Blogger Meetup - Elizabeth; and Protecting your Blog

If you usually skip meetup posts, but have a blog of your own, please read below about how to protect your blog.

Yesterday, the first day of Labor Day weekend, included a meetup with Elizabeth of SEWN. Elizabeth recently moved from New York city, where she got to hang out with some of my favorite bloggers, Carolyn and Claudine, to southern California, and she planned a mini getaway to the Bay.

When planning our outing, Elizabeth deferred to me to select our shopping destination. Recently my favorite SF fabric store (Fabrix) has been a bit lackluster, so I suggested we meet at Stone Mountain and Daughter in the east bay, followed by a visit to Piedmonth Fabrics, less than 3 miles away.

It was so great to meet Elizabeth and her host friends! Stephanie, of The Dashing Eccentric, had seen my mention of the meetup yesterday and was quickly able to join us. Then, who should recognize my laugh across the store, but Jillian, who was serendipitously visiting her local fabric store, not yet having seen my post. Jillian was wearing a gorgeous Nikko jacket I had never seen in person and I am sorry we didn't get photos as she didn't follow us to Piedmont.

Elizabeth scored some wonderful goodies, which she has blogged about. (I didn't buy anything, other than a piece of fabric on behalf of Margy.)

After Piedmont, Elizabeth, her two host friends, and I retired to Barneys for some light refreshment. For me, it was an Oreo milkshake, a rare treat.

Now that Elizabeth is on the west coast, I hope to see her more often!

How to Protect Your Blog

Last night, Dixie (an incredibly creative blogger, btw) let me know that my blog had "disappeared". I ran to log in and discovered that, due to suspicious activity, blogger had shut it down. Meaning that some troll hacked my password and attempted some nefarious activity, probably attempting to hijack the blog.

This is a scary thing to a blogger who has put a lot of work into a blog. But I was saved from disaster and I want to share a few tips on how to protect your own work.

First, I have to thank Carolyn of HandmadeByCarolyn. A similar thing happened to her blog last December. When she managed to recover it, she shared that she had heightened her blog's security using her smart phone. You can tie your account to authentication software on your smart phone, at least in Blogger. (I don't know about Wordpress or other blog software, but they probably have something similar.)

After reading about Carolyn's experience, I immediately set this up for my own blog using my iPhone. It's a bit of a pain because I do have to periodically use a code provided by the authentication app on my phone in order to log in, but I can tell you that it's worth the minor inconvenience. Upon entering the code, my blog was immediately restored and nothing was lost, not even recent comments.

So, here are my tips for protecting your blog. If you have other tips to share, please mention them in the comments.

• Use a strong password on the account connected to your blog. It should include lowercase and uppercase characters, numbers and punctuation. My password is now much stronger. An example of a strong password, which is still easy to remember: whenD0weEat?At8?
• If your blog software supports it, tie your account to authentication software on your cell phone.
• Backup your blog. I back mine up periodically and I backed it up again last night. In Blogger, go to your blog's dashboard, and then Settings -> Other. Click the Export Blog button, which brings up a dialog to save a copy of your blog to your hard drive, as an XML file. If you plan to migrate your blog elsewhere, you would use this file, but it also serves as a backup. (The XML file is human readable, which is an advantage if you want to extract a specific posting.)

Thanks again, Carolyn!! I owe you! If you ever come to SF, I'll drive you anywhere you want to go.

What are my vegetables trying to tell me? (By the way, I did cook a couple weeks ago, the first time this year!)

Blogger Meetup - BadMomGoodMom

BadMomGoodMom was in town again! We met for lunch today at Squat and Gobble. She was accompanied by her precocious and adorable 11-year-old daughter, TFN. (My acronym, not her real initials. Two points to her if she figures out the reference.)

BadMomGoodMom knit her cardigan. I'm wearing a Sewing Workshop cowl top (the older pattern), Loes Hinse pants with a giant circle pocket (which you can't see), and my Koos bag. I knit and felted the scarf a year or two ago. You can see with my hat and glasses, that I am going incognito.
OK, it's just really cold.

