Sew, you have a fiber arts minor, did you think you'll escape your love affair with textiles?
Mrs SFDaddy is a rock star in the quilting and fabrics game. This is a link to one of her sample quilts that uses the fabrics fromwonderful designs of Eric Carle who does the Very Hungry Caterpillar series.The girls are quickly becoming "Rockettes" in their own rights. Red1 is altering tshirts into skirts and tank tops, looking cute. Red2 can weave up a friendship bracelet like its a military exercise.
I am a little quilty by association. What am I doing? I helped with two quilts and have a third one in the UFO pile. In quilt-speak that's an UN-FINISED-OBJECT. The first was a quilt for Red1. we took our old shirts and cut them up into squares, layered them together, sewed then up, snipped the edges and we had a great scrappy quilt.
The second project was a quilted pillow, not pictured here. Red1 picked the fabrics and we figured out how to make a giant pillow.
The UFO is my pirate quilt. We all used to play an online pirate game and I had a character I grew pretty fond of. This is the sketch and fabrics selected to pull it off. The fabrics run from tropical to treasure. We're looking for the original sketch of the quilt. The drawing here is on Red1 drew up.
You don't have to be sewing to have a UFO. But you also don't have to be haunted by them. I'm granting you all amnesty from being chased down by your UFO's. Just try not to be abducted by them.
This photo of ice was taken on a quiet morning after an event of lunar celebrations and other indie, crafty-like experiences called "Dreamtide" in Ashville, NC. We met up with travelling puppeteers and acrobats who flew Red1 and Red2 into the air with their feet and taught them how to soar with aerial silks. The girls love making functional items that they can trade with. Red2 walked around I.C.E. (see below) and traded out quite a bit of loot with the other vendors. The vendors prefer actual money, but Mrs. SF Daddy had some really cute "Sneaters" to trade that year.
I love this video showing us, I.C.E. There's a lot of plaid in it, but don't hold that against us.
I-C-E, the Indie Craft Experience, based in Atlanta is a lot of things. Our friend Shannon is part of the team that created and curates this experience for us the crafty consumer AND us as the crafty creators. I couldn't explain it better than they do, so here's a quote from their own site:
With a vision to provide indie crafters an opportunity to sell and promote their creations in Atlanta, ICE quickly caught on as a favorite event for participants and attendees alike. ICE is a grass-roots effort, organized by two Atlanta crafters – Christy Petterson of a bardis and Shannon Mulkey of Patina. Inspired by indie craft markets in Chicago and Austin, the Indie Craft Experience was founded in order to provide Atlanta with a major indie craft event. In addition to craft markets, ICE also organizes Wedding Day Hooray, Salvage and an annual Pop-Up Shop during the holiday season.
This is a long video, but at the ICE site, there's a long list of events they do all year round. I have quite a few friends who needed ICE to "pop-up" for them. I hope my crafty-pals finally take the hint and leap in, sign up, and get a table to sell their neat items.
Mrs. SF Daddy is totally a maker. She's a frequent participant of I.C.E., currently has some items at Naked Art in Birmingham, AL, and talks about her stuff, which for some reason we named SlothCraft, on her blog.
Lot's of links today, but, hey, you wanted to know all this stuff, right?
It's not just all about the honey, but wait for it, honey, honey.
The bees have been hit hard in last few years. This CBS News story covers it well. The 'skeptical' interview is amusing, but judge for yourself, that's not what this post is really about.
Building a Hive. Just add bees.
Since we shouldn't have chickens or goats, we're planning on raising bees. Red1 and Mrs. SF Daddy have spent months working with the main bee dude in Georgia learning how to be proper beekeepers. We got a sad email that instead of being able to pick up their bees this month they'll need to find another source if they want to start this year.
The cute beekeeper suites and hives are all ready to go into production, but the health of our bee colony was compromised and now we'll hive to wait a little longer. Ouch. Poor little fellers.
