After reading some blogs about removing lawns, I followed (with help from S) the general recommended method. It took us about 2 or 3 weekends.
1. Turned over all the sod with a shovel. This took the longest.
2. Got cheap mulch at municipal dump. It took 2 trips and 5 big garbage bag fulls for only ~1-2" of coverage.
3. Spread out newspaper on top of sod, then mulch
4. Planted things: I bought a few CA natives at the Hidden Villa biannual sale
- pacific coast iris (lavendar lace)
- conejo buckwheat (said to be sulfur yellow)
- san francisco wallflower (said to be pale yellow)
- and two little satellite plants off the parent penstemmon & mexican sage I already had.
I was still going for a purple/yellow/silver scheme at the time.
5. I found random bricks and used them to edge against the neighbor's weedy grass hellstrip so it wouldn't creep in.

pink circles = new plants

before and after

during and after

You can't see much because the plants are still tiny and there's debris from other yard work. The grass is gone for good, and I've only had to weed a little here and there. All the plants survived, though the penstemmon shrunk back to a tiny little sprout, and I suspect people like stepping in it when they get out of their cars.

In the fall, we dumped a whole bunch of extra pine needles on top. Don't do that -- weed seeds really like settling in there.

And a week ago the wallflower bloomed for the first time.

see also: front yard 1, front yard 2

In class and in books, they teach the more common adjustments, like FBA (full bust adjustment), rounded upper back, and swayback. I suspect that is targeted to a certain body type and maybe age. I bet there's also a set of common adjustments for the "average" asian body (maybe more rectangular/stick-like vs. the classic hourglass, which would lead to ... mostly waist adjustments? SBA?). That would be neat to know and very handy.

see also: coat 1: the fabric and plan

It's a mostly purple/yellow/silver scheme, with bits of red. The eucalyptus has also mysteriously disappeared.

I can't remember where I collaged the plants from anymore, but these are:
- deergrass / Muhlenbergia rigens - for height and structure
- moonshine yarrow / Achillea "Moonshine" - for yellow
- penstemmon (from the backyard) - for purple
- cleveland sage / Salvia clevelandii - for purple
- california fuschia / Zauschneria californica - for red
- lambsears (from the backyard)

I think I put this together almost a year ago and have been messing with it on and off ever since.

see also: front yard 1: an intro

I also went for the more interesting fabric and ordered 3 yards of the teal wool blend. Except, when I got it, I realized that what seemed like an interestingly thick woven tweed with highlights and shadows was actually the pattern of how the strands had been felted into a smooth fabric, with mostly black/white strands, with a bit of teal here and there. So, it reads as a much darker and busier fabric.

Compare my photos ...

...to the website's

I kind of wish I'd gotten the black and white 100% wool herringbone tweed instead, but oh well.

I'll be making the view B length, with the following mods:
- pointed, not rounded, corners on the collar
- welt pockets and epaulets and wrist tab things
- thinner back tab thing

With the louder pattern, solid black accents and piping might be nice:

The front yard is not an inviting place. It is gloomy and shady, except for a bit of afternoon sun. An ugly eucalyptus with a penchant for dropping branches towers over it all. The house sellers tried to hide things with a layer of nuggety brown mulch and clowny marigolds, but within a month, all the junk that was hiding underneath started showing up again. After half a year, it was mostly weeds and grass.

september 2008, march 2009: what it started as

Not everything was bad ... in the spring, I found a ton of violets hiding in the grass. The yard also came with a cute green japanese maple and what I found out later were a mexican bush sage and several japanese anemones.

I watched and charted and researched for almost an entire growth cycle. Some things, like the begonia and princess flowers, didn't make it through my turning off the water. Some things, like the volunteer baby loquat tree, I weeded out. Some things, like the blue potato bush, I tried to chop down thinking they were shrubby weeds, until they came back the next year with flowers and proved they weren't. (Most things I ended up finding in various excellent California plant books at the library, but the blue potato bush was a tough one. Be impressed by my image-search abilities.)

