What I did this summer (on the west coast)...

Wednesday, we returned to Massachusetts after 6 busy weeks on the west coast. Even though our time there was so busy that we didn't have time for many of the outings we'd looked forward to (walks in Sebastopol, blackberry picking, etc.), it was still really satisfying to see what we *did* get done! Monday, before we left, I gave a research talk at the lab, and I actually started to feel a story coming together from my PhD research. Interested? Read the research segue below...

Every week we were in CA, these 72 little tanks (half of them pictured here) held PVC plates with a different species of sea squirt or bryozoan at 3 different temperatures. By taking pictures of individuals before and after the week-long experiment, I can calculate how much they grow. Interestingly, for the 3 species I've looked at so far, they grow faster at higher temperatures, and invasive species tend to grow faster and/or survive better at higher temperatures than native species.

Our west coast trip wasn't 'all work, no play', as we went on a special 1-week trip up to my in-law's home in Petersburg, AK that we'd had scheduled for almost a year. My parents came with us - their first time there - and one of the highlights was an amazing whale watching trip on Matt's dad's boat. It was also really wonderful for Caden to have a week with ALL 4 of his grandparents! And, in CA, I've been holding off on reporting on my one larger-scale crafty pursuit as it's not quite finished yet (and a surprise gift) - more on that in a future post ;)

Back to MA...

Transitioning, again, from CA to MA actually hasn't been too difficult this time, especially because we've returned on Labor Day weekend giving us a chance to catch up on sleep and family time. Hopefully I can stay motivated, research-wise, to get my experimental results analyzed and written up here in my next few months at the computer. In my free time, I have lots of plots and plans! First, I am doing my first big festival craft fair in no less than 2 weeks!!! Arian and I are going to share a booth at the Melrose Victorian Fair, and I am scrambling to build up my inventory. I'll certainly blog with pictures of my progress and would love suggestions of what to make with my limited time. Second, I have had my invitation to be a tester of Spoonflower (a design-your-own fabric company) in my inbox for a while now, knowing that if I so much as open their site, I will be hooked. Third, Halloween is just around the corner when you're a mom with a 2-year old's costume to make - yikes! and finally, once this craft fair is past, I'll have to revisit my new year's resolutions to see what I've forgotten. In the meantime, must. focus. on. craft. fair.!

First Pattern

I continue to be a very busy bee keeping my research experiments going here in California - plus preparing for a lab seminar on Monday and to head back to Massachusetts on Wednesday. I haven't had much time for my fun pursuits over the last 6 weeks, but I did manage to cross one of my new year's resolutions off the list: I completed my first sewing pattern, for my Mylarkey Lunch Bag! Before we left, I photographed all the steps of lunch bag construction, and I had time to write up the 'protocol' right when I got to California (when I was waiting for all of my research supply orders!). I also listed the pattern in the shop before I had actually completed it. Once it sold, that was some real motivation to get it finished (since I agree to email it within 48 hrs)!

I've also started offering do-it-yourself kits for the lunch bags - which include the pattern and all of the necessary materials - because a few of the materials are somewhat specialized (especially the Insul-Bright insulation and wide velcro). And guess what! The 'do-it-yourself' kit was featured by Etsy on their daily 'Etsy Finds' email called 'Lunch time!'. This daily email apparently goes out to a list of about 14,000 Etsy-ans! That was quite flattering, and business was hopping that day! Here's the text from the email (there was also a photo of the lunch bags):

August 13, 2008
This fall, say goodbye to boring brown bags, take-out containers and the small mountain of sandwich bags you use every week, and say hello to handmade totes, lunch sacks, and other unique food receptacles on Etsy.

Complete Do-it-yourself Kit - Mylarkey Lunch Bag

Get crafting and make your own lunch tote with a kit by cascadelemonade, $12.

I've been saving up ideas for blog posts, so hopefully you'll find me updating more frequently from here on out. For now, I'm headed back to working on my talk...and maybe I should get some shut-eye to prepare for another ~7 hours looking through a microscope tomorrow!

Whirlwind

What a whirlwind the last week has been (or maybe it was the last month...or perhaps the last year). Last weekend, I flew down to Washington D.C. to go to the wedding of my college friend Amy (top) and spend time with my four closest friends (from left: Erin, Tanja, me, Amy, Martha).

One of the highlights of the wedding was the cupcakes, mousses, and mini treats they served for dessert. Beautiful and delicious!

It's always hard to know when the 5 of us will be able to all get together - the last time was when the girls flew out to California in May of 2006 to meet the newest baby, our little Caden. Now the next baby is on the way - Tanja is due in December! And the day we all left D.C., Tanja flew out that night for her new home in central Africa (Burkina Faso).

When I got back to Mass., we had just about 2 days to regroup and pack for our summer field season in California. Along with work deadlines and house maintenance projects (including some fairly major demolition in the attic), we slept about 3 hours the night before we left!

