What's on my sewing/craft table

I have the urge to sew today. I plan on starting on a red twill skirt: either a modified Colette pattern from their rad sewing book or another Ginger.





I don't think the scalloped edge on the Meringue is really me, so I would remove it. Having sewn the Ginger pattern before, this could yield a skirt in a couple of hours, so that might be the answer for a quick sewing fix. We'll see. I'm going to take a trip to Discount fabrics (why is this the only fabric store open on Sundays in SF???) for some lining fabric and then make some decisions.



I also want to try to acquire something tasty for the Peony dress above. After reading about  Lladybird's floral and plaid versions, I had to try this pattern for myself.



Sewaholic's post about her top 5 favorite items of clothing inspired this cowl. San Francisco is so chilly right now, more scarves are absolutely necessary. Cowls are perfect on the bike and bikey folk know how great merino is at regulating temperature. I love this color, it's a neutral and yet rich dark navy. I think it will also serve as a go-to piece for me this Winter.

Dr Sketchy's SF projects

My posts have been very bikey lately, and here is the part where I switch gears and talk about my complicated interests. I recently took down my web site because I felt it was unable to represent all the things that I love in life.

I instead started writing on my bloggy blog and then redirected my domain here so that I can feature all of my interests obsessions. Directing Dr Sketchy's Anti-Art School in San Francisco is one of those many and varied interests that I enjoy!

December is challenging for our little event. People are busy, 111 Minna Gallery  has a lot of holiday parties on their calendar and often people start traveling towards the end of the month. We took the month off so that we have a moment to relax and plan for January.

Our previous shebang-a-bang was in November, and we had the lovely San Francisco burlesque performer and producer, Bunny Pistol model for us:



I liked how my drawings turned out.

While I made it big in Japan, Diane and Prudence took over for the Amazing Transforming Woman: Half Animal Half Human event.





This month Johnny Crash and I are working on a photo book! It will chronicle the last year of his stunning photos from Dr Sketchy's. We are hoping to get it published (on Blurb) in time for people to order for the holidays.

Johnny put together some amazing shots from the last year and I keep saying it will be nice to show my Mom, as she has absolutely no idea what Dr Sketchy's is about. Excitement!

Stay tuned for news on the book. And if you would like to come draw with us, sign up for the email mailing list, blog or Facebook to find out January dates.

Ladies and gentlemen, you want these!



The sponsorship goodies are arriving for 2012. Retro seamed stockings and 10% off orders from What Katie Did. I know I should find more to say about this than it doesn't suck, but oh man it so doesn't. These prizes rock.

Oh and in the Steve Jobs biography, they just announced the iPad. At first no on knew what the hell to make of it. It's a big phone, so what. But once the thing got on the shelves people went nuts for it. Wozniak stood in line all night and was at the store on his Segway.

Winterfest recap

The Timbuk2 canvas messengers were finished in time for Winterfest, yay! I put the finishing touches on the bags Sunday, heat set the paint for added durability and delivered them around 6pm.
 
The display looked really nice.
One happy winner! 

And another happy winner!

This was a really fun experience and I hope to do more projects like this in the future.

Winterfest was a good time. I bid on a gift certificate to the Alembic and a Bi-Rite package, which included a certificate to the store and the book that they just published, "Eat Good Food". I'm intrigued by this book, they are very interested in supporting local farmers and it is supposed to include tips and recipes to help one shop within the season.

I didn't win anything, oh well.

This was a pretty rad painting of Mr. Milk.

And I'm marginally grateful that this little hotty is too big for me:

I could totally see myself having a good time on this little Mikado donated by Citizen Chain. Subtle sparkly red paint, fenders, 70s styling...what's not to love??

Timbuk2 bags for Winterfest

This has been quite an exciting week. A friend of mine called with a cool proposition for painting Timbuk2 messenger bags for the SF Bike Coalition fundraiser (Winterfest) this Sunday.

