Candy Crush Halloween Costume

This year for Halloween, I decided to make a Candy Crush costume. Candy Crush is a highly addicting game for iPhone (and technically Facebook) which I have been playing for quite a while and have made it to the "end" a few times (before each level update -- I think I'm on level 485 at the moment). I got the idea for this costume from this youtube video, but I changed it up a bit.

I first made patterns for all six pieces and stapled them to the appropriate colored felt. I decided on felt because it is so cheap and on stapling because I didn't have enough pins! For the blue pieces, since they have a band down the middle, I put in the band with an extra small piece of felt. After sewing all the pieces (which surprisingly went incredibly quickly), I removed all of the staples and patterns (this part took quite a while)! Here are all of the pieces stapled and cut out, a close-up of the blue pieces, and all of the pieces of paper removed after sewing:

After removing all of the staples and patterns, I turned the pieces inside out (also very time consuming!). I made 6 of each color with one of those being stripe-y, and three of the brown ones with multi-colored dots. Here they are all laid out along with detailed shots of a few of them: 

Next, I stuffed and closed up all the pieces. I also thought this would be time consuming, but it was relatively quick. Here are all of the cute pieces: 

I went ahead and put stick-on velcro on the back of all the pieces. I also made a very simple skirt (out of some black material I had) with a elastic waistband.

On the skirt, I put the other side of the stick-on velcro. I decided to do 4 rows of 5 pieces on the front and the same thing on the back. Then I started putting the pieces on: 

All done (I thought)! I took a few pictures of me wearing the skirt and found out that the velcro -- especially the side stuck onto the skirt -- was not too secure (you can see how one piece is missing off of the back view!). On the pieces, I used a glue gun to attach the velcro more securely. On the skirt, I sewed over the velcro. The sewing over velcro turned out to be a terrible, terrible idea. The sticky part on the velcro not only gunked up my needle, but also the inside of my sewing machine. I had to clean everything out and it was so icky! I do not recommend sewing over stick-on velcro. Ever. I have definitely learned my lesson. Either way, after I secured the velcro on both sides, the pieces stayed on a lot better. 

I went to a Halloween party wearing my costume (right hand picture, with the cobweb) and people not only got a kick out of the Candy Crush aspect but were also delighted when I told them they could move the pieces around. I had so much fun making this and wearing it! The pieces are really cute!

Ukraine, Italy, and Russia Trip

As I'm in Geneva right now, waiting to fly back to the US early tomorrow, I figured I'd finally update about my Europe trip this past September.

I first arrived in Kiev for a week, where I spent some quality time at the summer house (aka one of my favorite places in the world).

Then, my cousin, uncle, and aunt-to-be flew to Italy where their wedding was to be held. We spent the first night in Genoa, and then settled in our villa in the cute little town of Portofino. Our villa was situated in a picturesque part overlooking the sea and Portofino. However, this meant that to get to it, we had to climb up a hill for 20 minutes. We did have our own swimming access, which was wonderful and scared me really badly due to sketchy-ness of the stairs connecting the dock-part to the steps up to the villa.

Genoa was beautiful port city which had very Italian streets. Nate, my brother, uncle, and cousin posing in the street. 

View from the dock of the villa and the rickety stairs I was really scared of. Nate, my brother and cousin making fun of me at the bottom. 

View of the town of Portofino from a villa (not the one we were staying at) at the top. 

The wedding was in a cute little church, only accessible by boat. The reception was extravagant and went late, late, late into the night.

On the last day, my mom and I traveled to Cinque Terre. Because we got a late start on the day (due to aforementioned reception), we only made it to two of the towns (Monterosso & Riomaggiore), but they were amazing! We heard lots of good things about Vernazza and were meaning to see that on the way back but due to train schedules, it was just impossible. Next time!

Nice map stolen from Wikitravel that shows the five towns. 

The two towns we did make it to. So cute! The second had so many stairs!!