When we arrived at our old home of Sonoma County and our base at the marine lab, we had to really hit the ground running in terms of getting research supplies together and experiments started. All of a sudden, my schedule of working 9 hrs and sewing 2-3 hrs per day shifted to working 13 hr days. Even though it was a bit of a shock to the system, it's nice to be back to fieldwork after 10 months of primarily computer work. Here I am cable tyeing 'plates' (PVC tiles) to 'racks' (hardware shelves) which were later hung from the sides of the dock to attract little larvae settlers. Caden 'helped' :)

After 4 days of looking longingly at my crate of crafting supplies (bringing the bare minimum took up 1/3 to 1/2 of my luggage), I finally opened it up during a free hour this morning. I'm looking forward to spending the summer doing some little projects, including appliques and hand embroidery.
Now I'm off to bed at a record time of 10:50 pm - 2 hrs earlier than our usual in Mass. Matt is getting up at 5 am for fieldwork, so I think I'll get up with him and do some morning sewing. Me, sewing in the morning? Revolutionary!

Give me an I-D-E-A

You'd think with the way my 'to do' lists are looking these days, I could just shut down the 'idea factory' for awhile. Nope! I'm overwhelmed by both! Here's what's on my list:

Work = I just submitted a review manuscript yesterday and am now planning for fieldwork in California (we leave in just over 2 weeks); status: on track
Cascade Lemonade = need to make 6 Mylarkey Lunch Bags (possibly 9), possibly 3 Kathy Jewelry Cases, 1 Trio Set, 1 custom wallet, and a Teensy and Mini Moo Set...in the next 2 weeks; status: on track...barely
Home Decorating = need to make 1 duvet cover and a couple pillows for the guest room and kitchen curtains, preferably before Thursday when we have visitors arriving; status: here's where it starts to get shaky!
Plus...packing for 5 weeks in California (+1 week in Alaska), gifts for Caden's teachers, getting back on my 4x/week work-out plan...

(an example of one of my recent projects: this custom jewelry case)

Despite this busy-ness, as I often find when I'm multi-tasking, I have more energy than usual! And ideas just seem to keep multiplying. Here's my latest:

Vicarious Travel

I dreamed this up while commuting and working out a few weeks ago. I've always thought it would be cool to take an online quiz that would spit out my perfect trip - the same way you can take quizzes to figure out your political party, religion, and life expectancy...but even better! I've decided it requires an actual person, otherwise the results are inevitably cruises or tours that have paid advertising costs to come up as my 'perfect getaway'. The name 'vicarious' comes from my always living vicariously through others' travels; in the past, I've written up full itineraries for friends and acquaintances travelling to New Zealand and Europe, two of my favorite travel destinations. Since I don't travel as much now as I did in my 20's, I thought it would be fun to combine this travel consulting with my crafty pursuits, especially book-making (which I haven't done much of lately, I've been on a sewing kick). I've put the idea up for grabs in my Vicarious Travel Sets.
Here's how the customized travel guide works:

Step 1: Matt and I came up with a travel questionnaire that I'll email to customers after purchasing the set. It includes questions about destination, lodging, transportation, activity, and budget preferences and requirements. The traveler's job is to fill out the questionnaire and give any info they think will be helpful.

Step 2: I sift through online and print information, and rely on personal recommendations, to make trip suggestions, collated in a .pdf file

Step 3: I print out the .pdf and make a mini travel guide...so for less than the cost of a travel guide, the traveler has a fully customized guide!

Step 4: Hard and electronic copies of the travel guide are sent to the traveler, and it's up to them to critically evaluate the suggestions, including checking out websites (all given in the guide) and making their own bookings.

Step 5: If travelers send me a postcard from their trip, they get a coupon for use on future Cascade Lemonade purchases!

I can see lots of ways the travel guide can be customized...

Ariel has a budget and weekend in mind, but not a destination...I would come up with multiple options...

Becky is going to a conference in Lalaland and needs ideas for a nearby side trip and activities...

Corinna buys the set for her friend Dalia who just got engaged and is trying to decide where to go on her honeymoon...

Edith has her plane tickets for a week in Hawaii but no itinerary or lodging reservations...

Fiona has no time to travel *now* but is dreaming about where she'd like to go when she retires...

...etc!

Just my latest wild idea...following my 5th grade idea of selling poems to neighbors for 10c each to fund a visit to a friend who had moved cross-country (I don't think I could comprehend the cost of a plane ticket then)...and my 5th grade idea of posting signs advertising a dozen daffodils for $1.50 (wasn't my mom surprised when she got the first order by phone; lucky for me, she still helped me pick, package, and deliver them, before we took the signs down!)...I don't remember ever having a lemonade stand, but I do have a philosophy about them: always, always stop and buy a cup!

