Bad Science Day

Maybe today should have been a snow day. I started this week full of ambition about work, ready to get in here and do good science and get wonderful results and help all kinds of people. Instead, I have probable contamination in my Olfactory Epithelium cultures, not enough Neurospheres in those dishes, no mouse pups to start fresh with...the camera on our incredibly expensive microscope imaging system is somehow full of condensation and may need to be replaced...I think we can afford to replace that or keep me on for a couple more months. Kind of a catch-22 there.

But that's why they call it RESEARCH...because we RE-PEAT things.

I have to say that I don't have as many bad science days here as I did at my last job, where I was totally overwhelmed much of the time. Here the pace is much calmer, so I don't panic and make alot of mistakes. I liked working in a really chaotic busy place, the day went by quickly and I got alot done, there were always people to trouble shoot with...but I like having some time and space to myself here more, I think. I can putter around and not worry so much about tripping over someone else.

So now that I've taken a few minutes to feel sorry for myself and to get over it, I'll head back into the world of antibodies, collagen and culture supplements and try to do something that I can't mess up!

Phyllis's new bikini

I finished this suit for Maja this weekend. I hope it works for her, it's kind of saggy on Phyllis! The fabric is an orange with little silver dots...it's going to look great on Maja's brown skin.
I also ordered a white/silver hologram fabric to make a suit for Abbie...and a couple of other fabrics for one-piece suits. Oh, and I ordered some rhinestones, too. It's hard to tell what the new kind of stones will be, I ordered less expensive glass stones instead of crystal to see if they look okay. If not, I'll have to spend a bit more for crystal, but the bling is important!

I spent alot of time this weekend working on samples of embroideries for shirts for my brother Tony's business. He's an accountant, and he's getting a bunch of golf shirts with his logo to give to his clients. I'm also pulling together samples to show the Mothers of Twins Club in the Kenwood area...those are really cute, I'll shoot them next to show off.

My old Kenmore is acting stupid right now and I have fear about taking it back to the sewing shop yet again, but I do need to have it available, so I'll suck it up and take it in tomorrow night, I guess. I just hate to be like, "uh, yeah, you fixed the first thing, but I think you broke something else on it..." But I guess that's all part of that whole boundary thing I am supposed to be learning to do.

Meet Phyllis!

I got a naked woman in the mail last week. I looked everywhere for just the perfect one. I think it would be really cool if someone would invent a mannequin/dressform thing that is adjustable with inflatable rings around it or something. This posing suit thing is really challenging, because the suits have to fit absolutely snuggly without pulling things out of whack...the only thing ickier looking than a baggy posing suit is one that is too small. I have taken measurements of my clients (I have two now!), but without a perfect model to try things on, it's hit or miss right now. I'm just not good enough at figuring out how much lycra and elastic will stretch appropriately.

So we bought a naked woman. Her name is Phyllis. (Interestingly enough, Phyllis was also the name given to my evil twin during my wild and wooly party days. Phyllis made a lot of questionable choices, back in the day. )Here she is modeling the first suit I made for Maja. It fits Phyllis nicely, but Maja is a little longer in the torso, so I need to figure out how to pad Phyllis a little--or I could cut her in half and slide a bit of something between the two halves...

I have seen the how-to's for making a dressmakers dummy out of duct tape and an old t-shirt, but I don't see myself asking each new client to stand around being bound in duct tape--there is a level of trust required for that sort of thing that seems like it should be lacking in a new relationship.

meanwhile, I have been fighting with my Designer SE...what a pain in the neck. I appreciate the options, I really do, but fer crying out loud...it's so fussy! I am trying to make samples of some embroidery for my brother to put on shirts, and I just can't seem to get a nice, small font to work. I think I understand the technical difficulties, but I just can't seem to overcome them. Well, we have a whole weekend with very little to do, so maybe something will work out so that I can have better success!

Recoverying from the WHITE DEATH

OMG...it snowed and iced and stuff and we got to take yesterday off as a snow day. Actually, I took it as a sick day because I've had a cold, but the kids were home because of the snow. It was nice to relax in my jammies all day in spite of my pathetic miserable sick self. Today I'm back to the sweatshop, doing science, science science!

I finished another quilt yesterday....this one just needed a binding, like the last one, and a label. I did the paper piecing a long long time ago from a pattern that I worked out on EQ4, and the border is something I kind of invented as I went along. I like it.

