craft: women in woodworking class at cabrillo college

I signed up with my friend, Meral for a women in woodworking weekend course in Aptos. We planned to overnight in Santa Cruz and do a little beach and fun dining too. Our morning started with coffee and lunch pickup at Gayle's, then seaweed and feather collecting at New Brighton State Beach, where we saw a pelican rescue. Next lots of demonstration and practice with power and hand tools at Cabrillo College. Sasha, our instructor, taught us how to safely use power tools such as...

....planer, table saw, compound miter saw, band saw, drill press, and belt sander as well as various hand tools like Japanese and European hand saws, chisels, and planers. 

Before leaving class on Saturday I managed to cut dado joints by first making thin cuts on the table saw and then chiseling them out to dry fit the box together before gluing and screwing the next day. 

After that exhausting--but fulfilling--day of woodworking and checking into our hotel, we went to Bad Animal, a combination bookstore, wine bar and Thai restaurant. We met up with my friends, Cybil and Lyra--my beach cottage roommates.            

We bought orange wine and browsed art books. Meral found an illustrated memoir of being a Black painter in the Jim Crow South to buy...

...while I searched for a book on Picasso and his ceramics years. No such luck, and so I studied the menu.

 

For starters, we ordered the fried tofu, cabbage and herb salad and roasted pork belly. For entrees, tofu and glass noodle soup, braised black cod, green coconut curry chicken, jasmine rice. We dug in right away that I forgot to take pics of our beautiful meal.

Bad Animal is more expensive than a family-run Thai joint, but the food definitely showcased Michelin chefs' skills with Thai authenticity and French technique. Plus the ambiance was magical as I love a bookstore devoted to art, politics and culture AND having an encyclopedic wine menu.

The decor and lighting though hipster evinced the laid-back and intellectual Santa Cruz vibes I adore.

After dinner, we all walked just a few blocks to Pretty Good Advice on Pacific Avenue because I love their soft serve--lactose free and delicious purity. That day's flavor was horchata. We also browsed Bookshop Santa Cruz, where Meral found another art book she loved and I found titles I had already checked out from the public library. Pacific Avenue is also where I love to shop for surf wear for me and hubs at Santa Cruz Skateboards, one-of-a-kind gifts at Artists & agency, and duck in and out of New Age stores for tarot cards and crystals. Cybil and I love too the greeting cards and postcards at Paper Vision.  

The next morning, I took Meral to my favorite coffee house, 11th Hour and ordered my favorite honeybee latte (honey lavender + espresso + steamed milk is all the breakfast fuel I really need). I also examined the local ceramics for sale.

Whereas I paid $45 for my very first artisanal ceramic mug almost twenty years ago, they now typically retail $65 here in California. Zan charges $125 for her large porcelain, mishima-decorated mugs that take her hours to complete. And so I'll be pricing my mugs accordingly. $45 if it's just glaze on my favorite clay, $65 if I've gone to the time-consuming and trouble of mark making with mishima or sgraffito and under glazing on my mugs. Next I took Meral to eat my favorite brisket taco at Aptos St. BBQ.

Meral agreed the brisket and SAUCE were dang delicious. Then we went to class. I didn't finish my tool chest. Once home, I did, however, show Patrick the ingenious lid to my wooden box. He said I should find a book that fits exactly into the gap on the top and hide its opening mechanism.

One of my marine biology books almost fit. I'll post more pics when the box is finally done. I am presently in love with the look of the white pine that I think it a shame to varnish it and for it to get honey colored. And so I'm on the search for a water-based whitewash pickling stain (

BEHR PREMIUM

 

8 oz. #TIS-580 White Wash Pickling Transparent Water-Based Fast Drying Interior Wood Stain

)and a water-based polycrylic (

Varathane Transparent Satin Crystal Clear Water-Based Acrylic Ultimate Polyurethane Finish 0.5 pt

) to prevent the wood from yellowing.