Bags!!

Ok, so here are two of the three bags I did over break. I gave one to Hana and forgot to get a pic of it, but I know where she lives so I'm sure I'll get one eventually. They were a lot of fun and I really enjoyed how easy they were. I'm getting a lot better at sewing and it's nice when my projects come out the way I want them to without have to undo stitches and such. I love the one to the right because it's got a really interesting texture/color thing going
because its made from burlap. The burlap is kind of see through (holes) so you can see the turquoise lining fabric underneath it really well. I think this will be something interesting that I can experiment with. I love the bag to the left simply because it's awesome. I found the greatest fabric with all these kabuki actor prints on it and I cut one of them out and fusible webbed it to the corduroy. I also fusible webbed some left over bits of cord and made cloud shapes out of them to put in the background. I think it came out pretty cool. The one I made for Hana had embroidery that I did (first time) on the flap and was also made from grey cord. I have to get some more grey cord. It looks great and goes with everything.
In other news evidently they've made a t.v. show which is about Henry VIII called The Tudors. I saw the first couple episodes online. It features a really good looking Henry VIII which I feel is inaccurate but I'm not really complaining much because he's good looking and has his shirt off a lot. I'll be intersted to see what they do later on though when it's so OBVIOUSLY inaccurate when Henry VIII is supposed to be that old fat fellow from that well known portrait. We'll see if the show actually lasts that long. Anyway I was skeptical but I think they actually did a great job portraying Henry as the ass that he was. They show the world to be a man's world. Testosterone is behind everything and women are shuffled off into the background unless they're having sex or giving birth. It was really quite disgusting to watch mostly because I know that it was true. It's amazing how big of assholes everyone was. Well, aside from Sir Thomas More. They obviously romanticized Sir Thomas More. I guess they didn't want a cast of complete douchebags. Otherwise it would be too entirely depressing.
Anyway Henry comes off as a very selfish man who is (of course) totally hubristic and is interested in starting wars just to make a name for himself as king. All these men. I'm not saying that women would do better if they had been in the situation of power instead. It may have been just as bad. But jeez. Chill the fuck out and think about people other than yourself. Sadly I think he was incapable of it. Everything he did--including splitting with the Catholic church--was in the end in his own self interest.
Message to Henry VIII's contemporary female counterparts: stop throwing yourselves at him. He's an asshole who does not deserve your attention.

Frick

Frick. Evidently I suck at journaling. This is possibly because I've been on spring break and made THREE bags as well as started on a knitted bag. It was so nice to get back to sewing. It's funny because I go through artistic phases. If I was just sewing and designing bags and other stuff and dying fabric I could honestly go for ages without painting. I think I just need to create. Obviously I would eventually go back to painting, but I think because this is new and I'm creating stuff that I really like I'm totally entranced by it. I went to class on Monday and just wasn't into my paintings at all, which is probably because I'm not that into the assignment. It got better though when I started experimenting with different color schemes and with layering of really translucent layers. I'm thinking I'm going to go really Francis Bacon creepy on this one. I'll see how it goes tomorrow morning. I'm going to have to start using my digital camera, too, so I can actually post pictures. It would be cool to document my paintings through the process because they change so much.

Anyway I've started a knitted bag which should look like an athletic sock. A seafoam green, lemon drop yellow and sunburst gold athletic sock. I'm pretty psyched because my knitting is going really well. No holes or dropped stitches thus far or anything (knock on wood). It's the best thing I've ever knitted and I attribute it completely to my lovely bamboo needles.

Pictures later.

Watching: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

The crapfest that is Top Design

So in an effort to quench my craving for drama + creativity (sorry America's Next Top Model, all you do is make my brain shrink) I started watching Top Design after Top Chef ended. I didn't watch Top Chef because lets face it: you can't taste the foods so your opinion must be solely made be the judges which I don't like. Anyway. Top Design is far less entertaining than Project Runway for a number of reasons. One is that most of the designers suck. This was also true of Project Runway for season three and it really made me disinterested. Second is that I'm not really sure that interior design is suitable for a competitive environment with an extreme lack of time. I think part of this lies in the fact that I like the design shows where they have a limited budget and have to make really nice looking stuff out of cheap materials because it's much more creative and its something I can relate to/do myself. Here mostly we see drama and very little creativity with the exception of (surprise) little Asian Goil who is the only one who has done anything that I've remotely liked thus far. I also love how his name is Goil like Goyle from Harry Potter (7.21.07!!) only spelled differently. What else? Their resident artist is a total douchebag hack, the judging process is as random as Random House Publications, and I have trouble respecting the judges themselves. I looked up those who were deemed worthy (Todd Oldham, Kelly Wearstler, Jonathan Adler) and was disappointed by what I found. Todd Oldham's designs look dated and kind of tacky. Kelly Wearstler's designs, while better, also are kind of tacky and look cluttered. Jonathan Adler's ceramic designs were pretty cool but not $100.00 for a teapot cool. If this is what interior design is then I'm really glad I never pursued it as a career. The problem lies in the fact that they rely too heavily on expensive designer furniture and such. This stuff (sorry Hector) often looks pretty blah to me. I prefer a Salvation Army reupholstered repaint. I prefer rooms that don't look like they can't be lived in. I prefer chairs that you can sit in for more than five minutes. I know I have better taste than any of these people any day. And I think that that is what pisses me off them most. So instead of Top Design I'm going to watch HGTV. At least on their reality design show the winner actually does something the public can see afterwards.

Blog?

So I've been looking a lot at crafter's blogs lately (hey, a girl's gotta do something when she's supposed to be studying for midterms) and have actually gotten really excited. These people are sewing and selling great stuff. One I really like is Shim + Sons (http://shimandsons.typepad.com/shimandsons/) partially because she makes all sorts of cool stuff and partially because she has the most adorable children I have ever seen in my life and posts tons of photos. Look at these blogs, though time consuming, was actually a really good thing because it really motivated me to get started on my own website. Hopefully my arts and crafts website Spitting Air will be opening by the summer. I plan on making several things over spring break so I have something to sell. I plan on doing commissions for paintings as well but that's never nearly as popular as bags. I'm going to branch out into quilts, bags other than canvas, letterpress stationary, prints, stuffed animals and dolls, and general baby items (bibs, etc.). I'm also teaching myself how to knit so maybe in a year I'll be confident enough to start selling that stuff. The image above is my website color scheme/layout.

In other news I don't understand physics (big surprise), I'm petitioning to double degree in Creative Writing as well as Painting, and spring break starts tomorrow! This was a harsh week but it's almost over. Friday I'm going to go to the Aurora Bleachery (cheapest fabric EVER) and pick up some Amy Butler wholsale. It's going to be fun.

Here's the fun fact of the day: "In April 1925, two weeks after the publication of The Great Gatsby, Hemingway met F. Scott Fitzgerald at the Dingo Bar. Fitzgerald and Hemingway were at first close friends, often drinking and talking together. They frequently exchanged manuscripts, and Fitzgerald tried to do much to advance Hemingway's career and the publication of his first collections of stories, although the relationship later cooled and became more competitive. Fitzgerald's wife Zelda, however, disliked Hemingway from the start. Openly describing him as "bogus" and "phoney as a rubber cheque" and asserting that his macho persona was a facade, she became irrationally convinced that Hemingway was homosexual and accused her husband of having an affair with him."I love studying for literature because you get to read fun facts like that. I mean, Zelda Fitzgerald was a total loon but she was onto something about Hemingway. Hemingway was a sexist homophobic douchebag.

Reading: Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Listening: Neon Bible Arcade Fire