While we wait, remember the Archie's? Sure, but what's with the weird dog with the crush on the girl in the kissing booth? And why do the guys look so angry just before they get kissed?
Grow! Part of the effort to create a wildlife garden full of bird feeding, seeding producing, flower-popping, goodness, is to grow some seedlings from scratch. From seeds.
Label This
Red3. Red4. Red5, Standing by.
Mrs. SF Daddy wrangled a large collection of seeds this year. Almost every year for a few years now, she'd started trays of seedlings, popped them into the ground and bam, we have tomatoes, daisies, bachelor buttons, echinacea, peppers, cucumbers, blah, blah, munch, munch, munch.
Plant this.
This year, she decided to start, not just a seed swap, but a seedling swap. She conned--I mean--enlisted her friends to start their own trays of seeds. They'd return to their own homes with trays of seeds ready to sprout. In a few weeks, they all return to the scene of the crime and trade little baby plants. Then instead of 20 or 30 of the same plants, they all leave again with a wide variety.
The plan was fool proof. Almost. The first batch of seeds was shipped to the wrong address and the seed starting party had to be postponed. (And all the way to the next full moon, if you're following along with the posts.)
While the first batch sprouted, we had a few intrusions! Ants in the trays!
Now that things have calmed down and we're in April, we have lots of little babies almost ready to share and pop into the ground around the tulips. Surprise! Red2 and I planted tulip bulbs and they're almost ready to pop!
This video will walk you through the seed starting process. Join us as we prepare to plant some seeds.
Day of the Dead (Dia de Los Muertos) - This is the link to the Atlanta Day of the Dead festivities. Open it up to hear some good mood musica for this post. One of the things that Mrs. SF Daddy keeps occupied with is a home business selling fabric. She's an artist, loves to sew, selects fabrics that appeal to her and hopefully appeals to her customers. So far, most of her customers agree with her stylistic sensibilities enough to keep us in business and pretty happy. One of her favorite motifs is the Day of the Dead fabric. Love the happy skellytons. While she and the girls are off around the country at sewing and quilting shows, I get to cut it up for orders. The selections here are some of my current favorites. Here's a link to our shop if anyone's also interested in that. :) Usually celebrated in early November, I'm thinking about the Day of the Dead this week as I remember my grandfather who left us this year. Here's to you! Salude!
Part of the fun of being able to identify plants as you walk by them in the forest is knowing which ones might poison you and which ones are mighty tasty prepared in a mixed drink over ice or fermented and bottled.
Last year the ladies got really interested in squishing fruit. They combed the neighborhood and delivered letters to our especially fruity neighbors inviting them to some free labor. In exchange for cleaning up around their fruit trees, we'd bring home a few large buckets of apples, pears, persimmons and muscadines. Over the course of several weeks during harvest season we accumulated many "carboys" (large glass containers) full of squeezings. They're naturally doing their thing and now we have lots of bottles to fill. Pretty tasty pear wine, honey wine, cyser, mead, and more, I'm sure. I'm trying to stay at arm's length. (Yes, with a glass in hand, though.)
Identifying the plants while you're walking next to them is pretty impressive, but what really wowed me was driving around, even on the highway, hearing, "Pear! Apple! Persimmon!" Red2 identified a pear tree hiding in front of a grocery store. She's 9, kiddos.
Their mom and I did share. It wasn't all booze. We had persimmon cake, apple and pear butter, and pear preserves using as recipe from the tree owner who feels like she's all done making preserves herself. She was very happy to have some help.
The last thought here is about where this all leads. The natural ingredients that used to be found in things like Maraschino cherries and grenadine. Amy Stewart's book, The Drunken Botanist, is good read full of stories about what's really supposed to be in the bottles. Read the labels, folks. Red1 wants a field trip to a liquor store to find real grenadine made with pomegranates, not colored up corn syrups. I think she'll have to wait a bit for that. Do you think the shop keepers will let us in to read the labels?