L: what it came with, R: what died in the first 6 months. the marigolds dried into little husk corpses

The plan is to have a much better front yard, done mostly by myself. It will be drought tolerant, and have California natives where reasonable. It will also probably take 3-5 years to get there.

List of useful books and websites about drought tolerant and CA native plants:
- Las Pilitas nursery website - incredibly useful articles for the beginner
- Northern California Gardening: A Month-By-Month Guide - by Katherine Grace Endicott - indispensable. tells you what to do, when. I found the 1st edition in a used bookstore, but it looks like there's a newer one out.
- Golden Gate Gardening - by Pam Pierce - really practical tips on gardening in this area. I learned the names of half my weeds from this book. I think a 2nd edition is coming out this week, and it will be mine.
- Bruce and Sharon Asakawa's California Gardener's Guide - I used their books to ID most of the stuff I had
- Designing California Native Gardens - by Keator & Middlebrook - in-depth view of ecology, gardening, design
- Plants And Landscapes For Summer-dry Climates Of The San Francisco Bay Region - similar to above. detailed explanation of things, more about design and ecology.
- any book with the words "Western" and "Sunset" in the title

Cannot decide whether to post gardening projects:
A. by monthly activities
B. by project steps

I'm guessing people enjoy reading about projects more. But time-based is probably more useful for other gardeners.

I cannot paint symmetrically. Expect the mask to always be tilted, if I ever actually use it. People still give me strange looks when I mention this project.

Also, orange is a surprisingly hard color to mix. Between me and S, we kept making buckets of salmon-pink. I settled for brown.

See also: fox mask 1

I'm trying to use up all my existing fabric, which includes a thin pink-striped cotton I picked up in Japan ~6 years ago.

The whole thing went together pretty easily -- be aware that there is ~4 inches of ease in the waist, so plan accordingly. The only adjustment I had to make so far was the usual one of increasing the back darts.

But ... the neckline. It's so high it feels like it's pushing into my neck. It is covering the hollow at the base of the throat by a little more than an inch. Maybe that is normal for vintage-esque styles, where they expect you to have excellent posture.

Of course I found this out after I understitched the whole facing down and clipped and graded the neckline. So that is why it is not done yet, and now I am busy with class.

It's pretty easy to do, most of the internet has the same following steps.

1. Armature
Use 2-3 layers of heavy-duty aluminum foil, and mold it to your face, marking the corners of your eyes. Add details like snouts and ears ... I did a bit of clipping and taping for curves to stick on. Cut out the eyes, and the general shape of things. Check it out in the mirror.

2. Prep paper mache
Rip newspaper strips; they will rip easily in 1 direction. I think I went through 3 or 4 pages of Barrons. Make paste by boiling 1:5 parts flour:water + a teeny bit of salt, mixing lots while bringing it to a boil .. I found that ~1/8 cup of flour was enough. This will make a nice gel (don't use the no-boil recipes, they will flake when dry.)

3. Paper mache away
Lay a piece of saran wrap over the foil so it doesn't stick. You should remember how to do the rest from elementary school. Tips: Let each layer dry before you put on another one. I made 2 layers, then removed it from the foil and trimmed the edges and eye holes.

After that, I did 2 inside+outside layers, being sure to go over the edges to smooth them out. Ripping small tears in your strip in the same way you'd clip a curve in sewing helps things lie nicely along a curve (i.e. rip perpendicular to the curve). When the mask is wet, you can kind of mold it back into shape -- it will want to flatten. As it's drying, try laying it on top of or inside the foil to help keep its shape, maybe with the help of rubber bands around the snout.

4. Finishing
Paint it. Punch holes for an elastic band. Tada! No pictures of that yet, because I can't find my white acrylic paint.

Other animal mask ideas: raccoon, bunny, owl.

See also: fox mask 2

We need to pick a coat or jacket pattern and the fabric right away. I originally wanted a boyfriend blazer with the thin satin tux lapels, but it's not available as a commercial pattern. So, I'm thinking coat -- my purple one is nice for the fall, but it's thin and doesn't actually fit over a sweater.

