Not Much Tonight . . .

Hubby has a date with a colon scope tomorrow afternoon, and I'm sure you know what that means: Lots of fun "prep" this afternoon and evening. Besides that, I haven't felt very well today either--I'm calling it "sympathy pains." Sheesh! It almost makes me wonder if Hubby "spiked" my dinner last night, thinking it would be pretty funny if I had to experience the same thing he did! But no, I doubt it. Suffice it to say, though, that I'm happy this is a two bathroom house! Too much information, I suspect, but I wanted to let you know why I'm not very entertaining tonight. In fact, the sooner I can get myself to bed, the better.

I CAN show you one thing though. Remember the hat pincushions I made for the students who took my Hat Party class? Well, I used the same general idea and made these pincushions last weekend for my Hey Ghoul Friend students--

I think I gave you some directions for making the other hat pincushions. If you're interested in making these pincushions for friends for Halloween, here's what I did differently.

First, for each hat, I cut a triangle from fabric with a 12" long base and height of 8" from the center of the base to the top point of the triangle (imagine an upside down "T"). From the top center point of the triangle, I drew an 8" arc--in other words, I measured from the top point down 8" toward the base and marked several different points that were 8" from the point. I connected those "dots" to get curved line. I then trimmed the excess fabric away. After that, right sides together, I sewed a seam from the base up to the center point of the triangle and turned the resulting "cone" right side out. I stuffed the top of the hat with fiberfill and sewed a line half way across the stuffed hat, a couple inches down from the point, to make it bend a little bit. I then stuck a half of a 3" styrofoam ball in the bottom portion of the "cone" and glued the fabric to the bottom of the ball. The rest was the same as the other hat pincushions--covering a cardboard circle with fabric for the brim and using a glue gun to secure the fabric to the cardboard circle and attaching it to the "cone" part of the hat. And, of course, adding embellishments.

I wish I had taken photos of the process, but I just didn't think about it--shame on me! I really should know better by now.

I hope this makes some sense--I'm tired and barely able to stay awake tonight. My bed is calling. 1-800-lay-onme. See you tomorrow!

A Miscellaneous Bag of Banter

I have various bits and pieces of stuff I wanted to mention, none of which makes a very cohesive blog subject, but here it is anyway.

It's been REALLY HOT here the last several days--our Delta breeze finally blew in this evening, and it's much nicer now. But on Friday, when I got off work and started thinking about what I was going to cook over the weekend, stuff like BBQ, corn on the cobb, and guacamole came to mind, so I stopped in at Trader Joe's and loaded up a shopping cart with yummy summer food. Don't you just love the foods available this time of the year? It almost makes up for the horrible heat! Well, almost. Anyway, blackberries are readily available, so I stocked up and baked blackberry cobbler on Saturday.

I just had to take a photo of the "before" cobbler--look at those HUGE, luscious blackberries!

With the heat being what it was--over 100 degrees both days--I pretty much stayed inside our air conditioned house and did quilty and crafty stuff. Nothing much to show you just yet, but hopefully I'll have a couple photos soon. Well, you DID see the Jo's quilt top--that took up a good chunk of the weekend.

Remember the Christmas quilt top I found at Goodwill last week? Well, having no Greased Lightening on hand, I tried the hairspray suggestion--I think it may have been Nancy who mentioned that one--and it took out the ink quite nicely! Now I just have to find time to quilt it someday!

Yesterday's "Entertainment" topic elicited a lot of comments. Thank you all for the good book suggestions! If you're looking for a good book to read, take a look at the comments--there are quite a few listed there. I was chatting with Gran tonight after the embroidery class she teaches and she mentioned she'd just put in an order at the library for the Outlander book by Diana Gabaldon. I'm sure those of you who have read the books so far will agree that it's one of the best series of books you've read! She has a real treat to look forward to!

Soccer Son and I were briefly discussing reality "game" shows the other day and he told me he knows a woman who does casting for Amazing Race. Like Survivor JT's mom, I think my son would win if he was on one of those shows, but then I suspect most of us moms think our kids are just about irresistible! Still, it would be awfully nice if he won $1 million and decided to pay his dear old mom back for everything she's ever done for him, wouldn't it?

About blogging, Cyn left a comment asking about moving margins in the blog layout. Well, I've done it before, and to do it, I found a website with directions to change my blog to a three column blog. I wouldn't say it was HARD, exactly, but I sure worried about making changes I wasn't happy with. And yes, they tell you to save your "old" blog code so you can restore it, but I still worried. I checked to see if I'd saved that site in my favorites, and I didn't find it. Do any of you know where to point Cyn if she wants to make changes?