After a yummy lunch, we retired to her car for show and tell. She purchased some nice fabrics from Stone Mountain & Daughter, and Fabrix, and also had some beautiful pieces she had knit and sewn.

So, why are we laughing in the top picture? We are holding a (plastic) rim from her wheel. This is the result of her parking job – she scraped the curb, not realizing she had dislodged the piece. Some passerby kindly picked the fallen rim off the sidewalk and placed it on her windshield.

Oops

Thanks to TFN for taking these awesome pictures!

After lunch, they were headed to northern Marin for a couple of nights stay in a friend's summer cottage. While her mom was in the bathroom, TFN said to me, "Two nights in a hut with no wifi. One of us may not come out alive."

Thanks for the laugh, TFN, and I hope you survive the coming ordeal!

Cañada College Blogger Meetup

with JillyBe

(If you are looking for the interview with Marcy Tilton, here you go!)

Cañada College hosted a blogger meetup last night.

So.much.fun!

There were special guests (Lynda Maynard, Wayne Wichern, Sara Alms, and Ronda Chaney, who hosted the event). There was food. There was show and tell. There were fellow bloggers. There was lots of sharing. There were gifties!

So.much.fun!!

Muslins, yay or nay were discussed. Wordpress or blogger was discussed. Zippers were discussed. Vogue, Simplicity, Burda were discussed. Emma One Sock, Gorgeous Fabrics, FabricMart, Mood Fabrics, were all discussed.

So.much.fun!!!

I took photos with my cell. I'm sorry they aren't better quality and that I didn't capture everyone who attended, but this should give you an idea. If you are a Facebook fan of Cañada College Fashion Department, they will be posting pics.

Lynda Maynard
Ronda Chaney
Lynda Maynard and Wayne Wichern
JillyBe and Ronda
with Ronda
Jenny modeling Wayne's dramatic hat
Rose, Amy and Cindy
Rose and Amy
Wayne, JillyBe, Ronda, and Jenny

Special Guests:

• Ronda Chaney, hostess and head of the Fashion Department at Cañada College
• Lynda Maynard, teacher and author of Couture Sewing Techniques
• Wayne Wichern, teacher and owner of Wayne Wichern Millinery
• Sara Alm, teacher and author of Fabulous Frocks

Bloggers:

• Cindy of Cation Designs
• Rose of Needles, Pins, Thorns
• JillyBe of JillyBe Joyful
• Beth of SunnyGal Studio
• Jean of J. Kaori Designs
• Amy of Sew Well
• Jenny of Jenny Rinn Designs
• Sonia of Sew with Sonia and Moroder Designs (knitwear)
• Katy of Katy Renee

I am an alumnus of the Cañada College Fashion Department - having attended in the early 1980s. It's clear to me that Ronda has done amazing things with this department and that it is as good, if not better, as in "my" day.

Thanks so much for a great evening and your generous gifties, Ronda and colleagues!

Jean Paul Gaultier - Take 2

In honor of the exhibit, I decided to wear my Shoes of Death.

Though I did see the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit when Margy was here, there was a blogger meetup to see it and I couldn't resist another visit with some great local sewists.

Amy has already written up our gathering and wow, she got some great photos with a real camera. (I tend to use my iPhone for these things. The pics are good, but they are not Digital SLR good.)

Because this was my second time, and it's a huge exhibit, I decided to zoom right to the middle. This is when I started to overload last time and the second half of the exhibit includes my favorite rooms: the ethnic room, the punk room (with the "runway show"), and the movie room. This allowed me to absorb things I had missed last time around.

First up is this grey fleece jacket. It is probably the most wearable piece in the exhibit, at least for this sewist. There is black ribbing on the hem and pockets, and black trim all over it. The ribbing is probably on the wrists too, but they were obscured by enormous silver bracelets and long strands of (fake?) hair.

