oakland

A piece a week – A Summer Top

| poppypeach

I found at some stretch fabric at FabMo recently and I thought to make a summer top – my wardrobe is lacking cute tops these days so I am on a mission to find the perfect one. So I found this book Casual Sweet Clothes when I was shopping at Powells book store in Portland – their collection of craft books cannot be beat. This is a Japanese pattern book that has really interesting basic wardrobe pieces to wear with jeans – my utilitarian wardrobe these days with the kids. The Japanese sewing books have so many patterns in them and if I can find 5 I like then the book makes up for the cost of a pattern. To copy the patterns you have to trace them onto kraft paper or whatever paper you have available (I save the brown packing paper and iron it and it is perfect for sewing patterns). This top is very easy construction and quite fun to make and learn new stitches like blind hemming on my sewing machine! I am now on a mission to create more pieces from this super cool Japanese pattern book!

Back view of the top – lovely draped sleeve!

I added silver seam binding to the neck – what a discovery seam binding is for stretch fabrics!

Hanging out with Mack

Captured my baby girl Bella!

Last Saturday we were meeting long lost friends / neighbors of ours for a hike but as we underestimated time from our Scouting event in San Bruno to Wilder Ranch, Santa Cruz we met for brunch at Whale City Bakery in Davenport, just down the road from the scheduled hike! This place is a find for it’s bakery with all their goodies made from scratch. This eclair from their case of goodies was delicious and looking at their pastry case I could have eaten much more but I went for an omelet with an english muffin for brunch and it was perfect with their chai tea. Afterwards we wandered across Highway 1 to the beach and explored for a little while. This beach is popular for local campers – though hauling your stuff down the cliff does not look appealing to me but I am sure it will be beautiful and quiet at night with the added bonus of being free to camp!!! Anyway I took some pictures of the landscape and turned them into clothing – I just love the textures!

Amazing eclairs at Whale City Bakery in Davenport

Textured leggings with rocks and tags 
Graffiti rock 
Looking down into a tunnel that led to a forest of trees!

Sunday we went over to Oakland for a day trip to visit the Cat Town Cafe and have brunch at a Jamaican place down the road. It was a lovely hour with the cats up for adoption at $50 each or $75 for two with their shots and their microchip all ready to go. I love the time we spent there and the kids enjoyed themselves too. It was $10 for the hour with snacks and coffee outside the cat enclosure while you are waiting for your appointment – I really recommend booking ahead on the weekend at their website as it is very popular. 

Hanging in a cat tree using Oakland Architecture

You beautiful kitty pooping rainbows!

This week at school flew by with Market day on Thursday! Market Day at our school is a day where the kids make up projects in class and sell them for pony beads. Everyone gets 2 pony beads to work their “stall” for 15 minutes for their class. It is a wonderful morning out and the theme for the 1st grade class was a cardboard arcade, inspired by the Caine’s Arcade video. This is a peacock ride that cost 3 pony beads – made from cardboard and painted by Team Peacock and rolled upon a child’s sled engineered by one of our parents to make it safe for the kiddos to ride upon! Pulling the kids around the loop was quite a workout – volunteering and exercise what a score!

Wanna ride the peacock?

A piece a week – Making at the Maker Faire

| poppypeach
With all the preparation last week to get ready for the Maker Faire Saturday and all the school events plus Qi Gong, Hula and Pottery classes time was slim to actually make. So after my volunteer shift at the Maker Faire at Swap O Rama Rama – I did a little making investigation of my own! The cool thing I did find at The Crucible is painting your own Raku pieces of bisque fired clay pieces. The process is a low fire and using the glazes that are mainly copper based theres a reduction in temperature that creates these amazing metallic finishes! The kids and I made 3 little vessels and according to my pottery teacher they are just for decoration only which is fine as they are sitting on the mantle now in all their metallic glory. I love the randomness of the color and cleaning up the piece after being in the fire the colors show up even more!
8am start at the Maker Faire for set up of Swap O Rama Rama – all so very quiet that early!
Raku pieces out in full glory

 So good to be with the Swap O Rama again this year – being there last year I knew what to expect and help people out with their modifications – the pic below is someone making an infinity scarf out of pant legs. It was so great to share my experience of making infinity scarves with someone else!

Pant legs become a scarf 
Hanging out in the dark room is something I love to see too as the pictures you can capture are super cool! Being with the kids is tricky as you have to hang onto them! This is a cool wall sculpture that you could change the colors of the piece – it was just beautiful. The bottom pic is of my son with a LED selfie that he took! We saw lots of robots, 3d printed items, legos, steampunk outfits, fire and many many art installations – these are my kind of people! 
Changing colors 
LED Selfie

Day tripping on our last few days of Summer

| poppypeach
The last couple of weekends before the Summer holidays came to a close we went day tripping with the family – I had this Groupon for Bowling for 2 hours which we all loved playing 2 games. My other half did really well on his first game of bowling and thrashed the lot of us – beginners luck! Afterwards we had worked up an appetite and we found this super Persian bakery and cafe close by that baked this amazing bread called Sangak Bread. We all had a wonderful feast and I enjoyed this delicious vegan wrap with lentils. 
If you are ever near Santana Row – go local and check out Yeganeh Bakery, the food and service is amazing!
We met out Oakland friends at the Pacific Pinball Museum at Alameda in the East Bay for a super day out by the beach (it can be a bit stinky – I recommend pinball all the way!!). You can wander in there and play for $15 / $7.5 all day unlimited and they have an amazing collection of pinball machines. I just loved it as I went back to when I was young and the days of when I had a pinball machine at my house and played it all day and night! I think Santa bought us a pinball machine for Christmas, what a score of a prezzo… 
The kids playing pinnie at a collection of the mid century machines