January and February have brought the winter temperature and the snow we didn’t see in December. There have been a few warm days sprinkled in, but it keeps snowing. Here are a few of my favorite snow pictures I took around my neighborhood.
Month: February 2016
gait: Cville training week 6
Monday: 4 miles on the treadmill. 3 at an easy pace, with a little speed on the final mile. Today is President’s Day! And more snow, but a little bit warmer. I watched a cross country skier go by while running on the treadmill today.
Tuesday: 7 miles, 1 mile warm up then 5 miles of 3 minutes faster/2 minutes slower then 1 mile cool-down. Again on the treadmill, we had a three hour delay due to icy roads and sidewalks so I was able to do the workout in the morning, which was awesome. I don’t think I could do 7 miles on a winter weeknight.
I also did an hour of flow yoga with my coworkers.
Wednesday: 3 easy miles around the Capitol Building at lunch time.
Thursday: Soulcycle. I like free classes and cross promotional classes. So awhile back I saw Soulcycle and Target were doing free classes I signed up to go, but then the snow storm came and they were postponed. For my trouble, Soulcycle let me take another class for free at one of their DC studios. I did a lunchtime class at the Mount Vernon studio. They keep their studio pretty warm and we were going pretty hard the whole time, although my heart rate stayed in the aerobic zone almost the whole time. The class was a good workout, but I could only hear about 30% of what the instructor was saying so I just watched other people to see what I should be doing.
Friday: 4 miles. Three easy miles followed by one a little bit faster on the treadmill.
Saturday: 9 miles. The weather was beautiful on Saturday, which meant everyone was on the rock creek trail. I ran one of my usual routes backwards to increase the elevation gain and really felt the hills compared to the eight mile run I did the week before on the treadmill. But hopefully hills now means an easier race come April.
Sunday: Total rest day. I needed it.
Total miles: 27 miles, 1 hour of yoga, 1 hour of spin
make: customize your drink bottles
I washed the labels off these wine bottles months ago. I’ve been wanting to try glass etching and thought these would be good to practice on. Well I haven’t got around to that, but hopefully you’ll see a post about etching in the future!
In the mean time I hosted a Galentine’s Day party and wanted to create a cute beverage area and we all know plastic juice bottles are not cute. I reached for some masking tape and pink marker to make cute labels when Brian suggested I use the chalk markers. They easily write on glass, but also can be easily washed off. After a few hours and lots of prepared drinks there was a little smudge on one of the bottles, but in general they held up well.
I was also overthinking pouring the juice in to the bottles. I figured I’d need a funnel, but decided to wing it and barely wasted a drip.
gait: Cville training week 5
This week the training has started to actually feel like training. My midweek runs increased over three miles and the weather isn’t cooperating.
Monday: 3.3 miles, The plan called for 3 miles at an easy pace and one mile at a faster pace. My stomach was not cooperating and when I got to the faster pace I had to stop.
Tuesday: 6 miles, 2 warm up, 3 with increasing speed (peak pace of 8:30 for the middle mile) and 1 mile cool down. I got dressed to head outside for a midday run (working from home today) and then I looked out to see snow/rain mix coming down. So I chickened out and put on shorts and a tank top and went down to the treadmill. Which wasn’t so bad.
Wednesday: 3 easy miles on the treadmill. My headphones died after mile one but had a surprisingly large amount of energy to finish the run. Then I did one round of the Crafty Runner’s arm workout.
Thursday: Schedule called for cross training… but I didn’t really. A little stretching in the morning is all I achieved.
Friday: 3 miles around the neighborhood. It was pretty cold, but I knew it would be worse on Saturday so I decided to brave it so I don’t have all of my runs on the treadmill.
Saturday: 8 miles bright and early on the treadmill. It was in the single digits and we had some snow overnight.
Sunday: Rest day but we did get a few miles in walking around the city.
make: love banner
I fell into a blog hole last Friday. I was clicking link after link after link looking at tons of fun crafty blogs. Somewhere along the way I saw some banners and decided I needed to make one of my own. Then on Saturday I went the the Crafty Bastards Cabin Fever craft show and saw a tote bag printed with the middle of the letters solid and was inspired. Next I just needed a phrase. With Valentine’s Day and Galentine’s Day coming up I was focused on love. I thought of one of my favorite movies Love Actually and the phrase, Love actually is all around. Well that was just a little too long and I like the sound of Love is all around better. I made a quick paper pattern for the banner part just to make sure the triangle bottom was even. I planned the letters out a little more by creating a grid on a piece of paper the size of the banner and planning out the letters so they would be evenly sized. I cut a strip of 1.5 inch white felt and then just freehanded cutting out the letters. The white felt is stiffened, which made it easier to cut out. Also leaving the middle of the o’s, a’s, r, and d really simplified the process.