Someone also emailed me to ask about backgrounds. I get mine from Cutest Blog on the Block--they have a bunch of free backgrounds. To add a background to my blog in Blogger, I go into "Layout" and then I click to add a gadget at the very bottom of the layout. I select HTML/Java Script for the gadget type and then I copy the code to the gadget from the background I've selected. If you'd like to check out the free backgrounds available, click HERE.

Well, I think that pretty much covers all the little thoughts floating around in my brain tonight. Happy to see you stop by, but it's my bedtime now. Goodnight bloggers!

That's Entertainment

Survivor. Did you watch the final episode? What did you think? Are you glad JT won, or should it have been someone else? And how much did you hate Coach?

I've watched Survivor since the first season, although as time goes on, I've found myself less and less interested. The "characters" in the first season stand out in my mind, but only a few since then have been very memorable. I liked Ethan Zohn, the former soccer player who won in season 3. And Boston Rob and Amber. What's happened to them, anyway? I don't think we've seen them for a couple years--not after two seasons on Survivor and a stint on the Amazing Race, followed by a couple other media circuses, like their wedding. You'd think they'd at least have a blog, but I just did a couple searches for news on the pair, and nothing much came up.

But enough about that. On to other entertainment. Have you read any good books lately? I recently read these two--the first two of the series.

Pretty good books--I'd recommend them to anyone who likes mysteries and quilts. The only criticisms I had: (1) Explanations of quilting "stuff" was a little boring, but maybe readers who don't quilt need the explanations. (2) It seemed like there were some inconsistencies in minor details, but then maybe it was just me--I didn't hunt back through the books to see. The second book took place at a quilt camp, and coincidentally, some of my friends are going to quilt camp this week--but not me. I'm envious!

I just finished Quilter's Knot today, so I'll have to pick out another book to read tonight. This might be it--seems I'm into "knotty" stuff lately!:

(You can click HERE to read the description.)

I was browsing on Amazon yesterday and came across this one as "recommended" to me. It sounded good, so I ordered it. Have you read it? If so, what did you think?

(For a description, click HERE.)

Have you come across any new books you've enjoyed and can recommend? I'm always looking for a good book. Speaking of which, it's time for me to grab my latest and head to bed. I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

A Couple More Things I Know . . .

Tonight I'll tell you a little bit about HTML and blog formatting. I don't know a lot, and I mostly only use a few things, but maybe it will help someone.

First, though, I thought I'd share with you a photo of the Jo's Club quilt I've been working on, Holiday Inn. Last night I added a brown border with mitered corners and hated it, so I took it back off and added the floral--I'm MUCH happier with the new outside border. (Sorry the photo's a bit crooked--my bad! It's my photography and not the quilt!)

And, besides wanting to show you what I've been doing, I also wanted to write something so I could take a couple photos to show you the difference between compose mode and edit HTML mode. After I wrote the bit above, I clicked on the edit HTML tab, and this is what the screen looked like (again, sorry for the crookedness of the photo!):

Some of you mentioned that to move photos, you cut and paste the code for the photo you uploaded to the place you want the photo to appear. For those of you not familiar with what photo code looks like, that third paragraph in the screen above IS the photo of the Jo's quilt.

When typing HTML commands, carets are used to bracket the command like this: < >. One command we often like to use is the strike out. You can see in the photo below that I've stricken out "MUCH happier" and written "tickled to death" instead. To get the strike out, when you're in the HTML screen, just before the material you want stricken, type "strike" surrounded by the carets mentioned above. At the end of the stricken material, again surrounded by carets, type "/strike"--you can see those commands in the last photo where I've put it into edit HTML. Fun, huh?!

I also like to format my blog so the right hand margin is justified--in other words, the words line up along both the right and left margins. To get that effect, in compose mode I click on the icon on the toolbar near the middle, just before the icon with the numbered paragraphs--you can see the icon in the photo above, just above the word "and" in the first sentence.

As I mentioned last night, once I'm done composing a post, I go into edit HTML mode and make adjustments. One of the main things I look for is to make sure each paragraph begins with HTML code, surrounded by carets, that reads div align="justify" and ends with /div--you can see that in the photo above. I make sure that each paragraph begins and ends with these commands. I also make sure that it hasn't thrown too many of these commands in, and that the paragraphs haven't wrapped onto the same lines. Where they have, I hit the enter key so the text moves down to the next line, and I remove extra, unneeded code. I also take out any blank lines. Once everything looks properly formatted as it does in the above photo, I go back to the compose screen and take a look.

Easy as pie?

Now, before I go to bed, it's time to announce the winner of the Fabulous Ideas for Flea Market Finds book. As Hubby stumbled by the office on his way to bed, I asked him to pick a number and it turns out the number he picked corresponded with Ratherbquilting's comment, "That book looks cool! I'm in!!"

