I would never have considered these shoes because I have rather large feet and while display shoes look great in a 5, have the guy bring them out in a 10 and they look a bit…er…different. I tried them on as sort of a "dare" by the sales guy. I absolutely loved them! These shoes actually appeared to make my Olive Oyl feet appear smaller, (if that can be done)!

Besides making my feet look less “obvious”, the next factor I consider when buying a shoe is longevity. I don't want sandals with straps that break or pull out, I don't want the sole to start separating, and I don't want tearing to occur at any point in the shoe. I also want foot comfort. I don't want to spend the first week of wearing the shoe “toughening up” parts of my foot by enduring pain and blisters until my feet get used to them.

These shoes were perfect! I love sandals and comfy shoes so this hybrid was the perfect…er…fit.
Of course not a week out of the box I managed to step on a ketchup packet and, well…

They cleaned up very easily with a little water and a brush. They are, after all, made to get wet sometimes.

These shoes must have a million miles on them. I have worn them almost daily since March of 2009. There were times when I wore them for 12 to 16-hour work days, I have worn them for working out (walking/running), I have worn them all over Disneyland, and I am still wearing them today. As you can see, I have worn most of the sole nubbins flat and it looks like I have worn a hole clean through the sole. These shoes have been GREAT! I'm not going to fall for those thick-soled “fit” shoes…puh-leeze! I about fell over when I saw the price. At about half the cost of those fad shoes I can have another really great pair of daily-wear shoes and know I'm going to have comfort and style. Yes, I'm going for another pair of Teva® Dozer Sandals!

The Evolution of the Ladybug

2010-07-04T10:17:00.000-06:00

Picking up where I left off a couple months ago, I mentioned that my ladybug beads would naturally evolve into bigger and better things. This post will work backward chronologically.

A “special request” led me into attempting to make sculptural lampwork beads. I began with creating ladybugs. As I played with the glass, all the time experimenting with colors, shapes and sizes, my ladybugs eventually evolved into…bees?

When you look at the bees you might think, “Well, that's easy, just make stripes of black and yellow going around the bead.” Wrong. That would be true if the bead hole ran horizontal—from nose-to-tail, so to speak. To get the stripes with a vertical bead hole I need to actually “build” the stripes one on top of the other.

You can see the stripes aren't “uniform”, and that drives the OCD in me crazy, but in nature the stripes on bees aren't “perfect”—in nature bees don't have awesome oogly-googly eyes either…

Wasn't this post about ladybugs? Oh yes, the ladybugs…

I wanted to call this yellow ladybug set, “Who farted?” but it sold too quickly!
One of the most recent changes to my ladybug beads is the option of horizontal, or nose-to-tail stringing holes. These are a little more rounded in shape and are slightly flattened on the bottom side so that hopefully they don't “spin” too much on the stringing wire.

Back detail of a couple of the newest vertical-hole ladybug beads. Another change is the size. The ladybugs are all now slightly larger than they used to be. I have also made their heads blend into the body quit a bit more. They are now more egg-shaped than pear-shaped.

I have tried a bunch of different colors and they do well, but red does remain the most popular, of course!

You can see the shape changing from my earlier style to the newest style. I have a preference for the newer, slightly larger, rounder ladybugs. They look less like ticks!

The size makes no difference in how easy it is to make the ladybugs. I know the slightly larger ones are a lot easier to get a “matching pair”. There aren't a whole lot of ways to measure out molten glass. It's mostly just “eyeballing” it as it is put on. It isn't unusual for a lampworker to make at least six beads, even small plain round ones, to get just one decently matching pair!

In the beginning…I made ladybugs. little red ladybugs. I'm happy with their “evolution” and I never know where they are going to take me next. Loving the creative journey although I have far more ambition than I have oxygen…

Kelley's Bead Studio: My Random Thoughts for Today

2010-05-05T19:08:00.000-06:00

Kelley Wenzel has better random thoughts on glass than I do because she includes pictures!

Kelley is just awesome. I met with her when I was in Atlanta last year and she gave me fun glass stuff to play with. She's very helpful and is always willing to trade a hint or tip. Check out her famous "egg beads" and other great stuff by visiting the link here:

Kelley's Bead Studio: My Random Thoughts for Today

Check out more of her beads on Etsy:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/kelleysbeads

And she even has a separate shop with finished jewelry, also on Etsy:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/kelleysbeadstudio

More Glass Today! Ladybug Beads

2010-05-05T00:04:00.000-06:00

Three sets of beads are on their way to new homes today and two new sets are cooling now after being freshly-made this evening.

The newest thing, ladybug beads! I gave them a try after receiving a special request—ladybugs are relatively easy. I probably would have turned down a request for butterflies, or hornets.

So I made a handful of red ladybug beads. They're really small and a little bit difficult to do because red glass turns black when it's hot. Black glass stays black when it's hot and it is really difficult to tell where the red ends and black begins when they're used together.

Of course, over time the design will naturally evolve. The weirdest thing though, before I even had my beads completely cleaned and ready to go, someone had posted a picture of ladybug beads that were very similar to the ones I just made. This morning I saw even more ladybug beads posted that looked even MORE like mine. If I came up with the idea at the torch, how did similar ideas show up at the same time? I wasn't copied, I didn't copy. Weird. There must be only so many ways to make ladybugs!

-- Posted From My iPhone

This is What Happens When You Make Plans

2010-05-02T12:28:00.000-06:00

Okay, yesterday's post had big plans to try out a wire-wrap ring tutorial. Unfortunately life had other plans for me. When I get all of life's straw spun into gold I can start that tutorial.

Last night I pushed to make a bunch of beads because today is "kiln day". The happy little beads are all now toasting merrily at nearly a thousand degrees F. By the time I get back from The Office and The Grocery Store tonight, I will have cooled beads ready to clean. Yay me.

One of the beads in yesterday's post pic had actually split in two. In my avocation, a glass bead split in half is from then on known as "two cabochons"— the bead merely transformed into a different jewelry element.

I've Been Silent. Updates & Latest Work

2010-05-01T11:21:00.000-06:00

I have not updated this blog since…well…what seems like forever. Since my Lazy-Ass-Cook rant. What happened there is that the Lazy-Ass-Cook ran completely out of food. Things kind of went downhill from there.

Now somewhat back-in-the-saddle, I need to start with some updates. My location is now Idaho Falls and will be until who-knows-when. I would say until hell freezes over, but it's still freezing here, and we're not going anywhere. Seriously, they're predicting a low of 26ºF by thursday!

I have been working diligently on keeping my Etsy store up-to-date and stocked as well as promoted. My "day job" is to assist BigAl in writing proposals for local businesses for new copier/printer machines.

I have just started back up on lampworking after a long hiatus of being off the torch since mid-October. It's good to be back and I have a custom order already. Here's some of my latest work. I just found out that I could make my regular iris orange raku do nice metallic things in the flame. I just had to try:

I was also just asked to try out a new tutorial written by a very good friend because she will be unleashing in on the public very, very soon. No spoilers here. Since here tutorials try to stretch one's creativity to its limits, I'm starting with bead selection. I can see right now that I can use inspiration from the work of Cassie Donlen to start this project. Cassie will use lots of stacked brightly-colored mini-beads to create one-of-a-kind jewelry. Here is some of her work.

And while my beads are a little lumpy, and not at all like Cassie's, I'm going to give it a go anyway. There will be more on this later as well as a link to said tutorial. The hardest part is selecting the beads.

Lazy-Ass Cooking: Chicken Corn Chowder

2010-02-17T16:17:00.000-07:00

Today I'm preparing Campbell's Chunky Chicken Corn Chowder. There are two kinds: Original and Healthy Request. Original = good, Healthy request = not so much. Now this preparation should be the simplest of all; Open can, heat soup. But not really. I have a real challenge getting enough protein into “the diabetic” that way.

Always start with a marginally clean electric frypan—which means it's now time to wash it from the last time we made random-sh*t-from-the-freezer.

Having cooked a lot of random-sh*t-from-the-freezer on a previous date, I could see what I had left in there more easily. I found a frozen-solid chicken breast that wasn't dated back to the last ice age. It was raw, but frozen, and fairly recent too. I kind of make it a point to not thaw raw meats in the same manner as an Uncrustable, this I can usually microwave, or more fun, fry/steam/boil from the solid state to a mushy-thawed state—don't forget to add some water, oh, and maybe some salt—or maybe a lot of salt if all you have is that gawdawful unsalted Healthy Request Chicken Corn Chowder. It only takes a few minutes to thaw completely.

The chicken breast doesn't need to be cooked through, just well-thawed. Grab it with kitchen tongs (caution: chicken breast is HOT) and cut it into small bite-size pieces about the same size as a compressed slice of Wonder Bread…or a sugar cube. At this point the chicken pieces can be browned to your liking. I would have added frozen corn kernels at this point, but I found that I was fresh/frozen/canned out of corn. Thought about substituting corned beef.

Chicken browned? Now open can, dump in soup, and a can of corn, which I desired but did not have. Let it heat through before serving it up with the serving spoon that you should have washed at the same time as the electric frypan earlier. Put the serving spoon and frypan aside to cool for washing—on another day.

Lazy Ass Serving Suggestion: This is a cream-style soup, which means it's always better with shredded cheese! Everyone puts the shredded cheese on top of the soup, but then it just doesn't seem to melt. I'm a Lazy Ass, so while I'm waiting for the soup to heat through I put shredded cheese in the bottom of each paper serving bowl. When the soup is hot I spoon it right onto the cheese. This is great in two ways: 1) the cheese gets thoroughly melted, and 2) the hot bottom of the soup bowl is not hard to handle because the cold cheese cools it. Oh, and bonus protein for the diabetic.

Now a little dialogue about the chicken breast:

The diabetic: “Did you add chicken?”
Me: “Yes.”
The diabetic: “Did you get it from the freezer?”
Me: “Um, well, there's plenty more where that came from…and, oh, we don't have to buy cat food any more.”

In hindsight, that would have gone a whole lot better as a punch line if the cat hadn't been sitting right there in his lap very much alive.

Lazy-Ass Cooking: Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich

2010-02-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

Can't get more Lazy-Ass than this. I present The Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich!

No, I'm not going to tell you how it’s made. That's a secret—a secret that even the frequent users of certain recreational “herbal” products can figure that one out—or so they tell me.

The Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich—known from here on as the “PB & J” because, after all, I am a Lazy-ass—can be nostalgic, controversial, or just a means of survival.

And how genius is “Whole Grain White” Wonder Bread? It's the same air (or bubble) bread that we have always known, one slice compacted is roughly the size of a sugar cube and with about the same number grams of carbohydrates. I don't care what they call it. It's delishus! The Wonder Bread also tends to hold it's “just-bought-freshness” for an infinite amount of time, except in the dead of summer heat. I'm not sure science knows the half-life of a piece of Wonder Bread and I can't say for certain I have ever seen it go moldy over time.

Side note on bread: PB & J sandwiches are not the same made on 3/$1.00 store brand bread, whole wheat bread, or that loofa-tough-and-scratchy 7-grain type bread. Never skimp on the bread!

Peanut butter, crunchy, chewy, creamy, stripes-of-jelly included…it's a personal choice…well, except for the stripes-of-jelly kind, that's just wrong, especially when the jar is half-gone and the stripes are no longer stripes but more of a brownish-purple goo. Crunchy peanut butter gives much needed to texture to the otherwise soft-and-squishy Wonder Bread and Jelly, but it's a choice. Some peanut butters are harder to spread than others, some have different flavors, it's all a matter of experimenting on which combinations are right for your temperature and climate.

Jelly, jam, fruit spread (I'm not sure why they came up with a separate class for that one, implying that jellies and jams may not be “fruit” at all) should be chosen to compliment both the peanut butter and the bread. It might also be interesting to note that if you become accustomed to berry jellies like strawberry or raspberry, switching to grape tastes weird! I like to go for the fruit spread. You would think that a Lazy-Ass like me would be all over the squeeze jelly, but I wasn't. I don't use a lot of jelly/jam/fruit spread on my sandwiches and couldn't use the squeeze bottle fast enough. That, I can vouch for certain, does go moldy! Fruit spread comes in small bottles and is available with the seeds already removed. How cool is that?

A PB & J sandwich can be assembled almost anywhere and the ingredients are so incredibly portable and, oh my, inexpensive, and that's important because, remember, I'm also a Cheap-Ass.

I'm sure you're thinking, “You're a Lazy-Ass, why not just buy Uncrustables?”
I will admit that I have a box or two of these little gems in the freezer, but they do have some disadvantages:

They need to be frozen until almost-ready-to-eat. For best flavor and Wonder Bread-like texture, the Uncrustable must be eaten immediately after thawing and near room temperature. Don't wait too long—they dry out right in the package.
Maybe they're still frozen and you're hungry now! A big problem. Microwaving really isn't recommended, trust me. However, they are the perfect shape so you can stuff one into each side of your bra cup and inconspicuous enough so that nobody knows you're actually making lunch. For guys, go for the shirt or jacket pockets. They're flat enough so as not to draw attention as “man-boobs”. When you can no longer feel the chill of the frozen Uncrustable, it's ready!
They're only made with creamy peanut butter. This leaves a lot lacking in texture. Smooth bread, smooth jelly (I'm sure it's jelly and not spread), and smooth peanut butter. I'm glad they're so small because one could fall asleep from boredom trying to finish one.
There is an imbalance in the peanut-butter-to-jelly-to-bread-ratio. The amount of jelly appears to be twice the necessary amount. It will squeeze out onto whatever you're trying to keep clean and sticky-free, like your keyboard.
Eat Two, they're small. Seriously, they're small! Don't let the package fool you. They're small.
They're small because the crust and a good portion of the good-bread-part has been removed by the cookie-cutter-ravioli-press type machinery they put those poor sandwiches through just to remove the crust. You didn't think the crusts were cut off by hand by an assembly line of caring motherly figures did you? C'mon…seriously! And crust is important. Everyone knows that all of the vitamins are contained in the skin. Cut it off and you're losing two-thirds of the vitamins and nutrients—just throwing them away…

Ah, but kids love 'em! I noticed that kids love Uncrustables so much that Ikea has created a kid's meal around them. You get one Uncrustables sandwich, chocolate milk, and a chocolate-chip cookie for, like two bucks. Please, mothers, feed your children on your way out of the store…thanks!