Finally, my parents and I traveled to Moscow, where I spent some more quality time at another summer house. This one was recently remodeled and was just so awesome. It now has a shower that plays the radio! My parents and I also went into the city and once again, I was overwhelmed with how Americanized everything has become in large European cities. We saw lots of American restaurants -- even a Krispy Kreme. Even here in Geneva, there is Starbucks and McDonalds on every corner. I even saw a Pain Quotidien today!

Remodeled summer house -- once built by my great, great, great grandfather. 

Martha's Vineyard

Olga visited for July 4th weekend and on that Friday, we went to Martha's Vineyard for a day.

We woke up early and drove down to Wood's Hole to take the ferry to the Vineyard. We wanted to get some Pie in the Sky before getting on the ferry but underestimated the available parking in Wood's Hole. Turns out we had to drive back about 20 minutes for parking and take a bus back to Wood's Hole (another 25-30 minutes). Therefore, we grabbed a later ferry than anticipated, but still made it to the island before noon.

Once on the ferry, I called a bike shop on the Vineyard that I had googled. We were able to reserve two mountain bikes to bike around the island. We got a great deal: something like $35 for two bikes for the day (helmets and a lock included). We were able to grab some lunch before setting off on our ride.

Here is the route we took:

We started at Oak Bluffs and went to Edgartown (but didn't quite make it) and then came back through Vineyard Haven to Oak Bluffs. We tried to geocache but the only one we ended up getting involved us badly bitten by small bugs, so we decided to cut our loses and stop there.

Here is a view of our bikes at the closest point we got to Edgartown:

Some photos from Vineyard Haven (where we ate some yummy ice cream and checked out a cute book shop) next to the water:

And finally, one last photo of Oak Bluffs on our way back to the ferry:

In the end, we were on the island for about 7 hours total, biked over 15 miles, ate yummy food, saw some beautiful sights, and got a bit sunburnt in the process. A wonderful day trip!

Catching up (again)

Since the last post, I have had a very busy last few months with only a few craft projects and tons and tons of traveling (4 countries: Ukraine, Italy, Russia, Mexico; 3 states: Missouri, Vermont, Texas; and an island: Martha's Vineyard), so a catch up is in order. The posts that follow this one will go over the international trips, the trip to Martha's Vineyard, and my halloween costume.

For now, a few smaller projects:

1. My friend Kate had a baby in the middle of July and I made her a cute little newborn jacket from this book (that my brother got me for Christmas last year).

2. I made another small crocheted bear for a friend, this time modifying this free pattern.

3. We finally got new windows last week! I first posted about this a year ago, but we finally got around to it. They are wonderful! They look exactly the same from inside and outside, but you can't feel the wind through them and our heat hasn't gone on since I got back 24 hours ago. The only issue is that our blinds had to be removed and don't fit back in so we are going to need to get new blinds or better curtains. Stay tuned on what we decide. 

Hiking Flattop Mountain

Every year, Nate's family takes a vacation to Rocky Mountain National Park. We have been going a few years now and usually there is one intense hike that we do. Three years ago, we got up to hike in the dark and then watch the sunrise from above tree line. This year, we didn't get up that early (only 4:30am), but did have an ALL day hike. This was the 8.6-mile round-trip hike to Flattop Mountain. This is a hard hike in general, but since this was early June, there was still a good deal of snow on the hike. For about a full mile to mile and a half in the middle of the hike (meaning up to 3 miles round trip) we attempted to hike through, around, and on top of snow banks, measuring up to 3-4 feet. That is the part that really got me. I could handle the sun, elevation, exhaustion, but that snow... it really did me and everybody else in. However, we persevered and all got up to the top! And then persevered again and all got to the bottom in one piece! It was definitely one successful and intense hike!

L: There was 4G pretty much all the way up the mountain so Nate was using a remote desktop app to control his computer at home and run some code! Of course!

