Midnight Snacking

I thought I would eat better this year and hopefully lose some weight. However, in order to do that I need to stop my late night snacking. But it's just sooo good. LOL. I don't think it even matters what I snack on. Is this because I forget to eat breakfast?

Hubby and I have a date this Saturday! We're celebrating Valentine's Day a bit later, since I had to work last week. Thanks to DC Restaurant week. I'm a huge fan of Jose Andres so we're going to have lunch at Cafe Atlantico. Thanks to my sister for making it all possible. Not only did we receive a giftcard from her for his restaurants, she's even babysitting. Oh, check out her new blog and give her some comment love!

My food fantasy would be to eat at Minibar. I've seen so many videos on the cool things he does there. Of course it's incredibly expensive and hard to get reservations. There's only 2 seatings a night and only room for 6 people. You should see Anthony Bourdain's episode of No Reservations with Jose Andres. Check out the video. You'll drool too.

On the crafting point, my new Joann's sales flyer advertised the Yudu by Provo Craft. It looked just like a Gocco. So I had to look it up. Now I so totally want one. I want to see how it compares to the Gocco. Unfortunately I don't have $300 to experiment with it. The advantage of the Yudu it seems is that the screens are reuseable. So supplies might not be as expensive as you don't need to keep buying new screens and bulbs as with the Gocco. The gocco is also discontinued.

I also like that's bigger and specifically designed for fabric applications, mainly tshirts. Based on the video on HSN, it seems to take a bit longer to make a screen. However, you don't need a carbon based ink to make a screen like the Gocco. So far it sounds really good. I need to see one in person.

Anyone need me to review a Yudu? I'm available. :)

Don't forget about my contest! You still have time to enter.
(photo source)

Viva Gocco!

My sister (who's currently teaching in Japan) bought me a Print Gocco 3 years ago. I'm afraid it hasn't gotten as much mileage as it should, but I highly recommend one. Get one now before it's too late. It's a Japanese product; basically it's a simple DIY silkscreening machine. I'm so pleased that my HP Photosmart has carbon in the ink so I can print my pics right from the computer and flash my screens.

Last night as I was watching CSI:Miami (all of these tv finales are too predictable), I started to sketch. I'm been fascinated by penguins ever since I was a kid. I started having fun with my penguins and created a slew of characters. Not only do I have a family: mom, dad, and daughter; but I have Master P (the rapping penguin), a chef, ze evil penguin and more!

I took a few and silkscreened some t-shirts. These two are for my daughter. She's too big for them right now (they're youth smalls), but I can't wait until she can wear them. Of course I had to make one for me too! After I silkscreend the basic outline, I painted the penguins with Jacquard and Lumiere paints. I'm letting them dry over night and when I wake up in the morning, I'll heat set them in the dryer or with my iron. Maybe both.

I'm an instant gratification kinda gal and the Gocco helps. If you're interested in a shirt, email me at kim @ kimstoys.com just remove the spaces. Right now this design looks best on kids' t-shirts.

Swimming with the fishes

I dusted off my Gocco Printer and here's what I got. This mermaid has been inside my head for a week now. The kind of idea that keeps me up at night unless I sketch it out or make it. So after various attempts at lining up my two screens, voila! I was up until 3 am printing it. I even dipped my toes into using Photoshop. I hand drew the figure and use the Stamp option to smooth out my edges. I'm pretty happy with the outcome. It's going to be a t-shirt for Sophia. I made the screens generic on purpose so I could have more flexibility on how I can use them. I can customize them further with embroidery like I'm doing here. Sophia's already asking me if it's done yet.

So now I have to decide what color her seashells should be. Any suggestions?

Tags: Gocco, fiber arts, embroidery

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Panties & Yogurt (not at the same time)

My word of the year, focus, is fresh in my mind since I finally chose it. That means, I'm getting some sewing done!

I finally finished the last of the Christmas pj bottoms. The only ones not done by Christmas day was mine and hubby's. All they needed was elastic in the waistband. Of course it took me 2 weeks to do that. But they are done and I'm wearing my comfy flannel pj bottoms as I type this.

My big accomplishment was last night I made my first pair of underwear! No, not your grandma's underwear. (It feels wrong to say panties on my blog.) Since I decided to starting making them at 1am this morning, I accidentally cut 1 size too big. I made them out of some fuchsia cotton knit I got off the clearance rack at Joanns about 3 months ago. I'll spare you the pictures of my underwear.

