Failed Skirt & Corn Maze

This weekend, I had two failed adventures. First, this Saturday, we went to the Davis Corn Maze. There were a few reasons we went there rather than other mazes in the area. First off, we had discounted tickets through MIT (only a few bucks off, but still helps). Second off, it was advertised as the largest, most intense maze in New England. And, boy, did it not disappoint. I have to say as a neurotic "completer" of things, I do not enjoy not thoroughly and wholly finishing things. Let's say that somehow we missed one of each of the rubbings, riddles, and QRC codes (although we somehow found all three geocaches without actually doing the geocaching), and I was a bit annoyed.

Laura, Boris, Olga, and Nate at the beginning and on a bridge within the maze.

We did spend a quality three full hours (they had time stamps on our booklets so this is not an exaggeration!) in the maze (the first time, just exploring, and the second time using the trusty "right-hand-rule"). In the end, we had tons of fun, but I would have wanted to do it once more and attempted to find EVERYTHING in the maze. There were quick and fun activities throughout the maze (pseudo catapulting, pseudo ring throwing, pseudo ziplining, pseudo sumo wrestling, etc.) and when Olga and I went to "sumo wrestle," I ended up tripping and falling and not being able to get up. It was HILARIOUS.

In the second picture, my feet are in the air and everyone is laughing uncontrollably!

My second failed adventure of the weekend was my double sided skirt. I started off so strong! The fabric is adorable -- the stars on the black side glow in the dark!!! However, I miscalculated my seams and the width of the waist elastic so it ended up a bit too tight at the hips. Also, it was not completely reversible. I also attempted to make some pockets that did not make it into the skirt because of their lack of reversibility. Anyway, it was an utter failure. It's still wearable but I am disappointed at my lack of getting it right. If I have enough time this week, I will attempt to get a bit more fabric (it's only a few dollars) and try again, knowing what I know now. I know why I messed up the reversibility and hopefully, I will even be able to put in the pockets correctly!

I'm holding up the tights I got to wear under the skirt in the bottom left picture. The way I flipped over the other side on that picture makes the pattern go upside down! Arg!

Curtains for Boris & Laura

Last weekend, I made some curtains for Laura and Boris's apartment. Laura and I went to a fabric store (Sewfisticated) to get the fabric. Laura wanted this grey jersey fabric with a black ribbon lengthwise through the curtain. I took the measurements she gave me and put together a sketch.

As the sketch above shows, I hemmed the sides first, then the bottom, and then folded over about 4 1/2-4 3/4 inches on the top, pinned 15 inches from bottom, and sewed across so I was sewing 4 1/4 inches from the top and 14 3/4 inches from the bottom. I sewed again about 2 inches from the top (so that the top would have ruffle and so that there was a designated 2 1/2 inches for the curtain rod). Finally, I attached the ribbon by first pinning it 3 3/4 inches from the bottom and then sewing both sides 1/4 inches from each side.  

When both curtains were done, I went over to Boris and Laura's and Boris installed the curtain rods. The final product looked fine overall, but since the fabric was a bit on the heavy side, my two inches of ruffles kind of went limp. I should've done a bit less and it would have been a bit more ruffly on top. 

I am thinking of making some curtains for our bedroom because the ones we have are not sufficient and we have four windows in our bedroom so it gets cold very easily. 

I did not do any crafts or home improvement projects this weekend. On Saturday, my parents were in town for a day long layover, and today we went to deCordova Museum & Sculpture Park. Nate was unsure of it going in and left feeling "meh" about it, but I thought it was AWESOME. I highly recommend it to people who like sculptures and/or just pretty places to walk around and see art. 

While at the fabric store, I got some halloween fabric and will attempt to make a two-sided skirt next weekend! It should be awesome!

Painting On Loan

The MIT Visual Arts Center has a program where you can borrow a piece of art for the school year to hang in your own apartment/dorm/lab/whatever. Since the demand for this is pretty high, you submit a little card with your name and three works that you would like and then they put all the cards together and pull them out one-by-one (giving people one of their chosen works) until all the art is gone. Although I have put in a card every year, this year I was lucky enough to get a painting (actually, all the grad students in my lab got paintings along with many other grad students in the lab next to us -- the probability of which is staggering).

The collection is quite varied, but I got a Joan Miro. It is one of about sixteen that are untitled (in the MIT collection), and it is unsigned, but it's still petty darn awesome. I did some internet sleuthing and I think it's price is approximately two thousand. Nate is always super amazed that paintings are expensive. Every time I ask him what he thinks the price of a painting is he always comes up with something on the range of $3-$10. I don't think he realizes that a frame costs more than that, but we'll let that be. He always states that he could have done better and that there is absolutely not inherent value in a painting. (Nate edit: It's a fiat system of value.) Nate just doesn't seem to understand art.

The left is the picture from the internet, and the right is my picture of the real thing I have.

Anyway, I really wanted to put the painting above the TV, but Nate decided that would not work for him. So I put it up to the right of the window in the living room. It may not have the colors of the living room, but I think it turned out very well. It makes me so happy when I'm sitting on the couch and I look over and see it!

Something that you may have noticed in this before and after is that my bookshelf is much taller than it was in the first pictures of the apartment three years ago. When Nadia moved out, she left her bookshelf so I moved it to the living room. I acquired these black canvas boxes (seen on the second and fourth shelves) from IKEA and store nick-nacks in there to keep clutter down. 

I am working on some curtains for Laura's apartment this afternoon, so I will put up pictures of those next weekend!