An American in Leeds

  It's a country full of sheep.   It's been over 10 years since I updated this blog. I wasn't sure it still even existed when I looked it up a couple of weeks ago. I figured some internet deity deemed it obsolete (Who blogs any more?!?) and deleted it. But nope, there it was when I searched for it.  Two big developments since I last posted in 2016 that have rendered the title of my blog incorrect and incomplete: I moved to Bradford. I became a dual American-British citizen.  I will possibly write about this more in the future.  I don't know what possessed me to look up my old blog. I hadn't thought about it in years. I was halfway through putting on my 30 daily moisturisers when it popped back into my head. My original thought was "Huh, I should get rid of that thing, no one reads it any more." Then I thought "Who cares if no one reads it any more? I've wanted to do more writing, why not start there? Less pressure!" I started brainstorming id...

The entire purpose of this post is to show off my artwork. In my continuing creativity quest, I took an Intro to Cyanotypes class at the Leeds College of Art . Cyanotyping is method of photographic printing using a mixture of potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate then exposed to UV light. Some of these are traced from pictures I've taken in my travels ( Paris , Rome and Brussels ). Two are feathers, garlic skin and a geranium leaf pressed directly onto the paper before exposure. The rest are traced from drawings I've made. More info on how to make cyanotypes here . Or, you know, you could email me and ask. I like to yammer on about art stuff.

Get your mitts on this My fellow Americans living abroad! Unless you've been living under a rock (lucky you), you know that it is an election year. Living abroad is no excuse not to vote! You have to request your ballot from the Federal Voting Assistance Program . It will ask you which state you lived in before you moved abroad, then will tailor what you need from there. If you want to vote in the Presidential primary, you need to get cracking. PS This applies if you need an absentee ballot as well.

Look at these beauties I've been messing around with making croissants for the past year. I hadn't quite gotten them right. But I finally cracked them and now I'm going to tell you how I did it! Originally I was using this recipe from Good Food magazine. It worked out okay, but my croissants never doubled in size when proving. They were too dense as well- more bread-like than light and flaky. I was not satisfied, and figured I could do better. Starting with typing the question "Why are my croissants too dense?" into my search engine of choice, I eventually narrowed the answer down to two possibilities: 1) kneading too long at the very beginning and 2) something something something about dough composition that was not quite right. Basically, something I was doing was turning everything too gluteny. Sooooo, I went hunting around for a recipe that would address both of these issues and turned up this one from Weekend Bakery*. Its answers to the two questi...

Autumnal Hat Heeeeeey there! How ya doin'? Been a while, I know. (By the way, I seem to have lost my ability to determine when to use "a while" and "awhile". Is this a thing that happens when you're old? You forget how to use parts of speech you had no problem using for decades?) What's new? Well, I'm still happily married to the same Yorkshireman. We're coming up on 5 years together in a couple weeks. Two more years, and he and my PhD will have occupied the same amount of time in my life, albeit non-concurrently. I suppose the biggest development is that I'm no longer a research scientist. This was a tough development to accept. I had realized that I didn't want to pursue a research career a while back. I wanted some sort of work-life balance that doesn't really exist in the higher levels of research science. Also, I hate writing grants. The part that was tough to accept was that the decision to not pursue a research care...

Remember that man I mentioned  over a year ago?  Well, reader, I married him. Then embarked on the emotional roller coaster that is a spousal visa application. Luckily, I got my visa, and was able to join him. Also luckily, he did not have a crazy wife in his attic that set the house on fire. I have returned to Leeds after being away for over a year. I've been back for just over a week, and it's been interesting getting back into my UK groove. There's the usual things, like re-programming myself to look right then left when crossing the street, and re-learning the money denominations. But, like when I first moved here in 2008, it's the little things that trip me up. How to use the washing machine. Recipes being in weights instead of volumes. Coriander instead of cilantro. One of the more illuminating things that has come to my attention to me is the importance of an address. It proves you belong to a place. The question of "Do you have a piece of official m...

Okay, so off the bat: I suck. I admit it. It's been over a year since I updated. I completely missed blogging anything from my last year in Leeds. I have two excuses. 1. I acquired a boyfriend and 2. I had to finish up my projects at work, and then find a new job. First, I started dating a wonderful man almost exactly a year from the end of tenure in Leeds. I won't bore you with my gushing about him (that's what my paper journal is for, 16-year-old-me!), but it did put some pressure on trying to squeeze as much as possible into that year. We manged to get a trip to  Rome , several trips to  London  and a trip to the  Green Man Festival  in before I had to come back to the US. I also went to  Paris , but didn't bring him with me. Second, I had to finish up my projects at work, and then find a new job. Again, I won't bore you with the details of finishing up, because seriously zzzzzz for anyone outside of the field. I did present at two more confere...

