Satin Lei

K is graduating with his MBA one week from today!  To commemorate his three years of going to work early to make it in time to evening classes, meeting for group projects on weekends, and seemingly unending summer sessions, I made him a red satin lei.

This is one of those handmade projects that is not terribly difficult but takes a lot of time and patience.  Good thing I made him such a special lei...we found out a few days ago that K was chosen as the outstanding graduate student for Information Decision Systems (his MBA specialization)...I think he got magna cum laude too!  I'm so proud :)

Here goes my first stab at blogging artsy-craftsy making!  This project only requires satin fabric, scissors, and needle & thread.

1) Cut the satin fabric into 2 inch (or slightly smaller) strips.  Instead of using a ruler, I cut one of my business cards to 2 inches.  Snip the end of the fabric to size, then pull a thread loose from the snip and pull the thread all the way out, creating a guide line of where to cut.  For the entire lei, I used 35 strips of fabric that were 2 inches by roughly 2.5 feet long.

 

 2) Fray the fabric strips using a needle (or your finger nail, though I found using the fingernail hurt the pads of my fingers more) until the fabric left in the center is the width of your finger.

3) Put enough doubled thread on the needle so that the lei would go just above the belly button.  Knot off about 3-5 times and then sew on the frayed fabric strips, doing a running stitch down the center.  When you sew the entire length of the fabric strip, as you squish it down, start twisting the fabric around and around so that the frayed edges create the lei!  That's it :)

Voila!  It took me about 3 weeks to make this one, or the first two rounds of the NBA playoffs.  I also made this easy ribbon lei too.

Productive & Relaxing Weekends are the Best!

This past weekend felt really long because it seemed there was ample time for both productive adventures and R&R!  On Saturday morning, K went on his 12-mile run and I tried out an adult-cirque class at FlipForce (thanks, Groupon!) and I have a new obsession: learning silk aerial/tissu:

Source

It is soooo much fun!  We learned climbing, foot-ties, and a few basic tricks.  But wow, did I feel it in my shoulders and hands the next day!  After our early morning "work outs" we went down the street to Mission Bay to see KK perform with his taiko drumming group. 

Pretty freaking awesome!  High energy, too!!!  K cheered on KK so loudly that I felt a little ringing in my ears.  After that we went to the grand opening at Keys Lavender Farm in north county.  Gosh I love the smell of fresh lavenders!

It was fun to finally play around with the new DSLR camera!  K had to go in to work for a few hours then because of an engi-nerd emergency :)  On Sunday we slept in, got a very nice couples massage and extra scalp massage for K and facial for me at Spa Velia.  We really liked the eucalyptus steam room there.  Next stop, sitting in the sunshine at Mission Bay before dinner...I am really starting to love living so close to the water!