Monday, September 28, 2009

movie star spotting

They've been filming a couple of movies recently around Boston, though I'd never seen any of the filming happening. This weekend, however, filming of "The Town" came to a street corner near me. It's a movie directed by Ben Affleck and starring Jon Hamm, so I decided to see if I could see anything. And while a lot of other people got shooed away, I managed to find a spot just next to the crew where I was able to watch for a few hours.

And did I see anyone?

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There's Ben on the left and Jon on the right. They were filming a shoot-out scene in the street. So lots of gunfire and screeching tires and the like. I was most excited to see Jon Hamm, as you might be able to guess from the next few shots.

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And where I was standing was right next to this.

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Both of them came by me at separate points, but I was trying not to be a pest and so I didn't say hi (for which one of the crew women scolded me later. "You should have said hi to him [Jon Hamm]. He totally would have said hi back!"). Oh well. Still a pretty cool way to spend a Saturday morning.

Friday, September 18, 2009

in stitches

More sewing!

The project that made me drag out the sewing machine again in the first place was a birthday gift for a friend. She's an astronomer, and I was going through my craft materials and found a pair of socks with stars on them. And they were just asking to be made into a sock monkey.

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And this past weekend I decided I should make another box bag, this time for myself. So I did.

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And the lining even goes with the doggy bag theme!

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Monday, September 14, 2009

birthday blips

A few photos from my birthday...

Puppies playing in Harvard Yard

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A cow grazing in Harvard Yard

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A cupcake

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And the birthday cake I made with my giant cupcake pan (devil's food with vanilla frosting, yum!)

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Maybe some year I'll get my wish of finding David Tennant on my doorstep, alas...

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

thread the needle

I've actually been using my sewing machine again! I know, it's a freaking miracle. But I'd been feeling the urge for the last month or so, but I had to wait for the temperature to go down. Ironing while melting didn't sound fun. Here's what I've been working on.

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I used this box bag tutorial to make the smaller of the two bags, which was pretty small. So, on the next one, I improvised by making the pieces as large as I could get out of the umbrella fabric and went from there. The one thing I had to really guess at was the cutting and stitching of the corners to form the box edges, but I think they came out pretty well. And I even remembered to add the ribbon loop on the second bag.

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I'd picked up the fabric at Bazaar Bizarre almost two years ago with a particular friend in mind--and this was even before I had a sewing machine!--and finally I made her something from it. The bags were really not difficult to make and I had fun doing them. And this was also my first time sewing in zippers and using interfacing, so I'm pretty proud all around.

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