2. Shadowrun - a roll-playing game we played in the early nighties for a few weeks. We had used up our enthusiasm for Dungeons and Dragons. Shadowrun, in a few words, is Blade Runner meets Dungeons and Dragons. Very cool. Requires your full attention and creativity.
3. Crazy 8's - the card game my mom taught me and my kids are learning. Best thing: No batteries.
December rolled along and we bounced through the holidays. Holiday visits, chorus events, vacationing with family. What happened in January was really, what rocked the boat most. Red1 became a blogger herself and I started actually getting real web work.
Betty and mother, Julia Kiene. 1939.
Red1 was at her grandfather's house looking through the cook books her great great grandmother wrote. My daughter's GGGrandmother is Julia Wolcott Kiene.
Ms. Kiene wrote several cook books for Westinghouse in the 1950's and according to the Amazon reviews, they are very much loved but out of print. Red1 said how much she'd like to try some of the recipes and her mother suggested that she write about her experiences and "blog her way through the cook book" like the Julie did with the Julia Childs book. We've been learning a lot more about Juila Kiene and will definitely be sharing some more terrific stories. Not everyone's great great grandmother was photographed and written about in Life magazine.
At our house, we drink a lot of water. We drink it filtered from the refrigerator dispenser. You press a cup up against a lever that releases chilled and filtered drinking water into your glass. It's lovely. We wanted more.
We change the filter in our refrigerator on schedule, but having the option at the tap appeals to us. Ms. SF Daddy installed a PUR water filter a the kitchen sink a few weeks ago. After a couple of weeks, the thing started to completely fall apart.
It started out slow. Instead of a clean circular jet of water pouring down into sink we had a spray shooting down like the spokes of a twisted umbrella.
"We'll just have to take this back and get a new one."
We lived with it for about a week before the filter part litterally exploded on me. Water shot up at my face and hit the ceiling.
I do not claim to be useful with a wrench by any means, but soon after that--I had to let my kids get sprayed a couple of times--I took the whole thing off and found a big gaping whole in the metal mesh that aerates the water. It looked like it was rusting.
I found the original hardware for the faucet and it's all back to normal.
Excellent. Isn't that great? Even though I have a few stumbles with a few pieces of plastic we picked up at The Home Depot, we don't have it that bad. I don't have to walk miles with a vessel of contaminated water everyday to ration out to my cooking, cleaning and drinking.
It's another list. This time we're counting down the top ten TV shows according to SF Daddy!
As always, I'm gearing this list with the kiddos in mind. No it's not going to be a teletubbie list, they were way out there even for this freaky SF dad.
Torchwood - I'm not going to pretend that I've seen this whole series yet, but after the first few episodes and the praise I've been reading, as a spin off of Dr. Who which also has some smart kick-butt female action stars, this one makes it to my list.
Star Wars The Clone Wars - Star Wars is known for its leading ladies with attitude. The storyline in this animated venture is not short on them either. Joining Padme is Ahsoka, a Jedi sidekick for Anakin who is almost more hotheaded than he is. Season two introduced Arra Sing an awesome bounty hunter with a taste for collecting Jedi. We fanboys have been talking about Ms. Sing since her 2-second cameo in Episode I. Next season we're treated with more from her and another Jedi favorite who was spared at the last minute from death in Episode III in the edit room floor. Shak Ti joins the show this fall. Great thing about this series is that it's available online. http://starwars.com/theclonewars/guide/episode001.html
We're starting a theme here... much like Moonlighting and Cheers, where the two leads are cursed in some way from ever being together. In most cases the show's demise is the only thing that ever comes out of the leads finally getting together. Pushing Daisies was a great confection. Literally. The Pie Man made magical pies from rotten fruit he brought back to life with his magically touch. He can do that trick on animals and people too, but a second touch sends them back to their death. Too bad he brought his secret love back to life one day. Now if he ever touches her again she's dead for good. So instead they bake pies and solve murder mysteries together in a beautiful technicolor dream like comic book land created by Bryan Fuller and EP'd by Barry Sonnenfield- another personal hero.
