Janel Was Here

I just machine quilted a queen size

2012-01-28T17:34:00.001-08:00

Go me!!

The back is the same size squares, but solid fabric. So after pinning both sides roughly matching up the seams, I quilted in a back and forth pattern down all the seams. That's all I could manage with the bulk of the quilt rolled up and shoved inside the machine arm. There's really not much room to maneuver.

Then when it was all secured like that, I went back and filled in the blocks with random stitching, because I was able to wrestle the fabric around, not having to worry about accidentally scooting the backing.

"Just spraying thread around," DH called it :-)

Deep Snow and Ice 2012: Yay!

2012-01-23T11:51:00.000-08:00

I LOVE IT when the power goes out. It's so quiet! The moment that electric nerve-wrap in the walls goes *blip*... it's just so peaceful.
It's so lovely and quiet.
It's like your day just wound down to a graceful stop, and now you have all the time in the world to do word puzzles and learn new embroidery stitches.
Well... except for hauling buckets of snow inside to heat up for bathing and washing dishes, that is. There's the backbreaking physical labor part... except for that, it's all good and no bad.

I love using candles! Candles are so romantic and friendly, you get a little warmth and personality along with your light. I wouldn't let the kids take any to their rooms, though. Poor things, they had to use cold, cheerless battery lights because of their nervous mother. Oh well, go to bed.

Of course you have "all the time in the world"... for a while. Dark is going to come and nothing can stop it. I love that, too. There's an elemental quality, a more direct connection between work and life. If you get water in, you'll have a bathie tonight. If you get a fire going you'll be warm tonight. Otherwise you'll be sitting in the dark wishing the power would come back.

I don't wish the power would come back. It's so lovely to go to sleep in a warm little house, when it's utterly quiet inside and outside!

And then, there's the dawn. When you've slept in utter darkness, it's SO GREAT when it gets light outside. Yay! It's Day! How often do we really appreciate how wonderful dawn is? There's not much poetry written to the dawn any more. Most of the time we sleep right through it.

DH made me call the power company like five times a day asking for estimates. According to the recording, the estimate is, "We have 47 separate outages, and here's a list of locations that are without power. After you listen to the whole list, please appreciate that we are literally stringing up lines and then before we can restore service another tree falls. We have crews coming from other states to help us. So sit tight and shut up. If there's anything else you want, press 1 to talk to a representative."
The power came back on the first day, then went off again an hour later. I had to call to make sure the power company realized it had happened, and the nice lady apologized for my inconvenience.
I said, "Oh, don't worry, I actually love it when the power's out."
She said, "Oh, I do, too! It's so quiet!"
DH said we'd probably get bumped to the bottom of the list now that I told them we didn't want it anyway.
(But they supply us with power because we pay for it by the kwh, not just because we want it.)

The power came back on just a few hours later, then went off again in the evening. Yay! If it goes off at six, it'll be off at least all night. And that was before the big freeze; after piles of beautiful fluffy snow, we went out and stomped pathways around, went sledding, cleaned up the remains of our canopy carport that collapsed (on top of the mower and rototiller, which I couldn't get out; they'll have to wait 'til it thaws) and then we had a little bit of rain, then a deep freeze, then some more wet. Then the wind started blowing. No surprise that trees were flopping over right and left.

Day 1 and Day 2:

DH says it was "at least a foot and a half" of snow.

Day 3:

For our last big snowstorm a few years back, the power was out for six days, so I know my limits. After six days, one gets used to it! I had to do laundry by hand. DH said we could run down to the laundromat-- pffffhooey on that! Laundromats are as gross as motels. Who wants their laundry in the same machines as who knows what who else has been stuffing in there before? Not me. Anyway it's useful and educational to experience how our grandmothers did the laundry out on the prairie, having to haul the water in buckets. Everybody should do that once in their lifetime.

But after six days, I really, REALLY started to miss my email. Checking it at the library just isn't the same.

The high point was meeting a group of acquaintances in town and telling them my power had been out for six days, and no, I don't have a generator, but I look clean and happy just the same, don't I?

This time the power came back on at 2:30 in the middle of the second night. We had to suit up for the cold and run outside to finish installing the replacement water pump DH had been working on before the power went off :-)
It looked like a battle zone out there with all the big fir branches all over the yard, and you could still hear them falling. They sound like a loud shot, then a cascade, then a big whump, and that sound comes at regular intervals from all sides. In case of the sound coming from directly above, I put on DH's hard hat. It caused him amusement, but that's better than a tree limb through the skull.

When the water was back on, I figured I'd better run the washing machine while I could, just in case. I ended up going to bed at five in the morning. You can imagine my feelings the next day, "grumpy with headache".

Favorite Fabrics Quilt is Sandwiched

2012-01-18T14:07:00.000-08:00

The quilt top is together, the back is together, the batting is between them, and the whole thing's pinned.
Lining those layers up is the annoyingest part of the job, IMO. Next comes the quilting, which will be the hardest :-)

Kitty in the Tinsel

2012-01-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

It's like she thinks, Hmm, what's the next household object I can jump into the middle of and be unbearably cute so they'll squeal and take my picture?

Phone Pics from Westport and Skechers SRR Resistance Runners

2012-01-08T16:14:00.000-08:00

As usual, I had nothing along to record the gorgeousness but my pathetic phone cam.

I bought a pair of Skechers Shape-Ups last year. I've been using them in the house (in muddy Washington distinction must be made between dedicated-indoor and outdoor shoes) primarily for Walk It Out, and I love them. The difference between that rocking sole and regular shoes is huge. They have a natural stretching in the backs of the legs and a pushing-off motion in the rolling forward step.
I'd been reading about the new SRR Resistance Runners, they're like the Shape-Ups only more stable. Click here to read all the rave:

www.amazon.com/Skechers-Womens-Resistor-Resistance-Sneaker/dp/B003FT3B54/

I ordered a pair from Amazon for $65, but while I was waiting for them to arrive, I found some at Costco for $20. I had to pay the return shipping to Amazon but it was only $5 so I still came out $35 ahead :-)

They even leave a pretty spirally footprint which floats my boat.

In my enthusiasm for having outdoor Shape-Ups, I wore them to Westport the first day I had them.

CAVEAT: they are NOT for climbing on rocks!!
I've climbed on the rocks in everything from flip-flops to snow boots, and I was never so scared as this. I got back down instantly and watched from the sidewalk like a dedicated old lady. These shoes have no hollow between toe and heel and they don't bend in the middle at all. It's the most unnatural feeling on rocks!

Oh, well, they're for walking and jogging :-)
And they're just wonderful for that. They were comfortable on day one through a whole day's activities and made my legs feel great. We eventually got to walk on the path for a while, and it felt so good I just wanted to do it for hours.

Pipecleaner Horse

2012-01-08T14:37:00.000-08:00

Here's something Karen made many years ago. It just came to light when she was cleaning out some junk, and I saved it :-)

Favorite Fabrics Quilt Squares Are Done

2012-01-06T19:10:00.001-08:00

I've finished all eighty string squares. Here they are laid out for visualization purposes. Ed had apparently been keeping his opinion to himself thus far out of politeness (or reluctance to lower himself by taking up quilt critique) but on seeing this, he said it was going to look a lot better than he had expected :-)

He said, "It does look like there's some intelligence behind it!"

That red piece sure sticks out! I'm going to remove it.

Here's an alternative arrangement which everybody agrees doesn't look as good:

I briefly contemplated arranging each of those blocks to best advantage, and decided against it. We're going to go with the glory of randomness, or at least I'll sew all the blocks at random into squares of four, and then when there's only twenty big blocks to deal with, see how I'd like to arrange those.

Here's the first block. How are we doing as far as precision?
1/16th of an inch off.
Sigh.

Kitty In The Box

2012-01-03T16:00:00.000-08:00

I bought this neat box at the Goodwill for $3. Perfect for my medieval feast gear!

Or the kitty.

Medieval Yule Feast

2011-12-31T16:47:00.000-08:00

Here’s the timeline of me not getting my act together until the very last second. Hey, at least my fails are very well documented...

Sept 4th
Been spending a lot of time thinking about SCA wear, unless I want to miss Yule for lack of anything to wear.
Besides clothes for everybody we need some feast gear and where to get that? Need to shop garage sales for any old-looking plates, knives and cups, and a basket to carry stuff in.
Can I sew anything? Still after these months don't have a dress even for myself, but enough about that.

Note to self! As the writing teachers tell you, thinking is not doing!

Oct 12th
At the goodwill I found a great, thick white organic cotton bathrobe for me for $7! And looked for feast gear, but was unsure what to get. I did get two plain blue pottery plates.

Oct 13th
This morning I looked at a lot of pics online of people’s feast gear. Dave looked around downstairs and came up with a couple of crockery cups that'll work very well. The blue plates I got are ideal, we need a few more like that. And a basket! And candles, I didn't think of that but what fun to eat by candlelight! That'll give it atmosphere! Andrea asked about garb. She asked what the kids are going to do? I said I'm going to make the kids something. She asks WHEN, and haven't I saved enough pictures and should actually sew something now? That's a very valid suggestion.

Oct 14th
Went to Goodwill and found some great inline skates, and bought two more plates for medieval feast.
Last night I woke up in the middle of the night wanting a steak. Went to store today, looked at filet mignon, it’s $15 / lb, and apparently top sirloin is next best. There was a lady in the meat section, what a beautiful lady! Small, with a pretty face, nice even features, a friendly and pleasant expression, clear skin, classic blue eyed blonde, sure you see them like her quite often, but not back in the meat section stocking shelves with bloody slabs wrapped in plastic.
I told her I’d woke up wanting a steak but didn’t know anything about steak. She said that rib eye was very nice meat, but chuck eye is the same and is cheaper, it was only $6 / lb. It looked very nice, and it cooked up very nicely, too. The lady pointed me towards tenderizer, but unfortunately I read the ingredients, so I just salted that meat up and cooked it slowly on both sides. It smelled funny at first, and then started smelling extremely delicious and tasted delicious. It was as soft as chewing on candy and tasted BETTER. Had it with a salad and I must say that was a very satisfying steak.

I digress.

Oct 26th
Sigh, even going in there to sew a square to cheer up doesn't work, when I should be doing medieval and I know I'm just gonna fall down on that again too, we won't have anything to wear to Yule etc etc, stupid woman.

Yep, berating self. How useful and helpful!

Nov 4th
Made a couple steps on the new blue dress, but I'm gonna shelve it right after it's basically together, must work on medieval and not swerve, must get act together for Yule!
Okay, off to bed now

Now pep-talking self! But you notice that no actual steps were taken towards Yule sewing.

Nov 6th
I MUST sew for Yule feast, the reservations just came by email…

Translation: on Nov 6th, I didn’t sew for Yule feast.

Nov 9th
Found more cool feast gear at Goodwill, three nifty old pottery looking goblets and some other stuff.

Nov 19th
Right at the moment, dinner’s over and they're watching a movie, I have a bit of precious TIME on my hands, but I don't care if my story gets written or our Yule clothes get sewn, my fiction is stupid, boring and pointless and Yule probably won't work out, it's too much work for one short event at which I'll probably feel uncomfortable the whole time anyway.

Whoops, sometimes we get interrupted by an outgoing message from the pit.

Dec 2nd
… and here's an email from the SCA, they’re going to have a "sewing day" and it’s during the daytime! It’s a long way off, but I could leave all the kids home and make a trip down there for some sewing help and advice, this Yule thing is kind of assuming importance in my life…

Well, I’m not going to the sewing thing, I had an idea for what to do for the boys after looking at the medieval coloring book, I CAN DO THAT therefore I must get busy and do that, oh poor me, the talking of self into things that I have to do! See, I'm in here talking to you. I don't know if anybody would understand this NEED to psyche myself into stuff, blah.
Wait, I remember finding … sitting in front of a Steven Seagal movie and telling me he was "getting himself into the mood to exercise", at that fail-proof age I thought, But if you want to exercise why don’t you just go start exercising???
Anyway yeah, must go in there and unearth some black and some white, cut out a shape for the boys, come on, I know the steps, just gotta DO it!

And later:

Yule also seems particularly pointless. Why am I going through all this? Their food won't be any better than mine at home, so why bother? Just for the challenge level? For the fun of sewing something different? I sense possibility of public embarrassment which doesn't do anything for me. Oh well, can't give up right at this point... on we go.

Translation: I didn’t sew today.

Dec 12
Zooming out of the house only… I got no further than the end of the driveway. And I really should have noticed sooner. I even commented that the van didn’t feel like it wanted to drive today! The tire was completely flat, flat as a pancake, down to the rims. I backed up just to get back in our yard again, and the tire started flopping! It was going very dramatically wrong, driving on rims on the ground and the tire coming all the way off. I backed only far enough to get out of the way and stopped right there.
I probably should have stopped at the neighbors but I'd rather cut the tire all up with the rims and have to buy a new one than be marooned blocking the road and have to work on the tire out there tomorrow morning!
Went in house and got dirty clothes on, tried to get rim off with crowbar, way not as easy as the tire guys make it look. It was already pitch dark and freezing cold out there. I told Ed about the tire, and he came right home instead of buying chicken, but he really didn’t intend to work on the tire in the dark! So there he was home and we had no dinner. Scramble.
It’s been freezing out there all day long, even when I went out at three in the afternoon to get eggs the whole ground was covered with frost, crackling and white, very pretty, but you don't want to be out in it.
So the van was gets to sit on the rim on the tire all night, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Dec 13
Hard to get out of bed, it's so delightfully cozy with a feather blanket! VERY COLD air rushes in as soon as I move it. Took me a while to talk myself into getting up.
Gotta have some van adventures today, get on the phone early, hopefully get a spare on there and drive to Costco.
Remember my last flat tire? Various helpful people in a parking lot couldn’t get my spare loose or the rims off, and I've neglected to tell anybody afterwards to do something about either problem. When they aligned the van I could have asked them to practice getting the bloody spare loose. Could have. If.
I did Walk It Out for a brief time to get myself warmed up a little. It's 60 in the house! My fingers feel too cold to type.

