Month: August 2006

SBQ: Stitching on the road

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2006-08-25

9:12 am

1 Comment on SBQ: Stitching on the road

Blogging, Needlework, Organization

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This week’s Stitch­ing Blog­ger’s Ques­tion is

What do you keep your WIPs and oth­er stitch­ing sup­plies in when trav­el­ing?

I near­ly did­n’t answer this one, because the bag is dingy!
Work in Progress bag
This is the dis­rep­utable bag in which I car­ry my cur­rent stitch­ing projects. Projects go in Ziplock bags inside the bag, as the bag itself has become an aux­il­iary purse/schoolbag/carryall. I’ll have to replace it soon, as it’s wear­ing out.

I got the bag as a “prize” for being the first to answer a ques­tion a long-ago boss asked our depart­ment via email. I think the ques­tion was “what does ‘tcp/ip’ mean” but I can’t absolute­ly swear to that.

Clothing for dogs?

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2006-08-22

9:58 pm

4 Comments on Clothing for dogs?

Critters

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I’ve long known that there were peo­ple who inflict indig­ni­ties like sweaters and even tiny lit­tle boots on their canine com­pan­ions. I had no idea that the dog­gy fash­ion had become so very fash­ion­able, though.

Then I saw it. One moment I’m sur­round­ed by bird feed­ers and cat toys, the next, there it is: an entire row of Canine Cou­ture.

I called Katie to my side to make sure I was­n’t hal­lu­ci­nat­ing, but no, she saw it too. We brought home pho­to­graph­ic evi­dence, not expect­ing you to believe us with­out it.

Very tacky Brocade Dog Dress, mostly red and black

That par­tic­u­lar “dress” was the most eye-catch­ing of this sea­son’s dog fash­ion — at least, what that Tar­get is car­ry­ing.

We were very hap­py to come home to our sharp-clawed cats, safe in the knowl­edge that they would nev­er per­mit such a thing.

Over my Flickr Limit? Fun With Photos

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2006-08-19

10:39 am

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Blogging, Home

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I’ve been upload­ing some of the pho­tographs I have scat­tered all over my hard dri­ve, most of them of Katie. Some­how, I out­did my Flickr upload lim­it for the month!

I’ve had that account for eons and have no idea what the lim­it is, as I’ve nev­er approached it before. I was shocked when Katie hit hers with­in a few days of get­ting an account, then did it again as soon as the month changed — at which point we bowed to the inevitable and got her a pro account.

But me? Why would I ever need a pro account?

I have been jeal­ous of the abil­i­ty to have more than two sets, but that’s about it ’til now.

I’ve hard­ly even begun on the Katie pic­tures! I haven’t scanned in baby pho­tos that I have, much less the grand­par­ents’ albums.

Guess I do need a pro account.

I have a Zooomr pro account (because they’re giv­ing them away), but it does­n’t have all the nifty toys avail­able that have been writ­ten for Flickr.

As you can see, I’ve added a row of pho­tos above the top post on the blog. Most of the pic­tures are of Katie, but the bar will show what­ev­er I’ve uploaded most recent­ly, whether it’s pic­tures of our crit­ters, needle­work, or Katie. I’ll be upload­ing more as soon as the Flickr meter allows.

And then I wan­na make a scrap­book.

Stitching Bloggers’ Question of the Week: Fabric Organization?

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2006-08-16

6:58 pm

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Needlework, SBQ

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I’ve been wait­ing eager­ly for this week’s SBQ. I don’t know why, I just have. They some­times remind me of stash I don’t think about often enough.

Do you have an orga­ni­za­tion­al sys­tem for your fab­ric? If so, what is it? If not, what do you store your fab­ric in?

How do peo­ple store their fab­ric, espe­cial­ly those small but poten­tial­ly usable pieces? Do they sort by count? How do they label it or oth­er­wise know what each piece is?

I nev­er real­ly thought about label­ing them. I’ll start doing that in the future. I’m usu­al­ly so excit­ed when I buy mate­r­i­al for a project, though, that I can’t resist start­ing on it right away. It’s only the much old­er stuff that needs label­ing!


I can tell what most are just by look­ing at them. I’ve got a nifty lit­tle ruler for thread counts if I have any trou­ble deter­min­ing that visu­al­ly. Any­thing that isn’t a neu­tral col­or has been pur­chased for a spe­cif­ic project, so I know imme­di­ate­ly, for instance, “oh, that’s for the sec­ond set of the Amaryl­lis Art­works man­dalas” (yes, I love those so much I intend to stitch them again).

Almost all of my cloth is even­weave, but there’s some linen and even a lit­tle bit of aida and hardan­ger that dates back to my teen years when I start­ed stitch­ing. (I gave away most of that old stuff via Freecy­cle last year, then found more!)

All of it is stored in a set of plas­tic draw­ers with some cedar balls tossed in. We don’t have a prob­lem with moths, but I don’t want to take any chances and I do love the scent.

No pic­ture this time — things are all top­sy-turvy and I can’t get to my draw­ers to get a pho­to.

I could­n’t stand it. I had to do pho­tos.

Geography is colorful — and a whole lot more

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2006-08-10

3:45 pm

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Languages, Social Sciences

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Nation­al Geograhic is lead­ing the My Won­der­ful World cam­paign. There are sug­ges­tions for par­ents, kids, teens, and edu­ca­tors.

I wan­na be a teen. I want to get a pass­port and a nifty lit­tle GPS unit and go geo­caching and explore the world and learn oth­er lan­guages.

SBQ: Over- or hand-dyed flosses

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2006-08-09

8:14 pm

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Needlework, SBQ

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stash!The Stitch­ing Blog­gers Ques­tion of the Week is:

For those of you who use hand or over-dyed floss, how do you store it?

I use the same plas­tic bob­bins that I use for most of my fibers. I haven’t had any prob­lems with it, or heard of any argu­ments against doing so.

I like being ablle to keep the cur­rent pro­jec­t’s fibers all on the same project ring. They’re also eas­i­ly stored with the rest of my fibers in tack­le-type box­es.

If you click on the pho­tos, you’ll go to the larg­er ver­sions 😉

In transition

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2006-08-06

2:02 pm

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General, Homeschooling

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Katie is going to high school in a few weeks, a 10th grad­er. The school is much larg­er than the one she attend­ed last fall — approx­i­mate­ly the same pop­u­la­tion as my own alma mater when I was there.

I, at least, will con­tin­ue to write here, as I’ve been inter­est­ed in home­school­ing and edu­ca­tion much longer than I’ve had a child at home offi­cial­ly being home­schooled. In fact, I first heard of home­school­ing as a mod­ern real­i­ty right after I grad­u­at­ed in the mid-1980s, and was imme­di­ate­ly intrigued. I read every­thing I could find about it, and have kept up that con­nec­tion since then.

Katie is all excit­ed, of course. I’m excit­ed for her. I fear she may be damp­en­ing that excite­ment down a lit­tle because she knows that I’ll miss her, but she should­n’t. That’s just a nor­mal part of being Mom­my. Let­ting go is in the job description.Trying new things is in hers.