Family traditions

Every family has "that dish" that always seems to be requested for one reason or another. Ours is a Jello salad called Pink Paradise.  My understanding is that it was my great-gramma Sue's favorite thing to make.  At least we always associate it with her & it's popular enough (or we have enough people) that I always make a double batch.  I omit the nuts. It was a matter of preference, but we have enough family members with nut issues that leaving them out is a good idea.  The recipe "came from the 50’s" - a #2 can is the ”normal" can that's about the same size as a Progresso soup can & I use an 8-oz package of cream cheese per batch (the recipe calls for two 3-oz packages).

Is There Such a Thing as Too Many Sewing Needles?

I hate not having the sewing needle that I need (and it usually involves breaking a needle in the middle of a project).  I've also developed a bad habit of stocking up on needles when JoAnn's has a sale on the notions wall (like I saw in the recent flyer).  My grammas would probably laugh - I don't remember either of them having terribly many needles on hand at any given time.  I also have something that they didn't have - access to groups that buy needles in bulk (that's how I have all of the Organ needles) and co-op them out. Thank You, Internet!

Because of this stash,  I needed to get a bit organized.  Yes, I misplace things.  Badly.  The below image is my current box.  It's a Plano fishing tackle box that I bought from www.tacklewarehouse.com.  The price with shipping was less than what my local Cabellas charges & it's a better selection than what I was able to get at Bi-Mart.  I think that this box is the Plano 3780 - It's deeper than most boxes.  I used to have a "normal" depth box with the movable dividers, but the 10-pack of Schmetz needles were just a hair too big & were pushing up on the lid.  Now I have *tons* of room to organize by type and size!

Speaking of Schmetz needles - don't toss those cases! Singer needles and Organ needles aren't in these nice cases. The Organ needles are packed in a little foil-lined paper packet in packs of ten. A little tape or piece of post-it note are enough to relabel a Schmetz case with the right needle information & makes it easy to see how many needles are left.

Weavies

I bought a Weave-it style loom from Hazel Rose Looms while I was at the Black Sheep Gathering this summer. This is the 4" "multi square" loom (on the same page as the bookmark loom). It's a fun little change of pace. About the only thing that I need to try out is using a crochet hook to help pass the needle through the warp a little easier.

The rainbow color is leftover Red Heart yarn from my DD's beanie & the purple is Lion Brand "Vanna's Choice" leftover from afghan squares.

Crocheting Socks

My hand hurts, but I'm crocheting socks.  Fortunately, the way that I hurt my hand isn't having an impact on crocheting, but it does make pulling clothes out of the washer a little bit interesting.

They're Paton's Twisting Lace Socks (or try here, but you'll have to log in to see the pattern).  I'm much happier trying the toe-up method than I was with a cuff-down pattern that I recently frogged.

Summer! Now on to projects!

I finally have a break from classes! YES!  I love my program, but this last year of the tug-of-war between school, family, house, and everything else was really getting to me.

Seriously, I nearly came unglued on someone who said the *wrong* thing about my child care situation.  The college won't allow children into the art studios (and there are studios where safety is a big issue), so I can't take Cakes into school with me anymore (I would take her into the print studio with me since none of the presses were motorized and would have her do "her" art projects at a table while I did my work).  No job = no money for babysitter (not to mention that it's about 45 min drive to campus).  My time management isn't great (I get an amazing amount of housework and repairs done while trying to avoid a deadline), but when I say that I have a family emergency, respect it for what it is. Ok, rant over.

Now on to the happiness:

No, this isn't my pattern, but it's what I managed to make for the Cakes during finals week (she picked out the yarn and my finals were critiques, so my hands were -yay- free).

This pattern can be found on Ravelry or on Hand Crafting With Love website.

This is one of the few hats that I found that will fit my head (hairbands and stocking caps always seem to wiggle off & my DD has the same head-shape).  The griddle stitch (a checker-board of SC & DC stitches) gives the hat quite a bit of elasticity.  It's not really visible in the photo, but the bottom "cuff" is alternating front post and back post crochet which makes the hat feel really secure on my head.

It's a really simple pattern (SC, DC..), but the increases really trip me up (I have a bad habit of reading the wrong line).  What I ended up doing with the pattern was copying and pasting it into Word and reformatting it.  I do much better with charts than written instructions, so I put the paragraph-formatted instructions into short little lists.

from this:
Ch 1, turn. [sc in next dc, 2 dc in next sc, sc in next dc, dc in next sc] 3 times. sc in next dc, dc in next sc. Repeat from [ to ] 4 more times. sc in next dc, dc in next sc. sl st in first sc to join. (39 stitches)

 to this:
Ch 1, turn
[sc in next dc, 2 dc in next sc, sc in next dc, dc in next sc] 3 times
sc in next dc, dc in next sc.
[sc in next dc, 2 dc in next sc, sc in next dc, dc in next sc] 4 times
sc in next dc, dc in next sc
sl st in first sc to join. (39 stitches)

It just works better for my brain and it made it easier to mark my spot with a small post-it.  I have to say, this is the one thing that I really like about electronic format patterns - I can make adjustments to them for my own readability and annotate them as needed.  I have a bad habit of marking up printed instructions and sketching out charts when the text really reads funny to me.