Hey, done by 2:30!   That wasn't so bad.
I went outside in the freezing, got the van owner’s manual and read the directions, got the spare down and then realized how silly that was. You only need a spare if you’re not in your own yard. I am in my yard. Hm. Followed directions and put the spare back up again.
The idea here is to jack up the van and take the tire off. The little jack that comes with the van works really slick! Got the flappy flat tire off and phoned the bus. It was 11:20 and they happened to have a ride going in at 11:45. Of course ALL the kids wanted to go on a bus ride, I mean what a huge thrill!   So we had to scramble.
I used that short piece of thick yellow rope (which has come in so handy so many times) to carry the tire down the road to the bus, sharing the burden alternately with girls. That wasn’t so bad.
The bus is ALWAYS bad—the bus is good and the driver is good, but oh, the company you end up with!
A bus trip every now and then is good for me. It makes me love my veeehicles that much the more! I wanted to French kiss Ed's truck when I finally got to it, sitting there shining in its crappy Maaco paint job glory.
Went into tire shop, carrying this popcorn-looking tire on a yellow rope. That nice guy who owns the place said, “You were on your tire swing and it broke?” and the next guy over doubled over laughing so hard he had to sit down.
I was getting a lot of astonished looks from people this whole trip which did a great deal for my spirits! One guy came by while I was holding the folded rope while waiting for the tire to be worked on, and asked if the rope was for beating them to make them work faster! Haha.
So they said the tire was okay, showed me this gigantic hole that had been punched in it, patched it and remounted it, and away I went with it. At least now I can roll it instead of carrying.
Came home, jacked up the van further and put the tire back on, and I was feeling very HOT I assure you, for accomplishing this thing, my very first tire change of my life!

All that happened instead of the second SCA sewing day that I didn’t go to.

Dec 14
Went to Jo-Ann, and as usual was totally inspired to leave without buying anything. Looked at baskets for feast, they want $12 for a stupid junky basket made in China, EVERYTHING in there from China, even the trim was from China! And I would rather wear a plain boring unadorned dress than benefit China by yet another $3 / yd!
Looked at grommet pliers too. They're only grommet pliers (the ones that I had and can’t find now also did snaps) and they're like $26, they were actually made in USA but that doesn't mean I want to buy a duplicate of something I know I already have somewhere at home! I simply despise that habit which some people I know have, of buying another instance of an item because you can't locate the first one among your piles of junk.

Day before the feast:
Really need to go shopping today, we need a bunch of things, but I really must not. Trim for blue dress, headgear for me, purse, and something to carry dishes in, black pants for boys, and the applique on their vests, what else? All of that TODAY. By rights we should go shopping, it's almost the last Saturday before Christmas, but I did sign up for this Yule feast back in July!
By 3:30, I've basically accomplished a purse. That blue dress is so ugly I'll be ashamed to be seen in it, but I'm going to go, and get through this, if I can.
Best I can do right now is to not lose my temper at the kids.
Just been outside searching the surrounds for what might have flattened the tire, with no such luck. I thought a breath of air might help, it didn't.
Court isn't until four tomorrow and feast at 6:30, so we don't have to leave here before two, I can assemble some kind of burlet tomorrow morning.

DAY OF FEAST!!!!

The problem with the blue dress is that it looks too much like an underdress. That’s what I intended it for at first. So, I got up THE DAY OF THE FEAST and started an overdress! I cut it out of a dark green queen-size sheet (cutting around a cigarette burn hole—I wonder who I got this from?) with satin orange sleeves and collar facing.

I cut the orange sleeves a bit snug. I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s gotta go together now, one way or other! So I sewed like my tail feathers were on fire. PANIC is such a great motivator!!!

I started at 8:00 and skipped breakfast. Dilbert says, “If it wasn’t for the last minute, nothing would get done.”

So, we don't have a basket for our feast gear, but the boys have those two large beach bags of simple striped cotton with canvas handles, they'll do.

I don't have cloth napkins, so I'll just smuggle a roll of paper towels and keep them hidden. I scooped up some candles and candlesticks that don’t look too modern, one carved marble and two brass.

I machine topstitched the reverse collar facing. At least it'll look okay from a distance, it will not bear closer inspection. Later on, I'll hand-embroider over the top of it to hide it. (Sure, I will!)

There was no time for any hem but fold over and zigzag, and I was zigzagging as fast as the machine will go, which is very fast. I usually don't do that because I don't like that machine-at-top-speed whizzing sound. This was about the time the event was starting, fifty miles away.

Found grommet pliers, right where I put them, and neatly labelled too. With them in hand, putting laces in the back of Karen's dress too minutes. Yes, that's a shoelace. We're down to the wire now...

The girls got dressed and looked really cool. They were in extreme doubt about the advisability of trying to make a dress for me at this point, but then all of a sudden it was done! Suddenly it was ready, and it looked nice, too!

I’d cut out a veil, machine-hemmed the edge and basted it to the burlet, and to my shock it worked just fine. I was afraid it would blow right off or fall off, but it didn't, it seemed to magically cling where it's supposed to be, and it was the finishing touch which made it all look properly medieval.

So I was ready, and I actually felt like I looked good! What a great feeling! Like the fairy godmother had been by and I get to go to the feast.

What a relief too, when it was so unplanned and I wasn't sure how it would look, but that "striving for perfection and accomplishing nothing in the meantime" is what held me back all along. At zero hour there's nothing else to do but hurry in the most promising direction.

There was SOME foresight, you know, such as paying the extra money for a contact lens prescription last time I went in, and buying those $1 each single-use lenses. And the shoes! We have three pair of ladies black suede boots around here, which I bought with exactly this in mind. The boys’ last pair of everyday sneakers were chosen for their quality of being plain black and unadorned by any bright colors or logos that would mark them as obviously modern.

Imported necklace that I couldn't resist for $9 at Forever 21. It's got that foursquare cruciform look that I like so well, and I think the "cheap China crap" clunky quality actually makes it seem more convincingly medieval. Maybe should have lost the tassel, but didn't have time to decide on that.

The green drawstring purse I made is substandard in so many ways and should have been totally different, but hey, it’s there and it works. All that junk modern people have to haul around with them fits in the bag and it looks okay to just carry the bag in my hand.

So we hopped in the van (which already felt weird; the van is NOT period accurate) and off we went.

Had to stop first into Toys R Us to get the Toys for Tots contribution we’d been asked to bring (which in lieu of any fee for the event was surely reasonable). Honestly, I was hoping for some reaction in there! The door greeter said he loved my dress, he said he really, really loved my dress (with emphasis in order to pass along that it was his genuine opinion and he wasn't just doing his job right now) but aside from him, everybody else was scrambling around crazily shopping for Christmas and nobody batted an eyelid! I was a fair bit disappointed! At least the cashier should comment, I hoped, but she didn’t seem to notice anything out of the usual.

Americans are used to ignoring very strange things, I guess.

So we drove out to this nice large hall out in a rural area, where the event was. On the way there I had a full blown nervous fit complete with breathing and heartrate, and was lucky to be able to keep driving. It’s true what they said, “You poor thing, you don't get out much, do you?”

But walking into there was definitely a wish come true. We were there, and we looked respectable enough to hold our heads up. Everybody else had a very varied assortment of garb, and we fit right in!

We had our feast gear. They said to just sit anywhere, so I looked for an open table. Basically the only spot left with enough seats was right up front with a great view of the thrones. I suppose it's natural that all the sides along the walls and in the back would be taken first, maybe human instinct to get a defensible position, or modesty? But as far as finding somewhere to sit to enjoy the show, our spots were premium.

I didn't want to walk around or interact, I was happy just to be there. Look at that, it really did work out and I'm really here! It had a certain familiarity, because I’ve looked at so many photo albums of feasts on the internet, with all the lords and ladies walking around, and this was kinda like that only real, and with no right-clicking, but with a better view of the details.

An extravert sat down and introduced himself, and started giving us all kinds of interesting information about how the whole crown system works and stuff. I said it was my first event, and then felt like a liar twice; as I’ve not only been to the Port Gamble event which it turns out this guy used to organize, I've also already met the chatelain at a different meeting long ago. Well, I meant it was my first real event where I was dressed up! It gets no more real than this, except for entering a contest.

And then there was the king. OMG it’s a KING!!!!

Have definitely never seen such a thing before. I had been wondering how I was going to handle all that. Will I be an American butthead and have to be told to bow? I really hadn’t decided about that yet.

Well it was actually SO MUCH FUN to see a real freaking KING, and everybody bowing or curtseying to him or even to his empty throne as they walked by it, and I was so impressed and thrilled that I seriously wanted to play along, too.

But, oops: it didn’t work out for me. I actually walked right by the KING on his throne at one point, not realizing what I was doing until it was too late, and I couldn’t manage anything: not through unwillingness, or any desire to have my head lopped off, it was just that my intractable uncooperative American knees didn't bend.

Blah.

Anyway, the KING and the QUEEN (for our next thrill, yes, really!!) were both totally lovely. They were regal and sweet and gracious, and humorous. F’rinstance, when the queen was presented with a little sheep plushie, she went on about how important sheep were to their whole economy, but, “It looks like somebody put this one in the dryer on hot!”

Someone warned me that court was going to be long and wearisome. I didn’t mind. I was just watching the court and everything was wonderfully entertaining. Even though it did get a bit long, I didn't get tired of watching the people all around us.

The group next to us at the table had it totally going on. It was a mom and dad and grandma and three lovely daughters who were rocking Italian renaissance complete with luxurious tied sleeves and embroidered bodices and strings of pearls woven into the hair. Whoa.

But the couple on my other side were both wearing glasses and Nike shoes, who'd brought their Victorian-era plates in a plastic Safeway bag, the lady with her modern purse and the gentleman with his can of pop, and no sign of shame.

I decided at that point not to worry any more about my topstitching!

I also noticed a lot of people with modern printed fabric in medieval-looking designs, and it looked fine. I’m totally hacking up the gorgeous scales fabric and making it into something. And we’ll bring some ruddy forks henceforward; everybody else has them!

Besides the king and queen, we had two barons and baronesses, who proceeded to declare war on each other over the taxation of a baby—in loud angry voices with grins on their faces, which was perfect fun to watch!

Then came the food. Food was very tasty, although just unfamiliar enough that the kids didn’t eat much. That’s okay, they came out with cake (it’s a chunk of a dragon’s tail, get it?) and the cake was recognizable!

So, I got to go to the ball. That was my Cinderella event! But I assure you I was all evented out by about 8:30 and just as happy to go home again :-)

On the way home Dave told me he'd encountered the KING in the restroom, and asked what his name was! And he got a nice friendly answer. The king’s name is Thorin.

Dave wants to join. He’s all over this one. He wants into this organization, wants to compete and get awarded a rank and be recognized before the KING. Mike too. Andrea wants to do the archery...

The $10 Christmas Tree

2011-12-26T07:37:00.000-08:00

We have a plastic tree that we pull out every year, but it’s just not the same as the real thing.

The kids hauled out the Christmas junk in enthusiasm on November 20th this year, which ticked me off extremely. They asked Daddy and Daddy said okay!

I snobbishly declined to help in the decorating process at all. I figured the kids would make a royal mess of everything, and then I’d have the satisfaction of knowing they did it all wrong and somehow that would make me feel happy inside. But… Karen was in charge of decorating and it came out like fairyland, really beautiful. The plastic tree was a picture, and they had nice application of lights and symmetrical draping of garland around the living room. They even got the garland over the doorways mostly even. They did the downstairs too, and put the smaller plastic tree in the boys’ room.

So the whole house was decorated for Christmas for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the only holiday I really like and get enthusiastic about, and I don’t appreciate its being trespassed upon that way.

(I don’t mind New Years or Valentine’s Day, which may be pagan but at least aren’t masquerading as anything else, but there isn’t that much to do on those dates.)

Well… I ignored it and did my whole turkey feast and THANKS thing as well as I could.

After that it was okay. I’ve said before, I admit the pagans had a valid point re lights. In Northern parts it does get very dark and we may be tempted to panic that the sun will die and never come back again. The lights do cheer our eyeballs up a bit.

And the good thing about the plastic tree is that we don’t have to pay money for it, and we don’t have to kill a tree.

On Dec 21 we all got some kind of foodborne illness thing, which caused me a great deal of interesting symptoms, but I’ll spare you having to skip through the description. What with the lost sleep and the tummy pains and overall weakness and unhappiness, I suddenly HAD TO HAVE A REAL CHRISTMAS TREE. I don’t know why that follows, but it just did. I was too sick to tolerate that plastic mockery of a fake tree any more. Ed said he wanted a nice fancy Christmas this year, and now I needed Christmas to smell like Christmas.

So I dragged my barely-mobile self into the van with a couple kids, a tarp, a rope and a saw. There’s a place just up the road where I got a tree more than a dozen years ago, for only $20. If they weren’t still a going concern, there was another place over the hill that I was sure was; I had seen them when I drove by, harvesting the trees that would end up for sale at Walmart for $45. I had a twenty in my pocket and was ready to bargain.

Well I stopped at the place just up the road first, and this is what I saw:

Hm, I’d say they’re not in business any more! A guy came out of the house and told me the tree business had been his father’s thing and that was a long time ago.

I asked if I could have one of the little ones for $10, and he said Sure, he guessed so. Or a top off one of the big ones would be okay too. He had to go back in the house and take care of his grandson.

Those overgrown stalks are noble firs!

I didn’t have to behead one of the tall ones. There was a little tree just a bit taller than me growing up almost in the roadway, a nice little noble fir though unsuitable for tree sales anyway because of the duplicate trunk that it had, and one really long branch sticking out. Who cares, it’s fine for me.

I was SICK blast it, and not in the mood to saw, could barely manage it, but at the first cut of saw into tree trunk that SMELL filled the air, and Christmas aromatherapy kept me going. The pagans have a point about the tannenbaum, too.

Watch me as I fling this tree on top of the van and then loop a rope around it. Then drive home slowly, because that wasn’t exactly secure.