After a couple of conversations with my best art resource, Diane Olivier, I decided that fabric markers are the best option for materials. Acrylic paint was ruled out because it is plastic and will crack once this bag is really put to use. And the bags are made of canvas, so oil paint is an option, but a layer of gesso is necessary to prime the surface and to keep the oil from eating away at the material. Fabric Markers will hold up to abuse, the color is bright and they are even washable.



I did some tests and played around with some options. I was very pleased that I could use a waterbrush to get some watercolor shading effects. I was a little concerned that adding water would compromise the permanence, but once the test dried I couldn't pick the color up again with the water brush.

With all the testing complete, I jumped right in and drew a bikey one. Handlebars, with lugs! Here are some progress shots.


Front panel.



The second bag is inspired by my trip to Japan. The leaves will be varying shades of red, orange and yellow. There is a tiny red maple leaf sitting on my sketchbook for reference!

If you like these, come to Winterfest on Sunday and bid on them. Profits go to the SF Bike Coalition and to bikey improvements all over the city. I want my Amsterdam bike lanes, damnit. I also want bullet trains, but that's a whole other blog posting.

I like to draw bicycles

I am sort of obsessed with bicycles. I love to ride bicycles. I enjoy reading about bicycles. But I am particularly obsessed with drawing bicycles.

Bikes are hard to draw, for reals. I host an annual 'Cute Girls on Bicycles' (this year we had a dude!) at Dr Sketchy's Anti-Art School in San Francisco. The bikey folk show up along with the regulars, and about halfway through the event the arteests are usually complaining about the bikes. We tend to have the muscle memory to draw the figure but drawing bikes can be a much more difficult mix of angles and geometry. I love it, well I love it when my drawings look good.

I thought it would be nice to post my bike drawings from over the years. I think it was five or so years ago that I started bike commuting and quickly became obsessed with these beautiful and elegant machines. They all have such personality and lovely lines. The drawings in this post go back to 2009, I'll start with the most recent.

  

This is from last week's trip to Japan, I feel like after the initial study I nailed most of the angles. It gets easier every time.


This Monaco feels like a mid 80s frame. I drew this while at my friend Diane Olivier's art workshop in the south of France this summer. We usually stop by a vide granier (village yard sale) to see what goodies there are to draw. Usually there are fun French bicycles including Peugeots and heavy old lugged frames with cool panniers, but this year I only found this one. I sold this to my friend Catherine Mackey.


Hello Sarah Murder! I did this drawing at Dr Sketchy's in May. We had 4 models posing with bicycles. Sarah did an epic two minute track stand for the warmup gestures. This is not it, that drawing consists of mostly scribble and panic. Two minutes is not enough time to render a figure and bike.


The Box Dog Pelican went into the sketchbook as soon as I got it home in February, because I am a woman obsessed. This drawing was featured in the SF Randonneurs' Populaire poster. Thanks Ely of Ruth Works SF for putting out the call for art, and for designing the poster. Sidenote, Ely and I share an interest in sewing and we had a fun time sewing bags together recently. I sold this color original as well.


See? Obsessed.


And this is what happened when the Rivendell Sam Hillborne came home in 2010.


2009 travel sketchbooks, France and Italy.

I'm starting to see people and objects as shapes when I draw them. I think this is a good thing, it means the part of my brain that thinks it knows what something looks like is turning off a bit and the real 'seeing' is happening. It feels like my hand just knows what shape to draw. It's cool.

My interests in bicycles are changing as well. First I was really into lugs, then I wanted a faster distance (Rando) bike, and I am beginning to get interested in fixed geared or single speed bicycles. The more I read about the simple elegance and fun of fixed geared bicycles, the more I want to ride them.

I have to admit that I'm also slightly influenced by Velouria of Lovely Bicycle. I figure that if she can ride that unbelievable Mercian, I can do it too. :)

Sort of off topic, but I'm reading the Steve Jobs biography and I'm at the part of the book where he and Jony Ives designed the first iMac and Jony added a handle, which was a manufacturing nightmare, but Steve approved it right away. It wasn't a portable computer necessarily, the handle was there to invite people to touch the machine, because at the time most people were scared to touch computers. It added a sense of play. I think that's beautiful.