Lazy-Ass Cooking: Beef Stroganoff

2010-02-15T22:25:00.000-07:00

stro•gan•off |ˈstrôgəˌnôf; ˈstrō-|
noun
a dish in which the central ingredient, typically strips of beef, is cooked in a sauce containing sour cream.

For clarity's sake, the “beef” included in the Campbell's soup is in chunks and not in strips. Beef is beef, at least the kind I'm talking about here.

So what I'm going to put here is a quasi-recipe, more of a menu suggestion, if you will.

Start out by pouring some water into the bottom of an electric frypan. I just sort of eyeball it as I hoist the unwieldy 2.5-gallon container of bottled water and let 'er splash. Just enough, not too much. I'm a Lazy-Ass and I don't want to have to drain the noodles/macaroni/pasta when it's done.

When I get what I think is a good amount of water in the bottom of the electric frypan I throw in an unspecified amount of salt. I just shake some into my palm and dump it in. It always works out. The right amount comes naturally when you've spent years as a Lazy-Ass Cook.

When the water finally boils, drag yourself away from Facebook, Twitter, or reading entertaining blogs and add the noodles/macaroni/pasta, whatever you want to call it, and whatever shape you want; elbows, shells, fusilli, bowties, spaghetti, you get the point. Purists may use wide flat noodles as with traditional stroganoff. But I must warn the stroganoff purist right now that the next step might just make you throw away a whole pan of noodles so do read ahead. Specific amount? Riiiiight. Again, I just sort of eyeball it. Years of being a Lasy-Ass has paid off in knowing just the right amount to add. It's no big deal, add too much pasta, add more water. Add too little pasta, cook uncovered, dip water out, or drain it when it's cooked. If it were that exact of a science, I wouldn't be cooking it.

Go back to your Facebook, Twitter, or whatever because the pasta will take anywhere from 6-12 minutes to fully cook. Just don't forget you're cooking something. Pasta should never set off the smoke alarm. You might as well do something to entertain yourself while it cooks because it will never cook if you stare at it.

I like to put the lid on while the pasta cooks, mostly because I don't use a lot of water and I'm trying to keep some of that in, also, I don't want to add any humidity to the ambient air that might make my tortilla chips (not used in this recipe) go soggy.

Pasta/macaroni/noodles cooked to your liking? Great. That's the hard part—unless you're a purist and I'm getting to that. Get yourself a can of steak & potato soup. Campbell's makes it, but you might just come across an equivalent store brand of the same flavor that works just as well (not only am I a Lazy-Ass, I'm a Cheap-Ass too). I say steak & potato because it's just that; steak, potatoes, and the Campbell's even has bonus mushroom slices which also belong in stroganoff dishes! Also the savory beef broth/sauce is already in there. It's all good.

Okay, purists, listen up. I just mentioned potatoes. Everyone knows that potatoes don't really belong in stroganoff. At this point you can just pick them all out. I don't care what you do with them because I prefer to ignore tradition and leave them in. They add texture and I‘m a Lazy-Ass.

Open the can of soup and dump it in over the noodles. This is also a good time to add cooked hamburger, leftover beef strips, extra mushrooms, etc. Poke around in your freezer you never know what you'll find once you brush the frost off.

Let this good stuff simmer together for a few moments, stir it around and enjoy the aroma of a hearty meal. The next thing you'll add is sour cream. Regular, lite, fat-free (well, I'm not sure about the fat-free). Use about 1/2 cup. No, I don't measure a half-cup, I eyeball it and give it my best guesstimate. Stir this around as well. Don't get too overambitious because you'll slosh it out onto the counter and you'll have to clean that up too.

When it's heated through, serve it up in paper bowls with plastic spoons gathered from Wendy's the night before when the Lazy-Ass wasn't into cooking at all.

Bone-a-petite!

Up Next: Make a meal with random sh*t from your freezer…

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

2010-02-14T23:43:00.000-07:00

There. I said it. Nothing more to see here…move along now…

It's Someone Else's Baby Now

2010-02-11T23:29:00.000-07:00

A pic I took earlier today at the 2010 Winternationals in Pomona, California.

We have given it up…passed the baton…let someone else have all the fun. Here it is, good ol' trailer #14, occupied by someone else for this 2010 season!

It also happens to be the trailer I was standing on the top of for the aforementioned Space Shuttle launch sighting.

Do we miss it? Meh…a little bit…too soon to tell. We sure miss the people! Maybe more exciting things on the horizon—not that this wasn't exciting, mind you.

-- Posted From My iPhone

Sometimes I Just Can't Resist…

2010-02-11T00:31:00.001-07:00

Extra funny if you've been to West Virginia or Tennessee! Hillbillies are great folk. We stayed at an RV park in Pigeon Forge, TN, run by the lesser-known cousins of the cast of HeeHaw, complete with dog. It was great! The Smoky Mountains are so gorgeous I wouldn't mind being reintarnated there, with the bus of course, and coming back as a hillbilly myself!

Photo: http://www.icanhascheezburger.com
-- Posted From My iPhone

A Splendid Endeavour!

2010-02-08T23:16:00.000-07:00

OK, I stole the title from NASA Television and their video from YouTube, but this is a landmark event—the last night launch of the Space Shuttle…and I'm sad.

It wouldn't mean so much to me if I had never visited Johnson Space Center, Kennedy Space Center, or stumbled by chance upon the John C. Stennis Space Center while traveling through Mississippi.

It certainly wouldn't mean as much if I hadn't taken the Cape Canaveral: Then and Now historical tour of the (now) Kennedy Space Center. The original launch sites for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs are all still there, including the most sombering Launch Pad 34 where the crew of Apollo 1 perished.

It wouldn't have meant as much if we hadn't gotten a bit “lost” on the massive grounds in my little truck and the nice facility security guard pointing us in the right direction and sending us on our way but not without handing us a couple of large coins commemorating STS-117 and STS-119 (STS-117 being the current launch, the missions were out of numerical order at that time).

It wouldn't meant as much to me if I hadn't taken the tour of the crawlerway, the LC 39 Observation Gantry, the massive Vehicle Assembly Building, and a viewing area of Launch Pad 39B complete with the Space Shuttle prepared for launch within the next couple of days. Which reminds me that I have photos, I just need to remember where I “filed” them.

It wouldn't mean so much if we hadn't driven 60 miles one way to watch a late night launch. We had to do this two nights in a row because the launch was scrubbed 30 seconds before takeoff the first night. This was before the beginning of the iPhone. I had my trusty Mac and network card with me to keep tabs on the launch status the whole time. Yes, I'm an über nerd.

It wouldn't mean so much if I hadn't turned around last year one evening in March to see the Shuttle gracefully arcing up into the sky as seen from the roof of our N.H.R.A. merchandise trailer while in Gainesville, Florida.

And there's so much more that I don't remember right off-hand I'm sure, like waiting on the jetty at Port Canaveral for a day launch that was eventually scrubbed, scrubbed again, then rescheduled. And watching a launch on the television while being trapped in West Yellowstone for the summer—it was a lot like ”being there” having ”been there” before.

But I'm sad now and will be even more so when the very last Shuttle mission takes off, thus closing another chapter of the United States in Space. Now what?

Tweezers, Paper, Scissors…Tiny origami models created by Mui-Ling Teh

2010-02-06T20:13:00.000-07:00

I don't like to waste anything, even the tiniest scraps. This, however, is one of the most incredible uses of tiny pieces of paper—not necessarily scrap—that I have ever seen! If my eyes were better…much better…I would try it just to prove I could do it to. However, this will remain one of those “don't try this at home…” things as far as I'm concerned. I'm blind enough already!See the full gallery and story from the Telegraph U.K. here. It's just incredible!

How Embarrassing!

2010-02-04T00:31:00.000-07:00

Now you're just talkin' trash!

Photo: http://www.icanhascheezburger.com
-- Posted From My iPhone

Tell Me: are the Prices too High?

2010-01-31T19:45:00.000-07:00

Is it wrong to insist on quality?

(Link to The Big Ass Dude Store)

Over the past few months we have been creating our own clothing line. It has been neither quick nor easy. In fact, it would be scary to even look at the time taken to create each individual piece. As it stands, the lowest price I can possibly make one of these awesome shirts for is $75.00 with the average fully-embroidered shirt in the $85-$90.00 range, and technically, that's the wholesale price.

I just can't bring myself to sell cheap crap at cheap prices, or worse, cheap crap at expensive prices. There's some bad business juju right there! I say offer the highest quality at the best price possible. The prices I set are the best prices possible. Is that so wrong?

Like jewelry, each piece is finely handcrafted (with a little help from a machine, I'm not totally crazy) with the utmost attention to detail. I know, because I do the details. I very much enjoy and take pride in what I do. However, these are not mass-production pieces nor will they ever be. This is what I was hoping would set us apart from the rest of the crowd. In fact, I'm lucky to complete two shirts a day. So with that in mind, this is what I have been trying to do:

I want to use the highest-quality materials available. I'm not talking cultivated silk or anything, but I am talking good, heavy, noticeably better- and thicker-feeling 5-1/4 oz. easy-care poly/cotton blend twill. I have had samples from several different suppliers, and I do get them at wholesale rate:

The cheapest shirts were so thin they had only one side! I have attempted to embroider on them and it is a nightmare trimming afterwards. It's almost impossible to not cut the shirt in the finishing process! I have seen this same type of shirt screen printed. The shirt is so thin that the ink bleeds right through to the back side. That's not good. The sizes also seem to run on the small size—they run at least one size small.

The next cheapest shirts are okay, and are still on the thin side. They have obvious shirt tails front and back and the buttons are natural/brown instead of black. In addition, the collars do button down, which is a nice feature, and much dressier, but I doubt that they are extremely durable. One problem I had with stitching on these was that the fabric tended to pucker under normal stitching conditions and I needed to take extra care to stabilize well and pull tightly. Their sizing is on the generous side and run pretty true to size, maybe a tiny bit larger. Single pocket on left chest, no button.

My favorite shirts, and the ones I insist on using are the Dickies® (yes, name brand) style 1574 work/shop shirt. They are the 5-1/4 oz (whatever that means) heavy, but not too heavy, twill fabric. The sizing is generous and they have a good roomy fit. The fabric is a dream to stitch on. Sometimes I wonder if I need backing/stabilizer at all. These are by far some of the highest-quality shirts I have worked with. I have no doubt that they will be durable and last a very, very long time. Two button-flap pockets on the front—two!

Here is an example of the Dickies® work shirts with our own BigAss Bear logo.

I have had a long standing history of undervaluing my work, especially when creating beads or jewelry. So could I be undervaluing my work here too? Perhaps, but my gut tells me no. A fully-embroidered Tommy Bahama® shirt retails for around $260.00. The embroidery is awesome and the work is very fine. The shirts themselves, however are 100% silk and are marked "dry clean only" (well, that and it is Tommy Bahama® after all). How practical is that? I guess if you would pay $260.00 for a shirt, you can also pay to have it dry cleaned.

I would like the world to know that I have the same type quality embroidery work as a Tommy Bahama® but at a way more affordable price, but it's slow to catch on. BigAl wonders if we should lower the price because "nobody is buying" and he's in a sort of panic. I prefer to not back down on price because I feel the rate is reasonable and fair for the quality.

Store Remodel Complete!

2010-01-31T12:53:00.001-07:00

I finally got the Big Ass Dude store looking halfway decent and filled with product. There is still more product to add! We're going "on the road" in the morning and leaving the fine city of Anaheim for a while. It costs a bundle to stay here and we're working too much to go over to Disneyland every-other-day.

A Little Maintenance Goes a Long Way

2010-01-27T23:55:00.001-07:00

As with any learning curve there can be a lot of “oopsies” along the way. Now that I finally got a fairly complex job to run beautifully, it's time to make the stitches even better. I have driven the needle into the hoop a few times as well as run the foot into the side of the hoop. This can wreak havoc on the fine adjustments to the machine at best!

So into the Big Bad Barudan I went. I now know which covers I can remove to do what is necessary—thankfully I don't have to do that very often! It takes three sizes of hex keys (Allen wrenches), a Phillips screwdriver, and two sizes of standard slot screwdrivers to do everything I need to do. A flashlight and a friend were listed as “optional”.

The picture shows the inside guts of the machine where the needle bars live. The needle depth adjustment was really off and to set that correctly there are two screws that need to be loosened to make and adjustment of about 2 millimeters! I just made sure to crank them down really good when I was done so it wouldn't come loose again. On many machines each needle has to be adjusted individually. I have 15 needles, I think I would still be adjusting them right now! Luckily, Barudan has a single adjustment that takes care of all of the needles with just those two screws.

That isn't cream cheese frosting up there behind the take-up levers. That's some kind of Teflon or silicone lubricant. Or maybe it's cream cheese frosting. I'm not going to taste it, let alone touch it!

Next was adjusting the hook timing underneath which went pretty well considering that I had to manually move the needle up and down by pushing the pulley belt located at the back of the machine! I could not have pulled this off (pun intended) if I didn't have long arms. I had to work the belt at the back while leaning to the front to watch the needle and hook assembly. I guess this is where the optional “friend” comes in to help—and hold the “optional” flashlight! I can tell you, the friend part was “optional” but the flashlight part was not.

I haven't turned the machine on yet to see if what I did helped. If nothing else, the learning curve flattened out a little bit more!

A Little Bit Naughty—But VERY Nice!

2010-01-26T20:27:00.000-07:00

A custom piece that I stitched today. Of course BigAl created the art and the digital file, I made the magic happen on the embroidery machine. It turned out way better than expected. Usually we have to make some color change somewhere because it turned out to be lighter, darker, or a different tone than anticipated. This went well, very well. A minor easily-fixed file glitch that was all. Was it easy to do? Nope, but if it were easy everyone would be doing it. Enjoy!

