Month: April 2017

Cleaning up the sewing room leads to distractions

I took my Carpenter’s Square quilt to my long arm friend yesterday and got a nice tour of her lovely, very clean sewing rooms (yes, she has two!). Sigh. My sewing room is a mess. I decided to at least sort a bunch of stuff before I start on my next project, and I did get a good start. However I also got distracted with sorting scraps. I decided to make some more rice bags for my hands since I had a piece of cute fabric just big enough. I have arthritis in my thumb and forefinger joints near my palm, and they get sore and achy on a regular basis. I had some other rice bags, but they somehow disappeared. I made two of them, one with a 3×5 finished size and the other 4×6 finished. I think I prefer the larger one. They are just two rectangles sewn together with some elastic on one side to keep them on my hand. I fill them with dried rice, then heat them in the microwave 20-30 seconds or so. The rice heats up and provides nice relief to my sore hands.

If you decide to make rice bags, be sure to use 100% cotton fabric, not something like polyester fleece. You also don’t want to heat the bags too long or they could burn since they use elastic. In fact, even 100% cotton and very dry rice can burn if left too long in the microwave so be careful.

After leaving my friend’s house I headed to a class on my Bernina V8 Embroidery Software. The dealer I use is 45 miles away from my house – a good hour drive. They are very knowledgeable though. I have been using this software for 12 or more years, and I really just need to learn the new features. It is still beneficial to go to a class for beginners since I pick up little tricks I hadn’t caught before. Last night was about variations on automatically digitizing a graphic, meaning converting a graphic into embroidery stitches. Wow, the software has improved significantly in this area since the previous version! The class doesn’t get out until 9:00 so it means a late night drive home. We won’t meet again until after we get back from our Yosemite trip. That reminds me that the NPS announced yesterday they enough road repair done to open up the road we need to take you Monday. Yeah! No change in travel plans needs to be made.

As for my continual experiments with Instant Pot meals, we had boneless country pork ribs two nights ago. I cooked them in high pressure for 40 minutes, and I should have added another 5 minutes. We live above 4000′ elevation, and I am still learning how to adjust the standard recipes for the altitude. I had added about 10% additional time, but I could have used 20%. They were still good. I can’t say the same for the “boiled” eggs I tried! I loved making hard boiled eggs in my old pressure cooker, but the Instant Pot is a slightly lower pressure system. My first two tries resulted in very soft eggs, but I finally discovered that 14 minutes at low pressure makes a nice hard egg like I enjoy for breakfast. I finished the last one I made for lunch, so I need some more.

Volunteer sewing with American Sewing Guild

Big sewing day today, and we got so much done! The local American Sewing Guild activity ended up making 70 completed medical dolls. We had between eight and ten sewing machines and sergers going from 10:00 – 4:00, plus between five to ten non-sewers turning and stuffing the doll bodies. There were another 19 doll bodies completed just waiting on clothes. I took a number of doll bodies home with me to finish to go with clothes I have already cut out. It should keep me busy for a while. Others took doll bodies and cut out clothes. I would imagine we will eventually donate another 30-40 completed dolls.

Here are the 70 completed dolls.

Notice how plain they are? The children are able to color the dolls to look like them. Here are a couple of examples. That is why we try to have lots of shades of doll bodies. We can’t make dark ones because the crayons don’t show up on them. The darker tan is the compromise.

The dolls go to Primary Children’s Hospital in SLC. A big thanks to Floyd and Lizzie’s Sewing Center for letting us use their space. They also contributed quite a bit of muslin for doll bodies.

Charity sewing and yummy food

Today I spent four hours with other members of the local American Sewing Guild at an “open sew” meeting. We meet once a month just to sew and talk. The projects are whatever you want to do, and I always use the time to do charity projects. I have been sewing medical dolls, complete with little hospital gowns. Today I concentrated on making dolls, and a lovely woman next to me decided she would cut out gowns from fabric I brought. She also marked the doll body pattern on a bunch of muslin I had. Tomorrow we are having five hours of sewing specifically to make medical dolls. It will be great to have so many items already cut out and ready to sew. I will post pictures of the group result tomorrow. The hospital needs hundreds of these a year, so it is a good group project. I also like to make these while camping. They are small and easy to sew in small pieces of time. That’s what I will do with the left over pieces I don’t get sewn this time. I also have a new quilt I am getting cut out. I can piece it while we travel.

We also made wonderful beans in the Instant Pot. I have never been a big fan of beans, but these were wonderful. The pinto beans were seasoned with bacon, onions, garlic, chipotle, and green chili. We had grilled hot dogs with them.

It was warm enough we ate on the front porch. While the temperature was only 50 degrees, the western sun made it quite toasty!

I actually do know how to spell and use correct grammar!

I was looking through old posts, and I can not believe how many errors they have! I am in the process of editing a number of them.

And I probably should have posted about our latest kitchen toy, an Instant Pot! I made stew first, and it was lovely.