I was SICK blast it, but somebody’s got to get busy with a whisk broom getting all the forest debris off, shaking the needles and then lassoing it upstairs via the rope (I knew what would happen if I tried to bring it over the carpet on the stairs!)

Beginning to SMELL a lot like Christmas :-)

Of course I’m really posting this well into January, I’ve slid behind on everything!

Here it is January 6th and the tree is still up. Everybody else has taken theirs down, but I have no intention. That lovely sappy noble fir smell gets into my nose every time I walk up the stairs, and it’s not like it’s not still dark outside and we huddled in our caves don’t still need cheering!

I’m keeping it watered and it can stay until it turns orange!

progress of garb, Dec

2011-12-10T18:02:00.000-08:00

Made a few more steps since we last spoke!

You've seen the white underdress already,

and I also made a shorter underdress, partially to finish testing that pattern,

today I made an overdress, very simple with short sleeves, and either of those looks fine under it!

This is for Karen. I'm going to add lacing in the back to make it fit her.

Andrea's outfit, from this pattern,

is done except for the side lacing (I'm putting off learning how to do eyelets)
The sides aren't perfect, I kinda messed up that part, but I don't think anyone will notice.
For the record the surcote is forest green and the underdress is bright light blue.

But Andrea likes the cool-tone blue dress I made for myself under it better! So I'll try to make something else for myself, because the blue dress was a bit plain. If I don't have time then she'll just have to use this one.

I showed you the jumper idea I liked... I don't know what era this is supposed to be (if any)

Here's a pattern I went just far enough with to see that it comes out the way I want. Later on I'll add the gores and finish the test model for everyday use.

The plan was to cut it out of the gorgeous scales fabric! But I simply cannot get scissors near that fabric with that intention. My subconscious wants to save that for something else, I guess. So what am I going to make the jumper out of? Or what will I make the gorgeous scales into? I don't know yet.
It's so pretty!

In the meantime, here's the plan for the boys:

Enormous side-trip into bias patchwork for trim... no idea if that's the way it's done, but I was having fun.

Worn over a basic long sleeve shirt

That MUST have some kind of applique on the chest, which will make all the difference.
Ignore the camouflage pants. I'll make them some black ones (if time permits)

So the next tasks in order of importance are:
something for the head, for me (to hide the short hair)
handbag for me, cell phone and car keys being what they are,
and then cloaks for everybody, but it's not a disaster if we just wear our coats and pile them somewhere
napkins and something to carry dishes in, should be a big basket only I haven't secured one yet!

This is all terra incognita for me. One step at a time.

Painted Butterflies

2011-12-08T09:38:00.000-08:00

Karen made these to send to her penpal.

Honey Ice Cream

2011-11-25T10:28:00.000-08:00

I was going to use all honey, but cheated just a bit because it's easier to mix the gelatin together with some sugar before trying to stir it into the cream.
They were out of cream the night before Thanksgiving, so I used half half-and-half and half milk. Came out splendiferously delicious anyway.

Ice Cream recipe:

1/2 cup sugar, mix with--
2 TBSP gelatin, stir into--
4 cups cream

Cook until just short of boiling

Beat 6 eggs in a separate bowl, then slowly drizzle the hot cream into the eggs while whisking them vigorously
(if you pour the eggs into the hot cream, you'll just get a pile of cooked eggs)

Cook two more minutes

Stir in--
1 cup honey
4 cups cream
3 TBSP vanilla

Pour into a shallow pan and freeze for an hour or two, then stir. Set a timer and stir more frequently as it hardens, until it's finally too stiff to stir.

We basically have to go to bed before it's ready and then eat it the next morning, or it doesn't last long enough to harden all the way :-)

This batch has already been got at, before it could even be photographed, as you see.

BTW that's a big pan of ice cream. It doesn't quite get across the sense of proportion, because it's a big spoon.

Feast Gear Shopping at Goodwill

2011-11-10T15:00:00.000-08:00

What do you think, do these look medieval??
I've gotta make a few cloth napkins too :-)

The goblet and knife are on the paper towel because after freezing them (to kill germs) I sprayed the wooden portions with Scott's Liquid Gold.
An adult's going to have to use the goblet and even then it's risky. It's tall, topheavy and the base isn't very wide.

It's all foreign-made of course, but at least the proceeds are only benefiting the thrift shop at this point!

All of them 25c each!
The gold spoon was Mike's choice. That isn't gold plating, is it? I can't tell! It doesn't look medieval at all, but at least it's pretty :-)
The two knives are touching because the handles are magnetized and can't stay apart!

Fw: A New Christmas Tradition

2011-11-10T14:45:00.000-08:00

I just got this by email.
I've noticed that pretty much everybody sympathizes with the problem, but they shrug and say "What can you do?"
Well for starters, we can COMPLAIN LOUDLY TO EACH OTHER!!! Don't shrug and say it's hopeless and go off politely and die! I don't see Americans repenting, not yet, and I don't see Americans holding a real "tea party", but at least let's talk about the problem to each other, until we talk ourselves into doing something!
And here's one little something we can do :-)

Christmas 2011 -- Birth of a New Tradition

As the holidays approach, the giant Asian factories are kicking into high gear to provide Americans with monstrous piles of cheaply produced goods -- merchandise that has been produced at the expense of American labor. This year will be different. This year Americans will give the gift of genuine concern for other Americans. There is no longer an excuse that, at gift giving time, nothing can be found that is produced by American hands. Yes there is!

It's time to think outside the box, people. Who says a gift needs to fit in a shirt box, wrapped in Chinese produced wrapping paper? Everyone -- yes EVERYONE gets their hair cut. How about gift certificates from your local American hair salon or barber?

Gym membership? It's appropriate for all ages who are thinking about some health improvement.

Who wouldn't appreciate getting their car detailed? Small, American owned detail shops and car washes would love to sell you a gift certificate or a book of gift certificates.

Are you one of those extravagant givers who think nothing of plunking down the Benjamines on a Chinese made flat-screen? Perhaps that grateful gift receiver would like his driveway sealed, or lawn mowed for the summer, or driveway plowed all winter, or games at the local golf course.

There are a bazillion owner-run restaurants -- all offering gift certificates. And, if your intended isn't the fancy eatery sort, what about a half dozen breakfasts at the local breakfast joint. Remember, folks this isn't about big National chains -- this is about supporting your home town Americans with their financial lives on the line to keep their doors open.

How many people couldn't use an oil change for their car, truck or motorcycle, done at a shop run by the American working guy?

Thinking about a heartfelt gift for mom? Mom would LOVE the services of a local cleaning lady for a day.

My computer could use a tune-up, and I KNOW I can find some young guy who is struggling to get his repair business up and running.

OK, you were looking for something more personal. Local crafts people spin their own wool and knit them into scarves. They make jewelry, and pottery and beautiful wooden boxes.

Plan your holiday outings at local, owner operated restaurants and leave your server a nice tip. And, how about going out to see a play or ballet at your hometown theatre.

Musicians need love too, so find a venue showcasing local bands.

Honestly, people, do you REALLY need to buy another ten thousand Chinese lights for the house? When you buy a five dollar string of light, about fifty cents stays in the community. If you have those kinds of bucks to burn, leave the mailman, trash guy or baby sitter a nice BIG tip.

You see, Christmas is no longer about draining American pockets so that China can build another glittering city. Christmas is now about caring about US, encouraging American small businesses to keep plugging away to follow their dreams. And, when we care about other Americans, we care about our communities, and the benefits come back to us in ways we couldn't imagine. THIS is the new American Christmas tradition.

Forward this to everyone on your mailing list -- post it to discussion groups -- throw up a post on Craigs list in the Rants and Raves section in your city -- send it to the editor of your local paper and radio stations, and TV news departments. This is a revolution of caring about each other, and isn't that what Christmas is about?

Mama Hen and Chicks

2011-10-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

First Mama hen we've ever had successfully hatch a batch of chickies!
We are totally tickled about it.

"Mama Hen" is in the vocabulary but how often do we get a chance to see one? An ordinary fluffy bird turns into an overprotective war machine. Most of the time you can't even see the little fluffballs because they're under her wings.
When I went out to fill up the feeder she tried to go for my legs-- neither of us were too sure what she was going to do, but by gum, she was gonna do it fiercely :-)

Ha! Score one for the big lady!!!

Started New QAYG Project

2011-10-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday being Sunday, I felt I couldn't sew on my Favorite Fabrics quilt-- since now that my bed desperately needs it since all the other quilts have fallen apart-- it falls under WORK!
So I started something new for fun :-)

I had a pile of 4" squares I've been accumulating. Some time previous I arranged some of them in groups of 4 and 5 coordinating to make blocks, and made them into a QAYG project using lighter tones for the backing and sashing... but then I ended up hating it and picked out the couple blocks I had made. Lighter color strips between blocks just didn't work. It'll have to be black or some strong tone.

I had this largish Mary Engelbreit piece that a friend gave me, with moons, sunflowers etc. It's a bit busy but dark enough to serve as the framing. I carved up the whole piece into backing pieces and got twenty of them. The last two had to be patched together, but I thought a 4 x 5 block quilt would be better than 3 x 6.

The 4" squares when sewn into nine-patch blocks come out 10-3/4", so I cut the backing 12-3/4"

I asked Andrea to sort the squares into groups of 4 and 5 that go together harmoniously. Now I have all the sets together in little piles ready to go together.

I'm eager to get started on this!

The pics here show the blocks I had used last time and picked out. You can still see where the quilting was.

PS, I'm not having fun with Blogger right now. They wanted me to try the new interface, so I did, but it's obviously not optimized for those poor losers who still have dialup, so I switched back. But they switched me back to a version older than I'd had before, where I can't even resize the pictures.
So I updated again, hoping to just live with it...
But with the new version, I hit "Publish" and nothing happens! (And it doesn't publish)
I tried "Save" and finally "Close" and it told me I had unsaved changes...
I tried reporting the problem, filled out the feedback form and it says "Oops! Something went wrong!" So even the feedback form to report my error is malfunctioning!
Well, I'm back in the ancient version, let's see if this at least publishes. The pics aren't the way I wanted them and I can't figure out how to make them larger in the code. Phooey.

Link to a Dollz Making Site

2011-10-22T11:40:00.001-07:00

Check out Doll Divine, http://www.dolldivine.com
Some really cool flash dollz there, and they're savable for playing offline!
Here's examples from the Princess Maker and Pegasus Maker.
Some are lame; check out the "Most Popular" list to find the good ones.
The Marie Antoinette one is very detailed, beautiful and adorable! And, apparently, historically accurate too :-)

I made the princess with the greeny-blue dress and the tree.

Here's one from the Angel Maker

And I don't know which maker this was. I found them in Karen's folder :-)

Why I ditched Bluehost and went to Dreamhost

2011-10-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

I've been slightly miffed at Bluehost ever since the beginning, when I was having some kind of casual day when I signed up and actually gave them my real phone number, and they CALLED it-- why? Just to verify that it was the right one! That was so irritating. What does my hosting need my real phone number for? It was just more of this verification (read denial of privacy) that's so fashionable these days.
And what if it hadn't been my real number? It usually isn't. Then what if it wasn't? Would the money they got off my Visa card not be valid any more and I'm gonna have to do without the privilege of being their customer?
The hosting itself was okay and earlier this year I even renewed my hosting with them for another three years, more out of laziness than anything else.

I got a free domain with the Bluehost hosting. I wasn't doing anything with it, it was just floating along above my other domains. At some point I noticed they had changed the Whois records on it from the information I had put, to something about Bluehost privacy service.
I figured maybe they were taking a page from Dreamhost's book. Dreamhost says, "Why should we charge customers for something that doesn't cost us anything?" Good question! All the other hosts charge extra for "privacy service".
I can't say I was thrilled that Bluehost applied it without even asking me. That's my domain, not theirs, and they don't have the right to changed the registration info without my approval. What if I hadn't wanted privacy?

Then I get this delightful email from Bluehost: "DOMAIN PRIVACY HAS EXPIRED" It was seven in the evening, I was in a hurry, and I only glanced quickly down the email, to: "This information will then be viewable to the public in the WHOIS database and may put your personal privacy at risk. The following is your private information which is currently masked:" and they had my name, address and phone number as it appears on my bill!

I replied:

Thanks a BUNCH you buttheads. You changed what I had up there before, took it upon YOURSELF to privatize it without even asking me and now you put my PHYSICAL HOME ADDRESS on the INTERNET all this without my permission. I officially hate you and I'll be cancelling as soon as I can transfer all my stuff off. For pity's sake you could have at least WARNED ME!!!!!!!! That the "free privacy" you put on there without asking me was going to expire! You SUCK!

Yes, a little stronger than usual from me :-)

I was already busy and had to run, but that stayed on my mind, as just another annoying item added to my to-do list when I really don't need any more items added.

Oh sure, of course I read it more slowly the next day. They were only threatening to turn privacy off in the next 14 days if I didn't ante up for another years' worth of this "service", and it did say "your domain name will return to showing the information you previously entered."

So, is that my fault for skimming my email too fast? I think not. Someone in marketing sent it that way on purpose. It was designed to make people pay the $15 rather than fuss with another item on their to-do list, and phooey on THAT.

Being ticked off about a small matter that it's within my power to change, is a powerful motivator. I was over at Dreamhost instantly, checking into hosting. I already have some domains there, attracted by the free privacy and the overall coolth. Dreamhost is laid back. They tolerate privacy freaks, even cater to them. Their TOS say they'll wait for an actual court order before taking action against you, not just some scary-looking letter from a lawyer. Last April 1st they sent a newsletter around saying they were outsourcing their tech support to India. I was alarmed about that for a few minutes too, though nothing to the above extent-- April Fools!

Dreamhost is $10 a month, an unfortunate $3 more a month than I was paying with Bluehost. I emailed Dreamhost asking when they were going to do the fantastic one-year hosting sale (explained my problem) and was told that the sale is on major holidays-- and now! That's right, he gave me the huge discount, just to be nice! With the discount applied, I'm set up for the next three years at the same price as Bluehost was. Starting year four it'll be more, but if TEOTWAWKI hasn't happened by then, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Anyway, cheapskate that I am, I'm always willing to pay to support something or someone admirable. Dreamhost deserves to live long and prosper.

