Dear Blogging -

Good bye! It's been fun and I love the pictures from the memories I've made. I plan to keep you for the purpose of grabbing recipes and anything else I deem necessary. I plan to do scrapbooking... hopefully. I've started a cookbook scrapbook too.

The purpose for this blog has ended; I tried to come up with other things to blog about, but it didn't work. Thanks for reading my blog - y'all've been great!

~Rachel

Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair

I've been blessed by having a friend ever since I can remember (since I was 3 years old). We weren't part of a home school co-op, but anything "extra curricular" we did together. Nursing home visits, CAT, theatrical productions by our families, soccer, musical endeavors, I mean, it's been great.

After we completed high school, Miss Kelsey went to off to college in California. We kept in contact with emails, prayer requests, and annual/biannual visits when she came home for vacation. About a year ago, we met for coffee and I was told that, "there's this guy". I was so excited for her. The following January, I got a text saying, "Guess what?!" and a picture THAT DIDN'T COME THROUGH.

I was thrilled when I got a phone call from Kelsey asking me to play cello for her wedding. Another meeting for music, final selection, and before I knew it, I was getting ready to board a plane.

Despite plane complications, I arrived in time for the dress rehearsal dinner. It was so much fun to be able to meet some of Kel's friends from college and get to know them. I thought we did a good job - none of us were up way too late. I think we all got about 12 hrs. of sleep night before the wedding. :)

The wedding coordinator did an amazing job - it was not a rushed morning, but we kept moving. I loved getting to pray for Kels and Taylor before all the preparations started. It was a sweet time of fellowship.

Since everything was so relaxed, it was funny to realize that the wedding was starting in a couple hours and that I needed to get to the location. :)

God was the real coordinator of this wedding. So many things could have gone wrong, and they didn't. I was scared I was completely out of tune, but I wasn't. Nobody tripped walking down the aisle, nobody stopped before the should have, and Kels and Taylor got married!!!


I have been so blessed by Kels in my life. She has always been an encouragement to me and has always stood for what she believes, even when we were little and "out-numbered". I don't know Taylor yet, but I'm excited to get to know them as a couple. I'm excited to see what God is going to use them for.

Car Problems for a Saturday

10:30ish - left my house and headed to work
10:40ish - turned onto major road
10:43ish - saw a truck turn left and another car pull up. I really hope that next car doesn't turn left - I'll hit him. Seeing the car slow down, I continued driving.
10:44ish - horn and BAM; the airbag.

So yes, I got in a car accident. After the horn, I briefly saw the car - but that was very quick. I opened my eyes and there was dust and an airbag. I didn't move - I didn't think I was hurt, but I was shocked. A guy #1 came and knocked on my window to ask if I was alright, I nodded my head and then tried to get out of my car. My door was kinda jammed, but guy #1 helped me get it open.
"Do you want to take your keys out?"
"That's probably a good idea."

I called work and parents to inform them (work so that they knew I wouldn't be going in, and parents obviously). The fire department showed up pretty quickly after that and made sure both the other driver and I were fine.

after 

I checked with them to make sure they didn't need me to give them anything.
"No, we're just here to block traffic and make sure everything is fine. Are you alright? Should we get the ambulance?"
"No - I think I'm fine."
"You seem very calm."

before

"My Dad is really close."
 I called Mom and Dad - happily they were only about 20 min away and came right over. Everyone was kind - no one was upset or angry. Neither of us was hurt badly. I have some bruises, scratches, and ache, but nothing major.

Looking at the pictures is very strange - I'm so shocked and blessed that neither of us needed to go to the hospital. I showed a co-worker the picture and she looked at me and said, "Rachel, you were being protected." That is so true. God protected me and the other driver. I am very thankful. I'm hoping I don't have another car experience even remotely similar to this. A crash AND a car getting towed in one day is quite enough. I'm praising God.

Back Seat Driver #2

This is my panda bear 海洋 (Ocean/Haiyang); she has just arrived from Chongqing, China.

This traditional dress was a little harder than I expected it would be; partially because there are so many different style of the Chinese Hanfu. I also needed to decide if I would embroider this one, sketch it, or paint it. In the end, I had a great mixture - I hope. :)

I've been having fun making my own pattern for the Back Seat Drivers. Last time it was much more geometric (I also had been studying that style for a bit). For the Hanfu, I did a bit more of pin and cut and - hey - it worked out. (I would be embarrassed to show anyone who actually worked at making the Hanfus, but I don't think I have anyone like that in my audience. :)

As for the last project, my sewing machine was broken. (I'm really gonna need to fix that before I work on "the big project".) I felt like I had more control over the pattern hand-sewing. I had a sheer material that I put on top of the gold - that was a bit difficult and I think I would have gone too quickly on the sewing machine.

