Why am I so weird?

I wonder if my tendancy to do things later in life than everybody else has something to do with the two really nice people who let me live in their house while I was growing up. I completely blame them for encouraging my weirdness by letting me be a kid and not rush me to grow up. Most things I would declare they got right, but once in awhile something went terribly wrong, like being dressed in an outfit that should have been burned. Let me expound. Hang around.

Okay, all of you kids who were elementary school age in the 70's will know exactly what I'm talking about. We didn't care how we looked; too groovy striped bell bottoms, mismatched colors, and Bad News Bears tossled hair-do's. All we wanted to do was go outside and play. For me, add homemade clothes into the mix. Now my mom made me some really cool beautiful clothes that I got to help pick fabrics and trims for on occasion and I did like most of them. My aunts and grandma on my dad's side made and still make their own clothes, afterall. I didn't realize how unusual that was. It was very normal to me.

But there was a gem of a garment that just didn't need to be created in the first place. Enter the white colored cordorouy with red patterned mystery fabric. Mom decides I just had to have a dress out of this crap. It was just wrong, wrong, wrong. I never liked wearing it and it very well was because I was in 5th or 6th grade by this time and all the kids were starting to care how they looked, but not me. I would wear it anyway and the daily fight at school would happen where I would punch or kick some wiseacre for saying anything about that stupid dress. whatever. I was not embarassed by my fashion, I just simply did not care. I was too busy dreaming and coloring and playing tetherball.

And then there were the godaweful polyestermess that were two pairs of identical pants that I wore on a regular basis in 7th grade at Lake Jr. High School. Knowing full well that I would get teased mercilessly that day, I wore them anyway. I did not care, I could take it. That is how much I would rather play with my Barbies or do other things. By the way, I think I was the last to stop playing with toys at 17. And the list of my delayed human activities continues.

I sucked my thumb until I was 8, but only at night, and I remember declaring triumphantly to my teacher Mrs. Jones when I had stopped. I sometimes wonder what she really thought when all she said was, "Oh, good for you." In 6th grade I didn't want to start wearing a bra, but my body forced me to and so I succumbed to that over the shoulder boulder holder that I've always hated. I didn't date in high school because boys scared the tar out of me. I didn't drink or party like so many of my classmates did. I'd rather play with our dog or eat pizza with my friends. I had my first kiss at 16 at a stupid birthday party. Remember "spin the bottle"? Yea, it was that bad. I never liked or did the whole "club scene" for dating and would rather watch movies or play board games at home. I got married at 33, well past the age of all my other friends who had started families in their 20's.

Look what you did to me! My weirdness is all your fault because you incubated me in homemade clothes, homemade school lunches, nightly dinners and reading, and popcorn Fridays. Geez Mom and Dad, you are totally to blame.

Handbag History

Anna Johnson's The Power of the Purse is my bible. This little book is glorious with color photos of hundreds of bags and describes the evolution of the "pouch" from a small drawstring, 5th century, to modern purses/clutches/bags. It is inspiring and one of the first purchases Dos Chicas ever made.

Our American Heritage: Yesterday on our local TCTV, there aired a program about the Plateau People of the Columbia River, Washington-Oregon Territories. I learned about "Sally Bags" being water-tight containers that people traded or stored dried seeds/grains for winter. These are cylindrical in shape and are still made today. Online there are links to other bag pictures: Lewis & Clark Expedition (scroll down to the bottom of the page), and University of Oregon.

Another Sally Bag style is shaped more like what you would think of as a purse with repeated patterns: People of the River. Beading was added when trade brought them to the area. I couldn't find any pictures of these, but they were beautiful.

Brown-bagging it? Here's Lunch Help by Angelina Chica

My lovely Lorraine is the most popular design I sell. I have happily found a lot of blogs that are linked to her, so I thought adding lunch ideas for those of you who carry her would be fun to start compiling. I'm tinkering with the idea of creating recipe cards with my own lunchtime favs that got me through the crappiest work years of my life. Stay tuned.

Fit Sugar
SELF Magazine Lunch Article-March '08
Team Sugar one and two

Lorraine on New York City TV!

"Not Your Dad's Old Lunchbox Anymore"

CW11 Morning News Blog-NYC

Follow the link and watch the video segment. Oh my, they did a really nice job. Thanks, Erin Hobday and Patricia del Rio! You both look beautiful!

Too Fun.

Olympia Loves

I love this crazy little town. Check out this new website: http://www.everydayolympia.com/. Get yourself involved in a free listing and paid advertisment. Brought to you by the owners of a very cool store, 'einmaleins' - Downtown Olympia.


Danke Mathias und Trixy!

More fun News about Dos Chicas' Lorraine Adventure!

I received an email asking me to send another Lorraine Lunchbag back to NYC. This time, she is accompanying the Diet & Nutrition editor at SELF magazine on a morning tv show Monday! She will talk about the lunch article that was published in the March issue. When I find a link, or some videos, I will post to share. I was really excited about this happening, too. Anyone who sees this broadcast in NYC, tell me how it goes.

Thanks to everyone at SELF!

My Great Oilcloth Study-Experiment A

Hypothesis 1: It is possible to attach matte board to oilcoth using adhesive. Outcome: true. Problem: the only adhesive that works is Gorilla Glue, but it expands, becomes uneven underneath the material, and makes it look bumpy and unattractive. Otherwise, I LOVE Gorilla Glue for so many reasons!


Hypothesis 2: It is possible to machine sew matte board directly to the oilcloth. Outcome: true. Problem: material shifts and "walks" creating uneven edges. The inside of this isn't nearly as pretty as I'd like.