Legend of the Seeker - The ladies in this house love this show mostly because of Kahlan Amnell – the Mother Confessor.
As a Confessor, she has the power to magnify the love a person has within them for her, allowing her to control the person. This power allows her to serve the people of the Midlands, who respect and fear her. In Kahlan's quest to defeat Rahl, her role is to protect the Seeker with her life. She develops a deep love for Richard, which is torment for them both since her Confessor's powers would be inadvertently unleashed in a moment of intimacy, making it impossible for Richard and Kahlan to act on their feelings for each other. Executive producer Robert Tapert describes Kahlan as "a female action hero for 2009.
Firefly - That's right! Yee Ha! This is one of those shows you're going to hear a lot about until you actually sit down and rent it. You just have to give it a try. We attempted to watch during it's run but the networks messed us all up. So we eventually discovered this gem on DVD. Go ahead and put it in your Netflix cue now...
Georgia Outdoors - Our Georgia PBS station presents topics about our state from gardening to paleontology. Take that Pokemon! Check out your PBS station to see what you can learn about your own backyard.
Let's continue to bend the parameters of this TV list. As TV is evolving, let's add some space to for a couple of internet shows and series.
The Guild - Sweet little nuggets of pure fun. Just geeky enough to try out a few online games and even more dairing to actually go out and meet some of the guild in real life when invited to a Pirate meet, I know this series a little too well. The DVDs are available from Netflix and they stream as one long 'movie' but if the short nuggets are more you speed, check them out on their native site: http://www.watchtheguild.com/
Sad, but here's a Flash video of the first episode. Sad because it won't show up on your iPad (yet?).
TED Talks. If you haven't discovered TED yet, go now. It's more Science and Fantasy than fiction. Real people with fantasies of how we can change the world one person at a time. Here's one on the Happiness Index. Love these things... they even show up in your Tivo if you let them! We've blogged about several of these in the past.
Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world
Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel - The monsters in these shows are a bit much for our smaller audience, but the kick-butt girls are certainly a good frolic when we're older. Our most-est favorite episode "Hush" just made it onto the SyFy / Blastr list of best episodes ever. What qualifies as a best episode? You know the episode by name is a good indication! Buffy is so well written and smart. We were just married and growing up a few years ahead of Buffy, but Ms. SF Daddy used the show as a topic of conversation with her high school kids. She often found common ground with the kids through the shows they both enjoyed. She liked using this show in particular to talk about teen issues and the portrayal of women in media. Good Stuff.
And okay, this one's for the very little ones: Have you seen Dinosaur Train? Really? Another PBS offering. We don't graze through the channels like a lot of kids do, but one morning we had a flat tire and found ourselves at the local Firestone. While waiting for the tire to get fixed, we sat through an episode of Dinosaur Train. My 6 year old (Red2) fell in love. Sure it didn't hurt that there's a little Henson magic behind the scenes. Figures. They aren't just cute dinos, but they actually get the real names out in a catchy way.
Very much a different list for you. Can't wait so see your list!
"Oh, wow. An award." Mrs. SF Daddy said, "I've never gotten any awards."
I want to thank Alex J. Cavanaugh for spreading this little bit of viral fun onto my blog. I'm a third generation recipient so tracing back the history of this award was quick and fun. I have quite a few new blogs to investigate! Good networking, ladies and gentlemen!
This Award should be given to any blogs that promote the genres of Fantasy and Science Fiction, whether it be through author interviews, reviews, your own writing, etc. The rules are: you must state 5 of your favorite fantasy/sci fi books and or movies that inspired you.
5 books (or series) that have inspired me and/or the girls (Red1 and Red2)
Star Wars Expanded Universe - I've read almost all of the expanded universe. I'm no wookiepedia, but I'm up a bit on Vader's grandkids. Kevin J. Anderson and Michael Stackpole seem to be the authors that really stand out. Stackpole is quite busy with other series including the Secret Atlas that I'm starting to enjoy as well.
