My Little Thief

Does he look guilty?

Once again Alex has astounded me with his ability to get what he wants. For example:

Earlier today I purchased a new bag of food for the Alex and the Girls. When it came time to carry it into the house I realized that I had bought the big kibble size, rather than the preferred, small kibble size. Since the team had been locked up for many hours today, I decided to take them to the store with me to exchange the bag. The exchange went quickly and they got lots of loving from the sales clerks. On the way back to the car I noticed a little stuffed lime green ball on the ground. I asked the clerk, who was carrying the bag of dog food to the car, where it had come from and he replied "The brown one had it".

All became clear.

In the few minutes it took to exchange the dog food, Alex had found a toy and STOLE it from the store.

I apologized profusely and offered to pay for it. The clerk was more amused than angry at the theft and told me it was on the house.

The toy? Well, after several hours of chasing it and making me play fetch his way, the remains are on the floor near my desk all but forgotten while he begs for belly scratching.
Glad I didn't pay for this one!

Thread Disaster

When I sew I use a large spool of thread on a stand next to my sewing machine. These spools have more than 1,000 yards of thread of them and don't fit on the standard machine spindles. Yesterday I was quilting a small quilt and unthreaded the big spool of thread and started using a standard size spool of thread. After about an hour of quilting the big spool of thread fell on the carpet. When I went to pick it up I saw that it had a lot less thread on it than it had before. Here is what the missing thread looked like after I had taken it off the hand wheel on the end of the machine:

The loose end of the thread got caught up on this, the hand wheel:

There are still a few threads caught up in the wheel but I seem to be sewing just fine. Ihope this doesn't happen again as it took a long time to get the thread off the hand wheel and I hate wasting that much thread... then again some people might say that I waste thread every time I sew :-).

Update: A friend told me she has done this a couple of times and needed to take her machine to the repair shop to get all the thread off the hand wheel. I guess I lucky just to lose a few hundred yards of thread.

After the Storm

Besides hearing that all the streets in my neighborhood, except mine, were flooded and that we got between 5 and 8 inches of rain, the big two day storm did not have much of an impact on me EXCEPT that my internet connection went down for about four days. I forget how much I enjoy having this access available to me 24/7. Not only did I not see my e-mail or do any blog entries but my Chumby would not update and my Kindle would not update the daily news paper subsciption that I have. Of course,there was some good news - the weeds and grass enjoyed all the rain and Houston's rainfall deficit is down to about a quarter of a inch. I guess its time to get out the lawn mower again.

I did not, as promised, spend the whole time working on fixing my sweater disaster. Here is a photo showing my problem.

And another of the perfect grafting stitches I have to remove.

After two days of staying in, I did not take out more than about a dozen stitches and instead started on my second pair of socks. My first pair ended up being just one sock that looked like it would fit someone with many foot defromities. This pair is turning out better and I hope to have one done soon.

Wish me luck!

Lauren Levy

Check out this artist's use of buttons - truly amazing!

It was a dark and stormy night....

... and all the little crafty types were busily making quilts, fitting garments, assembling collages and, in general, being creative . With two days of storms predicted, it would be a great space of time to create since errand running and/or yard work would be impossible.

Not me though.

My plans included finishing a quilt top, making table runners and finishing off a new bog coat.

All that went out the window when I realized that I had make a huge mistake in finishing off a sweater I had been knitting. The sweater was knit in two pieces - one for the left side and one for the right side from this pattern. Before adding borders, eadging and a button strip, you join the two backs together with the kitchener stitch... a wonderfully beautiful finish that makes the two edges join invisibly.

To complete it correctly you align the two wrong sides together and spend a couple of hours joining the halves.

I followed the instructions perfectly and made a wonderfully invisible join.

Then I went try it on.

I had joined the sweater so that the neckline of the left side of the sweater was joined to the bottom of the right side of the jacket and visa versa.

I would show you a picture but the camera is missing again. (Alex?)

Now I am off to unjoin my perfectly invisble join and re-do the sweater back joining.

Creative, right!?!

May you weekend begin and end on a better note than mine will.

Maybe I should hope for flooded streets and evacuation by handsome muscular young men... one can only hope!

Gob Smacked

I think that is the expression Brit's use when they are very impressed by something.

Well, I am gob smacked by the performance of Susan Boyle, a middle aged Scottish villager who appeared on Britain's Got Talent and blew away the competition.

Here is a link to the You Tube video of her performance.

You must listen to her... her voice literally brought tears to my eyes and a grin to my face.

Thanks to Janetta for the link!

Recharging Station

The other day I received two new chests of drawers for my bedroom to act as night tables. I had been using one of those pressed board round tables and a table we used for eating in the kitchen from when I was first married. I have been looking for something besides the typical small bedside tables because I have a lot of stuff next to my bed. Typically I have a tissue box, the Chumby, a lamp, a beverage, a bucket for nail clippers, lotion, inhalers and other bits, a book, my glasses and the waste basket. I found two on clearance at Pottery Barn from this collection.