Back to me-- now I had to switch hosts, which on dialup is no small or laughing matter. Just stay connected all night and let it crank away! It's all done by now, and I take a moment to tell you about it :-)

Unsupervised Cake Decorating

2011-10-13T07:35:00.000-07:00

She asked for fondant, that stuff you can roll or mold. It's basically Play-Doh for cakes. I bought a package at the nearest retailer, Wilton brand, as it happened; then, when I went looking online for instructions, I found everybody saying DO NOT BUY WILTON. And they were right, the stuff tastes awful! I wouldn't taste it, the smell was bad enough. I think at least a few of the kids had a nibble before spitting it out. It wasn't gone rancid or anything, it was just yucky and had intense chemicals.
So they had fun playing with the cake-Play-Doh, then they scraped it all off before cutting.
Don't you think we could have just used Play-Doh?

Here's the actual cream cheese frosting. It was delicious!

Barbie Modelmuse Pattern Progress

2011-10-12T08:25:00.000-07:00

I love this picture, it's so dramatic :-)
Here's the progress on the next strapless Barbie bodice pattern!

Garb Progress, Sept-Oct

2011-10-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's what I'm working on. Here's another old sheet testing the shape of the sleeves. They're not very flattering, but they're about what I had in mind as far as the narrow fit, so I'm gonna go with this. I don't like the wrinkles at the top, but I like sleeves that are built to be mobile. Since childhood I've disliked sleeves that are fitted for having one's arms down at the side and there's a pulling sensation when the arms are lifted. This sleeve's the opposite!

Another picture of me in my nightie, for the internet :-)
I've got some actual LINEN, and it's such a gorgeous shade! I washed and dried it, and it came out just wonderful. Now I'm too scared to cut into it.

(How about that dramatic-looking wound on the arm? That's only a bit of primer where I reached past a painted corner, and it was already dry when I noticed. I tried scraping it off with my fingernail. Just a bit more and I'd've made myself bleed, yet the paint was still there. They were right about the stuff bonding to the surface, eh?)

So I made my first real test out of some content-unknown fabric I picked up on the clearance table.
But I like how this came out-- I like this A LOT. I think it looks medieval and it feels medieval. I've just got to decorate it, sleeve and neck trim, and it'll look really cool.
(It's poufy because I'm wearing the patchwork dress under it!)
Maybe it FEELS so medieval because of the great amount of extra fabric "puddled" on the floor! In the old statues the noble ladies always have their extra skirt fabric piled artistically over their shoes. But mine's because I cut the gores much too long, and that will be trimmed.

Karen's sketches

2011-09-09T08:58:00.000-07:00

Nifty Sport mp3 player headset

2011-09-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

Don't you get irritated with that headset cord going from the ipod to your ears? It's fine for just walking, but yardwork is impossible without catching on that cord all the time and yanking it loose.
I put "mp3 headset" into ebay to see if anyone had invented such a gadget yet and there it was. I didn't expect much for $15, but it seems to work fine! The sound's loud and clear, it's very lightweight and fits great. The ends can be bent to match up with your ears.
There are only three buttons to control, one for play / pause (has auto turn-off) and two on either side to advance to a different song or replay, or hold them for volume up/down.
I have to say I'm tickled to have it.

Watch out if you go shopping for one, some on ebay don't have built in memory and require a card. This one has 2gb built in which is plenty for just some favorites.
Here's the ebay auction I got it from
I know it's from China and I hate that... if there WAS one made here I wouldn't mind paying more... but there just isn't such a thing right now :-(

An Actual Patchwork Dress

2011-08-31T10:29:00.000-07:00

This IS what they meant by patchwork dress :-)
Here's the story: I'm so persnickety about what I'm going to wear, that I end up with just about nothing to wear. It has to be 100% cotton, it has to be a dress with a gathered skirt with flowers on it, it has to be made in the USA and I have to be able to afford it, unfortunately there's approximately one way to meet those qualifications, and that's to get busy. I do get around to making a dress every once in a while, but then, it's usually a nice dress that goes into the closet for going to town in. So what do I wear to mow or chase chickens? Some pretty disreputable-looking raggy outfits sometimes...
So I set out to use up some of my scraps (to please the daughter of parents who loved to tell me about the Great Depression, in which they apparently had a rollicking good time stuffing cardboard in their shoes to keep their feet off the road, etc, and rule #1 was not to throw anything away, ever) and to make something extremely casual that can be worn outside to get dirty on purpose.
Success!

Showed "this ridiculous dress" to husband and he said it was pretty.
I said I wouldn't exactly wear it in public, he said, "Why not? Have you seen some of the things they wear??"
That's not comforting!
Anyway I designed it for gardening :-)

Status of My Stash

2011-08-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

On hearing the explanation of "She who dies with the most fabric wins," one of my children exclaimed, "Mom would win that!"
Ooooooh, no. Nowhere near. Not even in the running. I have a pathetic stash compared with the actual competitors (I've read about a few of them!!) but it's about right for me. For one thing, I have no more storage space than this!
So, for the amusement of the world, here's the status of my little me-sized stash.
I have three closet shelves, each 2x2 feet square.

This pile was mostly donated by friends. There's quilt-scrap calico in the front, and behind it, several nice pieces with whimsical pictures good for curtains, aprons or scrubs, none of which I have the least use for right now, but "you never know" (the song of the clutter-bug) also some four-yard cuts of satin or sparkly fabric that could be useful in case we suddenly need an emergency evening gown in gold, pale blue or royal purple (you never know).

This shelf is nice fabric I've mostly bought over the years as I saw it for a good price, 4-6 yard pieces for making dresses out of, and some was donated. The plastic box in the middle of the stack is lace fabric and trim.

The third shelf is the solids or yard-dyed fabric that would be suitable for making medieval garb. There's a couple of dark blue or green cotton sheets in there. Am I above wearing something made of old sheets? I think I've established my level already...
And there's one piece in here that actually looks somewhat like linen! So, all of this is my SCA-picking stash.

The Clock is Back on the Wall

2011-08-29T17:31:00.000-07:00

I know, big whoop.
Hey, it's my blog, I can be as boring as I want to be.

This is the clock we inherited from DH's mother. I liked it for a lot of years and then it stopped winding. I took it to the clock place and the guy in there wanted $50 to fix it. I got cheap and brought it home, I was gonna fix it myself. He explained how to fix and gave me some tips. I got as far as taking the whole thing apart.

Then it lay on the floor under the shoe rack for the next I don't know how many years (quite a few) gathering dust and pine needles.

Last week I was having such fun making a list and checking things off it! Even writing down the most ordinary things and then checking them off, makes one feel as if one has majorly accomplished things by the end of the day. In this mood of efficiency, I spotted that clock, and gathered it up and took it down to the clock place.

I was resigned to having to pay more than that by now, the economy having started its downward spiraling motion in the meantime, but I do admit I'm not going to learn clock repair in the forseeable future.

The clock place guy was standing right there amidst the shiny beautiful clocks, I put my apart-clock on the counter and he fixed it with his fingers and proceeded to reassemble it while I held parts in place, and he charged me $20 for this.

Happy camper has the clock back in business. I really love that clock! I like that nice mellow chiming every hour and half hour. It reminds us of the progress of time.

The Motorhome my Dad Made From a Frito-Lay Truck

2011-08-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

My dad was a master mechanic, and for a project he made his own motorhome. He bought a Frito-Lay truck at auction and fixed it all up. He told me he had seen a motorhome spread across the freeway, with the people's clothes and dishes and toilet paper rolling across the lanes. He didn't want to put his family in a fiberglass shell, he wanted steel between us and the road.

He ripped the doors out of the back of the truck and put in a shaped back. Mom helped with the inside, she upholstered all the foam cushions and curtains, did wallpaper etc.

The date on one of these construction pictures is 1973, that means I was three years old, too young to have any memories of it going together.

I have those two ugly pictures of construction but not a one of the finished interior. What a pity!

Behind the driver's seat was the bathroom, which was an enclosed area with a sealed floor, for taking showers. I'm trying to remember if the toilet seat folded up out of the way, that's what my memory tells me. Next was the kitchen which included an oven, which Mom said she never once used, she should have skipped it and put an extra drawer there instead. All the cooking she did on the road was stovetop.

On the other side was a table with bench seats that made down into a bed, then a closet. In back was a table with benches all around it in a U-shape. The table was on a pole and lowered down, and the seat backs went over the table like a puzzle to make a large bed. Above the large bed there was a bunk that was mine. I loved "my" bunk, and I have a lot of great memories of the motorhome. When we were on the road I'd put all my toys and personal stuff up in the bunk. SO PEACEFUL to fall asleep while driving along, the motion and noise made me drop off to sleep instantly.

I have a clear memory of the ceiling which was some white material with a fancy pattern embossed all over it, because from my bunk I did a lot of looking at it at close range! You may notice in these pictures I'm not wearing glasses, because at that point nobody had noticed that I could focus no further than eight inches beyond my nose.

That was a classy machine and got Dad a lot of admiring, but puzzled stares. People drove by and looked all over it trying to find the make!

Karen's Latest, and My Organized Mike

2011-08-29T10:46:00.000-07:00

I always believed in nature over nurture, based on my reading and personal opinions. What would I say, maybe 75% nature and 25% nurture?
Since being a mother I'm gonna go with 95% nature.
They are BORN the way they are going to be, nothing else to it! What about Karen's amazing artistic talent? Sure, there is a good supply of ordinary-creativity and artistic skills in my family, in that when we do a project, we can make it come out looking nice. That does not explain Karen. Click the "Karen" tag to see more if you haven't been following :-)
When this daughter was three, while the other kids were still scribbling, she'd divide up her kiddie coloring pages into mosaic patterns to make them more complex, and then shade them.

She's been unhappy with the inside of our house for a while now. She didn't have a place set aside for painting, there just isn't enough room for it.
(I feel SO SO SO guilty for having a sewing area set up, and every time the Karen painting space subject came up, I'd start talking out loud about whether I shouldn't be a good mother and sacrifice my sewing area for a painting area. Then one day Karen said, "Did I ever ASK you to give up your sewing area?" It's not by a window, so it wouldn't work anyway :-)
The summer's mostly over, but she finally thought about setting her easel up on the deck, and she's been working out there for a while which is really good to see.
Here's what she came up with--

She hasn't decided yet what should be in the foreground :-)

And Mike!
Mikey is SO organized, it's really funny. He wants to know when we're leaving. "As soon as we're all ready," I say, or maybe, "When I feel like it."

That is not okay with Mike. He wants to know what time we're leaving, then he'll walk around being a human countdown timer-- "We're leaving in twenty minutes! We're leaving in ten minutes! We're leaving in five minutes!"
Where on earth did he get that?

I asked Mike to put the fish sticks on the tray with space between them, and this is what I got:

I asked Mike to wash the silverware:

I want Mike to be a fireman when he grows up. With his organization and hard work and his caring people skills, he'll have no problem, and those huge eyes and wide shoulders he's getting, he'll be on the calendar for sure.

Cleanliness, that's another thing they never inherited from me. I'm an old time shirking expert. My poor mother had an impossible time with me from birth onwards, because I was always very careful how I treated my toys, but extremely random about when or if I put them away. I definitely would never CLEAN anything. Housework? I was allergic, and if pressed and given no way out, I'd do it halfway, the first, second and third tries. It was easier for Mom to do it herself and she basically gave up.

But I asked Karen to clean the recycle basket, which was all icky with dried dribbly gunk at the bottom, and this is what I got!

You can't win 'em all.
I asked Dave to put away the dishes...
This, he got from me :-(

ModelMuse Barbie - it begins!

2011-08-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

Someone wrote me with feedback on my free Barbie strapless pattern and asked if or when I was going to make any patterns from the Barbie Modelmuse body shape. I had not up to that point even heard of the new body.
They said I should make some free patterns for her because "there's a whole untapped market there".
I went looking on ebay and found a Modelmuse shape doll for a total of $8 which is just about my right price range :-)

The new shape really is lovely! It looks much more graceful and realistic than any they've come out with before.
Rather than post nudie shots here's the full length view

Those are the shots the ebay seller provided. The dollie's lying on my ironing board right now being inspirational, and I'm totally going to make some free patterns for her, but so far she hasn't moved for like two weeks and I haven't even taken pictures of her myself. Sigh...

Gene doll dress from my free princess pattern

2011-08-16T07:54:00.000-07:00

Someone from the internet was kind enough to write and point out a problem with my pdf!
For now, I've just put back the basic jpgs that I had originally. I took time to print off a copy and make a test dress before putting the jpgs up again.

Find that pattern here: http://www.janelwashere.com/crafts/gene_patterns.htm

Here's the 2011 test. And I must say, it is a very clever pattern :-)

Quilt on the Line

2011-08-04T09:50:00.000-07:00

Told Husband that hanging the quilt out on the line was half the coolth of making it. That quilt just has to be out there draped, looking like that! It's so classic, so down-home!
He pointed out that nobody can see it.
I insisted its just being there is all it takes, I still get my Country Girl points.
But later I started to wonder...
If the quilt is out on the line and nobody sees it, do I get still points?
So-- here, world!

American Standard Version "Bible in a Year" Project

2011-07-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

I used to read the Bible through every year. I haven't for several years now. It's partly lack of time, and partly lack of patience with paper books! I've started reading books in electronic format. Most everything I want to read is out of copyright anyway, and free at Gutenberg. The Bible's free online too.
By putting the plain text on a device I have a dozen books in a tiny one-hand-size gadget. It's lighter than a book and easier to turn pages. It's so handy for reading in bed. If I fall asleep, three minutes later the gadget turns itself off.

I made a Daily Bible Reading file, very simple, just the Bible divided up into 365 chunks. I've been staying on track so far this year. It's a nice feeling to get back to that, I had missed it.
For that project I used the King James. I'm not really devoted to King James version. I chose that because I realized that I know quite a few verses simply by familiarity, and the wording that sticks in my head is KJV. It seemed logical to continue to dump more KJV in on top of what's already in there, to increase the chances of remembering more of it.