I lightened this picture to show the swing back and the pointed, embellished, hood.

I also lightened this picture to show a bit more of the hood.

We've moved on to the punk room. See that punk on the right wearing the tulle skirt and leather jacket? I thought the detailing on the tulle skirt was very cool. Though made from layers of cream tulle, it has denim detailing.

Just look at the closeup of the front of the skirt. It features black top-stitching, and a "hidden" button placket, just like the classic 5-button fly Levis. It even has metal rivets. In tulle.

It's hard to see, but I was trying to get a picture of the back of the skirt. You can just make out the denim-style back pocket, complete with top-stitching.

In the punk room there was also a runway with moving spotlights - I had to try and time my photos to the spot lights since the room was dark and we weren't allowed to take flash photos. My friend ReAnn had asked me what I had thought of the "button dress", but I had missed this one on my last visit, so I kept my eye out for it this time.

What is cool about this dress is that the stripes, all the cream detailing that you see, is achieved with buttons.

Another cool feature of this exhibit, is that for each piece in the exhibit, there is a plaque stating how many man hours were required to create the piece. The button dress required 65 hours.

The last room is the movie room. I really enjoyed watching the collaged video showing his costumes from all sorts of movies and TV shows. I watched that twice. ;)

I forget which movie this is from but I think either of my daughters could rock this piece. For prom, maybe? ;)

We ended up in the museum cafe, where we gabbed for about three hours! It was serious fun.

I just had to feature Vanessa and her son, Dominick. Vanessa knitted Dominick's pants, and sewed his incredibly cute jacket and hat. (That plaid is from FabricMart and I thought I had recognized it! In fact, I think I have some of it.) Isn't he precious? What a cutie patootie.

It was a bit difficult to get these pics because Dominick had some sartorial issues with Jean Paul Gaultier. Or maybe he was forced to leave the punk room before he'd finished taking notes. Or maybe he'd had enough of parental gabbing. ;)

I still haven't cooked, but I made an apple pie!

I used this recipe but I found it to be way too sweet. Oh well. Even a mediocre apple pie is better than no apple pie at all. (It wasn't for guests, so I didn't worry about making the crust pretty.)

Shams Sewing Tip #231

Trippens, Trippens, who's got the Trippens?

It might startle you to know that I am not the epic house cleaner. If you know me well, you might consider this an amusing understatement. But I want to share a sewing tip that is, as far as I know, unique to me.

What do you do with those scraps that are too small to use? I hope you do not put them in a box, neatly labeled, "Scraps too Small to Use".

What I do is to take a handful of them and, before heading to the trash, I seek out dust bunnies. I swipe floor boards, corners, wherever dust collects. The following example is from underneath the piano and behind the coffee table.

This cotton shirting is from my current sewing project. Stay tuned for the finished top.
You're welcome!

ReAnn and Jillian Meetup

Match the Trippen to the Sewist!

On another note, ReAnn was in town towards the end of last week. She, Jillian and I got together for a long lunch and a quick run to Fabrix. I wish I'd had more time to play, but I am seriously lacking vacation hours at the moment. In fact, my lack of vacation hours caused me to cancel attending the Haute Couture event in Chicago earlier this month.

Our visit was short, but a lot of fun. We all decided to sport Trippens, our favorite collective shoe brand. (Though we are Trippen amateurs and bow to Margy, the Trippen Goddess.) As we walked the half block from Fabrix to the restaurant, a group of people (3 women and 3 men) stopped us to admire and ask about our shoes.

Trippens bring people together! :)

Blogger Meetup - Karen of DidYouMakeThat

See me on the right? In the glasses. (Yes, I just got a haircut.) That's Beth at the very end, in a beautiful purple Donna Karan dress.