Going to the (feed) Dogs

I swear, there's feed dogs in this picture.  The Singer 778 that I found at St V's has rubber "soft touch" feed dogs. I honestly had never seen anything but metal dogs before - and I learned on a couple different Singers from the same era.

The rubber was breaking down anyway, so I ordered metal feed dogs as a replacement. I did find a caveat onlinevthat the metal feed dogs aren't an exact fit, so "modifications" would be necessary.  No kidding.  It took me several sessions with a cheap needle file (harbor freight) to shorten the dogs and narrow their width to operate without popping the needle plate out of position.

They look innocent enough, but there were hours of fussing trying to get the right amount of metal removed from all three areas that had to poke through the needle plate.  I did think about pulling out the dremel, but was afraid that I'd pull too much metal off any one area (and the space between the long, skinny feed dogs and the short, fat one is rather limited).

I *think* that I have the feed dogs properly adjusted, but it'll take a little bit of use before I put my file away.

I found quite a bit of good information at this Singer repair parts site.

"New" Singer Goldie

Lookie at what jumped into my arms at St V's (just ignore the rest of the mess).
I learned how to sew on a similar model and I'm pretty sure that one of my grammas or great-grammas had a 758.  The one that I learned on had a lever (and a push button??) below the stitch length selector.  I do remember trying to (and breaking) the bulls-eye lever on what may have been the 758.  No one had a free-arm machine though ;-)

It's a Touch & Sew 778 - the free-arm sister to the 758. It's also the first machine that I've seen with rubber feed dogs (metal ones are currently on order).

 

Of course, it didn't come with a zig-zag stitch cam and I had to search for this one. (Thank you, Etsy. I found one from someone in a nearby town)

It did, however, come with a jammed bobbin winding mechanism (jammed, but not broken).

This is what the mechanism looks like with the lower cover removed.  The plastic piece on the left is the bottom half of the "bullseye" lever by the bobbin.  The round metal piece topped with a gear is below the bobbin.  What jammed was the little metal rod above the plastic piece (it's connected to the L-shaped metal piece). Well, a little insanity - tapping on the metal bar to push the rod up and gently prying it back down with a screwdriver blade - loosened the mechanism up enough to pump some machine oil into the hole with the rod. We're in business now!

'Fraidy Cat

For a change, this isn't about cat (the boys are doing fine).  This is about the girl who's becoming afraid - of damn near everything.  The stuffed bear at Cabella's (it's a taxidermy bear - looks real, but still not moving), the octopus tile mural on the floor of the pool, creatures in cartoons that she loves - you get the picture.  We put the kibosh on Calliou a long time ago when she was being whiney and reactive, but we're visiting that stage all over again.
I could rejoice - Chuck E. Cheese is on the scary creature list - but this is becoming a royal pain in the rear.  She's a very bright, imaginative, girl, but Godzilla isn't going to eat you.  Hopefully this proves to be just a phase and she'll not freak out at everyone in a mascot costume.  She was scared a year ago by someone in a Darth Vader costume, but she's getting old enough to understand that it's a person in a costume like when she dresses up on Halloween.
Tomorrow we try the pool again - let's see how it goes...

That last step's a Lulu

It's amazing how things can snowball when life acts up.  We're catching up from the aftermath of Lulu's death. Yeah, I'm a sap, but there's just big hole in the house now.  The boys (our other cats) are now realizing how much Lulu "took for the team" in terms of being the recipient of my 3-year-old daughter's attentions.   The kid's also learning that the boys have their own opinions about being a rag doll.  We're all learning to live without our "just chill out and snuggle" cat.
I let the vet send Lulu's remains over to the vet school for the students to examine and got a call back on the results.  She had thrown a large clot and had several more in her heart.  Even if we managed to clear the one clot, there were others waiting in the wings.  The poor thing had been our bad health karma kitty, so I'm not surprised. If the clot had gone another direction, it could have easily been a stroke.

Replacing DVDs

After my daughter broke a DVD trying to get it out if the case and searching for a replacement, I was told that Disney will replace damaged DVDs (for a charge).  Great, but this doesn't help me with DreamWorks titles (we love Toothless).  A quick search located this site:

Universal Home Entertainment DVD Replacement Program

I've already replaced my copy of "How to Train Your Dragon", but I'll need to keep this in mind for the next time a title gets mangled.  The price is reasonable enough and I can avoid bad bootlegs (equipment is getting good and it's harder identify the bootlegs).