Anyway, I realized that one of the dressers would be a great place for a recharging station. I did not like all the wires hanging around just to fall behind one of the chests and I did not want to make this a big production so this is what I came up with:

Using industrial strength Velco, from my stash, which has a stcky back, I put the rough side on the back of the drawers, attached the soft side to a piece of white poster board and secured the wires between the two layers. By using Velcro I should be able to easily swap out chargers if I need to at a future date. Now my rechargers are always available without looking too messy. I plugged the cords into an old power strip which is hidden below the drawers and plugged it into an outlet that is controlled from a light switch. Apparently, if you leave your charger plugged in all the time, even if not attached to the thing that needs charging, there is a small usage of electricity. Now I only turn on that plug while I am charging something.

Here's what the chest looks like from the front with the wires just peeking over the back edge:

Not a fancy like this solution but definitely works for me.

A no cost solution to a messy problem.

Have a great weekend!

Good News

Back on April 3 the CBS Early Show reported that knitting is good for your mental health. Actually, any somewhat repetitve task that makes you think has the benefit of keeping your mind nimble and could fight off dementia. What they didn't say is whether the cursing that may occur when you drop a stitch or mess up a pattern is also helpful.

I believe that my cursing has benefits at it is somewhat repetitive and makes me think of new ways to express my thoughts on my errors.

So .... if you catch one of my tirades be happy that I fighting off dimentia rather than shocked by my original verbal phrases.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Strip Club/Saturday Sewing

This past Saturday the Strip Club group had another sewing session. Instead of a quilt top, this time we worked on tote bags. One of the group had always wanted to make a tote bag so I presented the Schlepp Bag which can be made from almost any size squares and works well with pre-cut charm square packs from Moda. These are inexpensive packs of about 30 five inch square cuts of one line of fabric. Here's what the Fat Quarter Shop offers in the way of charm packs. There were six of us at the sewing session and here is a mug shop of the whole group: (I'm the one in the back who couldn't figure out how to get in the picture)

The instructions we sewed were from here with a few modifications inspired by an article, in Quiltmaker magazine from the Sept./Oct. '01 issue, called Japanese Twist Bags. The interior and the batting were cut as for a traditional tote bag based on measuremens taken from the exterior. The instructions had you cutting five inch squares of batting and that is way too finicky for me. Three of us used charm packs, one of us used a charm pack mixed with stash fabrics, one used upholstery scraps and I used stash fabric in a larger size. The best part about this is that we all went home with a completed project.

We had scheduled a second bag to be completed but we just did not have enough time for all of us to get it done. The bag we were going to do was this one from an Australian magazine. Myself and one other got to the final step of adding a button. One woman got to constructing her lining and one other got to finishing the basic exterior layout. Two others never even started it which was a good thing as it eliminated the possibilty of another UFO going in to their sewing pile. Here's a picture of the bag I made from a charm pack I had in my stash:

This bag really needs a good press but while looking at one side of it I realized that the whole thing is like a square duffle bag. I wonder what it would look like if those triangles that the handles are connected to were trimmed off and a zipper added. Definitely something to explore some other day.

These once a month gatherngs are good for my soul. There is no pressure to get anything done and we always seem to end up with an interesting project. The last two were quilt tops, this one was a tote bag and the next one will probably be the French Braid Quilt as shown in this book and this one as well. This quilt looks like a study in value but can probably be made using a jelly roll of fabric like this.

I hope your weekend went well. I've become obsessed with watching the early episodes of the television show 24. Whenever I can convince myself that I can let the dishes, laundry and vaccumming wait, I am curled up the dogs and the remote watching Jack Bauer save the world.

Life is good!

Not So Gainful Anymore

The Arts and Crafts Club has only one more meeting and for that we will be going to the Houston Center for Contempory Craft. There will be two adults with 20 budding crafters at the center for about an hour. I don't think anything will go wrong and it will be fun to be with the kids outside of school. I'm actually getting nostalgic about the club and our weekly creativity sessions. There will be alot of stuff left over and I will be donating it to a local charity that works with homeless kids. I wish I could see what they can come up with with the ton of supplies that have been donated to the club. Of course, I won't be colllecting my teeny tiny paycheck after next week but, then again, I spent most of it on supplies so my pocketbook really won't notice the change.

My attempt at teaching at a local quilt shop has also come to an end after two classes. Although I like teaching others the history of the Bog Coat and helping them create their personalized patterns, I really don't have the skills to teach others how to sew one up. After the first hour of the class on the stuff I like, we were then spending two more hours constructing the coat. I found I do not have that innate ability to notice when a student is in trouble so those lost as to the next step probably felt abandoned. In addition, I think it would have been best to give the students the first part of the class before they actually bought fabric. In every case, the students had purchased more fabric than they needed AND it was all quilting cottons sold by the store. Quilting cottons are not the best fabric for this kind of garment so, again, I failed my students by promoting an unsuitable fabric. My pocketbook will be emptier but I will stop feeling guilty about the fabric issue.

I really should be looking for 'regular' employment but I just can't wrap my head around the forty hours a week grind... yet! Until I get desperate or the stock market disappears, I'll continue trolling for minor empoyment and enjoy it while I can.