I love blogger meetups. I am an extroverted person living an introverted life. I work at home and rarely go into the office, which is about an hour away, or I'd go in more often. I live alone, unless you count my unsociable grey cat, who has never forgiven me for stepping on his tale, in the dark, when he was a kitten. (I never stepped on my white cat...) Even now, he panics if I'm standing up. To top it off, my hobby is SEWING. A solitary hobby, if ever there was one.

So I love to get together with other sewists and I take most every opportunity to do so. My sewing friend and blogger, Beth, of Sunny Gal Studio, emailed me weeks ago to let me know that Karen, of Did You Make That? was coming to the bay area. Karen was going to spend the week studying with Beth and learning couture techniques. Beth is a consummate sewist and teacher.

While here, Karen wanted to meet up with local sewists and Beth asked me for suggestions on where we could meet. As someone who doesn't really drink, eat out, or go out much, I wasn't much help, but Beth found a great wine bar in downtown SF, right at the entrance to China Town, Rouge et Blanc.

I didn't count how many of us showed up last night, but it was maybe 15 sewists. It was SO.MUCH.FUN. I had not been a follower of Karen's blog, which I have remedied. She is a totally delightful person who loves vintage style and wants to master couture techniques. Even though the only person I knew at the event was Beth, I was immediately in deep conversation with many different sewists. One sewist was actually visiting from the U.K. and her trip just happened to coincide with Karen's visit.

I think I'm not the only sewist who loves to get out and interact with other sewists. :)

And, guess what? I don't usually like wine (or most any alcohol). But I had two (rather expensive) glasses of the yummiest French wine! Sheesh, I could have downed a lot more, but I was quite buzzed as it was, so 2 glasses seems to be my limit. I'm glad that I took the subway home. ;)

There's Karen!

Let me point out a couple posts. Amy, of Sew Well, wrote the greatest post about last night. I borrowed her pictures for my post as I did not take any. (There were many people snapping pictures, but many of them don't blog.) She even lives relatively close to me! Amy, if you need help pinning a hem, let me know. :)

Karen, our guest of honor, wrote the greatest post about the sale last Monday at Britex. I don't usually attend these sales, but she is not exaggerating about the mob. I find that, even at the sales, their prices are quite high. But I'm pretty sure I recognize a local sewing friend, Wendy, in one of her pictures. :)

New haircut!

A Meetup with Luz Clara!

The sewers in their native habitat, Fabrix

Luz Clara, a blog follower and friend from Stitcher's Guild, was in town recently. Actually, she was in town last summer and we hoped to meet up, but it was the first week in my job of 12 years where I had to go into work every day for long hours, so it didn't work out. I was determined that we should make it work this time around! In fact, both daughters had asked separately if they could get together with me the same day, but I said no!!

We met for lunch at Squat and Gobble, one of my favorite local eateries. After a long, leisurely lunch (she is so easy to talk to!), we headed to Fabrix. I hadn't been there in a couple months and we both found a tidbit or two, as you can see from our bags in the top photo.

Afterward, we decided to visit Japantown. I hadn't visited the bookstore, Kinokuniya, in quite a while — they have a very good sewing and craft section. I bought one of the latest Japanese sewing magazines as well as a book on Shibori dyeing. In fact, the skirt I wore is a version of shibori. I did a little shibori dying about 20 years ago and would love to try it again — particularly now that I have a new clothes dryer and can do my own laundry once more.

Luz Clara also found a book and then we visited the incredibly cute Kunikuniya stationary store. For lunch I had a delicious Greek Crepe, but we both decided that we needed a Japanese ice cream crepe from Sophie's Crepes for dessert. The freshly made crepe was still warm and filled with Mocha Java chip ice cream. Yummmmm.... I really blew my dairy-free, gluten-free, lifestyle that day. ;)

It was so much fun to hang with Luz Clara! She is a fascinating person who makes jewelry, speaks Spanish and American sign language, and is incredibly well traveled — we talked for hours. She gifted me with a gorgeous piece of wool challis from Paris as well as a very cute medal from a Paris flea market. Thanks so much, Luz Clara, and I hope we get to do it again!