Sewing: red fleece

Hmmm... what's this?

Has she lost her mind? Piles of red fleece and orange thread?? By the way, did you know that fleece sheds like crazy? Yes, I should have guessed that my fleece jacket, which shed like crazy for a while would not shed as much as actually cutting pieces of fleece. Well, more incentive to vacuum later.

It's not for me. Okay, it's sorta for me, in that I think I will get a kick out of the results. I know this goes against the advice from the Selfish Seamstress, but I'm still a novice in both the sewing and selfish sewing.

Gardening: tomatoes!

Summer is awesome!

that.is.all.

Gardening: The artificially-enhanced growing muscle

After last year's bounty, I must admit that my expectations for this year were pretty low (it's so much easier to exceed low expectations).

However, something unexpected occurred: the advent of a solarium / greenhouse. What's the difference between a solarium and a greenhouse? According to dictionary.com, a greenhouse is therapeutic for plants, and a solarium is therapeutic for people. So when I sit out there with my tomato plants and read a book, I guess it's a greenium or a solariouse. Take your pick.

Wait. Was that "tomato plants"?

Yes, yes, there are

Two of the five plants are only six feet tall. "Only" because I had to chop off the tops because they were pressed against the ceiling and/or they were collapsing under their own weight. They are all staked, but the stakes' 4.5 feet aren't providing a lot of support for the tops of the plants. You know, the tops, where a lot of the tomatoes grow:

This particular string of cherry tomatoes has 23 budding fruits, which will make a lovely orange salad for me later (unless I eat them one by one as they ripen, which is a distinct possibility). Still working out how to determine when the green zebra tomates are ripe... hmm...

Sewing (sorta): domesticity

Yes, it's been far too long for the two people who actually read this. I know you've been dying for updates. Ha ha.

Since January (the last entry here), there's been a lot going on in TheRealLife. Here's part of what I managed to sew since then:

Now, you might say, "Gee, those look like lovely curtains from Pier 1. Did you get a new job??" And I'll say, "Noooooo, look closely!" And you'll squint and say, "But I don't see a difference!" I'll pay you the money later.

And the reality is, they werer purchased from said retailer... but I hemmed them! I also lined them with blackout fabric for this east-facing window. This had the unintended effect of giving the curtains a nice heft that the original polyester didn't possess.

I also blacked-out a few other windows and sewed some squares to cover other windows, but they're not as exciting-looking. There's one set of windows that's being covered by fabric and bulldog binder clips. Hey, don't knock the working jerry-rigged solution!

Sewing: B&W&P dress finished!

Here it is!

Okay, it's actually been done for a couple of months. And then it got cold, and I'm pretty much a wimp when it comes to voluntarily being chilled merely for pictures. So, you'll have to be satisfied with a non-human-modeling of the dress.

It turned out pretty cute. Perhaps it's a little high-school-dance-ish, but maybe I can get away with that look for a few more years (or not, and I'll look like the crazy middle-aged lady who thinks she's way younger than she looks). Other than the now-realized-somewhat-obnoxious-print, it's a good experience in doing weird little seams, as well as the seam bindings. I probably should have done a more invisible hem, but I wanted it done and didn't see an easy way to hem it securely.

Maybe at some point, I'll get brave enough to try a grown-up pattern, like Simplicity or Vogue...

Baking: Thanksgiving

We do Thanksgiving... big. This entails inviting everyone who doesn't have their own friends/family thing to go to. This year was only 16 people, so smaller than other years (and larger than others), but we'll still take it. Besides the normal turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, greens, and so on, my bragging rights really come after dinner. Here's part of the reason I haven't been sewing:

The pear-pomegranate pie in front is mine. The next is a friend's pumpkin cheesecake, a bowl of fresh persimmons, another friend's pumpkin whoopie pies, and my (boring but requisite and tasty) pumpkin pie. Besides the amazing tastiness of the pear pie (it went away quickly!), a lot of people commented on the lattice top. I've never had a problem with doing a lattice (although parts of me want to do fancy braiding things with skinnier strings of dough... wonder if kumihimo is a possibility). I always wonder how people do the dough leaf-cut-out things, because mine never look like leaves, even if I follow a pattern.

You'd think that the plethora of orange food would have brought out our inner Oompa Loompas... fortunately no.

When I look through your eyes...

I've recently (mentally) dug up an old presentation: Art Theory for Engineers. I kinda irritated some co-workers a few years back, when I not-at-all-subtly suggested that their uninformative and over-stuffed PowerPoint presentations looked awful, and they'd actually be more effective if they thought about eye/brain intake and color theory. Which was true! They prompty ignored my advice and kept presenting ineffective slides.

I mean, yes, the school mascot is kinda funny to have in print and completely enhances all of your cool scientific data. Especially graphs. Totally helps on graphs and points out the pertinent information. And flying-in or swirling out bullet points? Very impressive, because no one else thought of using that.

Oh sarcasm...

Where does art theory come into slides? It's all in your eyes. What were your eyes designed to do originally? See stuff that thinks it's about to eat you. Pretty important. Therefore, your eyes (and brain) are fantastic at picking out fine movements (based on high-contrast light and shadow) and bright out-of-place colors. Bright color, fine details. Let's take a look at what makes ads effective:

image from Crate and Barrel website

Lovely turkey dinner, just in time for Thanksgiving! What's the first thing your eyes focus on? Probably the turkey. Why? It's the bright white fine twine on the leg trusses. That's detail and contrast. The second thing your eyes focus on? Probably the wonderfully fluffy mashed potatoes (and you know they've got the right of butter in there, along with the potato skins for extra contrast). They're the next brightest thing, and in close proximity to the string/turkey. Then you follow the shiny silver immersion blender across to the left, which leads you to the patterned orange and yellow dishtowel, up to a similarly-colored wine glass, and back to the turkey. On your second pass, you'll probably notice that the knife block points to a lemon-yellow cassarole pot. You probably still won't notice the bowls of Granny Smith apples or cranberries in the background, not to mention the colander of whole potatoes in the front right.

So, what are they selling? Obviously since it's Crate and Barrel, they want you to buy kitchen stuff. From the picture, it's mostly about the food that happens to be sitting in and around kitchen stuff. Food is a fantastic motivator (hooray for the primitive brain), so it makes sense to make you hungry for, uh, roasting pans.

Let's try another:

image from Banana Republic website

This one's actually pretty clever at moving your eye around. It wouldn't be nearly as effective if the lettering weren't there.

Okay, breakdown time. You first look at her face. It's the only non-neutral color in her cheeks and lips, as well as the brightest part of the whole picture. Details make you then look at her eyes, which (cleverly) are reading the taglines! Because we read left-to-right, you then follow the last of the text over to the white part of the pattern in the sweater, which then leads down to her hands. Because her jacket is open, you follow the V-shape back up to her face via the bright strands of blonde-highlighted hair. Repeat loop. You probably don't realize what color her shirt is, or that it's even in the picture at all.

How's that? Impressed yet? Next time will be why some ads (and slide presentations) are ineffective.

Have you got any tips for effective presentations?