Summer Vacation, From LA to San Francisco Part One

Photos, photos photos!  Thats what this post is all about.  I'll let the photos and their captions tell the story of our vacation.  A little bit of background first... We live in Yuma, Arizona.  Which I like to think of as the butt of the country, for many reasons.  Least of which is the geographic location.  Also, its hot.  Really hot.  So, that lead us to the decision to make a trek up to San Francisco, where it is not hot.  My hubby's parents live north of Los Angeles, making it a great setting off point.  Now on to the pictures!

Can you believe I've been around LA for 3 years and this is the first time
I've been to City Walk?  The Chinese Theater was so cool, and also crowded.

Yep, I'm a trekkie nerd... I just had to get a picture of the cast of TOS Star Trek's
 square.  Too bad there were too many people around to get a good, full shot of it.

Pismo Beach

The next stop after LA was at Pismo Beach.  This is me standing at the end of the Pier.   Pismo was pretty uneventful, although I did have some tasty buffalo style fried clams.  (And yes, I made that fab bag, I loved it so much I had to keep it for myself)

I thought this was a lovely scenery shot of the beach from the end of the pier.  The only other thing of note from Pismo is that I got an awesome comfy dress for $20 at the outlet mall there.

San Francisco Day One:

The first thing we did after finding our hotel and nabbing a parking spot was walk to Ghirardelli Square.  This fountain is right in the middle and it is so picturesque!   

Then we found Cellar 360, a wine bar right at the back of the square.  I decided to try my first ever wine tasting.  It was awesome!  I learned a little bit, and enjoyed some great wines over a full spectrum, from a sweet white, to a blush, to a "hardcore" red.  The cheese was necessary for the reds.  I don't think I could have drank them without it.  But it was a taste I think I could acquire, given the chance.  I got to keep the cheese board too!  Oh, and our wine pourer was super nice.  I highly recommend checking this place out, if you're ever in the area.

I know its a huge attraction, but this is about as close to Alcatraz as we got.  Would you believe this picture is taken from the Cellar 360 window?

This is the San Francisco skyline, as viewed from a Rocketboat.  This was probably the most exciting part of the whole trip.  The boat was basically a huge speed boat, going up to about 45 knots.  We did twists and turns in the water and our hair got all messed up.  It was awesome.

A funny store front from Pier 39.  We ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, and then headed back to the hotel for bed.

San Francisco Day 2:

Day 2 was Asian Stuff Day.  We went to the Asian Art museum, which was amazing.  We even managed to get up and navigate the buses to be there right as it opened.

This was really cool buddha statue from the museum, I loved how the colors were so bright.  We weren't allowed to take very many pictures, and a lot of the ones we did take didn't turn out very well.

This wall of jade was so cool!  They had a whole room devoted to jade objects.  When we were done looking around, we had lunch in the cafe of the museum.  Unfortunately, it wasn't very good, but we made up for it in Chinatown...

The south Chinatown Gate.  I didn't get many pictures in Chinatown because we were too busy shopping and then getting lost on the way to a restaurant I had scoped out online that offered Sze Chuan style hot pot.  I did pick up quite a haul of Japanese gummy candies and Hello Panda cookies.

Me and my hot pot.  This must be the most delicious style of food known to man.  I was even able to get a soup base that had real Szechuan peppercorns in it.   It wasn't quiet the same style of hot pot that I was used to from my favorite restaurant in the Chi-town Chinatown, but it was good.

After Chinatown, we also went to Ripley's Believe It or Not and the Boudin Bakery (for some real San Fran Sourdough!) but we forgot the camera at the hotel.  I'm going to end this post here, since day 3 was a nonstop photo-op, and I have tons of pictures to share!

Photostory: The Wave and The Creative Process

This is a photostory rather than a tutorial, to document my creative process and reflect on it.   Think of it as a "pre tutorial".  I may, at a later date, make an actual tutorial of this pattern.

The process:

I sat down last night with the fabric and pondered what I wanted to do with it.  I've had this fabric for about five months now.  I picked it up at Joann's when I very first bought my sewing machine because I was totally enamored with it.  But I was afraid to use it right away with my mere beginner's sewing skills.   It's siren's call finally got the best of my sewing insecurities and I got it out.

The fabric!

I usually start my original projects at my desk, rather than at the sewing table.  This one was no different.

I sat down with my trusty tea cup and a packet of gummies to sketch out my general idea.  I almost never have a fully concrete idea when I sketch, or even when I'm actually working on the project.  I have ideas, but they are not realized until the project is actually finished.

Once I've sketched enough, I actually use my sketch paper to cut out my pattern pieces (if they fit, this one did).  As you can see from my pattern, I was planning darts at the bottom of the purse.  You may not be able to make it out, but I also have small marks at the top for pleating.  Along with the body of the purse, I have an idea of how long I want the strap to be and that I want a strip to go around the top.

With my idea and pattern in hand, I can move to the sewing table and start cutting things out.  

I cut out both the front and back of the bag in one go.  For now, I've left the dart cuts alone, which will turn out to be a really good idea. If I had really been thinking, I probably could have cut out the satin lining at the same time as well.

There's a step in here I didn't photograph, but I did cut out some heavy fusible interfacing and line the back of the wave fabric.

Next I got to the actually sewing.  I started by sewing the darts I had planned.  However, I didn't like how they looked, so I took them out and decided to just stick with the pleats at the top.   Thinking about it now, I may use pleats like this as a corner element in the future.  

Another not shown step: I serged the two outside pieces together.

That was as far as I could get with out cutting out my lining and serging those together as well.

I made a handle by cutting out a 2.5 inch wide, 16 inch long strip of the same satin as the lining, folding it, serging the open side, pressing it, and using the regular machine to stitch up both sides.  Here are all the pieces (minus the top "lip" which caused me some issues)

I attached the handle to the "lip" with the serger, and then sewed on the lip over the edges of the top of the bag, and voilá!  Presto!  Bago!

Aaand done.  This finished product is not the end of the creative process as even as I'm writing this, more ideas of how to tweak and improve the design are coming to me.  I will be putting this lovely little bag up on Etsy as soon as I have some better lighting (aka morning) in which to photograph it.

Any and all comments are welcome!