Burda 7565 looks promising, especially if done up in a shorter length and with all the button and tab details, but the collar in the photo looks a bit wonky. Or maybe Butterick 5145 with similar styling and no wonky collar? Here are cute versions of it.

img from burda

Here's what it might look like on me, in some of the wools I've found online. What do you think? Keep looking?

fabric textures from gorgeous fabrics and emma one sock

The b&w herringbone is pretty neat, but would need lots of black accents and piping to help the details stand out. And is that color too boring? Would the blue or red be more interesting? I like how the description for the blue says specifically that it could be used for a winter (not fall) coat ... nice and warm.

(Actually, I really wanted to make a motorcycle jacket, but all those zippers don't seem appropriate for the techniques we'll be learning in class.)

Have you heard of Ravelry? It's got a really useful, really targeted advanced search, and each pattern logged on there has about a bazillion people uploading actual completed project photos they worked on. That's where I found this pattern, though I guess it turns out that I don't know how to count yarn ply (hat is a bit big).

Ravelry link, actual pattern link, for the Jacques Costeau hat. I think there's a slight mistake in the pattern though. First round of decrease should start with 28 in the rib pattern, then KKS, without the 2 purls at the very end.

One thing I was wondering ... why don't more software engineers knit? Knitting is EXACTLY analogous to programming.

- instructions = program
- repeats = program iterations
- cabling / special working = program functions
- brain = compiler
- fingers/needles = processor?
- knit product = pixels on screen. (look at what you can do with intarsia!)

Here's the Jacques Cousteau hat as a pseudo-scripty-whatever-program.

CAST 120; JOIN;
while (hat < 8_inches): FN_RIB;
for (onerow): FN_DECREASE1;
while (stitches_in_row > 12): FN_DECREASE;
TIE_OFF;

define FN_RIB:
   K 3; P 2;

define FN_DECREASE1:
   while (stitches_from_mark <= 28): FN_RIB; //a bit squirrelly
   K 2; S;
   MARK;

define FN_DECREASE:
   while (stitches_to_mark > 2): FN_RIB;
   K 2; S;
   MARK;

S says programmers would rather have machines do the work.

I had these 2 skeins purchased on sale a long time ago, and decided to make some glove-like things. The Dashing pattern looked really nice, and complicated enough to try. Even though this is only the 2nd thing I've ever tried to knit.

I figured out knitting in the round and cabling, yay internet tutorials, and here's where it's at:

What I learned was
1. Variegated yarn obscures any sort of cabling pattern, boo.
2. My yarn was too thick for this pattern, and it knit up a chunky big glove for a chunky big man, boo.

Should I rip it out and do something else? What else could I do? Variegated yarn seems best suited for either lacework or just plain stitches. My yarn is too chunky for the first, and I'd be kind of bored by the second.

Unrelated question: It seems like all the cool kids use Drupal these days. Is it worth it to transition from Movable Type? (especially with that weird commenting issue I don't know how to fix, where it doesn't look like you submitted any comments for a while)

Photos, finally. I went with a draped look for the skirt and gathered the turned pleats into the side, extending the skirt straight down a few inches since ending the skirt right at that point was a bit tarty. I didn't know what to do with all the bunchy extra fabric on the inside ... I just kind of tacked it shut and trimmed off excess.

The construction was otherwise pretty straightforward -- all of the hems are turned under twice. The neckline was done in a hong-kong seam-finishing-ish way, with a little help from Threads for how to do the actual V point (useful article link). I reinforced the shoulder seams and pockets with some silk noil lying around. I love love love the pockets; they are so fun and such a nice comfortable size for hands to tuck into.

Here's an in-context photo, more for mood than anything else:

I spent the last few weeks, around family visits, updating my momoko clothing pattern website, dress*up. I also embroidered the logo and took a picture of that -- but I cheated by doing only 1/5 of it, then photoshopping the rest. Tip: take pictures at 72° angles so the lighting is correct.

Changes =
- more "social"
- newsletter subscribers got a sneak peek at the bubble dress pattern
- less annoying ads. click click.

The "social" (I hate how vague that word is) comes from fancy new Google Friend Connect gadgets. It is rather pitiful at first though ... maybe the right thing to do is seed it with activity. Any doll fans want to help out?