Here Comes the Rain Again...

2010-01-19T23:39:00.000-07:00

Heavy rain has been predicted for Southern California for the next couple of weeks. I have seen the rain here before. It looks worse than it is. I remember looking out and saying, “I'm not walking to work in that!” But by the time I was ready for work, the rain would have stopped and the river flowing down the street would have receded and gone its merry way down the storm drain.

New year, new season, new RV park, new circumstances. Yesterday, January 18th, the raining had officially begun. Now I know why they call the place Anaheim Harbor.

The neighbors and the RV park manager wander around in the floodwaters. To the left out of the frame is the lowest point in the park as well as the storm drain and pump. Unfortunately with nearly a month's worth of rainfall in a couple of hours, the drain and pump could not keep up.

Yesterday's storm ended, the sun came out, and all was well…and wet. Nice and peaceful actually.

In Florida and Texas we had to pay extra for a lake view RV spot. Here it's included! The water had all drained off in a couple of hours and was gone completely by sundown.

Today was a different story. The rain began early and was steady throughout most of the day. The water level was much higher this time. I looked nervously across the way where the water level was rising on the Happy Hyundai II. I wondered if the doors were watertight. I was not looking forward to drying out carpets and floor mats! Also, notice the potted plant in the foreground, it's floating away!

Same situation in the other direction with the scooter. The water was creeping up. Neither one of us wanted to go out there. We don't own galoshes or any rain gear. We also know that this wasn't just rain water. In an RV park, all sewer drains are open. The draining water was bound to be mixed with raw sewage…ewww…yet another reason to worry about the car flooding!

Just like yesterday, the sun came out and all was well. Today even included a rainbow. All was almost not well, however, there were tornado warnings for the area. Warning meaning a tornado had actually been seen. Wait, are we in Kansas, Arkansas, or Florida again? I'm not too alarmed by tornado warnings these days. Been there, done that. There's something about watching a tornado form in the clouds that is both spooky and mesmerizing at the same time.

The floodwaters are at peace once again. Well, for us anyway, they weren't getting any higher. To the poor neighbors that own the storage shed, maybe not so much peace. Not only is their washer and dryer in there, there were also stored items. Bummer. These water took forever to recede today. I thought for sure the pump and drain had quit working. I'm glad it stopped raining because I wasn't wading out in the pathogenic pond to get to the car, even if I was out of coffee. Well, for coffee I might risk it. Again the water was mostly gone just after sundown leaving me free to go to the grocery store. There was no water in the car, thankfully.

Tweet Me, Sweetheart!

2010-01-19T13:09:00.001-07:00

From USA Today: Sweethearts candy adds a social-media message: Tweet Me.

A great combination of two of my favorite things, Twitter and sugar! The newest short phrases of "TWEET ME", "TEXT ME", and "LOVE BUG" (ala Jonas Brothers not the Disney Movie, USA Today was quick to point out).

Necco Wafers fans agree, the delightful cornstarch and sugar confection still has the same flavors like ‘lipstick’ and ‘Rolaids’, and remains the candy you love to give away—whether it be to send a personal message to someone special, or give away a chalky candy that you received altogether much of.

Interestingly enough, the article states that the phrase “BITE ME” was a fail last year, with it's tie-in to the Twilight movie. Apparently some sticks-in-the-mud complained that it was a bit too “sexually suggestive” this year they will probably pick on “TWEET ME” as well. Perhaps they themselves just need a good “BITE” or “TWEET” to help unwedge that stick.

Procrastination: Or Why I Haven't Updated the Blog

2010-01-16T00:42:00.001-07:00

Actually, I have made two attempts at updates. The first, got a little bit long, then I realized that I should have been taking photos to make the points more interesting. I was 3/4 finished when I had that idea, so it went on hold.

The second attempt was a full post with pictures. Took a lot of time to create. The app crashed while posting and I lost it all. Discouraging.

-- Posted From My iPhone

Got Distracted by Sparkly Cats!

2010-01-10T11:44:00.000-07:00

Leave it to Swarovski® to combine two of my favorite things, sparkly crystal and cats! I know that the Swarovski® House of Cats campaign was more of a 2009 thing, but being in a bus with absolutely no display space for anything, I have turned a blind eye to the collectibles market because I am, indeed, a “collector”.

Yes, I have been distracted in high-end malls by these sparkly kitties on display at the Swarkie stores, and their "reasonable" prices as far as collectibles go, but have exercised self-control to be proud of!

This darling Swarovski® promo crossed my inbox and I just wanted to share.

Ah, maybe someday…someday…

Creepy Enough for Ya?

2010-01-08T08:14:00.001-07:00

Clowns are creepy, and this clown is really creepy!

Now this represents the weirdness that Big Ass Dude products will be known for.

Of course this one is a test run to see how the colors and stitches all work out. This image alone is 95,000 stitches. The "Class Clown" design will have wild fluorescent green locks in the final design.

It will probably be offered on black, white, maybe charcoal grey, button-front shirts, of course. Never on a t-shirt or sweatshirt.

Speaking of shirts, a comparison of shirt brands coming up soon. I have some interesting findings!

174,249 Stitches. Our Most Ambitious Project to Date!

2010-01-01T22:57:00.000-07:00

Just a quick photo from my iPhone. We have stitched out several "test" eagles to work out stitch patterns. Big Al was trying to cut the stitch count down to cut run length but too much detail was being lost.

Not only is this the most ambitious project we have done to date, it is also the biggest shirt we have done, 6X or XXXXXXL!

The stitch count of this one element exceeds the total number of stitches on any one of our previous shirts—174,249 so far. Put simply, that's a helluva lotta stitches on one big ass shirt! And it still has three more trips to the machine to go.

We started with each feather being done in a plain satin stitch but we questioned the overall quality and durability because long stitches can snag and pull out. The stitch count was somewhere between 83,000 and 84,000. After a couple more runs of this pattern, each with its own “tweaks”, the stitch count raised, lowered, and has now almost doubled.

Now each feather and detail is individually “sculpted” with the stitches running in different directions to better represent actual feathers. The thread is very shiny (hence the glow around the head and feet) and each feather catches the light differently depending on the angle.

It reminds me of those foil prints that were popular about 20 years ago, perhaps? Well, not sure it was 20 years, but we still had some in the old gift shop and a lot of that crap went back 20 years…but that'a a whole different topic.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS! There are NO lame gifts!

2009-12-25T09:10:00.000-07:00

And Merry New Year! Yes, I like to be different, or rather indifferent. I feel like I have been assigned to write an essay on “What Christmas Means to Me”. I don't have any clever content to swipe as I did on Thanksgiving day, so I have to, sort of, “wing it’.

I have chosen to no longer participate in the “holiday hype” specifically in the area of gift-giving. This decision isn't out of pure Scroogieness, it's out of pure survival from stress and holiday depression. You see, I think of gifts differently than your average bear. I always believed that a “gift” was something that someone gave because they thought enough of you to give you something—regardless of what that something might be. In other words, in my world there are no lame gifts. Let me repeat that: There are no lame gifts.

I thought everyone felt this way. I think my true “there is no Santa” revelation came when I finally realized that not everyone believes that a gift…is a gift. I used to put my heart and soul into gift selection and giving only to be met with the “lame gift” response. It still baffles me to this day how a gift can be considered lame. It's a gift for God's sake!

I have never participated in “regifting”, I have never taken a gift back to the store for a refund, although I might have exchanged for a different size once or twice, but that's about it. I have never been disappointed by a gift or not getting “what I wanted”, because that's not what gifting is about, right?

I have had this belief for as long as I can remember, even as a child. Every gift that I have received, regardless of the occasion, has been wanted, loved, and cherished. In other words, a gift given to me, is always more than just a physical object—it is a symbol of the thoughts and intent of the giver.

I have always had a “sixth sense”, if you will, of psychometry: the supposed ability to discover facts about an event or person by touching inanimate objects associated with them. It's not strong, I can't find a dead body by holding a victim's watch (or can I? I have never tried). When given a gift, I am on some barely perceptible level, in touch with the giver and their feelings. It's weird. It's not like I hear voices or anything, there's just a connection that I can't explain.

Gifts given from the heart, are felt as such. Gifts given out of stress and worry if it's the right gift, will they like it, what will they think of me, etc., unfortunately also convey that as well. Same with gifts given out of obligation. Obligatory gifts rarely come fom the heart.

Anyway, my Christmas rant may make sense, and it may not—I realize it got a little weird there, but then I'm a little weird as well.

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all, a good fright!” ~Jack Skellington, Nightmare Before Christmas

“No flash pictures please! ¡Por favor, no tome fotografias con flash!” ~Disneyland Haunted Mansion

Catnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

2009-12-24T01:23:00.001-07:00

I'm sorry, I had to. I'm an equal opportunity offender. Besides that, it really made me Laugh Out Loud! From http://www.icanhascheezburger.com

-- Posted From My iPhone

Bushwhackers: The Beaver is Back!

2009-12-24T00:12:00.001-07:00

I did fix the machine. Even though I thought I had replaced the cutter parts correctly, I had them backwards. Stupid exploded parts diagram. If the washer was to go on first, why didn't the picture indicate that the washer went on first? This did require a call to our service technician in Salt Lake City. It didn't take more than two minutes on the phone for me to get the problem corrected and we were on our way again!

Here is another new idea that we have done in the past couple of days. Again, BigAl creates them in the software, I just bring the designs to life on the machine. He's software, I'm hardware.

Up first the Bushwhackers design. This is one we couldn't totally agree upon. He wanted to use the beaver, I wanted it to look like some kind of retro logo. He came up with "Our Motto: Carpe Mufficus Nonicus". I had other ideas but that's the one he liked. I won't explain it here but just go to Uncyclopedia.wiki and look it up for yourself.
Also the bottom line "Howdy Folks! I'm Howie Feltersnatch". Think about that one for a second. Go ahead…I'll wait…
Okay, that out of the way, I said, "Oh no, I should have made the little razor pink or aqua like a lady razor in his little hand".
Big Al says, "No, the black razor is fine, and it's a girl beaver anyway."
"Oh, a girl beaver. How do we know it's a girl? Where are the eyelashes, at least?"
"Eyelashes? Oh. Oh well."
Me, after a couple of minutes. "Besides if it's a girl beaver, what's up with the name 'Howie'?"
"Oh CRAP, stop stitching while I think about this for a minute…"
Tick-tock-tick-tock…
Finally I said, "Just leave it alone, it's fine, and it works anyway. Keep it subtle, y'know."

So this is how it will stay. It's on one of his shirts anyway. He wanted to know if I could stitch on a shirt with a back pleat. I told him it was possible but it wouldn't look good. We just had to do it to prove whether it would work or not. Yeah, it worked, but you can see the pleats underneath. There's another motif that still needs to be added to the front but it requires tearing down the machine so I can use different holding arms. I like to get a few projects saved up before I switch to a smaller hoop anyway.

Machine Down & Six Degrees of Bacon

2009-12-21T23:14:00.009-07:00

Ugh! The Big Bad Barudan is having a bit of a problem cutting thread. I replaced the cutter assembly with one that I found in the little blue toolbox of uselessness I have no way of telling if the part I replaced it with is new or used. It was just in the box. I took a chance. I kinda failed. Hopefully I will be able to find the part that I need tomorrow.

But while troubleshooting the cutter I noticed that one of the parts, known as the "thread away hook" was not moving down to hook the thread. I could hear the solenoid and it was moving, it just wasn't moving down to catch the thread. I began to look at the mechanism that moved that hook. I found a nut missing, but it has probably been missing the whole time, I'll replace that easily. But still the hook wasn't moving down to catch the thread. It was hitting on something that was preventing downward movement.

Big Al asked if “…that bar was supposed to be bent”. WHAT bar? I didn't see any bar (go away!). Well, the bar, also known as the “thread guard disk bracket”, probably so they can charge more, was indeed bent as if the sewing head had smashed into something and was preventing the “thread away hook” from coming down. This was very, very odd. I have been using all 15 needles (except #5 because I have to replace the take up spring on that one) for weeks and have not had the thread away hook not come down. In fact, I used those needles earlier today with no problem. Now I have a bad memory, especially short-term, but I know I'm not missing any time from today and I know I haven't slammed the sewing head into anything today…or ever.

So I took the guard bracket off, bent it back into shape, replaced it, adjusted it, and it's fine. The cutter still won't cut though. I can't work if I can't cut!
On another note, the projects…I got tired of waiting for sunshine and opportunity and just shot these with my phone. It's good enough for the blog anyway.

Introducing the “Six Degrees of Bacon”. There's that Hog again, but this time touting the virtues of bacon in all if it's many preparations. There is a lot of hand work in this one. The word “BACON” is applique, the Hog is applique, and everything else is stitched. Hundred of thousands of stitches! And you might already be aware of my laser cutter dilemma—I don't actually have a laser cutter so I had to cut all of the applique pieces by hand before they could be stitched down.

The front of the shirt has an embroidered hit over the left front pocket. The famous and ever-so-popular “Press Button, Receive Bacon”. You've seen it before, but never quite like this. This too is embroidery over applique.

You know what really makes me laugh? The fact that my photographs here totally suck! They get the point across don't they? Of course I would never put these photos in the store, but for here, they do the job. Besides, if I let my own perfectionism take over I'd mess with these photos forever and a blog entry might never be made in the first place.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, (or the bacon is out of the pan, so to speak), here is the same same design done on white, or as close to white as these photos are going to get at my current ambition level:

I still have a lot of threads to clip and backing to cut away from these so stray threads in weird places are not part of the completed design. I wasn't even ambitious enough to use Photoshop to edit them out. In fact, I have two more designs that I just am not going to get to right now. I think this is quite enough.

Just a Bit of Fluff to Keep Things Current

2009-12-20T23:51:00.002-07:00

I'm not sure how many days ago I last posted an update. I have been really busy. There are two or three new designs we have been working on, just getting the finer details down and getting the shirts finished up and photographed. I decided against photo "status reports" on these designs as the front and back work together as a whole. In many ways it would be like revealing the punch line then telling the joke.