My mother's into the Holy Name. She only says Yahvah and Yahshua. I accept that she's right but it just never seemed comfortable to me to talk that way. I would have felt pretentious. Jesus is the English version and English is what we're speaking, here.
In English, even the Holy Name types say Peter and John, not Petros and Joannes. Why not use the English versions of all the names?
I do agree that God our father has a name and it occurs in the Bible like 6000 times.
It should be there! God wouldn't have said his own name over and over and over if he wanted someone to come along later and remove it for him, which is basically contradicting him.
It tells us to remember the name and call on the name!
At least there are a few verses where Jehovah appears, so that most Christians know what the name of their God is even if they're not used to hearing it much.

A couple weeks ago, I was reading along and suddenly couldn't take it any more.

It was Psalm 135:

Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the name of the LORD; praise him, O ye servants of the LORD. Ye that stand in the house of the LORD, in the courts of the house of our God. Praise the LORD; for the LORD is good: sing praises unto his name; for it is pleasant. For the LORD hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure. For I know that the LORD is great, and that our Lord is above all gods.

I mean, what? WHAT? WHAT in all capitals? My brain rebels!! WHAT are you talking about? Stop saying that! WHAT is with this substitution? If it's so important to say over and over why are we being kept away from WHAT's really there? Is it too much for our little eyes or WHAT??

It was like hitting a brick wall. I closed the Bible and wouldn't open it again until I got a better version.
I mean I turned off the reader and deleted the file, until I could get back to the desktop for a better version.

I already had the solution as a text file! It's the American Standard Version.
Not new. It's the old, original American Standard, that I discovered last year in the E-Sword Bible add-on files.

I had already bought one on ebay for less than $20, in the "hymnal" style that I like better anyway, and I could have just started reading that if I still had any patience for books in paper format. Anyway I want the daily portions divided up as an easy way to stay on track, without having to refer to a chart.

Here's the preface to explain the reasoning. This is America in 1901 before "The Great War" to begin perpetual idiocy, before "The Great Depression" to show 'em who's boss and get their heads focused on Mammon, before the even bigger slaps that were to follow those.

In 1963 the "New American" Standard Version came out, with new American values imposed. Check out their new American reason for putting "LORD" back in the text again, obscuring God's name from new American eyes. Was it because they discovered it wasn't really meant to be written there? No! Was it divine revelation that God doesn't care any more if we call him by name or not? Nope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_American_Standard_Bible
And I've never been a big fan of changing things to suit people's feelings. I think facts are whatever they may happen to be, and we can react to it as we will, not first decide what the reaction should be and tailor the facts to make that reaction the most likely one.

For the rest of us, there's the internet :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Standard_Version
There's some links at the bottom for downloading the whole thing, or I'm gonna link to my file in a minute here.

For my daily reading convenience, I spread the Psalms and Proverbs around a bit, similar to the way the One-Year Bible does. I didn't do anything so scientific, only broke the long chapters up as much as I could (for chapters that don't have a storyline) and added those sections in after each day's Old Testament portion, ending with Malachi. In my opinion the very beginning of the Bible (with the summer-movie action sequences) and the New Testament are the funnest parts to read in large chunks, so we need a little Psalms and Proverbs to lighten some of the parts in between. Of course I don't know how it works out yet, I'll let you know a year from now when I'm done reading it!

As of yesterday, July 24th, I caught back up with the right date and I'm on track.
So far, I've been enjoying it very much!

What a relief it is to be away from that coy all-capitals "LORD"!

Here "Lord" is only in the text where it means lord and it's in regular letters.
Re-reading Psalm 135 is like a breath of fresh air!

Psalm 135
Praise ye Jehovah. Praise ye the name of Jehovah; Praise him, O ye servants of Jehovah, Ye that stand in the house of Jehovah, In the courts of the house of our God. Praise ye Jehovah; for Jehovah is good: Sing praises unto his name; for it is pleasant. For Jehovah hath chosen Jacob unto himself, And Israel for his own possession. For I know that Jehovah is great, And that our Lord is above all gods.

Here's my document for download... American Standard Bible Reading Project

Chocolate Coconut Bars

2011-07-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

It doesn't get any easier than this and DELICIOUS!!!

It was so easy because we cheated a little on the recipe :-)
We didn't have any eggs, so we only baked the crust by itself in the oven, then mixed up cream cheese like for frosting, mixed in the coconut and spread it on there, then melted the chocolate in a pan. It's not easy spreading melted choc chips on top of frosting so it looks a little messy :-)

Here's the original recipe:

Chocolate Coconut Bars

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Beat together butter and sugar
Add eggs and vanilla, mix well
Stir in flour and baking powder

Pour into greased 13x9 baking pan

8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup confectioners' sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup flaked coconut

In a small mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and egg until smooth; stir in coconut. Spread over crust.

Bake at 375° for 10-15 minutes or until cream cheese mixture is set.

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup chopped nuts

Immediately sprinkle with chips. Let stand for 5 minutes; spread melted chips over the top. Sprinkle with nuts. Cool completely before cutting.

Karen's latest car scribble

2011-07-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

The silly gadget actually saved the jpg file properly this time instead of scrambling it :-)

My Garby Plans

2011-06-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

First idea was that cool pattern for making a tunic from only squares and triangles. This for example (not the original link, but that lady must've found hers at the same old link I did.) It makes sense! Of course the back-then people put so much time and effort into making their fabric, that they'd want to use every scrap of it and not have giant chunks of fabric wasted like modern patterns do. I finally tested that idea using an old bedsheet.

The results were pretty clumsy. It was too huge with underarm gussets but didn't work very well without them.

I stuffed that attempt into a box and was disgusted about it for a while. A few months later I pulled it out and realized it wasn't as bad as all that. It only needed better-shaped sleeves, and if it was made from a solid color and had some distracting trim added to it, it wouldn't be bad at all.

That's the point when I found myself unable to attend an event I had wanted to attend due to having nothing to wear. Just as impending nakedness is what it takes to motivate me to sew my regular clothes, so that piqued disappointment one fine Saturday motivated me to get on with my SCA "attempt."

Look! I have a new goal! "Medievaloid"

Something is medievaloid if it is not authentic to the middle ages, but looks medieval to the modern eye.
Dresses bought in a fantasy or renaissance faire store are usually medievaloid - they look medieval to the untrained eye but don't quite fit any one time, place or style.
In most cases, especially for beginners, medievaloid fits under the category of "best effort" and passes all but the most critical scrutiny. Where the line is between medievaloid and "just tacky" is hotly debated.

There. That's going to be the mark towards which I strive, and then I have a chance of hitting it. I'll just not waste any more time looking at the blogs (I typed "globs" at first) of these ladies who start with the sheep and end up in the 13th century.

The GOAL is to sew something, anything, that looks medievaloid to the untrained eye. And I can do that!

Actually this might be really fun. I've always liked "Princess style" better than modern anyway and this'll give me an excuse to go with it. My crayon masterpieces when I was little usually involved huge skirts and hennins. I had a gigantic paper doll collection and spent hours drawing dresses for them. Not suits and briefcases, not jeans and a t-shirt...

One of my earliest influences:

There, that's a good illustration of what can go wrong when you try to get too authentic :-D

(But if there had been no spinning allowed for the last sixteen years, what was the princess's birthday dress made out of? Imported polyester?)

First thing to do, is buy some patterns that I'll end up not using. I already had Simplicity 9929 in my collection, that I bought years ago when it was in print. I had bought it because I loved it so much, but I thought a costume party would be the only opportunity to wear something like that, and I'd surely never be invited to one. That was before I heard of the SCA or Renfaire.

That looks sooooo comfortable! Not sure about the collar though, and not sure about trying to make it without one.

Here's Andrea's dream garb:

That's probably the only pattern that will end up being used and followed :-)

But I added another for me, just for fun, since the seller was into combining shipping:

Don't know why; I'll never cut it out. I like the style, but the neckline is too huge and looks hard to alter, the skirt looks funny and those sleeves would probably end up bugging me.

After regretting that waste of $4 for a while, I got back to the drawing board. I know I can make something up. It doesn't have to be fancy, just an attempt, remember? And I'll probably just use my basic pattern that I use for everything else!

I went through my pile of pictures saved from the internet, and made a collage in wallpaper size so all those images would be staring at me from my desktop every day. Here it is in square shape. This is my collection of favorites, of outfits that I would like to wear.

(All images are stolen, so apologies to everybody. On the other hand, it is kind of a compliment? :-)

The long jumper over long-sleeve peasant blouse look, I can do that.

Here's my sketches which I keep on the ironing board and look at frequently to keep me going in a direction instead of wandering off into doubtfulness.

I'll start with the jumper idea. Here's as far as I've gotten as of last night.

I actually like that a lot. It's comfortable and feels very me. The neckline is too wide and gaps a bit, but that won't be a problem under the next layer. I'm pondering what to do with the sleeves.

The kids were confused about the hemline: "What's that hanging down part supposed to be?"
No, no, don't worry, it'll be trimmed off even!

I'm snagged at the point where I decide what to make the jumper out of. I was planning on the "gorgeous scales" fabric that I already posted about but it does seem a pity to use that for just a simple jumper. It seems like fabric that gorgeous should be made into something even more gorgeously medievaloid. It's been lying folded up on the sewing chair for a couple weeks while I give it further thought.

MUST get going though, must cut something out and make it into something! Just cut! Now!
(My standard anti-procrastination pep talk.)

Meanwhile, back to what Andrea wanted...

At an estate sale she spotted a chunk of heavenly-blue light woven $1/yd perfect for the underdress, and cut it out. I ended up sewing it together. It has raglan sleeves and a curved neckline about which the directions order with a straight face "fold over twice to form a casing" ARGH.

Had to do some wiggling with Photoshop to get the blue color to show up right.

The thrift shop had a perfect old tablecloth to use for the surcote.

I haven't cut it out yet.
That's the next step!

Quick Father's Day Greeting on Whiteboard

2011-06-26T17:42:00.000-07:00

Trying a New Craft - Braiding

2011-06-24T08:38:00.000-07:00

At the Faire there was an SCA lady demonstrating fingerloop braiding. It looked magical.

There were also several booths selling kits for kumihimo, which also looked interesting. I thought I'd look it up at the library first instead of plunking $17 for a kit, and found this really great book, which explained what I wanted to hear:

And had diagrams!

From ye olde internet, I found http://members.verizon.net/~dana_gryphon/class_beginning_kumihimo.html
Which has plenty of information to get started.
I only cut out a cardboard loom from an empty kleenex box and look what I made!

It is just fascinating how it works, and there comes the braid out the other side.
The downside: it would take For. Ev. Er. to make any length of braid this way.
This is all the further I got even after doing it (it is a very relaxing activity for the hands) a whole afternoon while we had some friends over. Oops, the picture doesn't show, but it's a sample about 6" long.
A real polished wooden stand, with the braid weighted down beneath, and a practiced worker, could probably do it a lot faster.

Back to "fingerloop braiding" which the 14th c lady had been demonstrating. She provided this link,
http://stringpage.com/braid/fl/fingerloop.html
I cut some lengths of thread and got started. It takes just a few minutes to get the hang of it and then it requires no further attention and goes like lightning.

I braided all the way down to the ends of the loops while still standing there being amazed at how cool this was. I didn't even have time to get bored. WOW! Look how pretty it comes out!! And these were just the colors of cotton thread that I happened to have in the top drawer.

Kitty in the Sun

2011-06-21T07:42:00.000-07:00

I love the shiny effect!!

Genius Kitteh Gonna Whup U at Chess

2011-06-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

Our 20th Anniversary Cake

2011-06-12T08:52:00.000-07:00

Our 20th Anniversary cake baked and decorated by Karen :-)

Karen's Reject Pile Again

2011-06-12T08:20:00.000-07:00

I found Karen at it again, cleaning out one of her filing cabinet drawers full of old pictures. Crumple, toss, crumple, toss. I found these already wadded up, and ironed them.
I come from a family of unashamed dumpster-divers :-)

The Most Beautiful Garb I've Ever Seen In My Whole Life

2011-06-08T12:02:00.000-07:00

I didn't take a picture of it.

I got all shy that day for some reason, and couldn't bear to be walking around sticking a camera in people's faces. As a friend pointed out, they spent all that time getting dressed up, they must want to be noticed! Wouldn't it be a downer to go to all that effort and then not have everybody wanting to take your picture?

But I went all shy and didn't take many pictures of people directly.

I saw a lady wearing the most gorgeous dress I've ever seen in my entire life, and I would have asked her if I could take a picture, but she was sitting at a picnic table with her family and they were deep in conversation, and I stood there a couple minutes and they didn't notice me, so I walked off.

It was Accolade-shaped, but no upper-arm band, the sleeves weren't as long and it was BLUE. It was just too pretty for words.

So I'm going to have to be poking around the internet looking for photo galleries hoping she appears in one, since she's now my elusive goal of costuming perfection.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Edmund_blair_leighton_accolade.jpg
Click that to get to the HUGE close-up version :-)

Field Guide to Happiness - Barbara Ann Kipfer

2011-06-08T09:47:00.000-07:00

I just opened a library book that one of the kids left on the bed, and read a couple things I think will help me!

I'm not sure if I'd want to read the whole book, there are some aspects that don't appeal to me.

But the couple things were gems and worth taking on their own.

Here they are:

My First Medieval Faire

2011-06-08T09:13:00.000-07:00

In line with the last post about "Playing" I've been wanting to go to a medieval event. I had an opportunity in May, when the local SCA group's Faire event seemed perfectly in line. I had the day free, I had the ride, I had the money, the kids were interested. That time, I didn't have the garb! It was an event where everybody was supposed to dress up.
I asked about Gold Key (loaner garb), but that wouldn't be available until afternoon, and my only available window was first thing in the morning the first day. Bummer. The Gold Key lady said not to worry about it, just wear regular clothes, nobody will mind. That's not what others said though, and I didn't want to be the odd man out who's ruining the view.
I spent that morning at home sewing instead, resolved to get SOMETHING together for next time. It only has to be "an attempt", the rules say so!

