Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Book Review - Stranger Here

While this is not a blog dedicated to book reviews and the like, nor for dealing with my personal issues, but it is mine, and something that holds such impact on me simply must be shared.


Stranger Here from Molly McIntyre on Vimeo

Stranger Here by Jen Larsen is a book that touched me in more ways than I'm comfortable sharing. A candid memoir on a personal journey that surpasses being labeled "another weight loss story." This is not about weight loss, or surgery, but about the raw emotional journey Jen Larsen took in the human experience. I could relate on so many levels, and I have never had Weight Loss Surgery. Her narrative style was vivid and easy to read. She made me laugh and cry, cringe and smile with hope. We all run into circumstances that put us in a place we least expected... but we don't all have the talent and courage to share that with the world.

Her brutally honest voice cuts through social norms to show us all that we're not normal, and we all have problems we hate to admit.

I met Jen Larsen at a book signing shindig (she's an Ogden local now), and was introduced by a mutual friend, the lovely and talented Jenny Shaw of Indie Ogden. She was as beautiful and charming as could be, and clearly overwhelmed by how this book is touching so many lives. Her humble, nervous smile made me want to give her a hug.  Then she hugged me, so that pretty much made my day.

So go check it out!

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Underwater Rococo Art Gallery


For those of you 18th Century junkies out there, Austrian photographer Andreas Franke has transformed a sunken ship into a Rococo art gallery.  Check out this article on weather.com.  This stuff is beautifully haunting.

New Studio's Maiden Voyage

So last week we got a warm spell after a horrific winter of snow, snow, and more snow.  We recently moved to an area further up the mountain, and expected to get more snow than we were used to, but this was ridiculous!  The neighbors reported that this was the most snow they'd seen in 30 years.  Lucky us for perfect timing?

Back to the aforementioned warm spell... my studio flooded a little.  Yep.  Seems I'm cursed to have a sewing/art room that is plagued with water.  We are attributing it to the excess snow melting into the foundation area.  Everything is cleaned up and dry now though, so I'm not too panicked (though we're putting a pin in that for later).

This weekend I finally broke in my new studio.  Woo!  Can I just say I LOVE it?  I found I still need to move some things around a bit, to maximize the room's potential.  I worked on a project for the hubby, and gave my new serger its first spin.

I think I need to do more reading/watching videos, and perhaps take a class on sergers.  I haven't used one since my junior high home economics class, and we weren't required to thread those machines. I had a crazy time trying to get the tension right.  It seriously made me want a cocktail.

In other news, I also pulled The Kirk from its sad, dust-gathering perch, finished the sleeve hem, and began couching the gold cord onto the cuffs.  Eight moths later, and I'm finally making serious progress on this thing.



Do you ever have projects that feel like the world is conspiring against you, and you will never finish it?