Since today was a "lazy" Sunday, we did little more than think up a tag line for an existing project. It wasn't easy coming up with a line we both could agree upon. In the end I just conceded and "helped along" with the idea Big Al had. I hope it will be okay. I don't know. We keep quibbling over semantics—things aren't always written the same way they are said.

I'm not getting a ton on hits to the website, but then again I'm not promoting the hell out of it either. I have been so busy with so many other things. I need to keep the machine running as much as possible which half the time is a challenge of epic proportions. There are so many variable involved from thickness of fabric and/or stabilizer, how many layers, the size of the needle, and the type of thread, just to name a few. There appears to be an "off" switch for the machine located in the seat of my chair. This ass-activated stop switch has been most troublesome. Every time I sit down and pick up my computer, the machine stops for one reason or another; a color change, a thread break, out of bobbin thread, sometimes for no reason at all other than to keep me on my toes. It's frustrating.

Needless to say when I sit down and try to promote, the machine stops, I get up, fix the problem, sit back down, try to remember where I left off, find that place, then the machine stops again. I'm sure this seems to happen a lot more than it actually happens.

I have a lot more to share in the days coming up. We really don't celebrate Christmas and haven't for years so we'll probably be working and/or going over to Disneyland like we do for most major "holidays".

Big Ass Dude — Live!

2009-12-17T00:56:00.005-07:00

The moment we have been working for these past few months has arrived! We have a store! We have designed, stitched, photographed, and now we are LIVE! This morning I took the payment gateways online and I have been uploading and listing product as we get it produced.

The new storefront:

Big Ass Dude Online Store

Look for the banner ad at the bottom of my blog page soon. I need to make the time to do that to. Yikes!

Thank You Mamm…May I Have Another?

2009-12-14T21:49:00.007-07:00

Breasts, bosom(s), bust, chest, boobs, knockers, bazooms, hooters…

I am both elated and disappointed to say that today's mammogram was not nearly as bad as I remembered them to be. Elated because it wasn't bad at all, and disappointed because I really don't have anything to bitch about.

Of course I had major anxiety about the event, not because I'm afraid they might find something but because it might hurt. I go to great lengths to avoid pain when possible. Many years ago my doctor did, indeed, find a lump, a mass, call it what you will.

Because I have a family history of breast cancer a mammogram was swiftly ordered. That my first, and previous, mammogram was some ordeal! It was the kind the cartoons and jokes were written about. I swear my boob was indeed in that vice for, like, five minutes. I don't recall them doing both sides, maybe they did, one was bad enough! It hurt, it was uncomfortable, and I had no idea that I could squish down to about a quarter-inch flat (and I'm sure that both of you didn't want to know either, but now you do—sorry).

In the end, the suffering was for naught, and the mammogram was useless. The tissue was too dense to see anything. I had to have an ultrasound after that. I'll end the story saying the lump was removed, it was not cancer, and I haven't had another one since (that I know of).

Yup, this pic pretty much explains how I remember it. Today, however, was different. Big fancy machine, it was like something out of Star Trek…and talk about quick! And there wasn't even that quarter-inch pancake squish that I so dreaded. Compression was down to about three-quarters of an inch to an inch, max. The compression, while uncomfortable, only lasted a few seconds…about as long as I could hold my breath, because she asked me to.

And all the fun little stickers I got put on me so the doctor could tell what-was-what. I especially got a kick out of the stickers with the tiny bb's embedded in them so the doctor could “tell where the nipple was”. I was hoping the doctor could tell just from the shape, but what do I know?

It didn't go without problems. My good ol' right breast (sorry again you two), was again too dense for a good image to be taken, so I had do-overs several times for that. I was actually in an out of there and back in the car by 11:30, my actual appointment time.

I told Big Al that if I had to have a mammogram, he had to have a prostate exam. He replied by saying ,“This isn't a tit-for-tat…y'know.” Ah, he never fails to come up with them.

Anyway, results will be in the mail, allow 2-3 weeks. I already know they aren't going to find anything. Oh well, it's done. I think every two years is the agenda right now. Oh joy.

Not One of Our Projects

2009-12-12T22:33:00.006-07:00

Oh. My. God!

Sometimes I believe that I can be more creative than the average schmo, but there are times when someone else's creativity indisputably is the winner. I have spent many-a-night—before the sleeping pills take effect—thinking of creative uses for the Big Bad Barudan. This never entered my mind.

It is exactly what it looks like it is. Not in a million sleep-induced nights would I have even thought of doing this. It's pretty cool, tho' I would have had it say, “I like corn dogs” or “I love bacon”. I mean, is there anything quite as great as toilet paper? (well, bacon, but I could probably still survive without [shudder] bacon.)

This lovely creation comes from FlatOutFun's Etsy shop out of Astoria, Oregon. They'll embroider just about anything you like on a roll of the finest fluffy stuff just for you. Okay, I will to, but they have the logistics of the project already figured out so I defer to them…

FlatOutFun's Etsy Shop

They specialize in "fun" T.P. gag gifts like a roll for that special someone on that “1st (paper) anniversay”, or if you don't want to wait a whole year they have “Bride” and “Groom” T.P. roll sets. Other items of note are the “Emergency Roll”, imported “Lé Toilet PaPer Wee Wee”, and the always popular, always funny “Wipe Out”.

Check out FlatOutFun for embroidered T.P., but check with me if you need anything else embroidered. Remember, I do that too.

Trimmin' Mah Beaver…and Other Stuff

2009-12-11T22:24:00.011-07:00

Isn't He Cute?
Well, what did you think I was talking about?
This is one of our newest “test stitchouts” There are no green polka dot fabric shirts anywhere around here…but the remnant was cheap and I just needed to run the file. I also didn't have the right colors of fabric or thread but this is close enough. Hey, I could have done him in pig-hog pink or all grey.

This is our most ambitions appliqué project to date. Lots of pieces to place, tack down, and trim. I have a nice special set of sharp scissors to get all the details. It doesn't look like much right now.

Now all the fabric pieces are in place. The beauty of appliqué work is that a shape of colored fabric can be put down in lieu of thousands of stitches as a background. We figured out how to do this fairly fast.

As you can see the stitching adds detail and dimension to the appliqué pieces. This went well until quitting time last night where the particular color needle I was using kept detecting “false thread breaks”. That's how I knew to quit for the night. I don't troubleshoot really well close to midnight.

The following morning I found the take up spring for that needle to be completely…er…sprung. They get fatigued after a while and need to be replaced. I didn't want to replace it just then. I just pulled that color thread to the next needle and continued with the stitching. I wonder how long I can procrastinate on replacing that spring. I guess that depends on the next design.

Then there's the cursed design from the other day. On the red and black color-blocked shirt. It looks okay, but I really, really wanted the teeth stitched and not appliquéd. Rather than have the horns, beard, and eye flames the same contrasting color, I decided to do the horns and beard in red and the flames in the eyes as orange. We'll come up with something else to complete this shirt back.

For example, “something else” could mean the “Ride Like the Devil” tagline above or below, and perhaps some nice tribal-ish swirls like on this white size 5X shirt. This white shirt is finally finished. I thought it was finished before the swirls. The swirls were very scary to line up and have meet in the center. I let out a “WOOO!” and did a happy dance when the two designs “kissed” in the center. I had no way of knowing if they would or not, I only had measurements…and those don't always work.

The Dreaded Triple-M and Grocery Hell

2009-12-10T16:37:00.004-07:00

I have been preparing for the dreaded triple-M this upcoming Monday Morning's Mammogram thusly:

Many women are afraid of their first mammogram, but there's no need to worry. By taking a few minutes each day for a week preceding the exam, and doing the following practice exercises, you will be totally prepared. And you can do this right in your own home!

Exercise 1:
Open your refrigerator door and insert one breast between the door and the main box. Have one of your strongest friends slam the door shut and lean on the door for good measure. Hold that position for five seconds (while you hold your breath). Repeat again, in case the first time wasn't effective enough.

Exercise 2:
Visit your garage at 3 am when the temperature of the cement floor is just perfect. Take off your clothes and lie comfortably on the floor with one breast wedged under the rear tire of the car. Ask a friend to slowly back the car up until your breast is sufficiently flattened and chilled. Turn over and repeat for the other breast.

Exercise 3:
Freeze two metal bookends overnight. Strip to the waist. Invite a stranger into the room. Press the bookends against one of your breasts. Smash the bookends together as hard as you can.

Set an appointment with the stranger to meet next year and do it again!!

In other news...

I have got to start going to the grocery store by myself!

Chips, drinks, snacks, sleeping pills (on sale), five pieces of fruit, and a frozen lasagna—$114 and change.

The big question about four hours later will be, "So…what are we doing for dinner?".

I don't plan menus. I don't even like going to that particular grocery store where the produce is so very fresh and crisp because they keep the entire store at the temperature of a gigantic walk-in refrigerator. This does not work for me as all of my meal planning is done wandering the grocery store aisles. It's hard to concentrate when my extremities are going numb! And the second reason, shopping with Big Al. I wander the aisles gathering ingredients and he takes off with the cart to go find whatever snack food he's looking for. I'm generally juggling bags, boxes, and cans, searching every aisle looking for his cart-pushing ass. And usually he is in line before I even get finished.

Yes, I really need to suck it up, get in the car, and go find a (different) grocery store all by myself. And maybe I should take a list too.

Fat Boys, Hogs, and the Devil

2009-12-09T21:29:00.019-07:00

In the "to be continued…" department, the FAT BOY shirts have been enhanced. The pig-bulldog has been reworked to look more like a pig-hog and has been added underneath the Ride a (real) FAT BOY. We have pinky-fleshy shades so I didn't have to use grey again. That WAS just a test, after all.
Notice, if you can, the earring. We were able to do this in shiny gold metallic thread…mmm, so shiny and sparkly!

The front of the shirt has a left-front above pocket hit that says HOG using the pig-hog eyes and nose from the back design. I really didn't want a Harley logo there.

Besides, the HOG is way more fun!

The final touch is a hit above the left front hem with the "big ass dude" logo. No, the photo is not upside down, I had to stitch it upside down because of how the shirt had to be placed in the hoop. That's a lot of stitch work for just one shirt, but that's our goal. We want to make really cool stitched, not screen-printed shirts with some fun built in!

I'm working on these shirts and all I can think about is going for BBQ!

Today's project has been completely cursed…and curse I did! There was a slight redesign for the devil-skull to make it slightly larger as the new frame would accommodate it. Lining shirts up on the new frame is much easier than using a traditional hoop. The shirt lays flat on the tabletop and then is clipped in on four sides. If I have placement measurements they are much easier to line up because I don't have to worry about the fabric shifting as I'm down on "all fours" pressing the hoop with both hands and both knees.

The center of the devil-skull design turned out to not exactly be the center of the shirt. This really matters as it is a panel shirt with a red back panel, black sides and red front panels. If I'm off on either the right or left, it's going to show so accuracy here is a must. As usual the devil-skull design was as big as possible and there is a very limited area it will fit into. If I'm off to the left or right the machine will just beep at me anyway.

It was going along pretty well, I had everything programmed correctly, the appliqué was easy to cut out, and everything was going beautifully—then there was a strange noise. I looked over and it was still sewing, no problem, I let it go. A couple minutes later I wandered over and yelled, "What the f*ck?!" then put another quarter in the swear jar. The right devil-skull horn was stitched up and to the right of where it should have been. Then I remembered the noise and that the machine had hit a limit, skipped, and the pantograph was thrown out of alignment. I wondered what it could have hit. I hadn't left my magnifying glass on the table to be trapped again. Then I found the bottom of the shirtwound up in the gears of the right-hand side of the machine. After making another deposit to the swear jar, I pulled and tugged trying the whole time to not rip the shirt. I freed the shirt, eventually no holes or tears, but a little bit of grease.

Then it took me, an ultra-sharp pair of scissors, a pair of tweezers, and a magnifying glass to unpick the stitches that were out of place. Yay me! Then I had to find "center" again. Since the machine had skipped forward a few gears I had to run the pantograph to the right a few times to "knock it back into place". Then I had to find the center of the design, realign the needle, etc. This takes some time!

Next, I was running the machine along and something just didn't seem right. Why were the teeth being outlined when I hadn't placed the applique yet? This was odd to me yet BigAl said, "Trust Me". I still thought something was wrong. Maybe one of the kernels of popcorn he was eating got lodged in his brain. But it finished out. I thought he was going to make the devil-skull teeth a stitched background rather than appliqué. He didn't. He added more top-stitching…ugh!

Need to make appropriate corrections to this project tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow.

Something else happened but I can't remember what it was.

I Realize That I Have no iIfe...but We Have Designs!

2009-12-05T22:07:00.008-07:00

I have no life. But did I ever? Nothing new there. I have always been at work on one project or another. The difference is, when I'm self-directed I become distracted and often start a new project when I realize that it isn't going to be as perfect as I originally pictured it. Left to myself for motivation, I never ever get any project done.

Now that I'm working on a project in conjunction with Big Al, he pushes me to keep going—to keep going long after the novelty of the new project has worn off. At least we're starting off on "equal ground" with this one. He's new to the software, I'm new to the Big Bad Barudan. We both work along and learn at our own different paces.

I was hoping to get something of a "break" today. We needed to move on to the next design, for variety if nothing else, and we didn't have the thread colors needed to accomplish this. But that's okay. It's just a "stitch-out" to see where the errors are in the file, what can be changed, will the design fit within machine parameters, and overall what the finished piece might look like

So we have a devil-skull, now we have a pig-bulldog:
It's supposed to be a pig, a HOG to be exact. I didn't have any fleshtone thread, I didn't have any pink. I had multiple shades of grey. So this is a grey pig, not a bulldog.
But then, maybe it's a nice pinkish hog with a really bad case of the swine flu, eh? (yeah, a real groaner that one was)
Anyway, it really is an awesome design based upon two appliqué pieces with the rest being embroidery. I will be picking up the colors I need for the "real thing" on Monday.
Do I think I'm going to get a break tomorrow? Nope. There is a NEW file ready to be loaded in the Big Bad Barudan. It's the official Big Ass Dude logo. More on that later.
RIDE A (real) FAT BOY, revised.
I had Big Al move the "real" and insertion carat to the other side for "ride a" rather than the old version where it was implied that "real" was being inserted between the "F" and "A" characters. I also had him fatten up the stitching on the letters to make for a higher quality appliqué. I beleive that there will be something below this text on the shirt as well. Big Al was working on files today with a pig, a bear, and a beaver, E-I-E-I-O…

I just want a little time off and some rest.

