How Television has RUINED me (Part 1)

I am sure this will be a multi-part series, if not a blog of it's own one day.

In today's Episode I was innocently walking to the T when I noticed a formation of geese flying overhead. Before you could shout out Rankin-Bass! I was singing (in my head) "When the Goose is Flying High" from the Little Drummer Boy.

RUINED!

Getting Bent(o)

aka Frustrated Artist Does Lunch

With no space, time or inspiration to paint theses days I have had an unattended itch to make stuff. You'd think that clothes, ads and promotionals stuff would sate it, but no. That's practical in a real practical way. But now I have discovered artistic bento. I knew about the fancy boxes, since you can get bento meals at sushi places, but I didn't know about the crazy, creative world of bento out there.
So, I have been looking at pictures of bento lunches from traditional to way silly on a lot more sites than I would have thought existed and now I am building them too. Unfortunately I have no pics of today's fabulous South Park box I made for Dave.
Cartman, blue sky, trees...wait-it's food! It's fun, creative and plenty silly. My lunch has star shaped purple pancake, a star onigiri on a field of brocolli and some fish cakes, not so cool, but cute. I also have cute boxes on the way. Making a fun lunch daily will offset that initial expense too. even Steven.
Pics in the future
Yay!

Home planning - Medieval style

This is inspiration for a future tent.

I am a newbie to the SCA. Still haven't even joined, but I like the academic part, and I love costuming and sewing and building. It is really like a club that puts on a Medieval movie, er, High School Play, every few months. Even though it's not perfect, the players have fun.
Since I am working the Turkish/Ottoman/Middle Eastern end of the spectrum, I want to work out a bedouin style tent. Fairly simple design, no complex sewing. Most importantly it will pack up pretty small for its square footage and still be a canvas tent. Heck, it'll be better than a pop-up with a canvas cover thrown on it any day!
I already have 4 really rough painter's tarps that were originally destined for other things that will be heading to the tent department. One was painted black earlier in the summer to provide more shade, and that worked so the rest will be headed down that road as well.
My plan is to sew those all into one hunk and reinforce any place poles go with leather. The paint we used on the first tarp was a watered down latex that was applied imperfectly with a roller. No prob,. it looks rustic and it was still able to do that cotton fibers swell to = waterproof in the rain, so it won't even get any waterproofing.
I have an assortment of fabrics for inside decor as well as carpets. Just need a relaible bed.