Can we map ourselves?

I'm probably the most tech-unsavvy person with a blog, so I'm reaching out to you young'uns / techies who may know how to do this:

I've noticed that whenever a meet-up is announced, lots of people chime in and lament how far away they live, how isolated they feel, and how they wish they knew more crafty bloggers in their area.  There must be a better way for us to find each other, don't you think?

View Larger Map

I've been toying with the idea of creating an open map on which we can pin our general locations, if we want to.  That way, whenever someone is travelling, or simply in need of a crafty meetup, we can see who is nearby.  And maybe meet some new bloggy friends right around the corner that you never knew were there.

What do you think?  Possible in google maps or google earth?  In another ap that I'm not familiar with?

Help!

In lieu of actual sewing, here's some stuff about me

Trisha over at Made By Trisha thinks I'm interesting enough to get in on the Leibster awards, so who am I to argue?  ;)  Here, in no particular order, are 11 random things you should know about me:

1. I choke on everything.  I can't remember the last time I went a day without choking on something.
2. Hence, I'm a certified First Aider.
3. I've travelled in 26 countries on 5 continents, most independently, but in Bhutan I had to go with a tour group because independent travel isn't allowed.

4. I can only speak English and passable French, but somehow I always manage to make myself understood wherever I travel with my smattering of other languages.
5. I first went to Africa at 8 month pregnant.

 

6.  If you ever visit me, don't eat the ice cream.  I always eat straight out of the container.
7.  I used to work at a kayak club, even though I am a very weak swimmer and I had never been in a kayak before my first day on the job.
8.  I love red wine, and the heavier the better.  I generally don't like anything lighter than a malbec.
9.  I can't remember the last time I read fiction.  I'm a non-fiction junky.
10.  Thanks to having the combo of kids + Netflix, I've now been tortured with the entire oeuvre of Dora, Diego, The Last Airbender, Wonder Pets and Futurama.  When do I get *my* turn to choose the show?
11.  I haven't sewn anything yet this year.  Eeep. 

ANSWERS TO 11 QUESTIONS:

1. what's your day job when you're not sewing?

As you can probably tell from my incredibly mysterious blog name, I am a scientist by day.  I work for the chair of parasitology in a university research lab on a drug discovery project, with partners in Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Sudan, Kenya, and USA.  It involves growing a lot of stinky microorganisms in between exciting meetings / tech transfers to the above mentioned countries (only USA, Botswana and South Africa so far).

2. what's your birthday (you don't have to include the year if you don't want to)?

April 5th.  I'm coming up on mid-40s which used to sound old to me, but with two little kids and 20+ years left to retirement, now seems young.  

3. what's your favorite fabric to sew with?

Shwe shwe.  It's a medium weight cotton that is traditional in South Africa and Botswana, and comes in a mind-boggling array of prints.  It's easy to sew, and because print mixing is traditional, I'm afraid that I get carried away and want buy everything.   

4. what's the best sewing tip that you could give me?

Have a dedicated, organized sewing space, even if it's just a small coffee table.  Setting up and clearing away takes time.  If everything isn't ready and waiting for you to grab a spare minute, you're less likely to even start.

5. what's your favorite notion?

Tracing paper and wheel.  I had so much trouble marking patterns before I started using these, much to my detriment.

6. what's your favorite project you've sewn (and include a link if you posted about it)?

The project that excited me the most was my Venda skirt, sewn almost two years ago.  I don't wear it that often because it's pretty loud, but whenever I do, strangers stop me to ask about it.  The project that gets the most wear is my Sick as a Leopard skirt.  It goes with everything and works all year 'round.  In fact, I wore it yesterday!

7. what's a pet peeve of yours?

A sewing pet peeve?  setting in sleeves.  I've never done a nice one.  No matter how carefully I gather, how nicely I baste, how well I ease....they end up terribly.  I need some professional help.

8. what are your favorite tv shows or movies?

Anything BBC.  Like everyone, I love Sherlock, Downton Abbey, etc. but I've recently gotten into Call the Midwife, The Paradise, and old Ms. Marples and Poirots on Netflix. 

9. what's your favorite type of music (name specific bands if you'd like)?
Lyric driven.  Tom Waits is a god, and Blue Valentine + Franks' Wild Years could be my constant theme music.  Leonard Cohen, the whole McGarrigle/Wainwright clan, and Joni Mitchell for CanCon.  I've recently jumped on the Regina Spektor bandwagon too.  

10. why did you decide to start blogging?
I hadn't really done any sewing for about 10 years, then I was home on maternity leave with my daughter in 2009, I started doing a bit of home-dec sewing, and then the daycare asked me to sew all the covers for the new sleep mats.  Once I got re-started, I wondered if there were any free sewing patterns available online.....and I discovered that the online sewing community was huge!  I started with Burdastyle, then started reading blogs and commenting, so it was a natural progression.  It was an extension of my usual habit of keeping notes on everything.

11. why did you decide to start sewing?  

I never decided to start; I just grew up in a house where there was a sewing machine in regular use and learned the basics from my mother.  She sewed a lot for us when we were little and she was taking care of us at home.  As a teenager, I took classes in school and through my local 4H club, so I had the foundations before I left home.   I toyed with the idea of studying costume design at university, but I was more enthusiastic about the sciences, and I figured it would be easier to be a sewing scientist than a sciencing costumer, if that makes sense.   