Long Day, Darwinism, and a New Design

2009-12-04T14:21:00.006-07:00

Hit the ground running today. Woke up late, so much to do! Visited an embroidery shop with a combined total of about 90 sewing heads. They have machines that have 18 heads running at once on the same project. That's about, oh, 18 times faster than I can run a job so we got a bid from them. My job has been outsourced already.

Then off to the local supplier of thread and parts. Got a frame to use with the Big Bad Barudan instead of a hoop. The stitching area is much larger, but a table top is required. With the table top in place, I can't check thread tensions. Frustrating. Luckily, I got most of the adjustments made before I started to run the job.

Inhaled a slice of reheated pizza—DiGorno, not delivery—which was fairly easy until I got to the dry-gaggy crusty part. I think that will be stuck in my throat until Tuesday. And, as usual, burned the roof of my mouth on the molten cheese. Nevertheless, it was deeelissshus!

Ever do something so stupid you are amazed that you have survived Darwinian evolution thus far? I just had one of those moments. I've been doing some routine maintenance on the Big Bad Barudan; oiling, checking tensions, etc. The bobbin tension seemed a little off so I thought I'd clean the bobbin case. I wanted to look for lint and/or thread in the tiny areas and I needed light. What better light than direct natural sunlight? I took my bobbin case and my big ol' magnifying glass and lounged in the soft chair and started to look for stray fibers in the case. Soon I felt a burning sensation on my right leg. The super-X magnifying portion of the lens had focused the sunlight perfectly on my leg and it really started to burn! I now feel so sorry for all those ants…and that spider…

I also think a couple of hours later I realized that I had not taken any medication today. Last time I checked, though, they weren't smart pills.

Last night we created a new design. Well, part of it is new…things just keep evolving. This is stitched on a dark grey shirt.
The text "FAT BOY" has been added. Actually, it was the only part of the whole design that would fit inside the current hoop. It wasn't without its problems. I was not incredibly happy inserting the "FAT BOY" text above the already stitched devil-skull head. It's a pain in the ass!
The absolute placement of something digital is easy…X-axis, Y-axis. The placement of a shirt in a hoop and having it stay that way while securing it down is not so easy. I have a crease, two lines on the hoop and a measuring tape. I rarely get it right the first try, but maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist about it.

And now for the humor side of things…Big Al's design. I guess I didn't look at the file too closely before he stitched it out. I see changes that need to be made. It's a great idea, but I like the "FAT BOY" text from last night. This is only the first part of this shirt. There is more to come. The rest of the design is being digitized right now but I'm afraid we don't have the right colors to complete the job. We'll probably go back to using the devil-skull so it actually looks like we're producing something.

We Ran Out of Shirts but Not Ideas!

2009-12-02T21:44:00.002-07:00

We have used up all of the shirts that we bought doing different tests with different colors of thread, appliqué and placement. We'll just go buy more, right? Sure as long as we wanted any color besides black, white, or charcoal grey! I have a black and red color block shirt but it is just crying out for a stitch with red thread. I have maroon, not red. I need red thread.

We have other shirts, fisherman-style with a back cape flap, but found that I could not do a vertical hoop on the flap without unstitching the shirt itself. Can't rotate the design because it won't fit in the hoop. What to do?

Make up a different design, of course! Big Al is in the middle of that. In the meantime I can trim the loose threads on the shirts I have, prepare appliqué pieces, etc. But I probably won't because I'll forget to do it.

Murphy has been living in my machine today anyway. Constantly stopping for one dumb reason or another. But since I'm the queen of troubleshooting and have no problem with RTFM, I eventually got the problems solved. If we don't get shirts or a new design ready soon, I will have to go in and swap out some worn parts and check the cutter assembly. Ooh, fun!

Experience is What You Get When You Didn't Get What You Wanted

2009-12-01T22:23:00.011-07:00

So I have had the Big Bad Barudan running almost constantly since Saturday morning, excepting the challenging "down times" where I learn more about the machines little tiny parts and how just the simplest thing can make the difference between "working" and "not working".

We have another shirt! This time a 2XL. Little did I realize that it wasn't finished yet. These shirts have to be put into giant embroidery hoops and it is far from easy. It involves putting the hoop, the stabilizer, the shirt, and the top hoop on the floor, and using both hands and both knees I have to get the damned thing perfectly aligned AND tightly inside the hoop.

Today I had to put a whole dollar in the swear jar because I had a shirt hooped, had the pins taken out, was making minor adjustments, and the whole thing popped apart on me.
The devil-skull was hooped vertically. To do the "Ride Like the Devil!" I had to rehoop horizontally. That's where the whole dollar and swear jar thing came in.

This design was done with an appliqué placed in the background. Just the grey skull area. Everything else, beard, horns, teeth, eyes, is entirely stitched. This takes a very, very, very long time. How can we cut the time down? More appliqué work!
In the big embroidery shops they have laser cutters that do the appliqué cutting. We have a really cheap substitute: Me and several types of scissors, an X-acto knife, and a little bit of time. Wish I had a laser cutter tho'.

This doesn't look like much. In fact it looks like Hell (pun intended)! The way the file was set up, I had to lay down the appliqué, stitch, cut, lay down another layer, stitch, cut, lay down the final layer…good times! This time I'm working on a 4XL shirt.

However, if things had worked ideally, it would have taken less time to to the appliqué work than it would have taken to fill the same areas with stitching.

It doesn't look too bad now all of the appliqué elements are stitched. It did save some time, but had a whole new set of challenges built right in. And I think Big Al is getting sick of this design…he was working on a new one today.

We Have a Shirt!

2009-11-30T00:08:00.005-07:00

Big Al is the digital side of our operation. He manipulates most of the artwork on the Big ol' Mac. I'm in charge of the Big Bad Barudan. He does what he knows best, I do what I know best. He likes to manipulate files, I like to do technical mechanical-troubleshooting work. Here he is working on yet another rendition of our devil-skull image.

This is a "3-D" image, or rather a stitch mockup made by our fancy-schmancy software that turns out to have some serious limitations. There are many digitizing programs out there on the market but no really good ones for the Mac. So, rather than sink money into something as useless as a PC, we went for Mac software that is actually a plugin for Adobe Illustrator. This also prevented learning all new software.

Here is the design actually stitched onto a Dickies size 3XLT shirt and modeled by Big Al. This is the real thing and not a fancy Photoshop trick. For the most part it went really well. We're working on another one at the moment that has the same devil-skull but with different tonal qualities and orange in place of the deep red-maroon. It should turn out to be a bit more Harley-esque.

Failure and Success go Hand-in-Hand

2009-11-29T23:31:00.010-07:00

I think I'll begin here with a complete fail. This is our yarmulke-wearing friend completed out. Well, not so much completed as…well…all was pretty lost at the point of the cranium here so I skipped wasting any more thread on the colors in the middle and went straight for the black detail and the flames in the eyes, to make sure that would work alright. It actually didn't. When the black got to the left "ear" area, the machine had reached it's distance limit and could go no further to complete the stitch around the outside. More measuring and more notes. The next file would be a little bit smaller.

The next attempt was to see if the total stitch count could be reduced by using a fabric applique background rather than solid stitching. This seemed to work quite well and the mottled grey fabric really added to the overall design. This test was the black and red colors only and the design was rotated on the computer before loading it into the embroidery machine. That idea failed on the eyes. The skull rotated but the pattern didn't. Best to let me do any pattern rotations within the Big Bad Barudan to avoid any surprises.

The third time is the charm…it better be because this time we took it "live" and put it on an actual Dickies button-down workshirt. No room for error or we lose a shirt!
We kept the applique-type background, and I rotated the pattern so that the eye-flame stitch effect would be going in the right direction. This one was a success!

Our Devil is wearing a Yarmulke!

2009-11-28T11:42:00.007-07:00

After a freezing few days on the Utah Tundra, we are back in SoCal picking up where we left off. We ran the Big Bad Barudan right up until the moment we left. We were hoping to complete the latest design before we left so we could take it with us. No such luck. High stitch count, would have taken a few more hours.

We looked at the design and Big Al said, "Why is it doing that color?". Hey, it's a machine. Garbage in, garbage out. I said I programmed the color sequence exactly as he "told" me to. I had the color sequence written down as we were making changes. I asked him to VERIFY it. He did, but apparently missed something. NOT a big deal. I have figured out how to advance forward, backward, and pretty much get right back to exactly where and what color and/or stitch I need to be on…but I boogered up this time too. I can advance the machine and assign the proper color as long as I push the appropriate button once. I guess if I push the button twice it goes all the way back to stitch number one. The design was going well up until that point. It's messed up, too late to fix it, and worse, we had to go. So we spent the next 4 days trying to figure out what went wrong. Because we didn't have the machine we could only speculate.

All I had to do this morning was turn on the machine and look at what had happened. I messed up alright, It had begun again at the beginning but with the current color I had assigned. Now our devil is wearing a yarmulke or, more imaginatively, a do-rag.

The design is hopelessly messed up, but that's okay, it isn't a "live" item, still in "practice" mode. Rather than just bag the project I advanced to the last color, black to see if the outline would stitch okay and we could assess our possibility of using an applique for the background rather than some 70,000 stitches.

The best part is, that with every little mistake, I'm getting closer to mastery!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

2009-11-26T11:49:00.003-07:00

UTAH BLOG:

Aug 12 Moved to our new home in Utah. It is so beautiful here. The mountains are so majestic, can hardly wait to see snow covering them.

Oct 14 Utah is the most beautiful place on earth. The leaves have turned all colors and shades of red and orange. Went for a ride through the beautiful mountains and saw some deer. They are so graceful. Certainly they are the most wonderful animal on earth. This must be paradise. I love it here.

Nov 11 Deer season will start soon. I can't imagine anyone wanting to kill such a gorgeous creature. Hope it will snow soon. I love it here.

Dec 2 It snowed last night. Woke up to find everything blanketed with white. It looks like a postcard. We went outside and cleaned the snow off the steps and shoveled the driveway. We had a snowball fight (I won) and then the snowplow came by, we had to shovel the driveway again. What a beautiful place. I love Utah.

Dec 12 More snow last night. I love it. The snowplow did its trick again to the driveway. I love it here.

Dec 19 More snow last night. Couldn't get out of the driveway to get to work. I am exhausted from shoveling. Fucking snowplow.

Dec 22 More of that fucking white shit fell last night. I've got blisters on my hands from shoveling snow. I think the snowplow hides around the corner and waits until I'm done shoveling the driveway. ASSHOLE.

Dec 25 Merry Fucking Christmas. More fucking snow. If I ever get my hands on the son-of-a-bitch who drives the snowplow, I swear I'll kill the bastard. Don't know why they don't use more salt on the roads to melt the fucking ice.

Dec 27 More of that white shit fell last night. Been inside for three days except to shovel the driveway each time the fucking snowplow goes by. Can't go anywhere, car's stuck in a mountain of that white shit. The weatherman says to expect another 10" again tonight. Do you know how many shovels full of snow 10" is?

Dec 28 The fucking weatherman was wrong. We got 34" of that white shit this time. At this rate it won't melt before summer. The snowplow got stuck down the road and the ASSHOLE came to the door and asked to borrow my shovel. I told him I had broken six shovels already shoveling that fucking white shit he had pushed into the driveway. I broke the seventh one over his fucking head.

Jan 4 Finally got out of the house today. Went to the store to get food. On the way back a fucking deer ran in front of the car and I hit it. Did about $3,000 damage to the car. Those fucking beasts should be killed. Wish the hunters had killed them all last October.

May 3 Took the car to the garage in town. Would you believe the son-of-a-bitch is rusting out from all the salt they put on the roads?

May 10 Moved to California. I can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would ever want to live in that fucking Utah.

~Source unknown. Taken from one of those copies of a copy of a copy back before the email days, but I could have written it myself.

Getting Better Every Day

2009-11-24T12:41:00.000-07:00

A progress report and some photos I didn't get to before.

A completed wing. White parts laid down first, outlined by black parts. Some mystery misregistration occurred. Later found that it was probably fabric stretch. The design should have been built and stitched from the center out. In addition, a heavier cut-away stabilizer should have been used. Overall, not great, but not too bad.

Now black laid down first and white stitched on top. This worked much better, but the stitch count is still very heavy. Didn't have any misregistration problems because the entire shape was laid down in black as a background and the white was stitched on top of it. A few threads to trim here and there, but it worked. Another successful "test".

Big Al does most of the digital work and digitizing while I fiddle with the technical aspects of the machine. He often complains that he can't get anything done. Wonder why? When Schmoopie wants lovin' & scratchin', she wants lovin' & scratchin'. "Damn cat", he says.

The Learning Curve Continues

2009-11-22T23:49:00.004-07:00

When I last left off, I was having problems with the machine coming unthreaded. I did finish the white wing project, one-unthreaded-needle-at-a-time. It was a B-I-T-C-H! I did every trouble-shooting solution in the manual and even tried a few things of my own. I cranked the tension waaaayyyyy down hoping that would help but to no avail. I unthreaded and re-threaded the machine and did everything I know of using my knowledge of normal sewing machines. But that particular project being done, the things learned are filed away for future reference and Big Al changed the original wing file for yet another
round of experimentation.