The Port Gamble event was two weeks later. I figured I would surely be able to get some basic garb sewn by that time. Ha!
The Port Gamble thing wasn't the kind where you have to dress up. It was sort of combined SCA and Renfaire, so the general public is admitted in their blue jeans. I was trying anyway, and I did take a few steps in a garby direction which no doubt I'll talk about in a separate post.
The day before the event, I dropped everything else and at least made the boys some tabards. These two little masterpieces were made from a chunk of green twill that I had, combined with fabrics from a white and a tan ladies' business skirts that I had meant to make into boys' pants back when the boys were small enough that there would have been enough fabric.
LOTS of zigzag right out where you can see it, but who cares, the idea is to get it done, right?
By seven p.m., when I realized the best I could crank out in a hurry the night before looked like the best I could crank out in a hurry the night before, I got so frustrated and disappointed with myself that I was actually sick to my stomach, and was using willpower not to end up in a corner crying because my life is a total waste of time and I can't get anything accomplished, etc.
The boys loved their tabards, fetched their plastic swords at once and got to yelling and whacking away at each other. They had the rest of their outfits planned out, the belts, long sleeve shirts, etc.
At least they finally had pants without holes in the knees! I've been watching their entire wardrobe of pants disintegrate while I've been failing to sew them any new ones, and the local one-shopping-option Wal-Mart continues to carry every size except theirs. But they had these two pair of tan ones, only $5 each, not bad.
(Patch the knees! suggested one friend, well I had, all of them, and then they'd ripped out again around the patches. What did Jesus say about that? Sure enough, the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse.)

And what to do about myself? What will I wear? The new jumper I just made is pretty long, and I have that dirndl-style blouse with big white sleeves. If I put that on, it'll look semi-garby, and I won't feel too self-conscious UNLESS it looks like I did "make an attempt" and this was the best I could do, which would be worse than going in blue jeans (if I owned any).

When we first drove up on the crossing road, they stopped us to let a herd of faire-goers cross the street in front of us and I was immediately comforted. Beautifully-garbed, authentic people mingled with a number of very odd, assorted characters in "costume", just a shockingly "motley crew" off to have fun, and I decided to stop worrying about what I was wearing. I was gonna fit right in! :-)

Ya gotta love that fuzzy effect. The darlings had borrowed my camera and put their fingers all over the lens, so there was a coating of some kind of snot that made that artistic, glowing aura around everything. Cool. In the bright sunlight, I couldn't tell the difference in the display.
It was only $10 to get in! I was even prepared to tell the truth, that Karen is sixteen and hence I must pay for her (15 and under were free) and I had understood that we get charged $5 extra for not being members. But I said "two adults" and they said "ten bucks" and I can live with that.
Here's Karen in loaner garb. They had a Gold Key booth right at the gate with all kinds of great clothes!
I thought about it but after all I'd seen while parking and getting up to the gate (fairies, pirates, goths, yuppies) I decided I was fine with what I had on.
Only one person commented on my outfit. She asked if we normally did black powder. She said the fabric I'd used for the jumper was perfectly period for black powder.

A guy making woodcuts. This was the SCA Arts and Sciences section where they demonstrated how they made all kinds of stuff back then. A lady was churning cream, another making cheese.
I'm a bit less modern than some people already, since we didn't have electricity when I age 12 - 16, and I loved it. I already know how to do some of these things.
Mom even got me an angora bunny once, and I was expected to brush it and make yarn of it, but I never did. I probably would have if it had been MY idea (funny about that) and now I'm suddenly wanting to get an angora bunny again! They are so fluffyyyy!!!! and Ed says he'll put up cages for bunnies if I want. Oh sure, I just totally need to devote all of my SPARE TIME to carding and spinning and the EXTRA SPACE in my house to a weaving loom, right? Don't worry, I'll think about that for a while first!

I noticed the camera problem and cleaned the lens with my sleeve.

Here's a guy showing me inkle weaving, because I asked. I've seen pictures before but I never quite got how the sheds were formed. Beautifully simple, once I see his hand actually doing it :-)

High point of Karen's day, the finding of a rhododendron bush three times as tall as herself.

Some guy was selling wooden swords made "in the Orient!" he said when I asked, but I admit they were nicely made, and only $14.

Dave was "Impressive!" at archery :-)

This guy is a 1770s highwayman, which is several centuries forward from the goal, but I think he should get the award for best male costume anyway.

Next to archery there was axe throwing! That looked like such fun! What keeps the axe from hitting handle-first? Practice and a feel for the revolutions between you and the target. Cool. The guys were having semi-good luck hitting the target, and I was all set to go over and have a try too, but by the time we got there they had stopped giving out free tries because they were setting up for a tournament.

Doesn't that look cozy?

Snackies which we had brung in our pockets. NOT getting in line for faire food, sorry.
There, you can see the zigzag.
The boonie hats are a nice touch, no?

Hi.

They did a song about "The Road to Dublin" which was great fun and so catchy that I actually listened instead of just sitting on their hay bales to eat, and clapped!

At right is the Black Knight who had a gigantic name for himself, and in a gigantic voice told everybody the name along with a medieval-sounding challenge to any who dare.
A tiny little kid toddled out and took him on with a Nerf sword. The black knight couldn't help but die in due course, to everybody's great approval.
The grown-up men who accepted his challenge weren't so fortunate!

King Joshua challenged my boys and they had a wooden sword fight which made me very nervous. I let them get in only one hit each, then they had to sit. The boy had the shorter wooden sword which we'd seen in another booth and half the guard broke right off when it got hit. It pushed back on again, and I think it can be glued nicely at home.
In Dave's hand is the little flute that he bought. I think Dave has some musical talent that isn't being fostered. I often hear him singing to himself while he plays with Legos.

More pictures of general surround:

The parking lot. How interesting, eh? Well it was a big ride to get there, and it was a big day for me!!!

Nother one of me: Hi.

This is what I bought: two little skeins of embroidery thread, and two pieces of trim.
I also bought two pairs of little silver earrings for only $5 each, one cruciform and one quadriform, kinda ancient-looking and very pretty. Can't take a picture because my card reader just messed up my memory card AGAIN and swallowed some really cool pictures... I've been downloading various software to try to fix it for free. No luck so far.
So, on we go :-)

Scrap quilt binding done

2011-06-02T07:07:00.000-07:00

Mike said, "Couldn't you just stop doing everything else, and get that done?"
So I did.
I've had the binding cut and pieced for a long time. It was quick to sew it on there. It was the everything else that had been the problem :-)

And he's put it on his bed!!! I didn't even intend it for a bedspread, it's not big enough.

A few ordinary flower snapshots at 1440 x 900 for wallpaper

2011-06-02T06:44:00.000-07:00

The photo links are below (to avoid Blogger's compression :-)

http://janelwashere.com/stuff4blog/flowers-in-front-8559.jpg

http://janelwashere.com/stuff4blog/flowers-in-front-8557.jpg

http://janelwashere.com/stuff4blog/flowers-in-front-8564.jpg

http://janelwashere.com/stuff4blog/flowers-concrete-8433.jpg

Opinions please-- up or down?

2011-05-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

Which way is "up" on this fabric? I was gonna make this into a medieval outfit. (I know it's about as authentic as a zipper, but it's what's in my stash and it's about to become medieval.)

So should the pattern be oriented this way...

or this?
Addendum, "the child" who thinks it should face down, says it WAS designed to be up, but looks better down.
Rephrase: does it look better up or down? :-)

I Blog, Therefore I Amount to Something

2011-05-11T09:50:00.000-07:00

My Mom doesn't see my blog, because she won't use a computer. Great idea-- print some of it for her! I had wanted to try out making a photobook with InDesign, so I cobbled some stuff from this blog into a layout and uploaded it.

http://www.viovio.com/

It was only $14 for a 20 page photobook, and it came out looking pretty slick. I was happy with it, and mailed it off to Mom.

Mom called t'other night to say she had read it. She must've been impressed: "I never thought you'd amount to anything, but it seems like you know how to do all kinds of things!"

I asked, "Why did you think I wouldn't amount to anything?"

She said, "Oh, because of your messy desk."

But if self-publishing is all it takes to amount to something, I've always amounted! My very first diary when I was a little kid didn't say "Keep Out", it said "I hope you enjoy this diary." :-)

Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul

2011-05-06T18:58:00.001-07:00

As usual, with books I check out from the library, I only found time to read a couple chapters of it on my way out the door to bring it back.
What I got from the little bit I read was extremely enlightening and maybe even life-changing. I need to prioritize "playtime" for myself, not just the kids?
Yes, really.

When I think about "playing" on purpose, as defined by the book, I feel something best described as a whiff of fresh air, as a sign of hope.
I often wonder if backwoods equals backwards, and I've been in the woods a whole lot. Just a natural hermit I guess, I'm more comfortable among trees than among people, but you can't stay in the woods ALL the time!

Here's Stuart Brown defining "play" for a group of engineers:

PLAY by Stuart Brown, M.D.

The Institute for Play

Video:
A pioneer in research on play, Dr. Stuart Brown says humor, games, roughhousing, flirtation and fantasy are more than just fun. Plenty of play in childhood makes for happy, smart adults -- and keeping it up can make us smarter at any age.

Pansy wallpaper 1440 x 900

2011-04-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

Click for 1440 x 900 version.
I've had to make and collect all new wallpaper for my new monitor!

I LOVE my new monitor-- it's an ASUS from Newegg that only set me back $100. The colors are deep and beautiful, not glary at all and shows all the shades of grey down to white.

It's so much nicer than the one I had before, that I'm glad the old one died :-)

Ironing is overrated too

2011-04-27T09:10:00.000-07:00

I didn't really want to sew anyway

2011-04-27T08:56:00.000-07:00

Jumper done - and you don't notice the patchwork!

2011-04-25T13:14:00.001-07:00

Patchwork Dress - this is not what they meant

2011-04-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

Go me! Another masterpiece cut out with no thought for fabric allowance!
I knew four yards wouldn't be enough for this but started carving anyway. The second to last piece has a seam in the middle and the very last piece looks quite interesting from the wrong side. It's okay, it's a floral, nobody'll ever notice!!!

I have SUCH a problem with getting my act together and getting started on projects! Yet, I require some sense of accomplishment or my self-respect nosedives. I've been needing some new clothes for a while now and haven't gotten started making any.
This morning I had a whim to sew myself a jumper before leaving. Didn't manage that of course, but at least I got one all cut out which is a quantifiable, documented step in the right direction.
Tomorrow I'll sew it, God willing.

Eggless, Milkless Peanut Butter Cookies

2011-04-20T09:09:00.000-07:00

Those butt-ugly black chickens (Australorps don't stay cute for long) haven't started laying yet and I don't trust the cow milk not to be radioactive, so I quit buying it.

I basically threw flour, butter, peanut butter and honey together with some baking powder and baked it, but I did take the trouble to measure as stuff went in! Just in case I had a winner. And I did! They were great!

1 and 1/3 sticks of butter (not cups)
3 and 2/3 cup wheat flour plus 1 cup barley flour that I found in a baggie
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 of a 36 oz jar peanut butter
1 and 1/4 cup honey

I scooped them from an old ice cream scoop that has its handle broken off but I still use for cookies because it still works better than two spoons, flattened them with my hand (they're for family) and baked at 400 for 6 minutes with the fan on.
The fan does make a difference!
And boy, that oven cooks better since I got it fixed. Duh, right? It's had a bad thermostat for like two years now and I was too cheap to get it fixed. It would take forever to preheat, but I'd just turn on the broiler to speed things up and then it would limp through.
It cost TWO HUNDRED BUCKS for the guy to come out, but I admit it's nice to have the cookies come out right again :-)

Someone else's great free Barbie dress pattern to print

2011-03-28T07:49:00.000-07:00

Isn't that pretty? And the tutorial looks better than mine :-)

http://mellebugandme.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/vintage-barbie-doll-dress-tutorial/

Check out her lovely blog for other projects and stuff for sale!

Cardboard Device Holds Buttons for Sewing

2011-03-27T16:51:00.000-07:00

Here's the gadgie I made out of cardboard for sewing on buttons.
It holds the button still, and lifts it above the fabric so the thread forms a shank.
The two pen lines are where the edge of the fabric should be, to keep all the buttons the same distance from the edge.
Pretty cool, no?

Three-Cycled Washcloths

2011-03-27T15:25:00.000-07:00

So, our money's been devalued and all the factories are in China! Now that the debt bubble's burst, cheap imported crap isn't gonna be so cheap any more.

I needed more washcloths, and after putting it off for about a year, I went shopping. There's some as thick and luxurious as tissue paper for $3, or halfway decent ones for $7.

Long ago I made bathrobes for the children out of bath towels. Three towels made a nice robe and the price was reasonable, even for good quality towels. After fifteen years of use the robes are outgrown and shreddy around the hoods, but the rest of the towel fabric is still thick and nice. I hated to throw that away.

Old towel-bathrobe too disreputable to give away:

Sleeve to washcloth:

They serge the edges of real washcloths, too.

If only I had not been too lazy to change the serger thread.

Eight washcloths for $0

Boy pants

2011-03-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

I thought my boys would grow up and not want to wear homemade pants any more. Nope, they say they prefer mine, and don't want store-bought pants. Mine are more comfortable!
The seams up the middle were the seams of the denim skirt I cut up to make these.

Inskyfied Birthday Cake

2011-03-25T20:23:00.000-07:00

I let Karen loose with a tube of frosting!

This is why I'm in a hurry with the bed quilt

2011-03-25T19:41:00.000-07:00

Because my old quilt is shredding!!! Shredding evenly all over the surface!
And I cannot buy a new one, or I'd be admitting failure. I'm going to make a new quilt for my bed, before the old one falls into rags on the bedroom floor.
The clock's ticking :-)

ISO the brown fabric I ran out of

2011-03-24T19:48:00.000-07:00

Yay! Nice floral fabric on sale for $2 / yd!
So I bought all they had and cut out a dress for myself, with a tiered skirt. Fabric allowance? Who knows, I just cut a pile of straight pieces for the tiers and it looked like a big pile :-D
Got the top done and the first tier before I realized I don't have anywhere near enough. Walmart's all out of it, and I've checked three local Walmarts. It was already on the discount pile when I found it and there was some lag time before I cut it, so it's really all gone by now.

