Animal fabric

Much Life has come between me and my blog, dear readers. But I am back! Of course, Life goes on thankfully, and in force. Some of Life is work and for the past few months I've been working as a bartender slingin' drinks at the pool bar of a nearby luxurious resort. What fun! What a lot of work! Now summer is waning, although the best weather of the year still remains here in northern California. I'll be working fewer hours but still (wo)manning the pool bar until at least mid-October. Perfect. It leaves me more time for all those other things I love.

Like pillowcases. Honestly, I have a passion for cute pillowcases. Here's another one I made...can you see the little monkeys on the blue part? Love them.

And then there's the Ant Skirt. It started out to be a pair of crop pants, but I seriously over-estimated my girth when it came to alterations to the pattern. Yes, it happens to all of us! When I got these pants put together, they were ginormous. Seriously. After a good laugh with my boyfriend Wayne over huge pants with ants, I cut off the legs and the crotch pieces, and sewed up the front and back. Voila! An adorable Ant Skirt. Here it is:

And here are the ants!

Isn't that about as cute as it gets? Now I'm working on a giraffe skirt, which I'll show you soon.

Sewing Pillowcases

One of my many passions is sewing. My mom taught me how to sew when I was 6 (for my dolls) and I've been doing it ever since. When I was in high school, I sewed most of my own clothes. It was normal for me to start a skirt in the morning (say, Saturday) and wear it on a date that night. To give my mom credit, she was cool enough to hem the almost-finished skirt for me while I showered and got gorgeous before the Guy-of-the-Day arrived.

Now I sew curtains and table napkins and things like that. I'm getting back into tailoring clothes for myself...slowly, slowly. Here's a blog I love about sewing, incidentally. http://www.blogforbettersewing.com/

So last week I was visiting my son and his family in Portland OR, and my daughter-in-law The Wonderful Allie took me to a fabric shop called Cool Cottons. Obviously they carry only cottons, and tons of them. What a great shop! On the wall, among the hand-sewn skirts and jackets and baby sleepers and little-kid backpacks was a pillowcase, done up in spaceships or something.

All of a sudden I had a brainstorm...I could make pillowcases from any fabric I wanted! Why I hadn't known this before, I can't think. I must have been brain dead. I am always looking (in stores) for cute pillowcases and never finding what I want. Anyway, I bought some cool fabric, trying to remember the colors of my duvet cover and bedroom walls and all that and here is the result below. So easy - it took about an hour from start to finish - and so cute, I think! Don't you think it's cute?

On to more new pillowcases!

Calistoga in Winter!

This photo of Calistoga is courtesy of TripAdvisor
Wayne and I just took a really fun little 3-day trip to Calistoga, in the Napa Valley. I went to gather information for an article for a travel website I write for called 52 Perfect Days; Wayne went to relax and kick back. We did all of that and I even had a mud bath. Whew! At first I had that sinking-in-the-mud quicksand feeling - a little panicky! Then I took a deep breath and settled down and enjoyed it.

A word to the wise: Don't get in the mud de-hydrated. I mean, don't over-drink the night before, or fail to drink plenty of water before and during your mud bath. It is plenty warm in there and for some reason, dehydration happens easily. The old heart starts pounding and it's unpleasant! So drink! Water!!

Here's the article: Calistoga in Winter: All the Perks Without the Crowds. Enjoy!

The Bellevue Club

I went swimming with Akaya and Kim, my neighbors and friends, at the Bellevue Club on Lake Merritt. This is the sweetest club. It was originally a women's club and is located right on the shores of the lake, beautifully luxurious in an understated way and kept up as if it were still 1907. What a treasure! Kim is a member (lucky Kim) and it costs big bucks, you can just tell.

We were the only ones in the underground lap pool, which was nice and warm. The dressing room, which now admits a few men in their own cordoned-off area, features a gadget that spins your swimsuit dry (no earplugs or swimcaps, please - the gadget eats them).

Upstairs there are rooms opening out on a balcony over Lake Merritt that can be let to your visiting out-of-town guests, whether or not you're a member.

Further upstairs there's a gorgeous bar with a balcony overlooking a white-tablecloth restaurant, and the lake. The restaurant serves dinner on Wednesdays and Sundays, and sometimes on Fridays. The bar is open when the restaurant is serving dinner. It is unclear so far whether or not you must be a member to eat at the restaurant and/or drink at the bar, but what is clear is that you must call in advance so they can turn the credit card machine on. (!)

The entire building and all it represents is priceless. What a fabulous place it would be if it were part of the regular Oakland scene. But then, it wouldn't be pristine, would it? When I find out whether non-members are welcome, I'll write more.

Birdland Jazzista Social Club

This must be the season to discover new things. I can't believe I've never heard of this before. What a great concept! So this guy in Berkeley started making food for his friends in his driveway and it turned into an "every-Friday-night" kind of party where neighbors and friends got together and drank and talked until the wee hours. Then one of his friends was in a little band, so they cleaned out the garage and set up a light and the little band played for the Friday night party. And then they decided they needed a stage and pretty soon they were booking bands. I mean, wow!

Wasn't long before the authorities moved them off the sidewalk, of course, and out of the street so now they're a social club with membership but still a laid-back neighborhood attitude and, so far as I can tell, free food. I can't wait to check it out myself...The Birdland Jazzista Social Club.

I learned about it from a musician I know who is going to play there...Nicolas Bearde. He's really good and has played with Bobby McFerrin and at Yoshi's and lots of places here and there. Very cool deal.

Musical Hide and Seek at Chapel of the Chimes?

I can't imagine why I'd go to Chapel of the Chimes, which is a mausoleum, unless I had no choice. Like, I am dead and gone, or possibly it's Halloween.

Well, believe it or not tomorrow, June 21, there is some very cool music happening at Chapel of the Chimes to celebrate the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year - and I am going there. Check out the info http://www.gardenofmemory.com/ . I hear it's a walking concert, with gobs of artists hidden among the urns and turns in the mausoleum, where the ashes of the dearly departed are interred in a beautiful setting designed by Berkeley's first and most famous female architect, Julia Morgan. I'm a BIG fan of Julia Morgan.

OK, so I'm going to hear cool music with (cool) dead people in a cool building. Maybe see you there...end of Piedmont Ave. in Oakland, right next to Mountain View Cemetery (which is also a cool place to walk). Am I getting weird?

Spring weekend - Art Murmur

We had an amazing time at Oakland's Art Murmur on Friday... just walking around uptown looking in galleries and stopping here and there. It was so great to see the streets and sidewalks filled with people. This used to be a questionable neighborhood - there was NO ONE on the streets after 5pm. Now it's full of cool restaurants and bars and clubs and galleries... and people! Do you know about Art Murmur? It's the first Friday of every month and you just walk around. A whole lot of indie art galleries are open and there are food trucks on the street and vendors and all the cool restaurants and clubs are open. This last Friday we stopped a few minutes at an old school drive-in/hamburger joint on Telegraph at about 22nd. Can't even remember its name, but it was so cool...the parking lot was filled with cherry classic cars from the 60's and 70's and someone was spinning tunes from the time. Like a warp, it was! Later we stopped by the Art Deco-y restaurant Flora for a drink and a nibble, and then sauntered into Van Kleef's for one of their famous greyhounds. The music was lame that night, so we left,, but Van Kleef usually has cool music.