Today we are going to make steaks with the Anova sous vide and garlic mashed potatoes with the Instant Pot. Nothing like good food!

Carpenter’s Square quilt top finished!

I finished the quilt top I am making for one of our spare bedrooms. This will be a queen sized bedspread when I finish it. The second picture is the backing I am going to use. I really wanted a blue or gray backing, but none of the extra wide backings I found were the right shade. This white and gray will work fine, and I think it will hide the tiny dots of dark colored thread better than some of the other options. I think I will be using a very light gray on the “white” sections and a much darker gray on the rest. The bobbin thread will be either the pale gray or a white. Even though I am good at adjusting my thread tension, using widely different thread colors generally results in tiny dots of color showing through. It is a dreadful picture because Kevin had trouble holding it up! The fabric are all batiks, and gorgeous in person.

This is a good way to make sure your triangles are good. I don’t like the “mark down the middle and sew on each side then cut” method. I prefer cutting the triangles and then sewing them carefully. It works for me.

I am also working on some dolls for Primary Children’s Hospital. I have made a dozen or so, and I decided to experiment with some options. The dolls themselves are super simple, but the hospital gowns that go with them are much harder. The default approach is to use bias binding, but it is the devil to put on the curves correctly. I always end up having to redo at least a few inches. Another American Sewing Guild member, Paula, said she made them by just serging the gown edges. I decided to try it and see how it works.

No question that the bound one looks better, but it takes 5-6 times as long! We have an ASG charity sew meeting on Saturday to make these, so I hope the serger version is acceptable. The hospital needs hundreds of these, and even though lots of people make them, they are always running out.

No pictures today

I really should learn to take more pictures! We have been mostly hanging around the house waiting for Kevin’s knee to heal. The arthroscopic surgery went well a week ago, and they took out a bunch of torn meniscus. We both have what my family called “itchy feet” meaning the itch to travel, so on Saturday we headed to Snowbird ski resort for sightseeing and lunch. It is the last weekend most of the resorts will be open, so it was pretty busy. We like having lunch in the lodge, sitting next to the big windows opening onto the slopes. They were having a water competition where you ski or board down a slope then try to stay on top of a big pool of water at the end. It was hilarious watching folks in costumes try it. Some actually made it! This is why I should take pictures.

Yesterday we went to Park City and Tanger Outlets to look for Kevin a new winter coat. His last one finally gave up the ghost, and he needs something good below freezing. Sadly the Columbia store only had medium sizes in the ones he liked, and he isn’t a medium. I liked some vests, but again they only had mediums left in the women sizes too.

On the home front, I think I will finish the borders on my current quilt today. I will take a picture when I do. I am having a friend with a long arm do my basting with water soluble thread, then I will do the real quilting on my Sweet 16 sit down. I have no interest basting a queen sized quilt with a wool batting! Next project is a new king sized quilt for our bed. In the next couple of weeks I will get it cut out (I have the fabric and the pattern) so I can sew blocks while traveling.

I am getting anxious about our next trip. We are planning to go to Yosemite, but the Highway 120 entrance near our reservation site is closed due to a big landslide. I look at the road status every day, and I am getting nervous. If it wasn’t for the rain they would probably have it ready by now, but there has been a LOT of rain. Our backup plan is Yellowstone, so it won’t be a bust either way, but I have never been to Yosemite and the water falls will be incredible this year. I am crossing my fingers for luck.

New power converter, table, and other trailer mods

A travel trailer (or any RV) is always a work in progress. First there are the inevitable things that shake loose while traveling. For example, I need to recaulk the shower because the flex from traveling has loosened up a few pieces. Next comes the new and improved things. We call these “mods” in the RV world, and huge amounts of time are expended on discussing, planning, and then finally building them. Kevin loves to have a project going most of the time we are home, so we have lots of lovely mods. The latest is replacing the OEM power converter with a much higher quality unit. This will charge and maintain our batteries much better and make for a faster battery charge when we use the generator. It definitely took Kevin more time than he thought it would. The electrical center of our trailer is a modular system with breakers, switches, fans, and 110v/12v conversion. There are only a few things in the trailer that really run on native 110v – the microwave, the air conditioner, and the 110v outlets. Everything else actually runs on 12v power. The converter charges the batteries and converts the 110v power (when hooked up to “shore power”) to 12v so the rest of the electrical systems (lights, heater fan, etc) will operate. This is what he bought:

And here’s what got removed. Lots of cutting and resoldering connections.

A quick check with the power meter shows everything is working well!

Other mods include replacing our dinette table with a Gidgit brand sewing table. You can see the cutout in the middle that can be lowered when you want a sewing machine to sit level with the table cloth. You can also see the fitted tablecloth I made for it. This table is just a little bit smaller than the original making it easier to slide in and out of the dinette. I like it!