More ideas in the pipeline: a cookbook of healthy desserts, travel guide with the best bakeries (might have to be a little more narrow than just 'in the USA'!), and lots more ideas for the Cascade Lemonade shop, including more iron-ons, like this custom patch I just finished.

Stay tuned!

Dad's Day

Now it's time to give you a little peek into the craftiness of the other half of my parent team: Dad (now, to Caden, Adad) Bruce. Whereas the women in my family tend towards textile arts, the men - including my Dad and Grandad (more on him in a future post) - are and have been the wood-workers. I have so much respect and admiration for wood-working because of the natural materials, physical labor involved, subtle artistic touches, and utility and lifetime of the products. Dad has built lots of things out of wood - shelves, benches, picnic table, 2-story garage (!), chicken house, 'nut' guest/playhouses, tool sheds, etc. Here are a few glimpses:

Caden identifies items in our home by who made them. About this candlestick, he would say 'Adad make it'! Whenever electricity goes out - which it seemed to do a lot more back in CA than here in MA (thank goodness, it's colder here!) - we'd always light this candle and set it in the middle of the room. (Note: I realize those little S'mores figurines are totally cheesy, however I love them! I have about 10, but try not to display them in overwhelming numbers.)

Here's a bowl, turned from a burl (walnut?), that Dad gave to us in 2006 when our little Caden Burrell was born. For Caden's first 2 years of life, we kept all of his little memorabilia in it - hospital bracelets, etc. Now we use it for decor...but it's still too special to put candy in just yet!

This is his and my mom's most recent project - the cabin that they are building, almost completely by themselves, in the mountains at Wallowa Lake, Oregon. So far, my contributions to the project have been sanding and finishing a couple of the big, exposed, interior beams and helping to stir and pour the cement for the front step. Isn't it charming?! I love the exterior stovepipe - and you can see their tab trailer in the background. Dad currently lives out of a larger airstream trailer and travels around Eastern Oregon during the week, doing work as an agricultural economist and swinging by the cabin when he can, in between weekends back home in Western Oregon.

Dad and Mom resumed work on the cabin fairly recently, after repairs were made when a tree fell through the roof during a windstorm last fall (see slides 15-19 here). Although it's still a year away, I'm looking forward to spending a week at the cabin next summer (2009) with all of us siblings!

Here's one of Mom's creative vignettes on their mantle at home in Corvallis: a wood tree turned by Dad and one of her ceramic cottages (that I mentioned in my Mother's Day post).

Dad and Mom are such a great team, and we kids are so thankful to them every day, not just on Father's and Mother's Days!

New logo

This month, with my Creme de la Creme Collection, I'm excited to debut my new logo! It was created by this Etsy seller; I posted an Alchemy request, and she sent me this logo as an example. I fell in love with it - I love the texture and how she interpreted my original logo (which I sketched out and my husband designed in Powerpoint).




Here are my new promotional supplies, including business cards and address stamp from VistaPrint and a logo stamp and recycled packaging stamp from another Etsy seller.



It's fun to be a little more professional. I had been making my own cards and addressing envelopes by hand, to save money, but I decided not to worry so much about that because Cascade Lemonade is primarily a fun hobby, not a money-making venture. If it were the latter, I could work about 1/3 the hours at a bookstore as I spend sewing!

Notes from my Nest Sweet Shoppe & Giveaways

I'm flattered to be featured, this week, as Notes from my Nest's Sweet Shoppe. Check it out and comment, there, to be entered in the $10 giveaway. And speaking of giveaways, the winner of my springtime 'who's reading?' giveaway was ikkinlala, a math major and crafty gal in British Columbia. I'm preparing a little care package to send off to her tomorrow (I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise by posting pictures).

Any comments on my Creme de la Creme Collection? Are there particular items you'd all like to see made with these lovely fabrics?

Creme de la creme collection

Starting tomorrow (yes, so soon!), I'll begin posting items for my Creme de la Creme Collection. Here's the skinny: I have a new logo! And new business cards, sewing labels, address stamp, and logo stamp. Yay! To celebrate, I'm going to sew up some things made with the creme de la creme fabrics from my collection. Yes, I've been holding out on you! Almost all of these fabrics are vintage, and many are unlikely to be in my shop again (unless this kind of fancy strikes me in the future!). Here's a sampling:


So here's how the collection release will go: I've collected 33 of my very favorite fabrics. (Almost) every day and (almost) always at 3:33 pm (EST) I will post items made from a different one of these fabrics for (about) the next 33 days. Can you tell that 3 is my favorite number?

Here's an example of my new Pencil Pouch design that I will be sure to make a few of (the fabric on the left is one of the creme de la creme's - I have just enough to make 1-2 more items before it's all gone):

Hope to see you in the shop at posting time - remember, 3:33 pm (almost) every day. Good night and sweet, lovely dreams!