A New Bear

Ever since I watched Cardcaptors as a kid, I've always liked the idea of making a teddy bear for someone; that someone hasn't come along yet but the urge to make a bear hasn't left me. My sister even brought back a kit from Korea as a souvenir for me, knowing I would love it because of our mutual love of Cardcaptors and Sakura made her first bear from a kit too. The kit I'm working from comes from iMinky.

The instructions of the kit were written in Korean so I pretty much made educated guesses throughout the project. The fabric easily frayed so I attached some fusible interfacing to the fabric which helped a little bit. The kit comes with enough fabric for the project and some extra in case you need to remake a limb or something. There was also an excess of stuffing. I can probably make one or two more bears of the same size with the left overs. I did run out of thread fairly quickly but I have enough white thread lying around so no harm, no foul.

I would have liked to be able to try to make some crown joints for this bear but I couldn't find one at my local Lowe's store. So I gave him as much pose-ability as I could by sewing some thread through both legs and body at one time(I did the same for the arms). The buttons I sewed on after and just to the outer side of the limb. I think if I keep from twisting his legs too much he'll be fine.

Because of the size I thought hand sewing might be easier than using my machine. It was fun but hand-sewing isn't really my specialty but if you look at the seams closely you can definitely see the improvement, though I'm afraid my stitching wouldn't be considered very womanlike. The bear itself is small, measuring only about 6" when standing. Smaller than my traveling bear, he might even be more convenient to travel with than Teddy because he comes with a keychain attachment. But Teddy is mine and I'm his.

I've decided to name him Eriol in honor of the Cardcaptors series. I tied a ribbon around his neck today, so... Happy Birthday, little guy!

Teddy's South Korean Adventures

 

So for Christmas last year I went to South Korea to visit my sister and I brought my Teddy along my constant companion for the majority of my life. Here are some of the highlights of our trip. We were only there for a week but we got to see three cities; Seoul, Gangneung, and Dae Jeon.

Chang Gyeong Chung Palace (in Seoul)

Gangneung (Pine City)

Ojukheon (in Gangneung)

He's a small bear so he likes to climb trees to get a better view of things. 

 

Then it started snowing and being a typical Southern Californian bear, he immediately ran out to play and take advantage of a photo op. He should have packed his scarf and hat like I told him too.

Recesky Twin Lens Reflex Camera.

I loved using my film camera 10 years ago, until the day the shutter broke and I was given a shiny new digital camera months later as a  replacement. Even though I like digital and wouldn't go back to film as a main camera I still miss replacing 35 mm film, waiting a week before I get to see how my pictures turned out, followed by surprise and disappointment over the number of blurry photos I had taken. So yes, nostalgia was a big draw for me when I bought this kit.

Another draw was that it is a kit. I'm an engineer and because of the way I'm built I've always loved making stuff and seeing the insides of things. So I took a chance and bought this kit even after reading some reviews about the difficulty of building the kit and its spotty record of actually taking decent pictures. But at least I'll be able to see how a camera works and if I'm really motivated I'm sure I can find ways to finagle it into taking better pictures.

I'm going have to agree with the previous reviews the camera was a pain to assemble and the instructions were often unclear. My biggest problems were getting the shutter to function and having to constantly loosen screws when putting the body together. The screws also seemed to need more effort to screw in than I'm used to. Anyway it took me about 2-3 hours to assemble and I still had fun.

I'll post again after I've taken some shots with it and had the film developed. I don't promise anything great mainly because I'm not a good photographer but let's just blame the film I'll be using. I've found some unused canisters at the back of my desk; they're probably 10 years old by now.

Apologies and Goals

So I started this blog as something to keep me busy while unemployed and looking for work as a recent college graduate. Then lo and behold I got a job about a month after starting this blog. My original goal was to update 2-3 times a month on whatever caught my fancy but as you can see that hasn't happened. My current goal is update whenever I finish a project be it sewing, drawing, knitting, or whatever else I might be interested in. Now that I have settled in somewhat in my new job I hope that I can devote some more time to this blog because I don't want this site to turn into one of those ghost town blogs I keep running across and wish that the author would write new posts. Anyway onto some business.

Since this will be my first blog post of the year I might as well start with some goals.

1. Write more often.
2. Improve my drawing and other art hobbies. (and hopefully post some of the results)
3. Keep on learning. 

So far I am on track with my second and third resolution. I have signed up for some local art classes and things seem to be going well. I can already see improvement in my drawing. Three has been fairly easy because I have been taking classes at Coursera and Duolingo. Coursera is a site that offers a number of college courses, while Duolingo is a language learning site; both of which are free. I haven't been using either of them for very long but my experiences with both have been overwhelmingly positive.

I'll try to keep this up and maybe in time I'll fall into a nice pattern when I'm updating 2-3 times a month like I planned.

Wish me luck and I know it's almost three weeks late but I wish for everyone to have a happy new year.