The new file was bigger and better than ever. However, he changed the sew order of the colors so I started out sewing black, the needle came unthreaded early and he said, “No, that's supposed to be white.” I had to remember how to change colors/needles on the fly to get the right color down first. You can't see it but the white sewed back down over the black where I started over again. Needle kept coming unthreaded. Fed up, I took a screwdriver and changed the take-up spring because it looked like it was sticking and could be pulling the thread out. Voilá…pullout problem solved. Then I ran out of bobbin thread and the machine didn't stop like it was supposed to. I backed up (this time NOT messing with any controls), put in a new bobbin, and continued along. So far so good? Not exactly.

I had spent so much time cranking the tension down, down, and down, that the adjustment was all cattywumpus. I spent the next while during the entire sew-out of the white part, adjusting the tension back up, little-by-little, until it was properly adjusted again. To do this I had to sit on the floor with a light and watch the bottom of the work constantly. Of course I got it all adjusted and it was time to switch needles and color.

Now it was time to switch to black thread (for real this time). All was going pretty well. There were a few tense moments when I thought the needle was getting close to the frame, but it was okay. Then the needle got too close to the frame…BAM! The presser foot glanced off the side of the frame. I don't know whether the machine stopped itself or if I stopped it with the emergency switch. The important thing is that the machine had been stopped. I had started out the design by doing an autotrace of the bounding box around to see if there would be enough room. It was tight, if not a bit over, but you can see that the design, for the most part, fits inside the frame. I just needed to be one inch over and one inch down. I started from the dead center of the hoop which was also, presumably, dead center of the design.

So, again I pushed buttons and made it nearly impossible to line up the design again to continue, and there was no point in continuing as the black outline of that wing tip couldn't be completed anyway. Back to the drawing board to see if, a)The design can be fit to the dimensions of the hoop, or, b)If the design will be too big for the shirt we're designing in the first place. Either way, there will be much more learning on both our parts.

The Learning Curve Projects

2009-11-20T21:32:00.006-07:00

The first piece we turned out from the Big Bad Barudan:

My iPhone hates me sometimes when it comes to taking photos but it was easier than finding either one of the other cameras!

The horseshoe design was already loaded into the machine's memory and we kind of wanted instant gratification so we stitched it out first in black, then I moved the pantograph slightly up and to the left and reran the design in white, giving kind of a drop shadow look. Not much, but hey, the machine did what it was supposed to.
Next came one of our own designs. It was intentionally two-color, but I had forgotten how to tell the machine to change colors so it stitched the entire piece in all black (bottom). This wasn't bad, not the effect we wanted, but it also worked well.

I remembered how to program the color sequence so we ran the same file again, this time with two colors (top). That went VERY well. But it would be a couple of weeks before making another attempt because we had some life- and energy-sucking obligations.

Yesterday's (our third) attempt went kind of well. We decided to see how big we could go. This project ran well until the machine ran out of bobbin thread and I tried to “fix” missed stitches by backing up. I threw the whole thing out of alignment and caused a broken needle (dumbass). But I did learn what NOT to do next time. It wasn't easy, but I got the alignment back on and continued stitching the whole wing. In the future, something with as large an area as this will probably be done as an appliqué instead of solid stitching.
Notice the pattern started on top of the left side (inside) of the wing. Again, this was supposed to be white and I (duh) hadn't programmed the machine correctly. Black is nice so I kept the machine going. This is where things got messed up. Something in the file conversion was messed up so there was a lot of extra starting, stopping & cutting, with a lot of needle unthreading going on. Again, I messed with the settings and threw the alignment off again with no real way to get back where I started. Now I know at least TWO things not to do.

Today I just said, “screw it” and took the wing out of the hoop and cut away most of the fabric stabilizer that was underneath (that's the white around the perimeter). I never did stitch the white on this piece. That's okay, though, this wing will be used as a placement template for future projects.

I still wanted to stitch out the top white part of the wing, though. I decided to put in a piece of remnant fabric backed with the stabilizer for a stronger piece.
This little bit of work took about three HOURS! It's quite beautiful and not anywhere near finished. There were so many stops & thread cuts programmed into the design that after every sew 10 stitches, cut, begin to sew, needle unthread, thread needle again, start again, sew 10 stitches, cut, begin to sew, needle unthread, thread needle again, cry, start again, etc…
I made minor adjustments to the tension the whole time. I probably quit just before I “got it”, but I won't know until tomorrow. I still think the thread tension might be too tight so I'm going to crank it to the loose end and try again.
Notice in the picture the needle is UNthreaded, that's how I left it.
*SIGH* here's to better luck tomorrow. I think I'll go drink now.

It's All About ASS Comfort!

2009-11-20T21:09:00.004-07:00

We're heading back to the ol' busstead after an errand and Big Al makes a U-turn—I wasn't paying attention, I was probably tweeting from the iPhone or something—and we end up at a small furniture store. Big Al has been looking for a work chair for some time now. The old office chair, “kills my ass” and so did the folding chair, and the folding recliner, “sat back too far”. We looked at chairs, too big, too small, not sturdy enough, too expensive…

(Ahhhhh!) You could almost hear the angelic choir as a golden beam came down from the sky and shone on this chair. Not too big, not too small, brand new, and a decent price. New furniture is great although, personally, I hate shopping for it. Worse than shopping for it is getting it home. Have I mentioned that we have a Hyundai sedan? WTF are we going to do with that chair now? Well, he left me inside with the crazy Chinese owner who had to tell me about the whole business, his great prices, and, “Tell all your friends to come here, I give them good deal!” Because he brings in whole containers of “Good stuff from China". (cringe)

I finally broke away from the conversation to go outside to this:

Notice the camo ratchet strap holding it all in. This is how the trunk of the LAST Hyundai got dented. They were so excited that the back came off the chair so they could get it in there better (cringing again). Anyway, it's HIS chair. It isn't leather, it's fabric. The ratchet strap had grease on it from being behind the bus on the scooter or something. Now that grease is part of the chair. But it's HIS chair, I have to keep reminding myself. We waved goodbye to the crazy Chinese guy and returned to the bus to work on our venture, this time in total ass comfort.

Racing Season is Over, Now We Get Busy

2009-11-19T22:22:00.003-07:00

I had already forgotten about my post a month or so ago about buying the Big Bad Barudan and the bus remodel. We've had a lot going on since then three events and the end-of-season inventory and clean-up for our NHRA trailer.

It was nearly a MONTH before we got to try out the Big Bad Barudan! Of course by then my memory on exactly how the machine worked was not all that great. Of course it isn't easy to distract me…nope, not at all. Luckily I can work from written instructions. Give me a user manual and even if there are errors, sooner or later I will figure it out. This time was no exception. However, it probably took me an hour to thread two colors of thread into the machine. Once it was done, it was done right and I haven't had to mess with that since.

The very first files I stitched out were very successful. A horeshoe looking thing, and a wing. That was all I was able to do at the time. Now another couple of weeks have gone by and we made another attempt. All went well until the bobbin thread ran out. Instead of just stopping, changing the bobbin and resuming, I tried to back up to where I left off using the command keypad. Somewhere in that process I really screwed up because I resumed sewing and the needle went straight over and embedded the needle between the two sections of my hoop. Pretty lucky, because if it had hit the hoop it would probably have messed up the machine! Oh, and I also broke the needle. That was enough of that.

Didn't have extra needles so I got online and found a shop about 4 miles down the road in San Dimas, CA, that sold needles, thread, and the like for industrial machines. I bought a pack of 100 needles (hopefully I will never need that many).

I didn't continue my efforts until hours later. I put a new needle in the machine and tried to find the starting point of the original patter once again. A few tweaks and I got pretty close to spot on. Then I needed to advance thousands of stitches to where I left off or sew the whole damn thing again. Again, got pretty close to right on and started the machine and it went for a coupe minutes, then Big Al noticed that the needle had fallen out so the machine was really sewing nothing.

Grrr. it's dark, I'm sewing with black thread on a black background. The room is dimly lit and I keep having to rethread the needle, not to mention putting it back in AND making sure the right side was facing forward, again, a very difficult thing to see in the near dark. But after that little repair we were on a roll…for a little while.

The machine beeped and slow down. I figured it was time for a color change. It was supposed to change to white, but it didn't. I was in pushing buttons and whatnot and probably told it to change to black instead of white. Not that black-on-black doesn't look cool, and it really does, but the machine wasn't doing what I thought I told it to do. The status indicator didn't say it was time for a color change anyway.

Then, I probably, accidentally programmed in some stop-and-cuts because the machine would sew three stitches, stop, cut the thread, sew, stop, cut (needle comes unthreaded, rethread needle), sew, stop, cut, sew, stop (needle comes unthreaded, rethread), sew…

"This is stupid", I thought. I'll just advance forward to the next color change. So I started pushing buttons again, and in the process got the pattern all out of alignment somehow. It would be nearly impossible to back up where I left off at this point. I now have black-on-black, can't see a damn thing, I'm frustrated, tired and Big Al wants me to give up on that bit and start another one. NO WAY, I need to learn how to manipulate the machine to make it do what I want. I did it before, I'll do it again, I tell ya!

I'll try again tomorrow.

It's time to FLY!

2009-10-27T00:07:00.001-06:00

This has been a rough couple of weeks. We have done an almost complete tear down and rebuild of the interior of the bus. Previously we had moved the bed from its original location in the back to the front and built an office/studio in the back. The new plans made us have to do the reverse.

We got an awesome deal on a Barudan 15-needle commercial embroidery machine. We have some really really BIG ideas! As artists with newly-acquired knowledge of the apparel industry we feel that we can use our talents in a very special niche market…but I digress…

The machine is fairly large and we knew that we would never get it into the back studio with the potty chamber, shower, and closet configuration. Among the three there is a sharp narrow zigzag turn that would be impossible to make with that size of machine table. What to do?

Well, we almost completely gutted the inside of the back studio and the front living area tearing them down to empty nothingness. The biggest thrill was putting carpet in the back area. The floor had been bare sheet lead for over a year since we removed the bed and the scary carpet reminiscent of our motHell management years. We always intended to put something else down until now.

Since I knew I would be beading and doing glass in the back area I didn't want a hard floor. I chose a grey commercial carpet courtesy of Lowe's. The room is small so off-the-roll carpet was kind of a waste at 12' (feet) wide, plus, I didn't want to cut it to size anyway. Really, the bed will be covering 90% of the surface anyway. Solution: 3-foot wide carpet runners cut in 10-foot lengths.

I need to mention that the floor is lined with lead to help reduce heat and noise because our "headboard" is really a box built to house a big-ass diesel engine. It can get hot in the back on the floor so adhesives were really out of the question. It would either get ooey-gooey or crunchy-wunchy. Solution: staple gun, and a hammer to smash the staples down really good. Yes, the staples show, but I lined them up using my best OCD skills. We called it "Frankencarpet" because of the "stitched together" look. But it's all good—the adhesive holding the carpet headliner on the ceiling got crunchy-wunchy and lost adhesion. I stapled that up too in a fine diamond-tuft pattern.

It was all looking pretty good. I got a new closet out of the deal so I can now find my clothes:

I have storage for my beads and tools as well as a really cool workbench, but that's for later because I can't get to either of them. As usual we were on a deadline and absolutely positively had to leave today to make it to Las Vegas in time for the big race weekend. Everything we took out of the bus during the remodel had to be put back in the bus. No time to organize or put away. The place is in complete chaos and I don't mind saying that it makes me feel a little bit claustrophobic!

I have been so down and depressed since the beginning of this remodel…so much work, and me with a really, really bad head/chest cold. It was pure misery. BigAl kept me hoppin' the whole time. Not a single moment for rest during the while time except for normal bedtime. I just sucked down TheraFlu and Dayquil and hoped for the energy to keep going. I was becoming overwhelmed very quickly, and depression was setting in. I knew I was in over my head this time and I needed help—Fast.

I knew right where to go. I needed a routine. I needed to take "baby steps" so I wouldn't get even more overwhelmed. I went to http://www.flylady.net where I had been years before but had not really committed myself to make it work. The plan is based on "baby steps" so as not to overwhelm the new "flybaby".

Baby step #1 is to "shine your sink" which seems odd with so much other stuff around in disarray. I was all for shining my sink…if I could find my sink, that is. I'm horrible about washing dishes, or in my case glasses & utensils. I never allow "foody" dishes to sit in the sink. That grosses me out.

So I haven't seen the bottom of my sink in a good 2-3 months, I think. I knew my shot glass and margarita shaker had to be down there somewhere also. I actually have a very small sink. It's actually a bar sink because I opted for a single sink and more counter space. It shouldn't have been that hard. It wasn't hard but it was very time consuming.

I found two tall juice glasses (I thought I only had one), my margarita shaker, my margarita glass, my ESPN Zone shot glass, and a whole bunch of stainless flatware. For the last little while I thought all my metal flatware had been disappearing. We have been using Dixie bowls/plates and plastic flatware from Wendy's for our at-home meals. In fact, I had a ton of plasticware. I will admit that I bought plasticware in lieu of washing the flatware that I already had and had "forgotten" about.

There is no excuse to be using and re-using plastic. Utensils when there is a full set of real metal flatware available. It took almost four hours to empty, wash, and put away that tiny bar sink full of utensils, misc food storage containers, lids, and barware…but it's done. I did it, put it all away and I'm just overwhelmed with the sense of accomplishment that one little act gave me. I really DID something that made a difference!

Now the challenge is to use my OCD for good and keep that sink empty and spotless after use and at all times. I will probably even remember to load and use the dishwasher too. I feel great and that was just one step for one day, my first day! I wonder what tomorrow's "baby step" task will be. I can't wait for tomorrow to find out. I am excited and motivated. The sooner I get my shit together, the sooner I can get back to creating, be it jewelry, embroidery or whatever!

Can I get a WOOT? Thanks, I gave myself one too!

- Posted From My iPhone

Twitter and LiveJournal are Down!

2009-08-07T23:03:00.000-06:00

With Twitter under attack from who-knows what, I guess I can carry on as usual here while they get their servers back up to snuff.

Also, things are NOT looking good for LiveJournal. Blogger is all I have left!

Here is yesterday's journey on a map:

We so could not have made this trip doing
the original 700+ miles per day Big Al had planned. Just too damned hot and hard on the bus!

