Illuminations, Writing, and Dinner Plans

Last time I posted, I was working on crochet while fighting my sewing machine. Still working on crochet, takes a little longer because my hands tend to cramp badly. In the meantime, I was asked to attempt and illuminated thank you card for my SCA shire. I've done a few illuminations, nothing fancy, but I do love doing it so I decided to try. However, doing a few illuminations for family is nothing like doing it for the SCA. Oil paint...super hard to work with when you're out of practice! Also, imitation vellum is...different to work with. Regardless, I'm having a blast!

Here's a little picture of the work of progress.



In other news, National Novel Writing Month (also known as: NaNoWriMo) is almost upon us. Every November crazy plotlines and insane characters abound fueled on by pitchers of coffee. I'm hoping I can find more Alamogordo people to do it with me this year. My first year in San Antonio we had a GREAT group! It was so much fun! I learned more about writing in that month than I ever have in my life. Young, old, it didn't matter, everyone came and hung out and discussed writing. It was beautiful!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this year. The story idea I have is pretty crazy and awesome and full of INSANITY! Maybe I shall elaborate in the future.

On the Domestic Goddess-in-Training front, I have a new idea for a dinner plan. A pasta sauce using a prego traditional base, heavy cream, bay leaves, oregano, plenty of garlic, ande maybe a few other spices. Unsure about the noddles I ought to use though. If you have any ideas, do let me know!

-S

P.S. Husband is still very awesome! Just thought I'd mention!

Sarah vs. Sewing Machine (or How I Learned My Husband Is a Super Hero)

The other day, Justin bought me a sewing machine he found on a garage sale site. Only thirty bucks,

three months old, and only used a handful of time until the seller decided to buy a more expensive one. It's nothing fancy. Just a little Brother sewing machine with a couple different types of stitches and some knobs that I have no idea how to use. But I was thrilled! However, being the busy person I am, I didn't have the time to put it all together and try to remember how to use a sewing machine.I haven't touched one since my freshman year of college. So last night, while I was pissed off and mad at work and sadly ignoring my patient husband, he found the instructional manual online and painstakingly threaded the machine and taught himself the basics so he could show me before he left for a meeting he had.

My first attempts were pretty pathetic. I knotted the thread, I had to re-thread the machine, I knotted the thread again, I re-thread the machine again, and finally I realized that I had ruined the project I was working on. Angrily, I threw down my project, turned off the sewing machine, and went to console myself with a glass of wine and a bath while reading the last Harry Potter book (it's been about two years since I've read it so I wanted to read it again.).

I did not re-engage with my nemesis until Justin came home later. He saw the ruined wreckage of my project and sat me down and figured out what I'd done wrong. Apparently, I had the stitch set to zig-zag, also I was trying to sew horizontally, when I should have been running it through vertically. (Dur!)  He calmly reset the machine and showed me how. Then he surprised me with some pretty iridescent red thread for my project and pretty yarn to crochet with (that's my other "crafty project", except I actually know some

of the basics of crocheting.

To top it off, he found the seam-ripper and began the arduous task of ripping out my tangled and messy attempts that I thought had ruined my project.

The morals of this story are:

1. My husband is a wonderful and amazing man who loves me greatly, even when I know I don't deserve the patience and kind words.

2. I need to have way more patience with this crafting-business.

3. When you don't know quite how to do something, it's best not to practice with something that you really like or care about. Especially when that project contains nice fabric that you don't have much of.

4. Justin is way better at this than I am!

Once Upon a Time...

Around two weeks ago I decided that after a very long day at work, I wanted to do something relaxing. I wanted to sew. Or at least learn how to sew.

In Mrs. Randle's world, this was a very monumental (and not entirely relaxing) undertaking. I have been trying for the almost six months my husband and I have been married (and the year of dating before that) to learn to cook meals. My wonderful husband is a good sport and ends up saving my meal attempts or at least putting on a brave face when the dish isn't entirely cooked through.

Nevertheless, I am not the most domestic person. I am more at home playing WoW (World of Warcraft for the uninitiated), or Left for Dead 2, or something along those lines.

But as I surf the internet looking for cheat codes and medieval garb, I run across craft blogs. And those women who make amazingly gorgeous things with fabric or paint or recycled old picture frames. I would read those blogs shamefully in the dead of night wishing I'd been gifted with more graceful goddess attributes and less...bad-arse warlike gaming abilities. (I kid...I don't even have those ;) )

However, I digress. Where there's a will, there is a way. Maybe there are other nerdy women out there who wish those adorable crafty patterns were in a language we could actually understand...outside of gaming.

Well that, my friends, is my project! I always wanted to be a linguist anyway. I will make the little crafts, rant and rave about the trials, and explain the process in a way other goddesses-in-training can understand!

So don your helms fellow warrior-women because we head into terrifying realms unknown!

-S