The Nieborgs - InfoSpot: April 2009

The Main Part Of The Kimono Is Finished

The main part of the kimono is finished. Now, I need to work on the Obi, which is the stiff waistband around the middle with the cascading bustle in the back. I bought all of the notions I need to get it done from the fabric store yesterday, so I'm ready to go after work tonight..

Since this kimono isn't so 'Americanized' to where it would look more like a bathrobe than a Japanese kimono, I found that the American clothes hangers are useless to hang the kimono up. After talking it over with Katrina, she said that the traditional Japanese hanger is like a long rod running through the shoulders, so I bought a pair of 3-foot dowels and taped them together, then taped the dowels to a clothes hanger hook. The length of the rod through the shoulders is 5 feet long. As you can see, the design of the kimono lends itself well to the traditional style of hanging...

In this picture, you can see the black vest hung up inside of it too.

You can click on the picture for a larger view.

Senior Prom Kimono Progress

The deadline of May 16th for Katrina's Prom is fast approaching and the kimono I'm sewing for her is really beginning to take shape.

This is the inner vest that gives the illusion of an undergarment worn beneath the kimono. It's primary job is to display the crossover collar, just like the one that will be on the kimono in gold.

The rear of the vest shows the high collar in the back, which is supposed to tilt back a little like this. Unlike in this picture, Katrina's hair will have to be worn up in order to keep from covering the design nuances of the kimono.

Here is the main kimono worn over the undergarment-vest, with the long furisode sleeves that hang low on her arms. The crossover collar hasn't been made up and stitched in place yet.

All of the cloth is some form of brocade. The pale, shimmering gold for the main body of the kimono is turning out to be a nice choice.

Keep in mind that the kimono hasn't been pressed yet, so the seams and wrinkles are very visible. The furisode sleeves are sewn closed on the bottoms and all the way around to her wrists, but you can see that the part of the furisode sleeves that are closest to Katrina's sides are actually open and lined with the same black brocade that was used for the undergarment-vest.

Since I have posted this, the collar for the kimono is almost done, then the bottom hem will be sewn to finish it off. After that, I will start working on the Obi, which is the wide waistband, back pillow and cascading 'plume' of cloth that will waterfall down her back. In doing further research, the Obi is supposed to be a of strong contrasting color and cloth against the main kimono. We chose a brilliant blue brocade and instead of the dragon/phoenix bird pattern stitched into it, we chose a chrysanthemum pattern with light purple flowers on it. This should stand out like it is supposed to!

National Pretzel Day Geocaching Event

Taa-Daa! We went to another one and had some fun. This one was held in honor of national pretzel day, so there was a baking contest and several pretzel-themed snacks.

We brought some tables and chairs since the park only had a couple of them for our use.

And of course, we were taking pictures like mad... You can see the white plastic container filled with chocolate-dipped pretzel rods (with sprinkles) that we brought. We got the idea from Bradley's mother, Ann and had at it. It turned out that it was hard to get the job done, but by the time the event was over, they were all gone...

We love these events because they are typically held in some of our favorite parks. We must have been to Lake Rogers Park at least four times in the past year now (and we still haven't found all of the caches yet)..

The scenery is great out here.

And the flora is nice too.

We came across a couple of critters too. Wait a minute, that's not real! Actually, there is a multi-location cache placed in the park by the rangers called Geo-Mals (short for geo-animals) and is takes you on a trip all the way around the lake. So far, we have made it about half-way through it, so we will have to be back again some day to finish the trip.

There is this swinging chair strategically positioned by the lakeside with this view. We had to stop for a bit and soak up the ambiance.

This was the last 'container' we found of the geo-mals series before we had to turn around and head back to the geo-event site. By the time we got back, they were breaking camp, so we packed up our tables and chairs and headed out. This was a nice way to spend the day.

Senior Grad Night

Katrina and Brad attended Grad Night at Disney World Saturday night and then they stayed at a hotel with Brad's parents to they would be better rested before making the return trip home. The kids said they had a good time, but no further details were forthcoming. I asked Katrina to take some pictures, but she only took one picture of Brad. Hopefully, one of her friends that was hanging out with them could give us a picture or two to put on the blog.

Shopping For The Graduation Party

Lots to do in a short amount of time. Katrina and her boyfriend Brad's graduation is coming up, so Luann, Katrina's boyfriend's mom (Ann) and I ran around to different party stores Saturday morning to collect the supplies needed for their graduation party to include getting the cake ordered. We had a fun time and got almost everything the girls had in mind for the party. It's going to be an interesting endeavor for me because I volunteered to do an Indonesian Rijs-Taffel (Rice Table) banquet for the party, so I'm putting together a menu for what looks like about 20 kids or so. It's a big job, but I've done something like this before...