R: Nate and I at the Dream Lake Overlook (995' climb up and 1.6 miles in)

T: Panorama as we were approaching the tree line (with Nate's cousin and uncle)

B: Nate and I at the Emerald Lake Overlook (1,882' climb up and 2.9 miles in) -- this was after a good deal of the snow so we are happy but exhausted

T: Nate taking a picture of the crew all huddled up and eating lunch (2,660' climb up and 3.9 miles in)

B: Panorama of the perennial snow bank right before the top (I may have taken this a bit too quickly because I was unrealistically worried about the threat of avalanche)

T: Panorama of the top of Flattop Mountain (4.3 mile hike and 2,849' climb up to put us at 12,324' -- over two miles up from sea level)

L: Nate and I posing by a flag near the top

R: A shot from the top where you can see the parking lot where we parked our car (surreal and sort of sad!)

Cropped Cardigans

My friend Laura wanted a few cardigans cropped to be shorter. There are quite a few tutorials online for this kind of thing, and it seemed very straight forward. Of course, I measured about twelve times before cutting and then I found out the sweaters were all a little bit different so that was annoying. One of the four I cropped was a full inch longer than the others. Just for funzies (and to annoy me!).

I cut the middle of the sweater out so that I could attach the ribbing to the top part of the sweater. The button spacing, thankfully, aligned close to correctly so that was nice, but if I were making it a different size, I could see the button spacing being too short between the top and the ribbing. I needed to pin everything pretty intensely, because it was stretchy material and the machine tends to pull the bottom through faster than the top so if you're not careful, you can get some large differences between the two fabrics you are sewing.

All of the tutorials recommended a zigzag stitch, which is usually what should be used for this. However, I found that a different stitch was better -- I think it's a modified blind stitch but I can't seem to find the correct name for it on the interwebs. This stitch has the zigzag but also has a few straight stitches on each side (this is the stitch I have used to hem at least a dozen of my brother's shirts). This caused the fabric to ripple less since there was less thread going back and forth. In the end, all the cardigans looked nice and cropped, and Laura was very happy with her newly modified cardigans! The sleeves didn't need any modification because they were already 3/4 sleeve but they could be modified exactly like the main part of the cardigan.

Sodastream & Flavored Syrup

This is something that I have wanted to mention on this blog for a while, but now is a good time. For Christmas, Nate's parents gave us a Sodastream. Specifically this Sodastream model. This is something I wanted for a long time because I like drinking carbonated water. It was really easy to use and we started using it in January. It did come with some "syrups" and they were ok, but not great. The suggested dilution was WAY too syrup-y and sweet so we haven't really used them at all.

We have had to replace the carbonator twice now. Once in mid-April and once yesterday. I thought this was going to be super hard and frustrating, but we just went to the Bed, Bath, & Beyond (there is one next to Costco so it's super convenient) with the old one and they had new ones there. They are apparently $15, but Bed, Bath, & Beyond honors their "$5 off $15 or more" coupon for them so it becomes $10, which is really cheap for about 3 months of carbonated water.

At first, Nate was skeptical of the Sodastream, but now he uses it almost as much as I do (which at least once a day). So, if anyone is really into drinking carbonated water and thinking about getting a carbonator, we really recommend this one. Yes, you can make your own and yes, that's probably cheaper and handier, but the Sodastream is really easy to use, takes up very little space, and the cartridges are super easy to replace.

So, recently, especially now that it's summer, I have been wanting to find a syrup that I can add to the water to give it a little bit of flavor. I started looking online, and all of the syrups I could find were just sugar. They had high fructose corn syrup listed as the second ingredient. I didn't want sugar but rather a flavoring, so I was really frustrated. Finally, I decided to just make some of my own. I had a few berries in the fridge, so I boiled them with some water and a tiny bit of sugar (I also added some rosemary and a squirt of lemon juice to round it out). I ended up with the perfect flavoring (I don't think it's even syrup since it's not syrupy) that was not sugary at all. Yay! And it was super easy to do. I should have done this long ago!

I used a cocktail shaker to strain out all of the berry skins!