Perchance anybody out there in Net-land have more of this particular fabric?

Free motion quilting done!

2011-03-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

And my scrap quilt is done and QUILTED! Go me!

Machine Quilting Five Minutes Later

2011-02-23T16:16:00.000-08:00

Since this is a scrap quilt for cuddliness and doesn't matter, I thought I'd try my amazing new free motion quilting skillz on it.

This was the very first try, smack in the middle of the quilt. It took only a couple minutes and look how pretty it came out!
I had one goof-up that I had to restitch, and one broken thread.
Since taking the pictures I've done a bunch more sections with no goofs and no broken threads. At this rate the whole thing will be done in no time.
It's easier than trying to crisscross the blocks or stitch in the ditch-- why? Because without the machine presser foot, the layers move freely around and any scooting evens out instead of compounding as you get further. Also, since there's just one area being worked on at a time,there's less muscling of that mass of rolled quilt around inside the machine!

This is How We Make a Quilt Out of SCRAPS

2011-02-22T13:16:00.000-08:00

As I said, when I finished Mike's quilt, I thought I was doing something really nice and selfless by opening up a real store-bought batting to trim down to size for it. But the result was so thin and useless I was almost ashamed to give it to him.

For the next effort I'm more certain about using "junk" for the batting! One layer of a Disney Ariel flannel sheet I got at the free swap (I despise that character) and one layer of old cotton thermal weave blanket. Already you can tell this is going to be a NICE thick, warm quilt.

Right now it's gotten as far as lining up and pinning the layers, which is the hard part!

Oh boy, will you (please, not) look at the sloppy lining up job on the back of those pieces! I used some 3.5" squares I got at the free swap, with some 4" squares that were new, and didn't bother to trim. Whenever I accidentally got a seam pushed over the wrong way, I snipped it.
Casually.
*gasp* Not going to make it into the quilting guild, I bet...

Australorps in the Mail

2011-02-22T12:09:00.000-08:00

So stinking cute!!!

And they are Ed's project, so I know I won't hear a word of complaint no matter how literal that second word gets :-)

Gorgeous Walk It Out scenery

2011-02-04T10:33:00.000-08:00

I'm done with the whole island!

Total steps: 561957
Total distance: 160 miles
Total play time: 78:26
Rainbows completed: 71

There's one new rainbow every day!

At the end, basically NOTHING happens.
I got a shot of what the trainer says.

And that's it! Luckily the play is the point. If we had been doing all this trying to achieve some goal at the end, we would be very underwhelmed.

That's okay, I restarted a new profile at once. I'm doing the whole thing over again, but this time on Easy instead of Normal capsule value. It's actually very motivating!

Here's a couple of early morning views from my new island.

Note, why the Suspension Bridge shows up at 2000-- I clicked it accidentally, and didn't want to buy it. The value on Easy level is only 300 steps. I had to switch to Very Hard level for just a minute until I could walk over to find some other capsules and knock that one out of my queue before completing it!

Two Bright Light Ideas

2011-02-04T09:15:00.000-08:00

I read all the "build your own 10,000 lux bright light therapy boxes" and they're great-- but they all involve building. I went on a tour of Home Depot to see what I might be able to come up with instead. One of the associates said his friend had made one for his wife, and showed me the gigantic fluorescent light array he had used for theirs. It was a six-bulb thing that took up, like, a whole wall. He insisted it was supposed to be a certain temperature of light that you could only get that from those long, full-size fluorescent bulbs, but all the research I've been reading, particularly from this book "The Depression Cure" (great book, by the way, it's a six-step program; one of the steps is therapy light, one's CULTIVATE THE COMPANY OF OTHER HUMAN BEINGS-- I'm still working on that) says it only needs to be white light.

In the book, he mentions a certain model of therapy light, and I found that on Amazon, I also found another like it but better quality and doesn't have the complaints about bad smell or tipping over like that the recommended model has. The only downside was the price *choke gack* $200!!!

At that point is when I went to Home Depot to see what I could come up with instead (yes, got this narrative a little out of order :-)
I thought I might use one of those four-bulb bathroom vanity mirror fixtures. The trouble was, after perusing the selection of light bulbs and comparing lumens and wattage, I realized the vanity fixture only takes 100 watt bulbs and I'm gonna need something heftier. They also sell basic sockets that you can use to build your own, but there we're back to building again, so we either have to get into cabinetry or end up with something that looks homemade.
DH had been following me around from idea to idea, just observing, but at this point he started picking up stuff from the shelves and throwing it into the cart. Yay! I only had to pick a color!
These outdoor floodlight fixtures come in black, grey, brown or white.

The bulbs are 2,780 lumens each, so 8340 lumens. The lux conversion is a tricky thing so I'm gonna go with "we've got quite a lot of light going on here."
We probably won't have 10,000 lux, but I've seen therapy lights that were only 6,000 lux, and we'll have more than that.

Once all plugged in the effect reminds me of Dr. Octavius the Spider-Man supervillain, "The power of the sun!! Harnessed for the good of mankind!!!"
It really does seem like a tiny sliver of sol for our personal cheerment. In this picture below, the rest of the room is NOT dark. That's all my digicam could handle :-)
You can't possibly look directly at it, but you're not supposed to, you're supposed to eat or read or do whatever in its light for half an hour a day. It's actually TOO BRIGHT for me, so I gave up after a session or two, but Karen's been using it every morning for a couple weeks now and she loves it.
And the cost was $31...

The other bright idea was something I happened across while searching for therapy lights.

I had read about those before and wanted one, but wouldn't spend the money. How cool it would be to wake up to nothing more than light!
While I was in do-it-yerself mode that brought on another bright idea-- I just plugged a little table lamp into a light timer. I had both a light timer and a table lamp lying around the premises, so the cost of that idea was an even-better $0.
It works just fine! I wake up in the morning now to the delightful sound of peace and quiet, and soft light, AND a feeling of smug complacency, "Oh, the cleverness of me!" :-)

Wild and Wonderful Fleece Animals - Linda Carr

2011-02-04T07:47:00.000-08:00

Wow, only ten bucks?? And the hardbound version which is really nice, that's only $14.
I'd gone looking for it on Ebay after borrowing it from the library, and couldn't find it for anywhere near that price... I'm gonna go buy that right now!
I digress, I was just gonna share the pics of what Andrea made with it :-)

It's a COOL book! Andrea opened it right up, traced the patterns and cut out this little bear, and it went together with only a little help from me.

And then I embroidered the nose and mouth. Mike told me it didn't look good and I was supposed to do it like the picture. Gotta love honest little kids :-)

The new spiral skirts in Simplicity, Butterick, McCalls

2011-02-01T09:39:00.000-08:00

Was online t'other day looking at the big three websites for an unrelated pattern, and I noticed some spirals...

Simplicity 2416 and Butterick 5042
They both look really cool! If I hadn't already made up my own I would totally buy one of these :-)

star

And a wannabe, McCalls 5056. It caught my eye but it's not a spiral at all. They've colored the illustration to look like it is! Isn't that silly?

Barbie "Be a Real Fashion Designer"

2011-01-16T16:55:00.000-08:00

I had a $20 coupon from Mattel. What to spend it on? Well, it would have to be something that we would never buy otherwise!
So Andrea got this kit. I never would have spent money on this. It was kinda fun though. We had a good time decorating. You get five simple dresses and a bunch of stickers and glitter to put on them. It's a good concept. My biggest complaint would be that the dresses aren't very well made-- photo of back of the purple dress is to prove that-- if I made a dress that came out like that I'd call it a do-over!
I'm going to make a few more simple Barbie dresses so she can use up the rest of the stuff that came in the kit. That's the plan anyway, don't hold your breath for it happening :-)

PS, forgot to mention how I got a $20 coupon from Mattel! I bought Apples to Apples for Christmas, and the bottommost card in one of the decks looked like it had been through a machine. I sent it to them and asked for a new one (it was the "chocolate bonbons" card or I wouldn't have bothered) and they sent me the coupon instead. Lazy bastards!

Free Motion Quilting - I got it!!!

2011-01-16T13:14:00.000-08:00

My attempts at free motion quilting before have had bad results. It was all tangled thread and broken needles. I managed to make it work, once, a little, which came out very awkward looking, as if a wrestling match had taken place between me and the machine (which isn't far from the truth).

Was thinking of taking a quilting class next month. I wouldn't usually, because there aren't many things I can't figure out on my own, but I was seriously having no luck with this and decided to actually pay for help. Reading the supply list for the class, and it says I have to have a walking foot and darning foot. My lovely gift from God, that Pfaff, has the IDT built in, so I don't need a walking foot. It came with a darning foot too. Light bulbs started going on. I knew the Pfaff had a "free motion quilting foot" available, but I hadn't gotten to the point of purchasing it yet. But what about the darning foot?

I hadn't carefully read the instructions in the Pfaff manual for darning before; I read them now. "Darning" is free motion, that's the whole idea. There's a special setting on the Pfaff for darning, wherein the presser foot is half lowered and the thread tension is engaged. Lower the feed dogs and away you go. I tried it and it worked perfectly!

Can NOT believe how simple this is. Amazing once you get it right. Amazing what the German engineers built in there for our handy dandy stitching pleasure (that's my favorite part).

It's a breeze! Just like one of the Youtube ladies said in a video that didn't help me at all, "It's just like doodling."

Mike's quilt is done!

2011-01-11T13:15:00.000-08:00

Done, bound and quilted.

Photoshop...

2010-12-30T20:12:00.000-08:00

Before and after!

Showing off my awesome Photoshop skillz

2010-12-16T09:27:00.000-08:00

A five minute job anyway. I should have added some shadow under the edge of the sweatshirt. Oops :-)

Young artist scribbling on Paint while bored in the car

2010-12-16T09:17:00.000-08:00

Horse skirt

2010-12-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

Walk It Out

2010-12-01T06:48:00.000-08:00

So now, at least three people are going to buy it based on my say-so! I'm especially glad because more sales means more chance of a WIO2!

Last night I was riding in the car in the dark along a winding country road, and two road signs came up and when I first got a glimpse of them as glowing blobs on the landscape, my brain said, "I think one of those event capsules is a clock piece! Get it!"

They were not event capsules of course, they were road signs, and just because the WIO music is going in my head, doesn't mean this is not reality :-)

Which when I explained to the kids they had a good laugh about. You know you're addicted when...

Anyway to those of you who want more detailed technical information before / because of purchasing here's a wonderful guide a lady wrote out:

http://www.amazon.com/Unofficial-guide-Step-ongoing-process/forum/Fx3D6Y0C9JV7D8O/Tx37KE7PXPWBWTP/1/ref=cm_cd_dp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B002CZ7P04&store=videogames

At the bottom of the page is a listing of more discussions. So there's the answer to pretty much every question! But the game starts off very basic, it's easy to do a few things right away, and figure it out as you go along. I thought it was very funny when DH the other day, after watching what I was doing for a while, burst out in accusing tones, "You're just playing that dumb game! The rest is peripheral!"

Yes.

This is his idea of what a workout should be. I'm not advertising this so don't click.

He has no respect for a "workout" that consists of jogging along with a game controller in each hand! Whatever, I end up sweating and I don't mind doing it every day; it's got to be better for me than just sitting in front of my computer bitching about stuff.

I don't even mind if my game and I provide him as much amusement as the game does me, which says something about how much I'm enjoying it, because usually my mockery tolerance level is sub-basement... but I get so into my dumb game that I don't even care who's laughing at me!

Here's the famous map...

See the words "Waterfront" and "Upscale"? If you draw a line between the o and the U, the line passes through a slightly darker blob just above the road. That's where the church is. The lot where the church will be built has a short cast-iron fence around it, I'm pretty sure it's the only fence like that in the game.

The map is one of my favorite parts of the game! I love maps, and it's great fun to take a look at the map each morning to see where the rainbow pieces are, and then try to go around and get them all without having to look at the map again.

Oh, just found this: no word yet on WIO2.

I hope the medical / therapy community is paying attention to this game! This would be EXACTLY what bedridden, injured, or very old people should have for therapy. There's several really slow songs. Some are just too slow for me; I can't walk any more slowly than "Love Will Be Waiting" or "How Do You Sleep" and I've turned all the slower ones off, but someone doing therapy could. And in this game practically any rhythmic movement can be sensed by the game as "walking" and let you get through it so it's very adaptable to anybody's needs, and the bright, inviting world to explore would tempt them to try. You could even lie in bed and shake the controller in your hand. I saw a thing about an 800 lb lady who couldn't manage any more exercise at first than clapping, but that's how she got started and was her first step on the path to recovery. I hope medical magazines are having articles and reviews of this so therapists will get it for their patients??

More snow pics

2010-11-29T17:35:00.000-08:00

Just in case you don't have enough snow at YOUR place??

Mike quilt blocks layout

2010-11-29T15:34:00.000-08:00

My friend who came over and saw some of the blocks stitched together, said, "That's not as horrible as it looked in the picture" :-D

And here, arranged the way they're going to be, it's not horrible at all!