Congratulations, Ratherb! Please email me your mailing address, and I'll get the book mailed out to you early next week. Woo-hoo!

Thank you for stopping by to visit!

What Little I Know . . .

. . . about blogging and uploading photos, I'm happy to share. Several of my newer blogging friends seem to be having trouble, so I thought I'd explain how I do it.

First of all, I'm a PC. I have a feeling my friend Gran is a Mac, so I'm not sure this will be of much help, but for what it's worth . . . .

The first step is to download photos from my camera into the photo files and folders on my computer. Then I can begin my post. Here's a picture of what the screen looks like when I start composing a blog post:

There are two folder tabs up near the top right that say "Edit HTML" and "Compose." I write most of my post in the "compose" screen. And I'll write much of the body of my post before I start uploading photos.

Once I'm ready to upload photos, I click the icon that's third from the right on the toolbar--it looks like a photo (yeah, imagine that!). I'll then get a screen that looks like this:

Up near the top left in blue it says "Add another image"--I click on that to add as many browse boxes as I have photos to upload--it will let me add up to five photos at a time. I usually leave my photo settings on "none" for layout and "large" for image size unless I have something particular in mind.

I click the browse button and that takes me to my computer--I then navigate my way to my photo files and find the photo I want to upload and click on it. The photo I select in the first box will be the last photo in line when they're uploaded to my blog post, so I try to plan accordingly. Once I've chosen photos to upload, I click the orange "upload image" button. (If I want to add more than five photos, I just repeat these steps until I've uploaded what I want.)

When the photos are uploaded to my post, I can click on each one with my mouse, holding down the right mouse button while dragging the photos to wherever I want in the text. When I've dragged a photo to the proper place in the text, I release the mouse button. Then I'll go get the next photo and drag it into position.

Once I have my text and photos where I want them, I'll edit my post--sometimes once the photos are in place, I might have more to say about them.

And once I have the text and the photos done, then I click on the "Edit HTML" tab to refine justification and paragraph spacing. In my next post, I'll talk a little about HTML codes--a VERY little because I don't know much and everything I know has been picked up through blogging trial and error!

Perhaps if you have a Mac and a blog, you can leave a comment about how uploading and moving photos is different from the way I do it. Or, if you have a different method of uploading photos, please explain in a comment. I'm sure there are lots of bloggers who would appreciate your help!

I'm Such a Thrift Store Junkie!

It seems like I'll go a couple weeks without any desire to hit a thrift store and then WHAM! All of a sudden, I'm Jonesing for a fix! This week, I've visited five, I think! Truth to tell, I had a vague idea of something I was looking for, and that's really never a good idea. In my experience, when you're looking for something, you never find it, and that's been true of my latest hunt.

Oh, that's not to say that I haven't found anything, though. Sheesh! I've found plenty--and then some! I'll show you a couple things.

The other night, I stopped by the Goodwill closest to my house, and in the "crafts gone wrong" aisle, I found a bunch of plastic bags, each containing five boxes of "Tri-Chem Liquid Embroidery Paint." And since I've renewed my interest in embroidery, I thought I'd buy a couple bags and see just what this stuff was. I examined the boxes and each contained a paint "pen."

I also did a little internet research, and discovered that these things are supposed to be pretty neat if I can get them working. Apparently it may take a little fussing with the tips and possibly the paint inside, but I'm game. So the next night, I went back and bought more, so I'd have a decent range of colors, and I also bought a bag that included a tin of solvent--solvent is necessary to get the tips working correctly. Now I just need to find time to play around with them! Have you ever tried these?

Tonight I went to another Goodwill store. I never really thought about it before, but do you know they have books on tape? With the television season coming to an end, I thought books on tape might be a great "noise" substitute while I quilt, so I picked up a few.

The Smoke Jumper? The book's been sitting on my bookshelf for years, waiting for me to read it, ever since I read The Horse Whisperer. Now I can! Well, sort of!

And while I was browsing the books, I found two quilt books--Gerry Kimmel Carr. Pretty cool, huh? The cashier asked me if I knew they were $2--I guess she didn't want me to get home, look at my receipt, and think I'd paid too much. Silly girl!

And here's the really exciting news: I read in the newspaper today that another Goodwill is going to go into a shopping center that has a large, vacant store about a half mile from Bearpaws and Hollyhocks quilt shop--right on my drive to and from Bearpaws, in fact! AND it's right near a Starbucks. AND it's kitty corner to a Michael's store. Heaven on Earth is what I'm thinking!

Anyway, I thought I'd celebrate by another little giveaway so you can share the joy too. Do you remember when I mentioned I'd gotten a book (at the thrift store) that had some great ideas for using vintage tablecloths as curtains? Click HERE if you'd like to refresh your memory, and then scroll down a bit. Well, I found another copy of the same book at the Goodwill this week. It was published in 1996, so some of the ideas are a little old, but it's still a terrific source for inspiration.