Voyager series. We started picking up the Star Trek novels from the trift store for 50 cents. Janeway's first book was incredible. I wrote about it earlier.
Harry Potter series - We don't have a lot new to say about these books that hasn't been exhausted elsewhere. Red1 is up to actually reading the 4th book. She's been listening to the audio books for a long time and had us believing that she was also reading the paper versions. (The tests at school can't tell the difference, but I explained how it really really DOES matter.)
The Last Dragon - by Silvana De Mar - Red1 has read this one over and over. It's an all time favorite.
The Fablehaven Series - by Brandon Mull. Red1 was thrilled to be holding the latest installment in hardcover! You could hear the shriek of delight from the next block over.
Fantasy and Sci Fi Blogs:
I'm not following a lot of Science Fiction blogs right now, so went on a hunt. I found StarTrekSpace right away and was instantly impressed enough to share it with you.
http://startrekspace.blogspot.com/
A really verbose Star Trekian blog. The look and feel of the blog is true to ST and that's a plus already, but the author also offers a wide array content relating to all the ST series and details of the ST future history. Awesome Post: Starfleet Demotion. ~ Star Trek - Sci Fi Blog
Earth911.org has given itself a really nice sprucing up and looks gorgeous.
Our batteries died in our cordless phone and I went out to buy new ones. Well I brought home the wrong kind. They're expensive little suckers. Mrs. SF Daddy went out and just bought a new set of phones! (Not as great for the environment.) So now my errand of returning the wrong batteries is expanded to also collecting up the old phones and either recycling them, or finding a person who can REUSE them. Finding people is easy for us, but a great way to get rid of the 'still usefull' stuff you don't need anymore is FreeCycle. People in your area will come to your house and take it from you. No money exchanges and it's beautiful.
FreeCycle"Our mission is to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources & eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community."
Mrs SFDaddy is a rock star in the quilting and fabrics game. This is a link to one of her sample quilts that uses the fabrics from wonderful designs of Eric Carle who does the Very Hungry Caterpillar series. The girls are quickly becoming "Rockettes" in their own rights. Red1 is altering tshirts into skirts and tank tops, looking cute. Red2 can weave up a friendship bracelet like its a military exercise.
The UFO is my pirate quilt. We all used to play an online pirate game and I had a character I grew pretty fond of. This is the sketch and fabrics selected to pull it off. The fabrics run from tropical to treasure. We're looking for the original sketch of the quilt. The drawing here is on Red1 drew up.
- I'm not going to pretend that I've seen this whole series yet, but after the first few episodes and the praise I've been reading, as a spin off of Dr. Who which also has some smart kick-butt female action stars, this one makes it to my list. 
- That's right! Yee Ha! This is one of those shows you're going to hear a lot about until you actually sit down and rent it. You just have to give it a try. We attempted to watch during it's run but the networks messed us all up. So we eventually discovered this gem on DVD. Go ahead and put it in your Netflix cue now...
& 
- The monsters in these shows are a bit much for our smaller audience, but the kick-butt girls are certainly a good frolic when we're older. Our most-est favorite episode "Hush" just made it onto the SyFy / Blastr list of best episodes ever. What qualifies as a best episode? You know the episode by name is a good indication! Buffy is so well written and smart. We were just married and growing up a few years ahead of Buffy, but Ms. SF Daddy used the show as a topic of conversation with her high school kids. She often found common ground with the kids through the shows they both enjoyed. She liked using this show in particular to talk about teen issues and the portrayal of women in media. Good Stuff. 
- by Silvana De Mar - Red1 has read this one over and over. It's an all time favorite.
Series - by Brandon Mull. Red1 was thrilled to be holding the latest installment in hardcover! You could hear the shriek of delight from the next block over.