I guess I would call the quilting a kind of pebbles in the stream type of thing...big circles surrounded by swirlies.
And the label is a doodle that I digitized. I used orange thread for the underlayer of the embroidery and it shows through too much in places, but that just gives it character, right?

Weekend in Latin

Michael, Sam and Dan, preparing to attend a slave auction followed by a Roman banquet. Students offered themselves as slaves for dinner in order to raise money for a scholarship fund.

I am recovering from a weekend spent with about 300 latin-speaking high school students...as one attendee declared, "The Biggest Nerd Festival in Kentucky". It was the Kentucky Junior Classical League convention. What an interesting experience! I chaperoned for the Covington Latin School group of 80 kids...the biggest group there. Our kids totally rocked in almost every competition--from classical costumes to academics, from talent to trivia. I was so impressed at how our kids did. They were wild and crazy, of course--but even MY kids seemed to behave themselves. I think they were too busy and worn out to get into too much trouble. I am especially proud of the excellent hairstyles the boys came up with.

Sam (left) and his buddy Michael. I really like the glowy effect this pink stuff gave off...

Dan was going for a Mohawk, but I think we need to practice that at home a little bit. But I think he could qualify to sub in during a Flock Of Seagulls reunion tour!

I spend alot of time over the weekend sitting around watching the kids have fun. I managed to crochet a zillion granny squares which I hope to someday assemble into a baby afghan or something (depending on how many more I make. It seems "a zillion" doesn't go very far once they are assembled).

Vest Day

It's Friday! I get to spend the weekend with my boys at the KJCL convention...that's the Kentucky Junion Classical League...basically a meeting of Latin Clubs. I'm so proud to be the mom of language nerds! Granted, if they had their druthers, they'd have choses to learn German or Swahili or something. But one thing about being a Latin nerd, you get to go to parent-sanctioned Toga parties! The meeting is in Lexinton and involves activities such as Certamen (I think that's Jeopardy in Latin, not sure how you spell "Alex Trebek" in Latin) and a chess tournament. I am bringing a good book and some crocheting.

This is me at my desk at work. I had to do the long armed self portrait thing because I don't have the timer on my camera figured out and there is noone else here yet. I can see that it is time for a haircut and some sun on that fishbelly white skin. Spring, anyone?

I've decided to do something with Granny Squares. I've always kind of turned up my nose at the GS...it seems so...Granny-ish. Not interesting or sophistocated. Recently, however, I've seen some interesting things made with GS's...maybe it's the colors that make the squares less...square. At any rate, I've gathered up my purple, teal and variegated acrylic yarn and a crochet hook to bring to Lexington this weekend. A nice, mindless project that can become something small or something bigger...we'll just see!



This is the vest I made of wool that I dyed and spun myself. I'm so proud of it! I modified a pattern from the Berroco website...I think I might have made it a tad bit longer, but I was so afraid I would run out of yarn. Besides, my boss assures me that with my new slenderer figure, a shorter top is okay. This was knit from the bottom up and I had to divide the stitches at the neck to make two sides (duh)...If I had used one ball of yarn all the way to the divide, the neck would have looked really weird with two different yarns, so I decided to do a kind of a landscape deal with the yarn...make one side be a little bit behind the other. I think this gives it a bit of a wrapped look. Anyway, I like it.



I was almost out of yarn for the back, so I added some commercial yarn (Lion Brand worsted wool) that I dyed with some of the same colors I used for the wool I spun. I guess it works, I don't know. I wear a sweater, jacket or lab coat over this most of the time, anyway, so the back doesn't show all that much...at least not to me, since I can't see it from here!

February's finished quilt

I started this quilt back in....a long time ago. but I finished the binding the other morning during a one-hour snow delay (there was no snow, not even any ice, but we had to wait an hour to go to school because it looked like it might think about snowing?)
I hand-quilted it with embroidery floss, which seemed like a fun idea when I started it, but the thrill was gone pretty quickly...but I still like the quilt.

I've also been working on Maja's posing suit...got a gorgeous purple velvet from Spandex World last week, and I worked up the courage to cut into it yesterday...now, if I can squeeze a few minutes out of the day to go down and start putting in elastic! I also ordered a woman (mannequin) the other day, I can't wait for her to come so I have someone to put my suit on for fittings! One cool thing about doing suits for body builders is that they bodies have similar measurements to the mannequins!