At least it isn't as hot in Flagstaff, but then our elevation is now well over 7,000 feet. It feels good. Nice!

Heh,heh…went into the truck stop to see what they ha d. I always do :-) Checked out some jewelry. I realize that they lock it up because it's sterling silver, but don't try to fool me into thinking it's turquoise when it's really dyed magnesite or howlite. C'mon!

Finally after I-don't-know-how-long we are back at the Church o'Pancakes, otherwise known as Cracker Barrel. Sure, we ate at CB last night, but that was dinner!

There's nothing quite like pecan pancakes!

Yummy!

Later, I drove the bus through Arizona into New Mexico. Some of the scenery is nice. No wonder they call it the "Painted Desert". I took some photos for bead color inspiration:

Spent some time in Thunderbird Supply in Gallup. Thought i'd spend a lot more than time. Got out of there with some fine silver bezel, chain, charms, a polishing glove, and copper tongs.

I worked on a jewelry project, more trial-and-error than anything. I thought I had it worked out but such was not the case.

I almost scrapped the whole project but then found a way to make it work. Not what I had originally planned, and not even using the same materials, we'll see what happens!

Blew through Albuquuerque this time. Big hill on the east side that is, as usual, best traveled at night to keep the bus cool.

Now ready for bed. Twitter is obviously still down. Haven't checked the news. Not getting any new follows. I have been off all day to keep tweets of my own from cluttering the ailing server.

But look…I'm still tweeting, even if it is on my blog and nobody is seeing it. Tried posting to LiveJournal but that's not working either. Oh well, goodnight!
-- Posted From My iPhone

Ah, if Only I had More Time for Jewelry & Beads Right Now

2009-03-18T11:04:00.000-06:00

All of my latest activities are being blogged on my LiveJournal pages. I miss my jewelry!

http://rachelle-keller.livejournal.com

We need to be plugged in to electricity or run the generator 6+ hours so I can make glass beads that are properly kiln-annealed. I don't want to risk cracking beads!

-- Posted From My iPhone

An Interesting Test

2009-02-23T22:49:00.001-07:00

I can post to two blogs simultaneously?

Yes! There's an app for that!

So I decided to blow this week's app budget on an app called BlogPress, rather than spending it on the iFart app.

I'm even going to experiment with a cute little photo of a pair of lolcats from ICanHasCheezeburger. It's a subject near & dear to my heart. What can I say, cats *and* beads!

And a cat and beads from my own life, no caption, tho'.

The beads WERE grouped by color. Thanks, schmoops!

-- Posted From My iPhone

Why Nothing New on the Jewelry Blog?

2009-02-17T07:05:00.002-07:00

Ah, it has been a “busy” week. I have been rolling out a whole bunch of “itty-bitty” beads in various transparent colors. Sunday night my oxygen tank ran out. My oxygen budget allows for only one tank per week, but today just happens to be “New Tank Tuesday”, providing I can get the valve open on this tank. Previously neither I nor Big Al could turn the valve. I had to disconnect and use a different tank. Now it has come down to that tank. Suffice it to say, there will be a kiln full soon.

I also have oodles and oodles of “Tibetan Silver” beads to photograph and list. I spent the better part of yesterday in yet another failed attempt to get decent photos of my wares…am I just a perfectionist or is it true that the background of the photo is what sells the product? I'm going to have to research on that one I guess.

Catching Up, Still More Beads...

2009-02-11T08:17:00.005-07:00

Lately I haven't been a really good time manager. I have spent more time futzing around on the 'puter than anything else. Plus, Big Al and I have started something of a walking routine where we pick a Disney park and walk the inside perimeter. We found that his bad (reconstructed) knee is only good for about two miles. And I'm tring to cut waaaay back on sugar. The sugar withdrawals have left me very groggy, exhausted, and somewhat (more than usual) scatterbrained and unable to focus.

Anyway, more beads, I have listed a few. However, I sold all of my Itty-Bitty beads that I had listed on Art Fire. I have been working to replenish the inventory. I won't list it if I don't have it made. My Art Fire shop is pathetically empty!

First up, a set of bright jewel-tone color beads, available here: PCJ Set of 9 Aqua, Green, Purple, Lampwork Beads, Various Shapes, Sizes, SRA

I was experimenting with transparent colors over opaque colors. I start with a similar opaque color at the core and then "encase" that core in a clear color. Some get "decorated" with dots or whatever. The exception in this set is the second bead from the left. It is a transparent aqua cube, no opaque core. It really is pretty just like it is. I'm thinking a whole set of just transparent colored cubes, shimmering and glittering like a rainbow of ice.

The dark purple is an amethyst over periwinkle, the aqua is light aqua over turquoise, and the green is light grass green over yellow. These colors were inspired by an amazing work by Sarah Hornik called "Sarah's 12 Favorite Color Schemes and WHY they work" .

Next, a set that I almost "forgot" I had. It might be too late for Valentine's Day. My other pink/white/red set already sold some time ago. D'oh! My lack of focus may have cost me a sale. This set is available here: PCJ Set of 11 Red, White, Pink, Lampwork Beads, Various Shapes, Sizes, SRA .

The beads in this set were originally made up as part of the first set. I decided to split the set in two. This is the second set. I used medium red, white, light pink, transparent rose, and clear. As with the set above, I put in a lot of bumpy dots. There are some nice fat red disk spacers in this set too! :-D

And last, but not least, some interesting creamy-tan colored beads made with CIM (Creation is Messy) glass named Canyon de Chelly. Having actually been to Canyon de Chelly, I was hoping for a little more color variation when I worked with it. The color swirls ended up being much more subtle than I cared for, however, this is a very pretty glass and plays very well with other colors. In fact the other colors bring out the best in it. More of that to come later.

This glass is moderately expensive so I didn't want to let the rondelles that I had already made go to waste. I decided to pair them with some natural jasper beads that I had on hand. The dark reddish brown beads are a kind of red/mahogany jasper, and the buffalo is made of a "fancy jasper", at least that's what it was called when I bought it from Magpie Gemstones last year. (it and 26 other fine "fancy jasper" buffalo).

These beads are available as a set here: PCJ Earthy Lampwork Beads with Natural Jasper Buffalo Set, SRA .

That's about it for now. I was up until 2:00 a.m. making a big ol' bunch of Itty-Bitty beads, 72 of them, all different shades of luscious transparent purple...mmmmm...purple!

New Beads, Crappy Photos

2009-02-01T19:23:00.009-07:00

I tried my striking glass last night and put it directly into the kiln, hot. The rubino oro kept it's beautiful transparency, the opaline rose stayed a bit darker, but one of them turned a different color. I SWEAR I used the same rod for all of them, maybe I let it cool too much before putting it away in the kiln. Who knows. I can use it somewhere.

I wanted badly to make dark ivory curdle or "crackle". I wasn't incredibly successful, now I have just a plain set of ivory dotted lentil beads that I think I will etch.

These beads are all still on the mandrels, pic's of them later.

I put a whole bunch of new beads finally up on Etsy. What a chore!

Lapis Blue Lentil Set
This set is such a pretty blue. This pic will likely look lighter than the real thing. I tried everything I could to capture the likeness of the deep royal blue of this set. The color is a medium lapis/lapiz blue which in certain light is almost a purple because of the red undertones (that seem to have been stripped out in the photography process). So while this pic is still pretty, it doesn't do it justice. Or, more likely, I just take crappy pictures.
The greenish band around the middle is an iris orange raku frit blend that I got in San Antonio. I really like the way it spread and bloomed over the petroleum green strip I placed around the middle of the lentil bead.
The lentil in the picture looks large, but in reality it is only the size of a dime. Small beads are cool!

Strange Purple Passion Lentil Set
I love to encase colors with clear. It seems to take forever though. A layer of clear shines up and magnifies everything underneath. The opaque colors are forever encased in a glass bubble and the effect is striking!
This bead has a base of ivory that looks more white than anything now that it's encased. The light purples are Moretti/Effetre "special" purple #254, otherwise known as EDP or "Evil Devitrifying Purple". It can do evil things to clear if allowed to spread but I was lucky...this time.

Frosty Red Heart Set
I was trying to roll a disk or a small bead and did something dumb that was going to mess the whole thing up. I stared at the pathetic football-shaped lump on my mandrel and realized that I could add some clear glass and make a heart. Then it looked boring where I added the clear glass because the red was only at the bottom half of the bead. I know, I'll make little flowers and tie it all in! Great idea, but I could have picked up a contrasting color at least. So to make the flower "show up" i coated it with white glue before I etched the entire bead. The heart came out frosty, and when I removed the glue, the flower was still shiny and shows up a lot better. I was lazy and didn't put flowers on the accent rondelles.

Copper Canyon Set
I wanted to make an "earthy" bead, but I feel challenged when it comes to mixing organic and earthy colors. I started with a ball of ivory. Ivory is a good basic earthy color, kind of fluffy and off-white. Then a light brown. What's more earthy than brown? In fact, this pic looks a little lighter than the actual brown which really is an earth brown, like dirt. I couldn't resist playing in the dirt so I added a transparent topaz color to add depth and bring luminance to the dirt. It didn't turn out too bad. The blue stripe or "river" around the center is copper green. Well, it's a green with copper in it anyway. It reacted and spread nicely when I applied it to the ivory. I was hoping for something a little more spectacular but rivers in the desert southwest are often not much more than a trickle most of the time anyway.
I etched the beads because "shiny" and "earthy" were just not going to go together in this set. The etching left a nice satin surface and the beads remind me of tiny Native American clay pots, you know, the kitschy, trashy ones found in tourist spots, not the real ones, the colors are too bright. The colors are superb with copper so I threw on some copper spacer beads for effect. A pretty nice set if I do say so myself. Now I just want a set like this with a crackle surface. Back to the torch, I guess.

Itty-Bitty Etched Yellow Beads
This color was supposed to be a light lemon yellow. Well, I guess it is. I was hoping for more of a light buttery pastel yellow. That's what color the rod was. Of course the finished product doesn't always resemble the rod color.

Also, Moretti/Effetre yellows are know to be kind of poopy. The yellow colors just don't pop like they should (that's pop, not poop). Yellow is a special hand-mixed and hand-pulled color that is often different from batch-to-batch. I ordered another brand/color. We'll see what happens then.

Itty-Bitty Etched Blue Beads
These beads are truly robin's egg blue, but without the speckles. Speckles could be fun. This pretty much completes the spring colored rondelles that I just HAD to make for some reason. The blue and yellow beads were last. They kept breaking and splitting on me from cooling too fast, it is just the type of glass they're made from. Batch annealing wasn't good to these colors. They didn't like cooling off too quickly, like in an hour or so snuggled into a fiber blanket. I think I lost six of the blue ones and, I think, six of the yellow ones before I could properly kiln-anneal them. They just shocked and split. The surviving beads are nice and durable. They can survive a fall to the tile floor from the countertop. THAT'S why beads are annealed for "strength and durability".

Whew! Is that all of it? Hmmmm, seemed like I did so much more. It's a lot of work! Creating the beads, annealing them, removing them from the mandrels, cleaning the bead holes with a rotary tool, etching some of them, measuring and grouping them, stringing them together and photographing them, fixing the #$@&(#* photographs the best I can, signing on and plodding through the screens to post them...I'm brain-dead now. Bleah.

More Beads, a full SET. Here, and now gone.

2009-01-30T20:08:00.007-07:00

Hey, I made a set! This is perfect for when my muse has ADD! I let my creativity run free making different sizes, shapes and textures.

I limit myself to "colors" only, otherwise my beads would NEVER match!

These beads are made from Moretti/Effetre light pastel pink, light red, and mmmmmm, rubino oro.

I felt like a dork when I made these. They will work great as a bracelet set. I was thinking as far as wirework was concerned, if I were doing these up as a piece of jewelry and using wire wrapping, I would use at least as large as 16-gauge wire for the base.

But in hindsight, I had used a 1/16" mandrel and the resulting bead, when finished, has a hole large enough for only an 18-gauge wire, or 1 milimeter. What WAS I thinking? In the future my sets should have holes big enough for 16-gauge wire. Sheesh.

Anyway, this lovely set has a new home along with a set of my sweet little itty-bitty beads in a pretty translucent pink.

I have mixed feelings about these little pink beads. I love the color (Moretti/Effetre opalino pink) but I achieve it by "striking" each bead in the flame until it is as pink as can be, then each bead is completely cooled and batch annealed at a later date.

I recently decided to to a "continuous or garage" anneal process where the beads go straight from the flame to the kiln without cooling down first. This affects the color, especially this "striking" color. I have not tried the "garage anneal" process on these pink beads. Maybe next time I'm at the torch I will give that a try to see what I get.

I also added another set of matte etched beads in a tangerine color. This is a nice light orange/apricot color or a nice dark yellow/apricot color. It's just a matter of individual perception of color. This color also changes according to the amount of heat applied and how much heating/cooling the bead goes through. It can come out anywhere from a dark yellow to a dark red. These beads are red in the flame when they are hot. I never did try striking them to see if I could get a deeper color. It never occurred to me to do so.

I think this color is called "red roof tile". Yeah, go figure. I have a bunch of it but every rod I have has no label. I dug through my stash to find one with the label and identify the color. I found one with the remainder of a label on it, but no printing was visible. Damn. I love this bold color! I guess it is a Moretti/Effetre oddlot color.

Oh, and GREEN, too! Like apple green or lime green. Moretti/Effetre calls it "light grass green". I'm sorry, but if your grass is this color, it needs a little iron or something in the soil :-D

New Beads, New Fun: Etching!

2009-01-27T07:28:00.006-07:00

Not only do I love being crafty, I love playing with "dangerous" things (well, to a point).

I just got a big ol' bottle of acid etch for my glass beads and I must say, that stuff is expensive! It's probably a couple of bucks worth of ammonium biflouride, which sounds dangerous but is not as caustic as hydrofluoric acid. Therefore it goes without saying that the first warning on the label says "avoid contact with eyes and skin" (common sense, it's a caustic compound). Second warning on the label, "Do not taste..."