I thought folding up the bottom edge and gluing it would make a more finished look. It was a mistake. I didn’t allow enough felt to fold over and it wouldn’t stick. As you can see below I tried many types of glue, unsuccessfully. Finally I used the Elmer’s craft bond and binder clips. After drying overnight the felt stuck, but the binder clips left some little marks. If I did the project again I probably wouldn’t bother with folding over the bottom edge. The top hem over the dowel rod worked much better. I folded over about an inch and a half and used the craft bond, it was stuck after 10 minutes.
I sprayed each letter with the craft bond and they stuck easily and have stayed on great. In the image below you can see a little white along the bottom, that was a glue mistake, but has since dried clear.
I used pink yarn to tie on each side of the rod to hang up my banner. Now its hanging in our apartment. We could all use a little reminder…
make: screenprint shirts
In my rush to finish up gifts for Christmas I didn’t take pictures of a few shirts I made for my sisters. So I asked them to take a picture for me and this is what I got. Wrinkly on the bed and on the floor.
Any who I think they still are presentable. One of my sister’s owns Old Drum Coffeehouse and Bakery, so I made her the But first, coffee shirt. The Crafty Runner received the Missouri design that I also used on the dish towels.
gait: Cville training week 4
Monday: 3 miles on the treadmill
Tuesday: 3.8 miles. I ran during my lunch break down on the National Mall. There were some puddles and a huge mountain of snow in front of the Capitol Building, but overall good running. I did a mile warm up and a mile cool down, with two .75 mile speed sessions and a .25 recovery in between them. I aimed to run under an 8:30 pace, but ended up at 8:48 and 8:49… clearly some work to do there.
I also did an hour of flow yoga after work. My abs are sore today, not sure if it is from the running or the yoga.
Wednesday: 3 mile easy run on the treadmill
Thursday: Crafty Runner weight lifting plan. My legs didn’t feel near as tired this time. I am either getting stronger or I did lift enough… or both.
Friday: 3 slow miles in the morning. Loosening up the sore muscles from lifting.
Saturday: 8 mile long run. I finally made it back to rock creek park. Its always fun when you see black bears on your run (that are at a safe distance behind a fence). I had around 300 ft elevation gain during my run, the race has 800 ft elevation gain, so some work to do there. As I was running through Dupont circle towards the end of the run a random man called me Stephanie Prefontaine. Now I know I didn’t look anywhere as fast or smooth as Prefontaine, but it still made me smile and gave me a boost for the final mile of my run.
Sunday: Rest day
Total miles: 21
make: screenprint dish towel
I took my t-shirt screen printing off shirt on on to dish towel for a gift for my mom and my boyfriend’s mom. To make the design I found a clip art of each state (I made both a Missouri and Texas) and placed it on top of some arrows. I printed out the design and for these I used plastic binder inserts. I taped the insert on top of the design and used an x-acto knife to cut out the design. It is much harder to cut through the plastic than the freezer paper, but you can reuse the design (I made shirts with these stencils too). I didn’t have a lot of trouble with paint seeping under the stencil, but I had to be more careful to keep everything in place.
make: felt jewelry bags
To make my oven bake clay necklaces more finished for gifts I decided to make pouches for them. I got the idea to use the felt with a folded top from a similar pouch I got from Madewell a few years ago with the purchase of some earrings. I put my own spin on them by making them smaller and in all different sizes and by adding a ribbon tag on the side.
The felt I had on hand. I bought it a year ago to make a shave kit for my boyfriend and still had plenty left over. The ribbon I had bought on a whim. I liked the design and knew I would find a use for it, I just didn’t know I would find a use so soon.
The best part about these is they each can be a slightly different size, so no need to worry too much about measuring. Just make sure to cut a rectangle not some wacky quadrilateral. The right angles are important. Then it just takes two seams on either side. I put a few pins in them to keep the flap down and the ribbon piece in place. To speed up the sewing process don’t worry about cutting the thread between each pouch and sew all of one side before cutting threads and going back to sew the opposite side.
They worked great for gifting and made my necklaces feel more professional.
make, take, and gait 