Christmas scarves

Either last year or the fall before, Martha Stewart had a project in her Good Things section that was a sewn scarf.  I tore out the page, put it up on my wall, and have looked at it ever since as a wish-list project.  Being in school, I didn't think I would have time to make some handmade gifts for Christmas this year, but I found some time after the semester was over.
Here are Martha's instructions for the project.  As you will see, I took some liberties.  It was a quick project: fabric on one side and fleece on the other.  My mom said that hers was even a little too warm, but I think she will be able to stand it, since she keeps her house at a balmy 60 degrees or so.
I made six scarves total - two with each fabric (see the post below for the three fabrics I used).

Falling off the Fabric Wagon

It's that time of year again, when I'm either busy making Christmas gifts, baked goods, etc., or feeling guilty about NOT doing those things.  So today I made a trip to The Needle Shop with my friend Brittany, where I fell off the hoarder wagon once again.  Here's what I bought:

Bright Boy Elephant Fabric by Robert Kaufman

Bird Stripe (Green) by Echino

and Camera (Cyan) by Echino

Kenyan Tea Leaf by Alexander Henry

and Outside Oslo, Skiff by Jessica Jones

Hopefully I can stay motivated for enough more time to actually do something with them.  Anyway, glad to be on vacation and have some time for projects again!

Jenny's (belated) birthday

I've been busy busy with school these days, but I've fit in a little bit of fun here and there.  I just haven't had enough time to blog about it . . .
Anyway, this is a belated post about Jenny's birthday happenings.

St. Bride's Church in London

Usually, it's a bit of a bummer when someone makes their own birthday cake, but Jenny's case was an exception.  She told me the week before her birthday that her current architecture project was going to take the form of a cake - a wedding cake - which would be due on her actual birthday.  She first asked for my help just transporting the cake to school, but I insinuated myself a little more and ended up getting to help with the decorating as well.  The cake was modeled after St. Bride's church in London, which supposedly inspired the wedding cake tradition.

             Jenny baked for days in advance, and made cake layers of all different flavors.  I stepped in for the final fondant rolling and frosting piping, and we had a great afternoon of it, followed by a very slow and smooth drive to school.
            Of course, the cake didn't turn out quite as great as either of us had pictured in our minds, but still it turned out pretty good, considering it was a first try at anything wedding-cake-ish.

On her actual birthday, I gave Jenny a pin that I had bought for her the weekend before, at the Renegade Craft Fair.  I had a little too much fun wrapping it up in an old Tiffany's box, which I spiced up with some red ribbon (my signature color scheme!).

          And since we wanted her classmates to be able to have some cake (but not break into the big one), I used the extra leftover cut-off bits to make some cake balls.  Like the cake, they didn't turn out quite as pretty as I had imagined, partially because Jenny was borrowing my frosting tips.  They tasted yummy, anyway.

Piano Teacher Wicky says goodbye to the "Piano Teacher" part of her name.

I know, it's not a world headline, and it's no longer breaking news, really, but I thought it would be an appropriate time to write it, and this happens to be my 200th post.

            Over the years, despite the name of my blog, piano teaching was rarely the focus of my postings.  It was, however, my main source of income, and my daily reminder to enjoy music.  That being said, I'm not sure I've really left piano teaching behind for good.  I have a feeling I will pick it up again someday, even if it's on the side, or just with my own children.  Over the past week, I've been busy getting ready for school, but I wanted to take a moment out of all the confusion to reflect on my old profession.
            Even though I taught my last lesson in June, and some of this information is dated, I wanted to share with my few trusty readers the speech that I gave at the end of my last piano recital, on June 18.  It was the first time I actually read a speech off of a paper; usually I would think of a few things beforehand and just wing it.  But I was glad that I did write it down because I did have a number of things I wanted to say, hoping it would ring true with a few little ears, and being able to read it off of a paper meant that when I got choked up a few times, I was able to keep going, instead of being overcome in the moment.
Here are Piano Teacher Wicky's last (formal) words to her students:

As you all know by now, I am going to stop teaching at the end of this month to go back to school full time in the Fall.  I want you all to know how much I have enjoyed working with you, and getting to know each of you over the last six years.  

Each week I have asked a lot of you guys, often asking you to play things that you thought were "too hard," but you always were able to do it!  I hope you can remember this as you start lessons with your new teachers, and also when you come across things in or out of school that seem too difficult at first.  I know that’s what I’ll be thinking about when I am challenged at school next year.  Every time you work on something that seems hard, you’re becoming a better piano player, student, athlete, or whatever so that hard work is always worth it.   All of my students have put in a lot of hard work over the years, and it definitely wasn’t unnoticed by me!   I hope that you all realize how much that hard work has paid off, and please don’t forget it!   

Over the years I’ve met so many people who, when they learned I was a piano teacher, told me how they wish that they had learned to play piano when they were young, or if they did have lessons, they tell me stories about their own piano teachers, and express how much they wish they had never stopped playing the piano throughout their lives.  I’ve known each of you so long now that I’m sure you won’t forget me, so I hope that the memories you have of me are mostly good ones, but more than that I hope that you have learned to enjoy playing the piano and that it’s something you will continue to do, even if you don’t have a teacher reminding you to play each week.  

I will see each of you for at least one more lesson, but since this is the last time that we’ll all be together, I want to wish you all healthy, happy and musical lives.

I will keep this blog as an outlet for my craft projects, etc., which (let's face it) has been the main subject of it so far anyway.  I hope not too many visitors will be thrown by the title, but it's mine, so I'm keeping it.  Whether or not I'm an active piano teacher, it will always have been my first job, and a great experience.  

Tucking in my laptop for the school year

I start architecture school in less than a week (eek!).  I got back from a long trip last Saturday (hopefully I'll post some stuff about that too, esp. on my other blog) and this week is devoted to getting ready for school by going to the doctor, picking up everything on my shopping lists, etc.
And one craft project (so far).  Last night I set out to make my new laptop a sleeve from a design on this blog that I had bookmarked a while ago.  Everything went well until I realized, with the finished product, that I had broken the cardinal rule to "measure twice and cut once."  Alas, I had written down two dimensions on my paper: the dimensions of the actual laptop, and, below that, the dimensions I wanted to cut my fabric pieces.  And of course I read the dimensions written on top and made a perfectly nice laptop sleeve for a laptop that's about 1/2 inch smaller in each direction than mine.
Luckily, projects tend to go a little faster the second time around, once you've worked out the kinks, so this morning I got up and quickly put together a second, improved, laptop sleeve.  Here is is:

the fabric is Alexander Henry home collection, from 2007, which gives you some idea of the size and age of my fabric collection, since I had this just sitting around, waiting for an appropriate project.   This was just a drop in the bucket.  

A veggie burger, minus the veggies.

I have a mild obsession with grocery store cakes.  Hamburger cakes, in particular.  I've brought a few to parties, when I had to stop off at the grocery store along the way and made a hamburger cake impulse buy. Luckily, they are always a huge hit.
So today, I planned ahead and decided to make one myself.  As these things tend to go, it didn't turn out to be as pretty or real-life-like as I had imagined in my head, but bear in mind that it's only a first attempt.  And I have a feeling that people will still enjoy the taste (even though it's not grocery store crisco frosting!)

Of course I had to take a picture before I put the "bun" layer on top.

And instead of sesame seeds, I put on some sprinkle stars, in honor of our holiday weekend.
Happy 4th of July weekend everyone!