Using willpower to NOT exercise

2010-11-29T13:57:00.000-08:00

Walk It Out! is so much fun! It's easy to walk for an hour and a half because you lose track of time and get into it. They were (fiendishly??) clever to not have a timer anywhere in the game! The idea is to lose track of time and just jog along collecting points and building the island. It's happened several times that I still think I'm having fun, and then suddenly realize I'm so tired I can barely take another step. That's when it's time to stop. I've been walking twice a day, but I'm going to have to reduce that to once; I had been getting away with "just a little while before I go to bed, it'll help me sleep better!" during this four-day Thanksgiving weekend but now that we're back to regular schedule I just can't spare that much time. So I'll have to be content with just walking once a day...
Imagine what a reversal! Now we're using willpower to NOT exercise!
Rhythm Island is so gorgeous at night, too. If you turn on the program at eight pm, it's dark, the streetlamps are lit and the stars are out! But luckily, there's a "magic clock" that changes the time, so you can walk at night anytime.
It's the perfect world. I wonder if some of its seduction is that it's an idealized fantasy land, peaceful and free, where you can go anywhere you want, and be safe at any time of day or night.
The Japanese who made it were kind enough to include a church in the plan! I've found the church, but haven't bought it yet. I've heard that there's a wedding going on :-)
The island has a sports stadium, apartments, housing area, shopping area, ranches with farmhouses, flower fields and a mountain path, lighthouse, beach with shops, and a church-- no city hall, no courthouse, no school, no police station, no bar! I think that's just about everything we need. Let's all move to that island!!!
Well, at least we can visit.
Addendum, I got the church, and took pictures. I'll put those on the other blog :-)

My free Barbie pattern: Mailbag bonanza!

2010-11-29T11:25:00.000-08:00

I love it when people send me pictures of what they've made with my patterns!

Kristi writes:

I’ve been sewing like crazy the last week to make a nice big supply of dresses for my daughter’s Christmas present. I wanted to share again. And I’ve made even MORE since I took this picture and added more ribbons and sparkles to some of the dresses here. I’ve also come up with a simple lazy way to make sleeves that are seen on some of these dresses. You can see it on the plaid Christmas dress. I basically sew a tube of fabric and pin it into the bodice before I sew it together. I’m going to try to add long sleeves next! Thanks again for the fun pattern. I think I am having more fun than my daughter!

And look at the wonderful pictures she sent me!

Walk It Out for Wii - what a fun way to exercise!

2010-11-20T11:32:00.000-08:00

People from dark rainy Washington, like me, you have GOT to check out this game! Imagine a sunny, gorgeous island to explore, as you walk along in time to cheerful music, collecting tokens to build up stuff all around and unlock more paths.
I tried Wii Sports Resort, it's cute and everything, but feels like a waste of time, and I didn't end up playing. I've investigated the dancing programs but I knew they wouldn't motivate me. I'm not into dancing. But I LOVE walking along exploring! I love maps!
I read the reviews on this, and it just sounded so totally me that I plopped the $30. The game came two days ago and I'm not disappointed, I already know I'm going to love this.
The kids have been playing nonstop, taking turns. Mike walked seven miles yesterday and five miles this morning. Thank goodness there's six profile slots or somebody in this family would be out of luck!
(Ed doesn't want a slot, he already walks 500 miles at work :-)
Me, I can barely go a mile before I'm pooped, but when I stop, it's from sheer tiredness and NOT from boredom. It takes willpower to go twenty minutes staring into space on a treadmill, but playing this game, I have to stop because I can't take another step! And then I hate stopping, because I was having a BLAST!
(Note, I think the game calculates mileage a little short-- if you go by the actual number of steps, you've gone further than that :-)
I didn't realize I was so out of shape! But I feel so cheered and inspired by the prospect of having this game to play every day, that I can't wait to play some more and GET in shape so I can jog around longer and see more of the island every day.
I just now stopped and took a moment to type this. I'll try again a bit later, as soon as I can, because it's just SO FUN!!!
I wondered if walking in place would get boring. It doesn't! Sometimes you can march in place, but for the faster songs you have to speed up. I found I can only go fast enough by jogging in place. As I get more used to it, I'll be able to keep up better! So it is great exercise!
Some people say they use a mini-trampoline, and I think that would work fine. Being overweight and out of shape (right now, soon to change!) I get knee pain easily. So I might try that, or get one of those padded mats they sell for standing in front of the kitchen sink.

Here's the video review that convinced me to get it! Among other things they let you know that you can turn off songs if you don't like them. You will NOT get stuck with some horrible rap song! Most of the songs are okay though, just very upbeat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbvP2I1nh8s

Another great review,
http://www.nutwiisystem.com/blog/review-of-walk-it-out-for-wii-by-konami.html

And more videos:
http://www.konami.com/walkitout

I want to do my little bit to publicize the game, because it's not very well known right now, but it should be! More people should know about this, especially older people! Forget shooting, solving puzzles, competing at games. Here you just walk, and the people wave at you as you go by! So it's calming and soothing, at the same time lifts your spirits and you get a great workout!

Unfinished painting on a wall

2010-11-17T08:15:00.001-08:00

Unfinished, unfortunately, and what's worse, since it was drawn directly on sheetrock, it'll have to stay that way! But still worth a look. Look at the tiny details, the bench, the lantern, and there would have been a duck, lizard, floating water lilies...

Mike quilt update - okay and horrible

2010-11-14T08:16:00.000-08:00

The design got simpler! And I'm having a pretty good time getting these pieces together. I think this'll work out.
I can't do any math for this because it's all going by how much fabric I have. There'll be as many nine patch squares as it turns out I have green fabric for :-)
I have a large amount of the red calico which WAS going to be for the backing, but I put it as sashing to increase contrast. I've finally gotten Mike to admit that we need more contrast!

Here's the results so far.
HORRIBLE! N'est ce pas?

Taco Salad with Kettle Tias

2010-11-13T18:42:00.000-08:00

Idea of what to do with them:

whole bag of Kettle Tias Nacho chips crunched down to fine bits
shredded lettuce
olives
taco meat
avocadoes
grated colby cheese
for the dressing, a carton of sour cream thinned down just a little with milk

All just mixed together in a bowl! The kids LOVED it! We all loved it so much I waited one night, just for decency's sake, then made it again :-)

Found Spirals

2010-11-13T17:36:00.000-08:00

I've had a saved search on Ebay for "spiral skirt" for a long time. Besides the Birch Street, there isn't much out there.
Yes, I did list mine once, and it didn't sell!

I found these under "square dance", not even tagged with the keyword "spiral"!

Same background for both, so somebody's making them to sell...
I wonder if there's a pattern out there I don't know about, or they made up their own?

My second Singer got fixed!

2010-11-12T10:38:00.000-08:00

The motor went out, and it's been sitting downstairs for more than a year, waiting for me to find time to look at it. But I really don't know what I'm doing with motors anyway!
However I found a nice lady who works on sewing machines, knows what she's doing, and fixed the whole thing right as rain for $43.
I'm so tickled to have this one back and working again!
Our friends gave this to me, complete with all the dozens of attachments that came with it (including a ruffler, which came standard!) and all the pattern cams. It's got all metal gears inside and is "ENTIRELY MADE IN AMERICA" as the manual boasts!

Singer 403

Kettle Tias Nachos Chips: Share the Love

2010-11-10T09:19:00.000-08:00

Kettle Tias, rather new to the shelf, and Ed brought me home a bag to try (knowing my devotion to nachos)

I wrote the company a fangirl email thus:

LOVE the Kettle Tias nacho flavor.
I was SO mad when they quit making Natural Doritos after only a short while. For a while there it was like Doritos had come back, then they stopped. That was a bummer.

Your Kettle Tias are about 80% as good as Natural Doritos which is far better than most brands.
PLEASE don't stop making them! Finally we have something good to use for our homemade nachos!
THANK YOU!!!!

And they just sent me an adorable thank you note, with coupons.
I think I should up the love level to 95% :-)

Check out the products here,
http://www.kettlebrand.com/our_products/tias_/

After all, what did Doritos ever do for me? They never sent me a thank-you note, only stopped making their stupid product just when I'd decided I loved it.
That phone call to Lay's a few years ago was quite interesting. She told me they'd stopped making Natural Doritos simply because of lack of interest. Not enough people bought them. I whined, "But what about me? Why can't you keep on making them for me?"
Seriously, if they had warned me they were going to stop, I would have bought... like... at least as many cases as I could fit into my van.
Anyway, she told me they had had a line of potato chips with less salt, which had been sold in the regular potato chip aisle (I wouldn't have seen it, I only shop in the natural aisle) but they'd stopped making that, too, because nobody bought it. She had a line or two to share about the perversity of the American public, who SAY they want to eat healthier, but in actuality don't care enough even to buy Lay's potato chips with less salt, even though they tasted every bit as good and were marketed right next to the regular kind.

French Braid quilt pattern

2010-11-09T13:21:00.000-08:00

I was walking by as a lady was making this design, and she explained it to me.
Basically, a center square, then a strip the same width sewn to one side of it, then another strip with a little square, and repeat as long as you want. It's okay that the sections have jagged edges, they'll be trimmed.
Isn't this a fun idea?

idea for Mike's quilt

2010-11-08T12:26:00.000-08:00

Dave made a quilt so Mike's got to have one too. He asks me about it quite often, overlooking the important detail that Dave (more or less!!) made his own. Mike's not inclined to sewing, but is waiting for his quilt because Mom DID say he could have one too.

I think I'll do an actual pattern for his! I've got to to add some interest, because I hate the fabrics he picked! But the pattern's got to be about as simple as it can get.

I'm gonna do the center patches 2", and see how large those squares come out, then cut the plain fabric squares the same size. Adding sashing between makes it fancier and easier. I can do this :-)

Very rough approximation of the tone of the fabrics chosen by Mikey, which, as I said, are NOT exactly inspirational to me. I don't like any of 'em very much, but I don't mind the sleigh one at top left because I like the whole snowy woods theme, or the lower right because it's got a little bit of a Germanic vibe to it. But I sure don't like 'em all together!

Most favorite fabrics quilt

2010-10-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

I need a new quilt for my bed, and I decided I would make it out of only fabrics I LOVE, whether they really went together or not. I have a bunch of scraps of all different sizes, and some larger pieces, of these most-liked fabrics.

I worried for a while because I felt that a bed quilt should be a masterpiece! It should have a fancy pattern. I had to talk to myself for quite a while before I gave myself permission to start cutting another non-masterpiece. Had to use some reasoning: who's this quilt really for? :-)

The scraps won. I have a couple of scraps I totally heart, but not in large enough amounts to make into any sort of logical pattern. The only way to work them all in is randomly.

I've started making string squares. Gonna need quite a few for a queen size quilt.

There you have it, fabrics I ♥love♥

Using the twelve squares I have so far, here's the idea of how it will look!

For the back, I'm gonna alternate big squares of my favorite tones of pink and black floral. Don't know if I'll have enough pink, so that might have to be modified. I have plenty of different kinds of black floral, so I might have to add green or blue squares to the pink in a nice pattern.

Sewing Buddies

2010-10-22T12:42:00.000-07:00

THIS is the ultimate sewing room accessory. Sewing boys!

Here's Dave's quilt going together:

And done. Dave said, "It works!!"
It's always a grand moment when a quilt is tested and functions as designed :-)

Crime Cover-up Fail

2010-09-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

Taking Mom's sewing scissors without permission is forbidden. Using Mom's sewing scissors for anything other than fabric is forbidden and here we have a two-fer :-)

Long ago I stayed at some people's house and one evening they took me shopping with them. The Mom bought a nice new pair of scissors from a fabric store and we all heard her give a STERN lecture on what would happen to any of her children who touched the sewing scissors without permission or who used them to cut anything but fabric. Oh yes, her thirteen-year-old son was present!
The next morning I walked up their driveway and there in the dirt in front of the porch were the new sewing scissors and a roll of nylon rope with several shorter pieces that had been cut from it.
I remember standing there taking stock of my age and position. I was eighteen; did that put me on the side of the adults or the kids? If I was an adult, then I needed to go tell the mother about this right away, but I couldn't quite see my way clear to rat on a poor thirteen year old kid I'd been playing outside with all that week.
Hahaha, his younger sister came along right after me, took just one glimpse at that scene and it was "MAAAAWWWWMMMM!!!!"

Finding this on the stairs definitely reminded me of that and made me smile. Little boys really don't have much sense of self-preservation, do they?

What I fished out of the garbage

2010-09-07T07:50:00.000-07:00

You know there's an artist in the house when THIS is what doesn't make the grade, and ends up in the trash!

Free Bible Study Software

2010-08-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

I did a bit of comparing and also tried several Bible study software suites. This one's the best AND free.

http://www.e-sword.net/

There's a mobile version for Pocket PC and it works GREAT. I had free Olive Tree for mobile too, but ended up uninstalling it. This just works better, and is really easy to navigate.

String quilt done

2010-08-25T14:38:00.000-07:00

I just folded over a bias strip and zigzagged through all the layers. Only one short section came out lopsided enough to merit picking it out and straightening it. And it's done! Well, hey, it's that or lay there on the shelf for another few weeks!

Dave gets this one and he loves it!

Word for the day: WAIN

2010-08-17T07:07:00.000-07:00

I read in Spurgeon this morning:
"The firstfruits were the pledge of the harvest. As soon as the Israelite had plucked the first handful of ripe ears, he looked forward with glad anticipation to the time when the wain should creak beneath the sheaves."

I've read of wainscoting and figured from the context that it was something on a wall, but hadn't ever looked it up, and hadn't ever heard of a "wain" before...

WAIN

a large and heavy vehicle for farm use : WAGON, CART *a hay wain on a meadow*

WAINSCOT
from Middle Dutch wagenschot, probably from wagen cart + schot shot, crossbar, wooden partition; akin to Old English shot

Britain: a fine grade of oak imported for woodwork
(1): a wooden lining of an interior wall usually paneled
(2): a lining of an interior wall irrespective of material *a tile wainscot*
c: the lower three or four feet of an interior wall when finished differently from the remainder of the wall (as with wood panels, tile, or marble slabs)

WAINSCOT
transitive verb

to line (as a wall) with or as if with boards or paneling
*wainscoted with looking glass*

So that's the proper term for the walls in the dinette of the house I grew up. The lower half was paneling with wood patterns, and the upper half was wallpaper.

Cool.

Duct tape can't fix that

2010-08-11T06:53:00.000-07:00

Nope!
There is never a reason to say "Duct tape can't fix that!"

I had to fish the two halves of the shattered pencil sharpener container out of the garbage to fix them. One of my kids obviously lacked duct-tape imagination :-)