I may as well get this out of the way: this has become a crafting blog. You probably have already figured that out, but I like to be honest and up front about these things. Now that that is done, let me show you what I've been working on! I started a pair of gloves in September 2009. I finished all but three fingers of the right hand one, then lost interest. After finishing Brian Slade , I dug out the glove, and finished it. Pattern: Knotty, by Julia Mueller, from Ravelry. I cast on for the left hand glove, and got it started. Hopefully, it won't take me over a year to finish it. I am also embarking on a quilt. I have never made a quilt before. It's nothing fancy- just a random patchwork quilt. I am using a pattern, since I have never done this before. Ollalieberry Ice Cream Quilt , from Alicia Paulson. I bought the fabric about a year ago, and shoved it in a bag. Not sure what made me decide to drag it out and make the silly quilt right now. I probably should have titled t...

Don't forget to give the servants the day off! Originally, I was going to go away for Christmas like I did last year. But then the weather started acting wacky. And then I kept getting sick with one cold after another. In the end, I decided to stay put. I roasted a chicken, using Julia Child's recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking . It turned out amazing, probably because, like all of Julia Child's recipes, it requires a ton of butter. She should have titled her book Screw It: Use the Damn Butter, You'll Thank Me Later. I also worked on sewing up a skirt. I got all but the finishing details done yesterday. I did the belt loops and buttons today to finish it up: Sorry for the bad picture- I finished it after the sun went down, so no natural sunlight. The pattern is Beignet from Colette Patterns. Grey gabardine with cotton/ synthetic floral lining and purple plastic buttons. I've made this skirt before , although I don't remember the belt loops being as t...

I finally finished my Lady Grey coat! Only nearly two months late for the Sew-A-Long. Better late than never. Or better late than pregnant, as Blanche from The Golden Girls would say. Eventually I'll get a picture of me wearing it, but right now I am vain and my skin is a mess. This sucker is a lot warmer than I originally thought it was going to be, so perhaps it's for the best that I didn't finish it for the fall. I would have roasted. As it is, with temps in the 20s (Fahrenheit) right now, it's nice and cozy. I'm still working on the rest of my Fall 2010 collection . I finished a dress and two blouses (no pictures of those yet, argh). I have a skirt and another dress to finish. I was going to do two slips as well, but my sewing machine HATES slippy fabric, and the stitches are awful on the one I attempted. I added a giant scarf to the collection. It is my current obsession to get done: It's grown by a couple repeats since I took that picture. It will be 7....

The big news around these parts: the snow: We got quite a bit of it. What happened to the month of November? Oh, right, I was busy writing a novel. I did NaNoWriMo this year, after a three year hiatus. I didn't think I was going to make the 50k word goal, but I did: 50,012. I found it tougher this year than in the past. My inner editor has gotten a lot stronger over the years, and I think she makes it difficult to just sit down and write. The good thing about NaNoWriMo is that it has given me the urge to keep a journal again. I kept one faithfully from the age of 14 until I was 20. I remember being so proud of myself when I filled the first one- a spiral bound number with a crushed blue velvet cover (shut up, it was the 90's, crushed velvet was HOT). I filled about half of the second one before I stopped for some reason. Now I want to keep a journal again, just to learn to turn off that inner editor. I bought a cheap bright blue one yesterday, and forced myself to write a coupl...

There is this ad on the television right now: To summarize: hapless dude burns his dinner before his date. Goes to attractive female next door neighbor for help. She shows him how to make this easy pasta. She asks when his date will be arriving, and SURPRISE! She's the date! Okay, to me there is SO MUCH WRONG with this ad. Shall I break it down? Yes, I shall! 1. Plays on the stereotype that men can't cook. 2. She unknowingly cooks dinner for her own date. How kind of him to let her do that! 3. Assumes that she should be falling over herself because this guy is paying attention to her. 4. She's on a date she wasn't even asked on, like she has no agency in who she dates. In fact, it looks like for a split second she is NOT AMUSED by this turn of events. Which leads to 5. She quickly covers up that she's not happy, because women must always be pleasant. I know, I know. It's just an advert. But it's stuff like this that perpetuates sexism/ gender discriminatio...

I'm home sick today. In between bouts of illness (I'll spare you the details), I've been working on a scarf: Dryad, by Jared Flood of Brooklyn Tweed. I want this scarf to be long enough to wrap around my head several times. I'll be working on it for a while. It's rainy today. I've been camped out on the sofa with a cup of tea, watching old episodes of Law & Order (US version) on DVD. The first season is especially sexism failtastic. It's kind of hilarious.