Moe Moe...Nya Nya!

I've been trying to explain the concept of 'moe moe' to people for the last couple of days, but it's difficult so I thought I would try to explain it here.

Going to the Maid café in Akihabara kind of blew my mind, but in a good way. I really enjoyed it and it was fun, but it definitely left me thinking about this concept of 'love' or 'protectiveness' of the little girl Manga stereotype going on in Japan. Supposedly it's non-sexual?, and it is VERY interesting.

From the Wikipedia article:
"Moe (萌え?, pronounced [moe]) is a Japanese slang word. It means "a rarefied pseudo-love for certain fictional characters (in anime, manga, and the like) and their related embodiments."[1] Patrick W. Galbraith[2] notes that it is a pun derived from a Japanese word that literally means "budding," as with a plant that is about to flower, and thus it can also be used to mean "budding" as with a preadolescent girl.[3] Since the word is also a homonym for "burning" pronounced moe (燃え?), there is also speculation that the word stems from the burning passion felt for the characters.[4] The word has come to be used to mean one particular kind of "adorable", one specific type of "cute", mainly as applied to fictional characters. 
The word is occasionally spelled Moé, and was originally related to a strong interest in a particular type or style of character in video games, anime or manga. "Moe!" is also used within anime fandom as an interjection[citation needed]. Girls who are moe are called moekko (萌えっ娘?) from the honorific "娘" meaning "female child"."

This is a flyer from a Maid Café:


And this is us having a silly, ridiculously good time at MaiDreamin:
With our hands, we are making the 'nya nya' or I think 'meow meow' sign. Holy effing crap it was fun.

Fall colors

November is the perfect time to visit Kyoto. Because it was just starting to get cold at night, the Japanese maples were turning amazing shades of red, orange and purple. The leaves at the tops of the trees are exposed to the light and cold, so they turn red first.


Kotu-In Zen Temple


Bill and I enjoying the temple. Photo by our wonderful guide, Kenzo Sato.


Japanese maple leaves study.


The trees outside of the ryokan.

Bikes in Japan

I had many opportunities to enjoy the bicycles in Japan.

One morning I wandered through the Nishiki market in Kyoto and got to draw this lovely old lugged porteur. There was a label on it somewhere that had 'Swallow Cycle' and the head badge is 'Art Flex' and 'Ary' with a bicycle wheel on it.


I felt like I was in the way while drawing this one, the people running the stall were popping in and out around me, probably confused at why this crazy Westerner wanted to draw this old bike. She's a beaut. Like all bikes in Japan, this was locked only to itself, not to an immovable object. It boggles my mind, but that is how it's done.

Handsome Bill and I hired a wonderful guide, Kenzo Sato, and he took us for a cycle tour around Kyoto on our Mama Charlies. Since mostly grocery shopping ladies ride this style of city bike,  that's what the locals call this frame style with the baskets in front.

Hello Imperial Palace!


More Mama Charlies.

Kenzo was a fantastic guide, I'm so so glad we hired him. He helped us get used to the subway, he took us to the Maid café, and to many beautiful temples. He also took me to a special Kimono fabric 'store', which is actually a house not a commercial store. It was a unique experience, I know that I would have never had found this place on my own.


Had to take a fashion shot of my Japanese whip, yo.

FUGU

FUGU, originally uploaded by Alice Stribling.

We wandered through the Nishiki market while in Kyoto and I had to draw this puffer fish.

While I was drawing, the fish would twitch and open it's mouth because it was so fresh. It was both creepy and fascinating!

Colette Patterns Fall 2011 Sewing challenge

Colette Patterns Fall 2011 Sewing challenge, originally uploaded by Alice Stribling.

