Current Mood : Not sure how I'm busy all day all the time, but I somehow manage to be !
I swear, when my life gets busy, I get no time to write. But I'll try to keep things just a day or so late, instead of a couple weeks.
Still working through the never-ending dishes and laundry. Beloved Hubby came home for lunch, so that was a nice change to the day. Since we were going grocery shopping later, we discussed what was on the list and what we needed - and just plain wanted.
I'd also found a couple new patterns, including one for a simple, but intriguing, origami drawstring bag. The photo is here - http://madquilter.blogspot.com/2006/12/origami-bag.html - but the link to directions isn't quite right. If you're curious too, the correct link is http://secretworkshop.com/resources/index.php?item=415746bb575b17801 . They have lots of other free patterns and projects here -> http://secretworkshop.com/resources/index.php?section=146446bb3c10a7f32.
I read the directions twice, and studied the photo, but could not quite figure out how it was made. Even trying it out with a paper scrap didn't quite tell me what I needed. So I headed into the Lab for some much needed experiment time. I didn't really wanna make a full-sized one just to experiment with, so I snagged two scraps from the crate I still need to slipcover, cut them to shape and went for it.
It always amazes me how often, for me at least, directions make no sense until I attempt them with actual fabric and thread. This was one of those projects. With the actual supplies in my hands, it made perfect logical sense, and I ended up with a simple origami bag...that didn't look much like the one in the photo. Evidently, the person who worked it up went much higher on the casing than the instructions said, or I did. Still, it looked pretty cool, and was very simple. Only problem I had was stitching the sides together where they overlap - mine was much too small to sew with KJ, I had to hand-sew it. I hate hand-sewing, and I didn't quite get it right, either. It probably would have worked better if I'd actually pressed it the way it says to, but 1)I hate ironing and 2) on this small an experiment, it seemed silly to bother with it. Along the bottom, not counting the yarn strings (I was too lazy to dig for the tons of ribbon I have), it's about three inches long. Not sure what I'll do with it, but it felt good to be in the lab, sewing.
Grocery shopping filled the pantry to near-bursting, and it was fun to go as a family. No new dolls or anything I wanted, so I finally got a copy of Princess and the Frog. Still not sure if I liked it or not. Tiana was almost boring as a human, and looked too much like Belle with Jasmine's color key for me to take her seriously as an original character. And like most princes before him, Naveen was handsome if a bit one-dimensional. Visually, he was the more interesting of the two frogs - Tiana was simply a really thin frog. Um, it's not like frogs have figures - can anyone tell the gender of a random frog by looking at him/her ? The music-loving gator (crocodile ?) Louis I'd already seen before - as King Gator, in All Dogs Go To Heaven. And after spending soooo much time making sure the movie wasn't offensive in bringing Disney's first left-handed African-American princess to the screen, I kinda found firefly Ray's snaggletoothed, dirt-poor bayou family a bit much - not to mention the hunters, which were even worse. Oh, well.
I found myself looking for Charlotte ('Lottie') because at least when she was on screen, the story would get funny and maniacally intense. Mamma Odie was interesting, too, sort of as a reverse of Ursula (Little Mermaid). Her snake Juju was hilarious ! It does need to be said, that Disney's first on-screen death is in here, and how new stars suddenly appear (and with enough light to distract the whole cast like spotlighting a deer) isn't explained, but there it is. Plus, Evangeline is Venus, not a star - so it'd be a whole new planet appearing suddenly.
But hey, I'm getting nit-picky. I think I was just expecting more, and I kinda got leftovers with a zydeco garnish. The 'Almost There' sequence was very stylish, and the art direction is lovely, even if the character design seemed uninspired and warmed over from previous efforts. I'll probably watch it again this weekend, see if my initial reaction holds. My opinions, like my thoughts, are random and subject to change !