If you think this might be something you'd be interested in, please leave me a comment telling me you'd like a chance to win the book. I'll draw a name on Saturday night, so if you ask to be put in the drawing, check back on Sunday to see who won.

Bedtime for me--time to go to bed and dream thrifty fantasies!

Spike and the New Office

Spike's loving the new desk.

She can keep an eye on me while I "work."

She can watch for surprise attacks--from the ground and from the air.

It's a very convenient place to wait for any leftovers that may be abandoned.

She can explore "new" baskets--AHHHH! She just loves that thrift store smell!

And when I'm bugging her? She can get all up-close-and-personal. "Hey! You lookin at me?!"

Allergies

Do you have them? Local lore says that if you didn't have allergies before you moved to California's Central Valley, you will undoubtedly develop them. And for me, that's been quite true! I grew up in San Jose, which is closer to the coast, and I never had allergies until we moved to Sacramento. Over the years, they've gotten progressively worse, and some days I feel just like I have a cold. Ick!

It seems I suffer from them much of the year, but certainly some seasons--like spring--are much worse than others. And it's hard to take anything for them: non-drowsy allergy medications will keep me awake at night if I take them too late in the day, and "regular" allergy medications will put me to sleep if I take them at work. No win. Mostly, though, I just try to ignore them as best I can.

This news story from San Jose caught my eye tonight--

* * * * *

ROTTEN OFFICE FRIDGE CLEANUP SENDS 7 TO HOSPITAL

SAN JOSE, Calif. – An office worker cleaning a fridge full of rotten food created a smell so noxious that it sent seven co-workers to the hospital and made many others ill. Firefighters had to evacuate the AT&T building in downtown San Jose on Tuesday, after the flagrant fumes prompted someone to call 911. A hazmat team was called in.

What they found was an unplugged refrigerator that had been crammed with moldy food.

Authorities said an enterprising office worker had decided to clean it out, placing the food in a conference room while using two cleaning chemicals to scrub down the mess. The mixture of old lunches and disinfectant caused 28 people to need treatment for vomiting and nausea.

Authorities said the worker who cleaned the fridge didn't need treatment — she can't smell because of allergies.

* * * * *

Coincidentally, on Monday it was my turn to clean out the office refrigerator. I guess what I'm saying is that maybe allergies aren't always such a bad thing to have!

Show and Tell

I had a couple quilt tops I wanted to share tonight, so get the popcorn and sit back and enjoy the show. Okay, maybe not, since it won't be a very LONG show, but you know . . . maybe a donut would work. That's what I'm planning for breakfast!

It was back to work for me today, and I was a little restless and feeling penned up when the lunch hour came around--and besides, I always like to bring my Hey Ghoul Friends class a little "treat" each week, so of course I decided to go browse the thrift store and see what might turn up. And today I got lucky! I'll probably have a couple other things to show you later, but for now, I'll show you the quilt top I found:

Isn't it kind of cute? Nothing too special but whoever did the piecing did a nice job, and with a fairly quick all-over quilting design, it will make a cheerful tablecovering or small quilt for the holiday season. The only drawback? Someone who obviously had absolutely no clue wrote in what looks like ink "$3.00" on the sashing. I'll try getting it damp to see if it will wash out, but if not, I may need to add some quick applique to cover it. (If you click into the photo, you may be able to see a black splotch near the top center in the red sashing.)

Here's a close up of one of the sections--the quilt maker fussy cut many of the squares.

I've been working on the Jo's Little Women Club quilt called Holiday Inn--I mentioned the other day that I'd started appliqueing the center. Here it is so far, completed up through Part 3 with one more part to go:

Next I have to make 80 flying geese blocks and finish it with a plain outside border (I think the last border will be brown and the geese will be multi-colored).

Oh, I forgot to say! That thrift store quilt top? $2. There was another quilt top there, but I didn't like it as well and I already have plenty of quilt tops in my "to be quilted" basket, so I just came home with this one. (If anyone in the Sacramento area wants to go look and see what I may have missed, the Goodwill in question was the store on Arden.) I think I might just quilt this one and donate it to a children's hospital--wouldn't that be fun for the kids?

Happy quilting and keep on hunting for treasures! You never know when they may turn up!

Royal Treatment

I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day! I enjoyed sleeping in, quilting, napping, and reading. I talked to the Wild Child on the phone--she had to work and couldn't come down to Sacramento. Soccer Son arrived bearing the ingredients for a special dinner.

BBQ'd chicken tacos--YUM!

My vacation's over, and it's back to work in the morning, but I can't complain much after being treated to such a wonderful day!

Thanks for stopping by!