I'm thrilled to find that it comes in a 10-lb. bucket—just in case I get hungry! It's pretty expensive. I'm assuming that the cost of liability insurance is built right in.

What's really cool is that it makes shiny glass look like beach glass in about 5 minutes.

Notes from the Glass Studio: Batch Annealing and Then & Now

2009-01-25T11:47:00.007-07:00

Last night I finally had enough beadies made to fill the kiln for a batch anneal:From this point on I will probably be annealing my beads as they are made. I have been falling in love with certain colors of striking glass in luscious pinks (like rubino oro), and cooling them, to cold and reheating them just takes all of that delicious color away. In fact, a whole bunch of those teeny beads in there are made from Moretti/Effetre dark pink, which I only had a little bit of from an assortment of shorts. It was a nice pastel pink, more light than dark, but still pretty. I went to put it on my wishlist and I thought there had been some mistake...this dark pink was $39.00 a pound! The same as rubino oro. By contrast, light pink is just $13.00 per pound. I understand that the more expensive colors are more difficult to produce and do warrant the higher price.

However, once the beadies were taken from the cooled kiln this morning, my lovely dark pink beads had turned into light pink beads, but at a dark pink price! And my rubino oro went red plum, as usual, and a new color that I totally fell in love with, carnelian/coper opalino, that struck to the most beautiful watermelon/pink lemonade color, turned...well...a less deep watermelon/pink lemonade color. Bummer.

I will likely spend the day outside with the flexshaft tool cleaning the bead release out of the bead holes. Oh what fun. I think cleaning the mandrels/bead release/bead holes comes in just above photography as my favorite part of the process.

Then: When I started making lampwork beads it all looked innocent enough:
This is actually how I started. My left brain set up the area, my muse was just chomping at the bit wanting to have at it...after all, how can one create in such a sterile looking area...

...and then my muse broke free and had its way. Glass rods all in a pretty line arranged by their place in the color spectrum? Bwahahaha! Me muse thinks NOT! Color is to be experimented and played with, explored and savored, the more the better! What if I put this with this, or this color on that? Oh, I can't find what I want, I'll use this instead...

It didn't take long to get here (Now):
These photos are actual and untouched and are both my actual glass workstation. The only thing that has changed for me is the location. From the motHell laundry room to the back-of-the-bus studio.

New Lampwork Bead: Whimsical Heart

2009-01-24T13:55:00.008-07:00

One day I decided that making a lampwork heart shape would be fun.

The heart and matching accent bead (two separate pieces) are made of Moretti/Effetre Italian glass in a light to medium shade of red. This red, when exposed to different heat levels produces a marbled, mottled effect that can't be seen as well in the pic.

The heart is approximately 17mm high and 19mm wide. It's little rondelle friend is approximately 6 x 10mm. They were made on a 3/32" mandrel and will fit on up to a 12-gauge wire.

I made a nice little post stand out of glass from a FREE tutorial by Mary Lockwood of Mary Lockwood Lampwork Glass. It's a great little stand for displaying and photographing beads upright.

(My photography is still going to be the death of me!)

New Lampwork Beads—Rubino Oro???

2009-01-24T09:18:00.006-07:00

The 9x6mm rondelles are now for sale in my Art Fire Shop.

There is a glass, "Gold Ruby", "Ruby Gold", "Cranberry Gold", among others, and, of course, "Rubino Oro" (which translates to "gold ruby").

It has been long known in the glass and crystal world that to get a red or ruby color to glass real gold must be added, which pretty much explains why this glass is so freakin' expensive for me to buy!

Rubino Oro is also a very finicky color and changes depending on how, and how much, heat is applied.

I am in love with the rich transparent ruby color of this glass and decided to make a number of small beads with it and got unexpected results. These beads were completely cooled then batch annealed, which means they were slowly heated up again then slowly cooled to relieve any stress within the glass. As a result, these beads took on an interesting color that is a little darker and a lot less transparent than actual rubino oro. They went dark and transucent, not the transparent I was going for.

However, these beads have an interesting property. They "color change" depending on the light. This could be a designer's dream or a designer's nightmare depending on the desired effect. In bright light these beads are transparent, like looking at the sun through a glass of fine red wine. In fluorescent light, they are dark, mysterious, translucent, and almost purple, like a garnet. The effect is really interesting!

I probably won't make any more rubino oro beads like this, I will likely put them directly from torch-to-kiln in the future to get a more transparent effect.

Wooo! I'm a Member of SRAJD!

2009-01-22T07:00:00.002-07:00

"Thank you for your application to the international organization for the Self-Representing Artist in Jewelry Design. We are pleased to inform you of your acceptance into the SRAJD."

SRAJD stands for Self-Representing Artist Jewelry Designer.

An SRAJD member sells the jewelry that they designed and created. When you purchase from an SRAJD member, you are buying directly from and supporting the artist.

Member Benefits: You don’t receive anything tangible from the SRAJD organization, but you benefit from being part of a growing grassroots effort to raise customer awareness of the difference between artists trying to sell their own creations versus middlemen trying to make a buck off of slave labor and/or assembly-line craftsmanship. Connecting with like minds and being part of a team that strives to improve conditions for the artist can be considered a benefit, too.

To apply you must: Sell jewelry that you designed and made.

I'm member number 2217. Now I'm assuming that there are more self-representing jewelry artists than just twenty-two hundred and change...
So c'mon all you other jewelry artists! Join the grass roots movement and get your own number today! (I get absolutely NOTHING for making this request, I'm just excited)

Get more information about SRAJD

New Lampwork Beads, Amethyst Earrings

2009-01-21T18:54:00.007-07:00

The pinks in this photo just don't show up as they do in life. I tried and tried to adjust for color and had it until I saved the image for the web and it stripped out a lot of my red color when compressing the file to .jpg. What would be to my advantage at this time is those people viewing this on monitors that punch up the red on everything :-D.

This lentil bead set is actually quite lovely. As you can see I like to work small. The lentil bead is only about the size of a dime. It has a pink and purple theme going on even though the pic doesn't show it as well as I would like it to. Again I used that delicious Moretti/Effetre Opalino Rose. The color reminds me of pink alabaster Swarovski crystal beads. I will have to compare those to this pink sometime. I also used silver pink, rubino oro, and lavender. The thin stripe through the center of the lentil is a result of a reaction between two or more of those colors. I was kind of experimenting so I don't remember exactly what I did. The resulting bead is quite stunning. The two accent beads are solid opalino rose. The spacers, Tibetan silver (a silver/zinc/steel alloy with a nice "heft").
These beads are for sale in my Etsy shop

These are my version of Eni Oken's "Mini Mosaic Earrings". I used grade A amethyst rounds from Magpie Gemstones. Swarovski pearls and crystals and sterling silver wire. The main part of each earring is just the size of a dime, very small, like my lentil bead. Those little beads around the outside are tiny 2mm Swarovski crystals. The tutorial for these earrings can be purchased from Jewelry Lessons.com.

Thanks, Eni Oken for providing such a great tutorial and for the photography tips (even though I still suck at it).

2009-01-16T19:13:00.003-07:00

I finished the "Three Tutorial Bracelet" and gave it it's patina bath and a polish. I am happy with the results and I wear it often.

Of course, I am my own worst critic...I see all of the little tiny wires I could have placed better, but overall I'm really happy with it.

Somehow the tray it was resting in got tipped over (Schmoopie!!!) and it fell on the floor. Big Al unknowingly stepped on it! It collapsed it a bit and it will never be the same, but I got it bent back to where it is almost as good as new. The funny thing about this though is that on the floor around the bracelet were miscellaneous pieces of stainless steel shot from the tumble-polishing that I gave it. The shot was caught under the focal "basket" and being stepped on released the shot from inside. That was funny!

Next, I made some interesting earrings out of some earring findings I got on clearance somewhere last year. I have no idea where. I don't usually use base-metals to make beautiful creations. I don't know why I should worry, the department stores seem okay with it. If Juicy Couture can sell a plastic and some base metal only known as "silver tone" bracelet for a Benji and some change, I guess there's a place in the world for base metal fashion...but I digress. Anyway I used the findings and wanted to do something really different, sort of in-your-face Valentine-y. What better to do that with than hearts and spiders!
Can you spot the cat hair in the pic? Yeah, she's always shedding. I thought I had it all edited out :-D

These earrings are now listed for sale in my Etsy Store

I tried several different times to get a decent center web. I "went back to the drawing board" more times than I would like to admit. For one whole evening I wrapped, undid, bent, tried again, then slept on it. I didn't dream up any ideas but when I tried again the next evening the web pattern just sort of "happened", and the pentacle in the center was just an added bonus that showed up in my design. Then once I had the web and spiders "woven" on, Big Al said there should be blood drops---drop shaped beads that look like blood---which would have been really great if I actually had some! I know what I wanted, I wanted fringe beads, tiny drop-shaped seed beads that are often used in beadwork to end lines of fringe. The only way to get those was to order them. The next best thing is Czech glass drop or dagger beads. I have seen them everywhere, at least everywhere until I actually needed some!

I tried a couple of local bead stores in the San Antonio area and even some stores like Michael's, nothing. The most interesting thing about the bead stores I went to was that they were catering very heavily to the hispanic crowd. Every strand of beads had a tag on it that said "made in Mexico". Well, perhaps the tag was made in Mexico but I'm fully aware that the beads came from India and China. There were trinket boxes and such on display made of huge acrylic crystals in gaudy colors. Aye Carumba! They did have Thai silver but I couldn't get anyone to help me in the shop. Bad customer service, inaccurate descriptions of bead origins, I won't be back. Which is okay because I don't remember the name of the place.

There is a wonderful little, although spendy, shop towards downtown San Antonio called Nomadic Notions that had the red Czech glass drop beads that I used. They also have many other goodies from around the world. Besides, I had heard of that store before and always wanted to visit so...bonus!

The next task was how will I attach the drops to the earring? The drops were a little bit bigger than I had anticipated but I was determined to make it work. I knew the drops needed to be on chains to get the proper "swing". I had some antiqued silver colored rings that I ordered last year. The color was perfect but I had to build my own chain. Making chains is so much fun! Time consuming, but fun. I tried several different chain "weaves" before just doing a simple 2-in-2. It was the only chain that would work, and face the right direction and not look totally stupid.
So I designed the chains during a day trip in the car to the southern tip of Texas, down toward Brownsville and South Padre Island. Most of the drive was dry-gaggy and boring but making chains helped with the boredom. I might need to switch out the earwires if I find they fall out from the weight-balance of the earring. They aren't really heavy but sometimes if the balance is off the earwire will slip out of the ear.

I appreciate it if you made it this far. Just about every piece of jewelry I make has a long and involves story, where the components came from, how the design came about, etc., I also consider the jewelry making process as part of my bigger life adventure.

Wire Wrap Cuff Bracelet Preview

2008-12-26T13:22:00.008-07:00

Well, "finished" in the wirework sense. I still need to give it a patina...yukky pic, but I was so excited to be finished with the wire part...

I call this my "Three Tutorial Bracelet".

When I first saw the wire-wrapped bracelets made by Julie Sigmund of Jewlie Beads my jaw hit the floor! I was perusing the Lampwork Etc. galleries last September/October and saw her bracelets:

WOW! They were "just my style" made with mixed copper and silver and highlighted with a lampwork bead. What could be better? Why... a tutorial or pattern, of course! Eventually she wrote up the tutorial and put it up for sale on Etsy.

This is the bracelet that she wrote the tutorial for:

To purchase your own copy of Julie's tutorial go to JewlieBeads.etsy.com and look in her shop for the "Tutorial for Wire Wrapped Cuff Bracelet".

As you can see, I did not use a lampwork bead focal for my bracelet. It isn't that I don't have one, I had one all ready to go, but then I saw another tutorial that was being written that I just had to have, yet oddly enough, it had nothing to do with making the bracelet.

Lydia Muell of AshtonJewels makes large floral lampwork beads and charms. Plus she writes killer lampwork bead tutorials. So when I saw this bead cap she had "spun up" I, as usual, had to try it. Oh, just look at that labradorite...

Lydia does not sell this tutorial in her Etsy shop. To purchase the tutorial for this bead cap you have to go to her site, Lampwork Treasures.

I really had no business making a bead cap for a 27-30mm bead which I do not actually own and am not yet willing to make. But I was so freakin' intrigued. Honestly, this bead cap is HUGE and looks like a funny "hat" on top of a bead any smaller than 27mm. I know, I tested on a few of the larger beads that I had, none of them quite 27mm.

So I got this really fabulous idea that the bead cap would look nice wired to the center of a large stone donut. I seem to have misplaced my assortment of large stone donuts. I can find the small ones, but none big enough to make my little "idea" work. I had very little luck finding a decent donut out in the local stores as well. I ended up with an antiqued metal donut with a pendant bail on the back. And my bead-cap-donut-pendant-thingie would have worked out very well if a wired heart I had just made hadn't fallen on, and hooked inside the metal donut. Oh, yeah! That heart's going there! But what about the bead cap...hey, wait a minute...it fits in the center of the bracelet...and it's copper...and it's woven...

But if you can see in the picture above there's this big honkin' hole in the middle of the bead cap. I needed a bead cap for my bead cap! Enter Perri Jackson of Shaktipaj Designs and her "Periwinkle Bead Cap Tutorial". Oh, yes...that would work just fine...

To purchase your own copy of Perri's tutorial go to ShaktipajDesigns.etsy.com and look in her shop for the "Periwinkle Bead Cap Tutorial".

I made the little bead cap from sterling silver and attached it to the big bead cap, then attached the whole assembly to the bracelet base.

My muse forces me to vary from written instructions after I get the understanding of a basic concept. It also depends on what meterials I have on hand. I didn't have exactly the materials called for in any of the three tutorials but I made the pieces work.

I thought I was going to go blind putting on the little scrolly coils on both sides of the focal. I put them on with 30-gauge sterling wire. One, it's hard to see (for me), and two, it can be terribly brittle if it is bent too much. I had to use a freakin' magnifier to get it done. Nearly blinded me :-)

Next a liver of sulphur bath and a tumble for this lovely piece!