I did embroidery on the Hanfu and penmanship. I was going to embroider her name on the sash, but I didn't do that first and so ran out of embroidery room. I ended up writing it out with a sparkly-brown gel-pen. :)

Back Seat Driver #1, Meet Bu Yong

Apparently, I am in a crafting mood. I have just begun a project that I plan on lasting for a while - it will be my I-don't-have-another-project-right-now project. This is Project "Back Seat Drivers". I am going to make traditional clothing from different countries for stuffed animals.

Bu Yong is going to be from South Korea. (You'll meet her at the end.) Her traditional dress was much more simple than I expected. Traditionally, these dresses (chima) and jackets (jeogori) were made by cutting rectangles - very simple. So that's what I did for Bu Yong.

Traditionally, white around the collar and neck means "purity", so I really like adding it to my projects. I added the lace and was able to save myself from hemming the neckline. I was expecting to do it all by machine (except the hemming), but my sewing machine broke so I used my fantastic hand-sewing skills. :)

I enjoyed painting fabric - I've never painted fabric - even canvas. I used some scrap material to practice and then went straight ahead to paint the sewed "finished product". (I'm always nervous to embroider, paint, or make a decorative addition to a almost finished project - I'm always curious if I really want to ruin what I've worked on.)

This is Bu Yong. She's my driving buddy for now. I'm hoping this crafting mood doesn't leave too quickly. I'm enjoying it! :) Have a great Wednesday! ("Hump day!!!") Oh, and First-to-the-First! or if you prefer, White Rabbit!

The Korean Hanbok

The latest project is completed! Since September, I've been working on and off on a Korean Hanbok to fit a four-year-old. (This is a practice run for an adult Hanbok I plan to make this year.) Last week, I finished it!

It's been a fun process, but long to be sure. I set a day to take pictures with a little girl so that I would be sure to finish it and not procrastinate. My scheme on myself worked.

"Olafina" was my first model. She was the first to try on the Jeogori.

I finished the Jeogori before Christmas and then took a break so I could work on Christmas gifts. In January, I started work on the Chima. Sewing definitely wasn't difficult as it ended up being a simple apron-like pattern. Embroidery was also easy, just time consuming. :)

My next model - I never came up with a name for. I'm just gonna call her
"Korean Teddy". She was able to try on the whole Hanbok before I brought to my last model.

 9:00 am Monday morning, I drove my younger sister to her housecleaning job and there was my model. A little sleepy, but up and ready for the day. She willingly got dressed up in the dress and put on the Jeogori even though, "I don't like the jacket." and put up with me taking some pictures of her. It was tons of fun. I'm excited to start my next project. I think it will take a bit more brain power though... :P

Picture Prompt

The other day we started a club - not really purposefully, but so it happened. Every week, we come up with a phrase and then you design the phrase in some way - anything like quilting, photographs, sketches, word art - anything.

Here's the phrase we had for last week. "Let your words be seasoned with Grace." This is taken from Colossians 4:6, "Let your conversation be full of grace, seasoned as with salt."

Here are a couple of the pieces of art we came up with:

The Picture Prompt for this week is "Sing".
I'd love to see what you think of - food - anything.

Korean Canvas

I only had one homemade craft for Christmas this year. It was quite different from normal - I had never done it before (well, doing something I've never done before isn't abnormal, but the craft itself was). I decided to do an anime embroidery on canvas.

It was fun! To start with, I actually took a picture of Madeline.I needed to know how to draw someone turning and how you needed the skirt to look. Secondly, I drew the picture, colored it in, and decided the different colors I would need.

I had never seen embroidery on a canvas before, but embroidery on paper seemed "new" too, but also possible and really cool. With this sketch, I ran and grabbed all the materials I would be needing; finally it was time to sketch onto the canvas. It was fun to do and, with a 6 hour round trip to visit a friend, I was able to make some headway. It made me laugh - at one point, the friend I was making the gift came over and saw it out (always put your crafts away). Happily, she liked it. :)

Slowly, but surely it started to get it completed. 

The boarder - what do you use? I didn't want to use paint for fear that it would run into the embroidery. By now it was December and I knew that I wouldn't have time to fix any major mistakes. I'm a bit of a cluts - I've spilled paint on stairs, and dark blue nail polish on my friend's relatives white carpet. It's good to experiment, but it's also good to know your boundaries. I had a couple of options, my favorite would have been to use pine cone petals to go around, but, that really didn't work. Pistachio shells was another option, but I didn't really want salt on it. I ended up liking my final decision. Twigs.

Overall, I was thrilled with it and I'm kinda excited to do more Canvas embroidery. We'll see what I end up doing though... I may find something else that I think is equally fun/cool to do. Hope you all are having fun with whatever crafts you are doing right now!