This cute little "gift box" is from Simplicity Pattern #4320, "D" Shirley Botsford Designs. I made it as a purse, but I cannot legally sell it; to honor the copyright of the designer.

This was a tedious project, as is most of the work I do. Problems were solved and I may revisit this again in the future.

from "My Great Oilcloth Study" Fall Artwalk 2007, Inside Vintage, Downtown Olympia, oilcloth, matte board, thread, beads

Pacific Ocean

Pacific City, OR. February twothousandandeight ---this is for you, Aunt Bertie! ;)

My Great Oilcloth Study-Experiment B

Hypothesis: It is possible to create a functional drawstring bag out of oilcloth.
Outcome: false. Problem: Oilcloth is bulky, therefore unable to close tightly with itself.
from "My Great Oilcloth Study Fall 2007", Olympia Artwalk at Inside Vintage
oilcloth, thread, beads, batting

Andy Manchesta, you are God! Unsolicited download warning and how to fix it...

You loser-punk-ass people who create malicious software and trojans need a serious reality check...GET A LIFE!

Hey kids---I was infected with a very aggressive trojan-worm unwelcomed-download to my laptop today. It slowed all the processes so much I couldn't work offline on my website. Warning pop-ups kept trying to get me to click on them every 10 seconds.

There was nothing in the Add/Remove Programs. Very sneaky. Stay away from this website---www dot the rental wizard dot com. They can tag what you Google Search so it comes up in the list. Very tricky. This evil website locked my Task Manager and would not allow me to close any programs! As I was looking for the problem files which I could not find, there appeared 3 new icons on my desktop: "protect files" with a sword and shield (bluish in color), "spyware" a square shape (orangish in color), and the other was redish in color, I forgot the name. When I found them in C:/ and hovered over with my mouse this website came up: www dot virus web protect dot com / shandler dot php.

I used our desktop computer to search for this website. Here is a link to what helped me with this issue: www.computing net Read the thread and follow the link to Andy Manchesta's website to battle trojan ilk.

After I completed the fix, my virus software detected this: Adware:Win32/Vapsup. I quarantined it, not knowing if it was safe or not. Then I read this: www.microsoft.com Adware is a relatively new virus. Just wanted you to know---this is my cyber holding-hands-while-we-cross-the-street together. Remember being encouraged to do that when we were young?

Thank you Andy and Computer.net folks! You are cool people.

(Addendum, next morning)--Please note the website that the trojan was trying to open is: www dot ultimate cleaner dot com. That was in the address window. The address that showed up in my tab list was: www dot soft ware referral dot com / jump dot php ? wmid = 6010 & mid = MjI60jg5 & li It defaulted one of my tab homepages and was right there when I opened Explorer today. I deleted the tab.

***All the address in bold do not have spaces. I did not want to link to these creeps.

It's Okay to Bump into Other People's Auras

I was told on Thursday about the huge "Sew Expo" in Puyallup, Wa. It is a 4-day extravaganza of what I fathomed had lots of material, quilts, people from other states, and a few surprises. I decided to attend on Saturday. Turns out I was right, except that I was pleasantly surprised more than a few times.

You know what it's like to attend an event where thousands of people are: bumping into the one you didn't see, "Oh sorry!", slowly moving forward with the sideways head, what we like to call "tourist pace" when we attend our local Farmer's Market every week; we know what we want, how to get there with the shortest trajectory, but visitors, who we are glad want to visit Olympia, slow us down with our game of getting in and out of there in record speed. I was a turtle, too, don't get me wrong. There were things I saw that made my jaw drop; beautiful pieced quilts that painted pictures of a jazz musician and a ballerina, how to machine embroidery flowers with the smallest of ribbon, adorable hanging cottages in pumpkin shapes, soft sculpture dragons and elephant purses, glorious glorious East Indian fabrics with gold and shimmer in deep, deep shades of pinks, purples, and greens, hand beaded ribbons that almost made me faint (ha), and amazing Japanese fabrics with swans and chubby faces.

I talked to many nice people, saw a few seminars, had a Gyro and Mr. Pibb at 10:30am and it was delicious, walked at least 3 miles, and was the only one carrying an oilcloth bag. I even heard a bag seminar person say she doesn't like oilcloth, 'it's too hard'. *sigh*

I saw; a fun fashion show from Simplicity patterns inspired by my favorite "Project Runway", those same patterns were $5 at their booth so I bought a few, I bought a beautiful brown knit fabric which I had put back on the shelf twice because I wasn't sure it would work with my pattern to make a tunic, a really nice sales lady helped me with that question, a lady got in line behind me to buy from the same bolt because she loved it, too, there was a cute teenage girl deciding which knit fabric to get and she chose a purple and black which was gorgeous and I winked and gave her a thumbs up and she smiled the biggest smile, and her mother had asked to borrow my pattern for a bit when I was talking to the sales lady.

I am so jazzed about new ideas that I can't wait to try, I saw feeding frenzies (after product demos-Quick! Buy it now at this incredible price!), miserable, bored husbands which always make me laugh, booth after booth of cotton swatches, an amazing quilt with African face profiles embellished with shells and hoops from a vendor from Alabama, I met another Yoder from Florida, lots of mothers and daughters together which made me wish that my mom had been with me, matte board cutters, irons, many software booths to make your own patterns for those fancy machines which I do not own, and six hours of other memories I can't remember.

It was very inspiring and I am so glad I went. I didn't see anyone doing what I am, working in oilcloth. I am trail blazing on my own path. And that is alright.

Thanks for reading.