Thanks Tricia.  Now go check out her blog too.  

GTA meetup

I know I certainly need a little break away from my usual weekend routine with the little monsters....I mean darling offspring, so a minibreak in TO is just right: 

Are you in?

There is also the BIG exhibit going on at the ROM that I may just try to catch:

 

What I wore today

In the spirit of outfit posts à la Casey, Nettie, and MimiG, 

I present,

for your viewing pleasure,

What I Wore Today:

First layer:  underwear

Second layer:  synthetic tank top, woolly tights

Third layer:  New Girl dress

Fourth layer:  polar fleece pants, polar fleece jacket

Outer wear:  woolly scarf, fleece hat, furry mittens, furry boots, down coat with hood.

Accessories:  black belt, basket woven earrings from Rwanda, frosty eyelashes.  

Yes, it was so cold this morning that my eyelashes froze together during my 10 minute walk to work.  It was -29C (what's that, like -237428.34F???  I don't know the imperial system.), and -39C with the wind chill. But don't worry:  it's going up to -21C by this afternoon!....and then down to -42C tonight...

I thought I would wait outside the back entrance at work until someone came along to take a full-body of photo of me looking like a tick about to explode, but standing still for more than 10 seconds was too much for me.  I grabbed this quick iPhone selfie. 

BTW, I know that this isn't really cold for some of you (I'm looking at you, Heather), and I've been much colder before (-52C at the top of the Rocky Mountains in January), but the heat also went kaput at work this morning, so it's a double whammy.  

Send thermals.  Quickly. 

Hollyburn Giveaway Winner: Gillian!

Hey Gillian / Jirian!  You won! Send me your mailing address (email above in the About Me box).

I was going to do a cute draw using all your names on scaps of paper in the hat I recently made for my daughter, and let her do the drawing....but we're sick, I'm at work, my sister is coming to stay because her place is being bug-bombed (Montreal sucks for bedbugs), and I'm sure I won't do anything when I get home tonight but eat and put the offspring to bed.  Maybe not even that.  So, here you get a screenshot from Random.org, not even properly cropped. 

Don't have kids. 
Seriously. 
They are better crud incubators than my industrial grade fermentor here in the lab. 

A Hollyburn Giveaway to drive the cold winter away

When your view at work looks like this:

You need a little something to improve your day.  How about a giveaway?

I received the Sewaholic Hollyburn skirt pattern just after it was released as a thank you for being a pattern tester.  Now, I thought twice about giving this away, since Tasia's company is a small one.  Should I give this away and deprive her of a sale?  

Then I realized I can act like a Sewaholic pusher:  I'll let you have this one for free, you'll become instantly addicted, and you'll have to search out more of her patterns here.  If this Hollyburn is your gateway pattern, I suggest the Pendrell for a slightly stronger hit.  Then when you've tired of the light stuff, you can move on to the Thurlow.  Laboured metaphors aside, I know you'll like this one and then buy more.

I made mine from a stiff cotton shwe shwe, but other testers have used everything from wool to lightweight blends.  I think it would work well in pretty much any apparel fabric, and probably even in quilting cotton.

Leave a comment below if you'd like to win the pattern, and tell me what fabric you'd use.  I'll keep this giveaway open to comments until 11:59pm, next Monday (January 14th, 2013).  I'll ship anywhere, but I'm going to send it surface mail, so please don't expect it to arrive on January 15th!

Happy 8498....I mean 2013!

I'm sure you know by now the story of the extremely casual sew along between Tanit-Isis, Nettie and I. We discovered that we had all gotten the same pattern around the same time, and we were wondering how the same pattern would look on three different bodies, in three different fabrics.  Take a look here and here for their  beauties.

Of course I was the last to finish, and after seeing T's gorgeous full length gold gown and N's perfectly fitted wool jumper, I was all the more squeamish to show off this quilting cotton quickie.  Well, to be honest, it wasn't a quickie because as it turned out, THE PATTERN WAS MISSING THE INSTRUCTIONS!  I'm sure I saw them at one point, but a thorough clean up of my sewing area didn't turn up the missing sheet, so I may have imagined it.

It was pretty easy to put together even without the instructions, although I did go through my usual litany of alterations:  add 4cm to middle back, lower the bust darts 1.5cm,add 5cm for the hips, shorten hem by 10cm.  All that added up to a pretty good fit, except that I forgot to raise the armscye, which resulted in this:

(please excuse the bathroom mirror photo. I'd been sledding all afternoon in -10C weather, so I was in no shape to make much effort)

Off came the sleeve and out came the bias binding, and a sleeveless shift was born.  I've been making more than my fair share of this shape in 2012, so my aim for 2013 is to branch out a little and try some new silhouettes.

I am pretty happy with the placement of those unusual bust darts / underbust seaming combo.

I even like my weirdo huge exposed separating zipper - it was the only red zip I had in my stash and I thought what the hell.

You may be able to see where I had fisheye darts in the back that I picked out.  I didn't like the placement, but now that I see photos of my rear, I can see that I need some kind of shaping back there.  To be addressed very soon.

And a post wouldn't be complete without my usual outtakes.