Another Day While Driving Down "Hogan's Alley"

Once again, we find that the cars in our area just can't seem to keep from smacking into each other. So here we are with yet another crash on the way home from work today.

Now you might be thinking that I might be operating my vehicle in an unsafe manner by fiddling with a camera while I'm driving, but this is one of the neat deals about using a digital camera. You don't really have to stare at your camera while you're taking the shot. All you have to do is point the camera at the object of your interest and push the button. Since the camera has automatic image stabilization, auto light balance control and 'burst' mode, I just need to point and shoot, all the while paying attention to what is going on in front of me. When I get home, I use the best of the 10 to 20 pictures that were taken in burst mode. So, I'm still careful and I would think that it still a bit safer than somebody going down the road with a cell phone stuck to the side of their head...

Crash observations. Black truck and white truck collide. White truck barrel-rolled and landed on its wheels.

Remember, click on the pictures to see a larger, and more detailed version.

A Goodbye Party To "Aunt Jeff''

As I had mentioned in the Ren-Faire post I made recently, one of Luann's friends, Jeff, is moving to Germany and the girls put together a send-off for him. The reference to Aunt Jeff comes from Katrina. She once called him that by mistake at the Ren-Faire and it kinda 'stuck'...

The get-together was at his house and was both a fun, yet sad, affair.

At one point, Karen and Lyn decided to do a 'booty-bump' kind of dance, and you can see that Jeff was very interested in what they were doing. Yeah, they were acting a bit silly...

After dinner, there is nothing like sitting down to relax and have some chocolate cake.

This would be one of Jeff's keynote 'drama-dees' where he mockingly swoons and it turns out to be something that is part drama and part comedy. For all we know, it could be the wine... Actually, he was just having some fun.

Swapping stories and talking about his move to Germany. Something of a sad moment, actually.

Peekaboo, I see you!

Looks like Karen was intrigued by Jeff's Siamese cats.

Some of these pictures are out of sequence, especially this one. This shot of Jennifer, alone at the table, really does show the depth of what it means to her that Jeff is leaving. She and Jeff have been close friends for years now, almost like brother and sister, and they often relied upon each other emotionally.

The room dims as the sun goes down, but their friendship will never darken...

We will miss you, Jeff.

Natasha's Birthday

We went to Celebration Station for Natasha's birthday, the daughter of Luann's friend, Elena.

Smash! Crash! Here We Go Again...

It's getting so I'm having to work my way around the "Daily Damage" as I try to get to or from work. The people around here need to slow down and start paying attention. Looks like the little black car blew through the red light and caught the van (that would have had the green arrow) as it was turning left across the front of it. Both cars were pushed into the corner of the road as you can see from the skid marks, which means the little black car at the back of the tow truck went through the red light at a pretty good clip.

Crash Equals Late To Work

Seems like people in a hurry to get to work are going to be late anyway...
Maybe somebody should have slowed down, gave way or left from home a little earlier. Another car slammed into the back-end of the car in front of him/her...Seems to happen a bit more often on this bridge lately.

Took The Week Off For Spring Break

I took off April 6th through April 10th in order to spend some time with Katina as this is her last spring break while attending high school. We did quite a few things, and got some things done. To begin with, our clothes washer was beginning to have problems with the water control valve, so I had to disassemble the washer and replace the water valves. Next, the dryer needed to be serviced, and I ended up having to buy a replacement belt and a used motor for it (thanks eBay). I bought a couple of yards of fill dirt and built up the ground in front of the new shed, so we could park the Volvo in front of it. Next, we worked on the sailboat and trailer, getting it ready for a visit from Dean and Brenda, who came down from Canada for a visit. And of course, we did a little geocache hunting too... Now, on to the pictures.

This is a picture I took of the downtown Tampa skyline. We had climbed 7 flights to the top of a parking garage so we could find a geocache there, and this view was waiting for us.

Katrina and I tried to do a Where-I-Go style of geocache that started near here, but I just couldn't seem to get the software to work, so we picked up a couple of regular geocaches in the area instead.

This was the plaque in front of the sculpture.

Here is a little film container wrapped in camo-tape and hiding in the bottom of a stump. Found it!

Karen even when hunting with us during her lunch break. We found 3 of them.

It was neat spending one last spring break with Katrina. She was always up for yet another geocache hunt.

When we got to the top of this parking garage, Karen found a tiny 'nano' cache.

I saw this security camera above them, so I took a picture to see where the camera was aimed. It was looking away from us, out into the parking area.

On the way down the interior stairwell, I got this neat picture of downtown Tampa.

Later on, we went out to dinner with Bradley's parents near the beach, then we looked for a couple of geocaches. This one was located in a park with Asian statues in it.