Santa Barbara...

Is totally awesome!!

Raul and I had a much needed weekend getaway last month, and I totally fell in love with Santa Barbara. Like I want to move there right now. Seriously.

We happened to be in town for their annual Summer Solstice parade. Santa Barbarians really get into their summer solsticing and parades. It was quite impressive. Take a look.









It reminded me of Iowa City, except without the snow and like a million times more expensive. And there's a dog beach!

I'm back!

Medicine conspired to exhaust me and kill my spirit since March, but no more! Intern year is behind me, and I am slowly starting to repress the memories of the last four months. I will say that my streak of going a rectal exam free intern year ended in May. And my streak of not physically managing anyone's fecal incontinence also ended that same day. Oh ER - you are the ultimate psychiatry appreciation rotation. But now I'm done!

Here is a project that I made back in April for this contest. I made the shirt within the allotted time frame, but I am just getting around to blogging about it now.

Here it is:

Oy vey. Intern year is bad for the waistline. So is all the good food in LA. It's almost cruel to put pack so many tasty hamburger joints into a 10 mile radius. Yes, I have eaten at nearly all of them.

Details:
Pattern: Simplicity 4589 (view A)
Fabric: The body of the shirt is Naomi Ito Nano Iro that Raul picked up for me at Purl in NY. I would link to the Purl website, but it's down right now. It's double gauze and very lovely. The neck is Robert Kaufman linen/cotton (purchased at the Purl Warehouse in Orange County - yes, it is akin to heaven.)
Musings: I had read online that this Simplicity patterns run big, thus it is generally a good idea to size down. So, I made the size 12 (instead of the 14). Good idea in theory, but I forgot to consider the sizing up of one's body that generally occurs during intern year. So, the shirt turned out a little small in the hipster area, but I quickly remedied that problem with these fancy triangles.


Hello, I am a fancy triangle. My twin sister is located on the other side of the shirt.

Then the back was a little baggy, so I made a back dart of sorts. And rather than hemming the bottom of the shirt, I left the selvedge on. It's really cute - it almost looks like Naomi Ito signed my shirt. All in all, I was able to make this shirt in about a day and it involved minimal crying spells. And it's comfortable! Thumbs up!

Dog Beach

There's a stretch of beach in Hungtington Beach where they allow dogs off leash, and it is absolutely amazing. The beach is at least a mile long, and it's beautiful, and if you visit on a weekend day, it's packed with happy dogs and people. Few things can lift the spirits like a happy dog - and hundreds of happy dogs, well that's about as good as it gets.

A couple of weekends ago, we met up with some friends down in Orange County. It was a gorgeous, hot day, so on the way back we stopped by the dog beach.



We'd brought Flynn here when we first moved to LA, and at that time, he seemed to be quite frightened of the ocean. Now he's a CA dog through and through, and was fearless in the waves.




Flynn says, "Just give me a couple more visits and I'll be tackling these waves on a board!"

BTW, I am going to try to tackle some waves on a board -- next Wednesday, in a surfing lesson (!?!).

Eat your heart out Ralph Macchio!

As you probably know, Raul is a super trooper. I don't make many trips to fabric stores, but when I am ready to make the occasional pilgrimage to downtown LA to hit up Michael Levine, Raul is always my ready companion. So, when he wanted some handmade pajama bottoms, I was all over it.

I skimmed this tutorial and then kind of winged it. And it actually resulted in a totally wearable pair of pants!



The smashing headwear was his own design.

Woohoo!

Raul and I have finished our step exams for the USMLE!

Here is some misc. baby stuff I made while on medicine for my cousin that's about to have a baby!


Hello. I am a flannel receiving blanket in the background. And in the foreground we have a bib, yellow lab onesie and burp cloth.

Details: I followed this tutorial for the flannel receiving blanket. I bought the flannel from Micheal Levine - they have really great selection of prints and colors. I think next time, I might try to do some bias tape sort of edging. For the burp cloth, I sandwiched a piece of cotton batting in between flannel and some white terry cloth material that I had in my stash. I used this tutorial to make the bib from flannel and the white terry. These projects were fun, quick and easy.

Last but not least - the yellow lab onesie, made during my labrador-themed-onesie-making-extravaganza! I am sure my cousin's two yellow labs are super excited about their soon to be arriving lil sis. Raul told me that some dogs rival a human two year old in terms of intelligence. I totally believe it. I think Flynn is super smart, and yet so like a two year old when he tears through the trash to eat raw chicken trimmings when he's angry at us for leaving him alone in the house for 8 hours. Sigh.