I landed at Leeds Bradford airport two years ago today. My boss dropped me off at my temporary apartment, and I fell flat on my face for 16 hours straight. It's been a strange couple of years, I admit. Moving to any new place can be a wild ride, but moving to another country is a roller coaster of wackiness. Between learning to use the washing machine, learning to drink beer properly, deciphering British social rules, and figuring out what an aubergine is, I sometimes feel like I just got off a carnival ride and I'm going to puke. Just kidding about the puke bit. A little. Growing up, I didn't understand social cues. I treated other kids as my own personal experiment to learn how to behave properly. I ended up having a mental catalog of cues and their appropriate responses in order to get through everyday social interactions. That catalog has undergone heavy revision in the past two years. I worry a little about what's going to happen when I eventually move back to the ...

My fascinating friend J. Lo came to visit me. She knows everything (and I mean everything ) about Medieval church architecture and the people involved, but only tells you the really entertaining parts. She's like a textbook mixed with gossip rag. Because I let my friends push me around, J. Lo dragged me to York to see York Minster (which always makes me think of cheese), among other things. We also climbed to the top of the crossing tower: And saw part of the wall: Sewing alert: Crepe wrap dress at York Castle As always, the rest can be found here.

This weekend I completed the shell of my Fall 2010 Lady Grey: Taken during a brief break in the torrential downpours we're having today. Well, mostly completed. Because of the way the lining is attached, you don't put the collar on until later. This pattern seems to call for a lot more fabric than you actually need. The first time I made this coat, I bought the recommended amount of shell fabric, and ended up with a ton left over. (By the way, if anyone has any ideas on what to make with a couple yards of spring green tweed-like material, let me know.) This time, I cut back on the amount by about 1.5 yards because a) the fabric was stupid expensive (but was exactly what I wanted, so I sucked it up), and b) I didn't want a pile of leftover fabric. Then I panicked, thinking I wasn't going to have enough. I ended up still having about half a yard leftover. I didn't have enough to cut the belt in one piece; I'll have to sew two pieces together, which is really no bi...

I've had Florence + The Machine in heavy rotation the past few weeks. I'm writing a review about interferon regulation. Florence helps me think of other things when I'm not writing. I ventured out to Lawnswood Cemetery in North Leeds on Saturday. As usual, more here. On Sunday, I made Coq au vin, the Julia Child way. It turned out really nice, even without lighting the cognac on fire.

Shell Lining Please excuse the crap pictures- I was doing my cutting at night. I do not, however, wear my sunglasses at night. The cutting of my Lady Grey coat has begun. The rest of the Sew-A-Long people are doing their muslins right now. I figured I would get a jump start on my real coat, since the weather will be right for it sooner rather than later here in Leeds. I cut my tissue patterns, I don't (typically) trace. And I use pins instead of sewing weights. I feel like I'm a bad home seamstress because of this. It's mostly because I'm lazy, and like to spend as little time prepping stuff as possible. I like sewing. Cutting is the dullest part of sewing for me. To prepare for cutting this coat, I raided the bargain DVD bin of the local British WalMart (aka Asda). I got LA Confidential and Casino Royale. (As an aside- the cashier remarked how my boyfriend will be having a good night. Uh, dude, these are for me, WTF, Batman?). I like watching thrillers/ action movies w...

I do quite a bit of sewing. It's one of my obsessions. There's something incredibly satisfying with making my own clothes. I don't do a lot of tailoring, so I can't say it's making something that fits just right. I think it's being able to make something in the color I want, the style I want, and the fabric I want (usually- good fabric can be touch-and-go here in Leeds). I've joined a Sew-a-Long . We're sewing the Lady Grey coat from Colette Patterns. The Sew-a-Long is doing a muslin mock up. I am not bothering with the muslin because a) I am a lazy ass, and never do muslins, and b) I've made this coat before , and it fits beautifully. Anywhoodle, here's my fabric: The charcoal grey is for the shell. The print is for the lining. The buttons help keep the coat closed when wearing it. Because I'm doing this coat as part of a Sew-a-Long, this means that I will be posting updates as I sew it. Lucky you, blog readers! See how I snuck the sewing u...

1. I take pictures of the ground: 2. I wear big, vintage glasses on occasion. 3. I sometimes put product in my hair to texturize it, aka make it look like I haven't washed it in a few days. 4. Then, I pull it up in a bun and muss it up a bit, to make it look like not only I haven't washed it, but that I slept with it in a bun. 5. I get into arguments of New Order vs. Joy Division. For the record, I fight for New Order. 6. I own an iPod touch. I don't actually like it, though- the screen is too sensitive, and I end up yelling at it No! I don't want to listen to THAT! which makes me look extra crazy. 7. I write a blog. Where I post pictures I have taken of the ground. Need I say more?