eight dollar glasses.

My last pair of glasses broke 2 weeks after I bought them. I was working in the service industry, and after a few trips from the oven to the freezer, the lens popped out onto the floor. The optometrist couldn't fix it.

I got contacts a few years later so that I wouldn't have to wear the glasses. When I went back for the test, they had changed my doctor, and I had some weird things happen. I decided that next time I got glasses or contacts, I was going to try somewhere else.

Now, more than 2 years later, I realized that I can't wear contacts all the time, and that I would really like to wear a working pair of glasses, if it weren't for the fact that they're so darned expensive. Browsing locally, I couldn't find a single pair that I liked, either. I'd almost given up when my sister sent me a link to Glassy Eyes.

First, I browsed some glasses stores at the mall and took pictures of myself wearing the glasses. I decided on what shapes and materials I liked best. Then, I checked out the arms of the glasses. On the inside arm, there is generally a series of numbers which lists the length of the lense, the bridge, and the arm. I got a general idea of what I needed size-wise and returned to the internet.

I ended up going to Zenni Optical, not because they were the cheapest, but because they had the nicest looking glasses. I figured if they were really bad and only $8, I wouldn't be too disappointed.

so I went for normal glasses and crazy glasses. To my surprise, they ended up looking a lot better in person than on the site.




That's red PLAID, by the way. They didn't end up being so crazy in the end... It cost me about $33 all together, and I'm really happy. The only problem was that the glasses were bent in the wrong shape (the green ones are still a little crooked), but on plastic glasses, you're supposed to heat them and gently change their shape anyway.

So, now I'm going to go back. Possibly to the other sites, too. Except I'm not spending hundreds of dollars on glasses, because that's what I came on the internet to avoid... I just need, say, 2 more pairs?

(It's an extra $5 to get a sunglasses tint in whatever colour you like, hey?)

Christmas ate me.

I don't have anything new, but I want to post something old. I shared this on a forum recently, so I'll post it here.

I give you an awesome, simple, yet time consuming quilting pattern. My mother made this. I helped her. So did my brother. It was good times. It's fun to make the squares and keep them in a bin until one day you have enough time to put the whole thing together. It's a great way to use up scrap fabric that's too small for anything else as well.


Bubble Quilt




To make the bubbles:

Cut out one piece of 4X4 inch muslin. Cut out one piece of 5x5 inch fabric of your choice. Pin all four corners of fabric to muslin with right side of fabric facing up. Pinch the fabric in the middle along the edge and fold the excess fabric over, creating a triangle or dart. pin the dart down, and repeat on 2 more sides (make sure they are all folded in the same direction). Sew fabric to muslin along the 3 sides with the darts that you have created. You will now have a bulging pocket. Fill the pocket with batting. Create the final dart on the last remaining side and sew it up.

**When sewing the sides, remember to sew quite close to the edge. Make strips of fabric (1.5 or 2 inches) to sew in-between the bubbles. It's fastest to sew the bubbles together into long strips and then sew them all together instead of sewing everything one bubble at a time. **

Cut a piece of fabric for the back of the quilt (and a piece of quilting batting for the middle if you like, etc.), sew it inside out most of the way, turn it right side out and hand stitch the rest. Lay the quilt down flat carefully so that you can tell where the back and front of the quilt naturally want to be. Sew a piece of embroidery thread (We used the cross stitch kind, so there are several strands) through the front and back of the quilt at the corner of one of the bubbles. Tie a tight double knot and clip the threads so that they're still easily visible. Do this in regular intervals.

**The quilt that I helped to make had a tie for every fourth bubble or so.**




This is the quilt we made. It took about a year or so to come up with all the scraps and slowly sew them all together. We only did about a half hour or so of work at a time. My brother and I pinned all the squares together while watching movies on the couch.

If you have any questions about my convoluted instructions, feel free to post in the comments.