So far I've made two items, the Ginger skirt in denim and my snakeskin a-line dress. I'm really loving this challenge!

Here is the snakeskin dress.

My First Metric Century: the next day

Yesterday I completed the Marin Century 100k ride. Woo!

I felt like writing about it so that I can have a journal of sorts about these experiences as I go through them and also make some notes for next time. 

My riding buddy and I had been looking forward to this for quite some time, but I found out Friday that she was out due to health issues. Sad face. I knew an acquaintance was going and might know someone who could give me a ride to the start in San Rafael, so I reached out to her and she offered a ride! It was kismet. I was a little nervous that it might mean riding by myself all day, but I was rolling with it.

5am arrived before I was ready to roll out of bed, I met up with Kristen and Tom, we had a nice chat on the way. We started out riding together, they had to stop for a quick fix to Kristen's bike, they caught up to me and of course passed me. That was really the thing I got used to yesterday, being passed. By schools of flying fish in full glorious kits and pumping legs. Holy crap, I am no speed demon. I got used to that and comments about the Pelican. I received many 'beautiful bicycle' comments and a few 'wow, props to you for riding the whole way on your commuter/cruiser'. It was very interesting. I felt like mine was the only fendered bicycle on the road. 

The route was beautiful. We had fog and grey weather until about noon. I was passed oh so many times on the climb up to Big Rock. After that, Lucas valley road was fun, lots of little rolling hills with passing redwoods and curvy lanes. Then we came to the first rest stop of the day in Nicasio. 

Couple of climbs after that, the 2nd I wasn't expecting. I was in my lowest gear, (hanging on for dear life), the sound of my breathing keeping me company. 

Petaluma rest stop was next, we were halfway, yay! I enjoyed the hell out of the flamboyant young man in his school girl outfit dealing gatorade. He said he liked the birds on my jersey, I said they were swallows. His comment after that, "we have SO much in common". He was FIERCE and he made me laugh.

I was considering skipping Chileno/Wilson Hill/Hicks Rd. I did it and walked the hill. There is no shame in walking. Fuck that hill. 

The view from the top was nice though. 

The return to Vallecito elementary school was ok. By kilometer 86 I was ready to be done. A group of gals in Velo Girl kits passed me and I hung on for dear life to a gal named Laurie's tire, she chatted with me up one of the last climbs and it made a HUGE difference. I just needed a bit of distraction to keep going.

I made it back, met the only other fendered bikey person at lunch, a randonneur! (I spotted him in the Rivendell hat and Paris-Brest-Paris jersey) We chatted for a while and afterward my mind sunk into a weird place. I wanted to get home, started riding towards the Larkspur ferry, didn't have the energy and turned back. Kristen and Tom were riding the 100 mile, so they were going to be a while. I felt a little desperate. I called another friend who lives in Marin on the off chance that she could give me a ride to the ferry. 

Catherine and John came to the rescue and we had a nice chat and some beers in her backyard before she gave me a ride back home.

Things I learned and want to prepare for my next big ride (the SF Randonneurs 115K Populaire Oct. 1st):

• I experienced lower back pain & neck pain, the bike may need fit adjustments

• bring my own Advil, apparently one must sign a waiver for this on an organized ride

• have an escape plan in place if needed (handsome Bill in a zip car? friends? teleportation?)

• I want to learn more about being 'self supported' and what that entails I need to learn about bike maintenance

Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender 2010

04.02.10 VIva 2 hair combo, originally uploaded by Alice Stribling.

I curled my hair, sketched, and enjoyed great music at VLV 13 this year.

There are many more sketches and photos on Flickr. Enjoy.

2.11.10 Marav

I had a good time drawing tonight. I brought my Aquarelle crayons to try and give those a go, but stuck with the watercolor. It's fun and it suited our model perfectly.

I'm enjoying drawing the short poses with overlap. It means I save paper and it's a bit more challenging and interesting.

I'm particularly fond of the last drawing, the fabric was really fun to do.