I used Stretch & Sew F829 (now discontinued I think). The pattern is very easy. 3 pieces. It gave me a chance to use foldover elastic. So the panties (yikes I said it) have a nice, commercial finished looked. I used purple elastic. I bought a huge grab bag of FOE from Kathy's for only $15 with shipping a while back and have been trying to use it every chance I get. You can read some reviews and see some pics of the pattern at Pattern Review.

Am I crazy for making my own panties? Maybe some of the moms in my moms group think it's a little crazy. It just feels good to say you made your own panties. It only took me an hour, from cutting to sewing. Not bad for the first one. Now that I know what I'm doing the rest will go much faster. I think it might be fun to make some and Gocco something cheeky on the backside. I'll save that for another day.

My Easiyo Yogurt Maker arrived from Amazon last week. I've made my second batch of yogurt last night. Yum! It's much easier than I expected. The Easiyo works like a thermos, so no plugging in required. My first batch was a bit runny as Easiyo doesn't provide directions for making your yogurt from scratch (they sell mixes--too expensive and full of sugar). I just googled for some recipes. You don't even need a starter. Just buy some plain yogurt from the grocery store that says "live cultures" on it. I used this recipe, just didn't have any heavy cream, so I left it out. I used 3 cups of 2% milk and 3 tablespoons of plain yogurt.

I had some with honey and granola this morning. I'll have to try Not Exactly Bento's yogurt with frozen blueberries next. While you're there, try the grilled cheese sandwich with apple she talks about. Yum!

Before I leave, I need some fun sayings I could Gocco on the backside of my panties (yet to be made of course). What do you think my butt should say?

Ruffles and a Chopped T-shirt

I actually starting cleaning off my sewing table. I'll spare you the pics. It was like shopping. I rediscovered some of my fabric stash. I also found the mermaid T-shirt that I Gocco'd over a year ago. Shortly after I embroidered the face and seashells, Sophia got to it. She cut holes in one of the sleeves and the shoulders (opposite sides of course). It was totally my fault for leaving it out (with the scissors), but I was so upset, I didn't touch it until the other night.

Looking at the shirt again, I thought about this dress from Dana. I just discovered her blog last week via these cute ruffled skirts. I know Sophia would love a girlie skirt, but all those ruffles! Putting them on would drive me crazy.

After a long debate, I decided to make 2 separate pieces. I chopped up the t-shirt, turned it into a tank top. Cut off the sleeves & neckline ribbing. I also took in the sides and shorted the hem. I wanted to lettuce edge the hem with teal thread, but I couldn't get it to work the way I wanted. So I just serged everything.

T-shirt before the hacking.

T-shirt after.

The skirt is a simple A-line skirt with an elastic waistband. I just drafted a quick pattern. Normally I wouldn't draft a pattern. I'd just draw it on the fabric and cut it out. But since an A-line skirt has many uses, so the pattern will come in handy for other skirts. Thankfully, I had the perfect fabrics in my stash.

I stitched up the skirt, hemmed it, and finished the waistband except for inserting the elastic. Next, came all the ruffles. I hate doing ruffles, not because they're so feminine. They're just so repetitive and boring. Like hemming a really long curtain.

I wanted to the ruffles to make a wave pattern. Mermaid shirt, wavy ruffle, get it? So I pinned the ruffles on beforehand. If I were to put them straight on, I'd draw stitch lines and just add them on as I sewed.

It's not the lighting. The fabric is ombre. Darker at top than at bottom.

Originally I wanted to cover the entire skirt with ruffles, but after pinning 3 rows on, I thought it looked great. Too many more would've been overkill.

She like this outfit, though not her favorite color. Thank goodness she like mermaids. I was able to snap some pics of her at the playground before she got the outfit too dirty. One day I'll remember to take a close up of the embroidery while it's clean.


I'm really enjoying making clothes for Sophia. Partly because she's so small, the clothes come together fairly quickly, usually about an hour. Plus I don't want to invest too much time on making maternity clothes.

Now I need to make a sundress for my sister. She's feeling left out. (Hi Sis!) Check out the new zine she made!

Carbon Inks

Jen asked a question about the printer I used for the Gocco. I have an HP Photosmart 7350. But what's more important is that the ink cartridge is #56. So just go to HP.com and look up the MSDS for your ink cartridge. You might have to experiment a bit. I didn't used the blue filter when I flashed my pic since there's less than 5% carbon in my ink. Hope that helps!

I'm in love with the instant gratification. Last night I couldn't sleep so I played around with Fireworks and added some color to my drawings. I'm going to make a shirt with the father penguin on it for DH for Father's Day. It's his first Father's Day this year.