BIG NEWS! My Etsy shop is now officially open ! Please visit it at
julierosesews.etsy.com.
Right now, I have three jumper-style sundresses for sale, and I hope to expand to include bags and more styles of dresses and tops soon. If you're interested in any of the items, but don't see it in your size, contact me either through etsy or in a comment, and I'll be happy to make you a custom listing.
**********
I got home from my all-too-brief stay at Marissa's house on July 18th. So, the rest of this post will be primarily devoted to that visit!
**********
The first thing we did was go see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I'd already heard that some significant changes had been made in the transition from the book to the movie, so I was prepared. But... eh, maybe I just love the books too much to see past them, but I thought that the translation to the screen was rather poorly done. Or, rather, to someone who hadn't read the books, it would be an fun, entertaining movie, with lots of action of both the dueling and kissing varieties. But Marissa and I concurred that for readers of the Harry Potter series, it was confusing as to why important things, like the origins of the various Horcruxes, and the whole mystery of who the Half-Blood Prince actually was, were given very little importance and screen-time, while scenes that did not occur in the book, and as far as I could tell had little to no relevance, like a dizzyingly-shot attack on the Burrow, were added. Overall, I would give it two and a half stars out of five.
**********
More and more crochet has been creeping into my life! Well, not so much creeping as bashing down the door and throwing a party. In any event, I have been prolific. I joined Ravelry, an online knit and crochet community, and a pattern search turned up a super-pretty headband pattern from CreativeYarn. She has a lot of really cute patterns, I'm going to make the red bow beret pretty soon, too. But anyway, I took some yarn and this crochet pattern to Marissa's house with me, and made 5 during my stay. 
This was the first one I made, and I later made 2 in black (one of which went to Marissa), one in eggplant purple, and one in yellow. It was a really fun, easy pattern, and a good way to transition into making something other than amigurumi. I made them mostly while watching Marissa play video games, which sounds lame, but I really, really like watching people play them. I am terrible at anything that involves a lot of complicated button-pushing combinations myself, so I enjoy getting the experience of the game without requiring any skills in that area.
**********
On Friday, my second day at Marissa's, we visited Knoebel's Amusement Park. It was incredibly fun! I'd never been there before, and I was very pleasantly surprised. There's no admission fee, just inexpensive tickets for rides. We went on the wooden roller coasters and water rides. There was much yelling and general hysteria. We also went in the Haunted Mansion. The plan was for both of us to yell ridiculous exclamations in our very convincing old lady voices.... however, one of us remembered what a complete baby she is about anything remotely scary and curled into a ball with her eyes closed and her hands over her ears from the moment we entered the ride to when we were outside again, and did not utter a sound the entire time. Here's a hint: it wasn't Marissa. The great thing about Knoebel's, though, is that it's a fairly small amusement park, so we were able to go in at 11:15 a.m., go on all the rides we wanted as many times as we wanted for about $13, and we were out by 2 p.m, and the longest line we waited in was maybe fifteen minutes. My personal favorite moment of the day was when we were riding this flume-type thing, except with less thrill-ride and more sit-in-a-boat-and-get-soaked, which was called the Sklooosh. It was our second time on it, and there were only two other kids with us in this, like, 12 person boat, and after we'd gone down the hill and been drenched, Marissa turned around to them and exclaimed, "Good Skloooshing!" We'll definitely be returning.
**********
Saturday, was the day I was scheduled to go home. We had something very important to accomplish before we could leave, though! Namely... Lord of the Rings cupcakes. Marissa had wanted to make cupcakes before I came to visit, then she had the idea of having them be in an LotR theme, and how could I say no to something like that? Without further ado...
**********
We got stuck in traffic on the way back to the town where I live (not to mention that we missed our exit twice), and therefore had to find a way to pass the time. For about half an hour, this consisted of playing Highway I Spy, where one of us would yell, "I spy something... GREEN!" The other would ask," Is it the GRASS?!" "YES!!!" And so on, about the sky, any car passing us, signs, the yellow lines on the highway... Marissa and I found this incredibly amusing; I think anyone else in the car would have killed us after about the first ten minutes. We did get bored eventually, though, and we needed a new game. So, it was time for the ever-popular "Kill, Marry, Shputz." No, the original last word is not 'shputz.' But neither of us are a big fan of the word it stands for, and... who could pass up the opportunity to say 'shputz' over and over? For those of you who don't know, this is a game where three individuals are chosen, and then the two players have to choose which of the people (in our case men... or at least males, as some of them did not actually exist) they would kill, which they would marry, and which they would.... shputz. Here are a few of the more amusing rounds of the game. The letters stand for each action.
Potentials Julie's Answer Marissa's Answer
- William Shatner (now) M K
- Howard Stern S S
- Mr. Bean K M
- Julius Caesar M K
- Macbeth K M
- Hamlet S S
- Patrick Stewart M K
- Link, from the Zelda games S S
- That Creepy MSNBC Anchor K M
- Construction worker next to the road K K
- Abe Lincoln M M
- Dwight Shrute S S
Interestingly, Marissa and I rarely chose the same marry/kill options, but nearly always had the same shputz choice. Hmm.
**********
I think I'm going to try to start blogging every day, or every other day, so that I don't do these massive twice-a-month blogs. I still have crochet projects, sewing stuff, music reviews ,and general what's-going-on-in-my-life stuff, but it's going to wait until next time so this doesn't turn into an intimidatingly large entry. But, in case you want up to the minute information on my life, I've joined Twitter. I'm at http://twitter.com/julie_rose_sews. It's really exciting, I think today I tweeted about cat-sitting and having a peanut butter and jelly for lunch. But my background on my page is super-cute.
**********
Next time: crochet projects, new etsy favorites, handmade dorm decor, and more!
A long ivory lace skirt, which I'm not going to alter at all. However, I need to fiure out what I'm going to wear under it, because as it is now it's very sheer.
Mmmmmm.
It was a birthday present from my aunt and uncle, and I love it! It makes me feel like Strawberry Shortcake. It's from the Scala hat company. It's also offered in lots of other colors, for those who don't wish to be seen from space while sunbathing.
From Forever 21
The smiley face totally makes it.
Charming.
Dyed For Your Sins.
Gathered satin skirt egg? ! Why yes.