Frumpy Week

I'd say that it's been one of those weeks this week, but it hasn't.  I got a panicked phone call from my hubby on Wednesday morning that Lulu was having problems.  Her hind legs were paralyzed.  This is our 6-year-old blind cat who's been a total rag doll for our 3-year-old daughter.  She's had a really rough health history and this was very sudden.  She had hopped into the bathtub to get her drink from the faucet and was totally normal when I left the house.  It's saying something about her character when she was trying to *not* bite and scratch in spite of her pain and fear.

It's pretty likely that she an arterial blockage, possibly from a clot.  We held out the hope that the blockage could be cleared with meds, but it didn't happen (her legs were warm when she went to the vet, but were cold by morning) and we said our good-byes on Thursday.

Yet Another Coffee Cozy

Patterns for coffee cup sleeves (aka cozies) abound, but I hadn't found one that I really liked.  It needed to be big enough to fit my ceramic "to go" style cup and had to be wide enough to protect my hand from whatever sadist set the temperature on the hot water dispenser.  This one's pretty stretchy and really easy to have as a take-along for those times when I'm stuck waiting.  The photo below shows the sleeve on a ceramic tumbler.  It seems to fit much higher on the paper cups (nearly to the top on the 20 oz hot cups that I've been running into lately).

H hook
Worsted weight cotton (this was from either a "Peaches and Creme" or a "Sugar and Cream" skein)

For a wide cup band, start with ch 28, for a shallower band (the size of most paper sleeves) ch30 and stop before the 4th round of DC.

It's pretty simple - alternate SC and DC rows, increasing the SC rows by 2 evenly spaced stitches (with the exception of the 1st and last SC row). The wide cup increases by 6 stitches and the narrow one increases by 4.

The numbers in parenthesis are the count for the row and count the slip join as 1 space/stitch.

CH 28, join with slip stitch (30 for shallow sleeve)
Row 1 - ch 1 and SC in next space, SC each stitch. Join w/ sl in ch1 (28/30)
Row 2 - ch 2 and DC in next space, DC each stitch. Join w /sl in 2nd ch (28/30)
Row 3 (increase) - ch 1, sc in next space.  Make 6 sc (7 for shallow sleeve), 2 sc in next dc, make 14 sc (15 for shallow sleeve), 2 sc in next dc, and continue sc to end. Join w /sl in ch1.  The 2 sc increases should be equal distance from each other & if you fold the sleeve at the increases, the join should be in the middle. (30/32)
Row 4 - ch 2, dc in each following sc. Join w/ sl in 2nd ch (30/32)
Row 5 (increase) - ch 1, sc in next space.  Make 7 sc (8 for shallow sleeve), 2 sc in next dc, make 15 sc (16 for shallow sleeve), 2 sc in next dc, and continue sc to end. Join w/sl in ch. (32/34)
Row 6 - ch 2, dc in each following sc. Join w/ sl in 2nd ch.(32/34) - this is the last row for shallow sleeve
Row 7 (increase) - ch 1, sc in next space.  Make 8 sc, 2 sc in next dc, make 16 sc, 2 sc in next dc, and continue sc to end. Join w/sl in ch. (34)
Row 8 - ch 2, dc in each following sc. Join w/ sl in 2nd ch. (34)
Row 9 - ch 1, sc in each following dc.  No increases this row. Join w/ sl in ch1.

Finishing: cut yarn leaving a tail and pull through the slip stitch.  Weave ends in with yarn needle.
et viola!

Edit: I managed to make my hand very unhappy with me this summer (be kind to your tendons).  As a result I've noticed that my crocheting has loosened up & I've had to decrease the stitches that I've used by 1 to get the same size.  The bottom of the cozy when completed is approx 4 3/8" wide (folded) and the top of a tall sleeve is just a hair over 5" (again, folded).

Raising Good Kids

Getting a little frustrated here.  I'm trying to find parenting stuff and kids' books on morals and whatnot without getting into the G*D argument.  I'm running into crazy amounts on how to "properly" expose your kid to the Bible (including putting G*D into Science).  On the non-religious hand, I'm running into "How to raise your kid without G*D".  Damn it! I'm not looking for G*D is Dead/Fallacy either.  It's up to my kiddo as to how she forms her views and I'm not going to stuff either argument down her throat.  Yes, I'm as fed up with proselytizing Atheists as I am with the door-to-door Jesus salesmen.  And I will admit that there are a few paths that I might counsel her against (sorry dear, but do you really want to be considered property? No, he doesn't have a right to beat you.), but the choice is hers. 

Any suggestions? It's just so interesting that it'd be difficult to find a generic "it's not nice to be mean to other people even if they're mean to you" type book without getting into a Christian reading of the Golden Rule.

Please be aware that I'm moderating these posts, so don't even bother with the "You need to find Jesus" posts.