Some other mods I will show include taking out the incredibly uncomfortable jackknife sofa and replacing it with two recliners from IKEA. Kevin modified a small table (with under lid storage) to sit between them. Of course the cats must have a place to relax, so he adapted a purchased cat tree to fit behind the table. The cat tree is attached to the table so it doesn’t fall over while traveling.

Nice huh?

Enjoying springtime

Today is an absolutely lovely day. Blue sky, a few clouds, light breeze, and 72 degrees. We bought new chairs for our west facing front porch, my favorite spot outside. The view is nice even though I can’t see mountains on this side. My roses are fully green, though I still need to do some pruning. The serviceberry, partially pruned, is blooming nicely. 

One interesting thing I saw were jets from (probably) the local Air Force base.

That kind of formation flying has to be military. They were very high since I heard no noise at all.

I did finish the tablecloth for the trailer’s new table, and Kevin has been working most of the day on putting a new converter in. I will give both of those tasks their own post when everything is finished. For now, I am going to soak up some sun.

New trailer goodies

The weather is warming up again, and we are continuing to get some goodies for camping. We bought a new 32″ Samsung TV and got it mounted. I also bought an Apple Lightening to HDMI connector that lets us watch videos I have downloaded to my Apple devices on the TV. That will be nice! I doubt we will be able to stream very often, but being able to view videos will help.

We also bought a new bug shelter, a Clam model. We also bought the wind screens for all 6 sides. It is advertised as a 45 second shelter, but I figure the 5 minutes it took us the second time will be more standard. I think this will be very useful this summer in the Midwest. We have a couple of weeks planned in Iowa in July and a week in Missouri in October. Both can be rainy and windy, and Iowa can be buggy in July. It is long, maybe 5-6 feet, and everything (including the wind screens) fits into a single bag. Kevin has already figured out where it fits in the trailer’s storage compartments. 

We have decided to use a small sewing table instead of the standard dinette table. The sewing table is a bit narrower, and I can use it for sewing too. It has a cutout that can be lowered so the machine is level with the table, and that helps my back and neck a lot. I am working on a tablecloth to be used when I am not sewing. I got it cut out and all the pieces serged, ready to be sewn together. We will need to take the dinette table when we want the grandkids to stay, but that is pretty rare.

Kevin is working hard to get all kinds of stuff done before his knee surgery next week. He is having arthroscopic surgery to clean up some meniscus tears. He has been in a lot of pain for a couple of months, but it just takes a long time to get diagnosed, connected with a surgeon, and pre-authorized for the surgery itself. Hopefully he will be much better in a couple of weeks.

Spring has definitely come

It has decided to rain and rain and rain here. We blew past the average rain for March, and there is a lot of snow in the mountains. Today is dry with puffy white clouds and a brilliant blue sky. It sets off the snow covered peaks in a very picturesque manner. My daffodils have decided to riot, the yard is a brilliant green (I bet we don’t need to water for at least a month!), and the mulch is fully down in the back yard flower beds. I still need to buy another 10-20 sacks for the front flower bed, but I will wait until tomorrow.

We have just been busy doing regular “stuff.” We ordered a new Samsung gas range/electric oven combo. Since we don’t have a gas line, we first had to find the right contractor for that job. Hopefully we will have both the gas line and the range installed in a couple of weeks. Kevin has been doing taxes, and it is a huge job. We have income from Utah, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Income from the pensions, farm, oil, and the wind mills do not have any state tax taken out before it comes to us so it is painful. This is also the first full year we have both been retired, and we discovered we hadn’t had enough federal withheld either. Sigh. We have corrected that so hopefully it won’t be so bad next time. I did get some embroidery done for my daughter/grandson. 

Isn’t that fox adorable? Everyone loves my burp cloths. I use high quality prefolded cloth diapers, and they are the most popular baby present I make. The fabric is cotton and the thread is polyester so they can be washed in hot water with bleach. I do not believe in giving impractical gifts!

I have also been informed I am now to make Clay’s baptism gown. My daughter picked out a tailored style with a romper and a detachable skirt. Poor baby is being baptized in July in Iowa – think HOT. The detachable skirt will only be used for the service, and then he can be a lot cooler. I will use some heirloom techniques on it, especially pintucks which I think are very appropriate for a boy. Probably a Victorian embroidery of trinity crosses and a lot of entredeaux too. It will be a blast. Here is a picture of the romper; I will just wing the long skirt. I am using the version shown in blue and white, but I won’t be adding the faux overall straps. Oh, and there might be some religious embroidery where the chest buttons are. I will decide that later. I am also making the entire outfit out of a white broadcloth.

I almost forgot the other thing I made. I altered some high quality queen bed sheets to be 6 inches shorter so they fit the “short queen” bed in the travel trailer. We had sheets we bought at an RV supply house, but they weren’t very nice sheets. We put the altered ones on the bed, and they fit great except that I need to make them narrower. I forgot the sheets are made to fit very deep mattresses, and ours is only 8″ tall. I should be able to get that done before we leave.