Friday, January 31, 2014

Another lap quilt

As I said I might here, I changed my mind about its size.  I had planned to make it 9 by 9 squares, which would be 81 inches on a side.  I stopped at 7 by 7 (63 inches on a side).  John wants to use it as his napping quilt and it seemed the right size to him.  I haven't bound it yet and I could make it bigger.  It's in trial use now.  One of the cool things about this technique is it's so easy to change your mind.  I think a repair would be easy, too (cats are hard on fabric items).

I took it out on the porch where the light is better.  My camera needs good light to capture the colors correctly.  This is much more how it looks to my eye.  And it is better if you click on the pictures.



Thursday, January 23, 2014

Hurricane force winds in the gorge

It's been very windy in the gorge recently, especially at Crown Point, which is only a little more than 20 miles from our house.  You can read this explanation of the weather phenomenon that causes these high winds.

And here is a video that illustrates just how windy it was...


Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Stress eating

Ozy is our diabetic cat and dealing with his health is a real challenge; I've written a little about it before.  It's not the DOING of the care.  It's the roller coaster of ups and downs of his uncontrolled blood glucose, the decisions about his insulin dose, his pain level, when to get help.

This is what I crave when the roller coaster stress and sleep deprivation become too much.  I know they aren't "good for me" but maybe they are better for me than the stress and sleep deprivation.


Thursday, January 16, 2014

Quilt in progress...doing it my own way

Lately I've been very excited about quilting.  I am inspired by the fabrics I am getting.  And I am figuring out construction techniques that I enjoy.

This is the first part of my new quilt.  I think it is the first quarter but who knows how big I'll make it.  The blocks were quilted individually.  Then I laid the blocks on the backing and used a zigzag stitch to put them together.

Click on the photo to see it better and to get away from the beige border.... doesn't look good with beige.  My camera does not see this quilt the same way my eye does.  Too many different colors.






Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Fun in the extreme cold

Not us.  We don't have fun in the extreme cold.  These folks live in Northern Canada and they built a snow fort out of colored ice blocks.  And then they had a neighborhood party.  Pretty cool.










You can see more photos and read about it here.

Glad we are having spring-like weather.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Nesting

We moved some furniture around and now the living room is looking much more inviting.


Sunday, January 5, 2014

Ozy time

I've written a little before about Ozy and his diabetes.  I use Ozy time to track his 12 hour insulin cycles.   This little clock is set to Ozy time.  Right now Ozy time is is two hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time.


He gets an insulin injection when the clock says 12.  The time after that tells how long it has been since his last injection (for tracking glucose tests, meds, feedings and such).  We had the same schedule for quite a while and I didn't use the clock that much.  But sometimes we have to change the schedule and then the clock really helps.  Like now.  We just changed the schedule and I am using the clock all the time.

Too bad we can't see better

This is ordinary sand, magnified

Photo from this blog

Update: And now a video!

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Quick and dirty projects

A lot of our time and energy these days goes to taking care of our diabetic cat... we are trying to get his blood glucose under control.  I found a blog a diabetic woman writes and she has some pancreas jokes that I think are really funny.

Pancreas jokes

John and I both made quick and dirty, but useful, objects recently.

I made a little pouch for my Nexus so I can listen to Pandora while I do other things, including exercise and sew.  I used a piece of fleece with loops that can be attached with the bib snaps on my overalls.  I meant it as a prototype but it works so well that I haven't made any improvements.



 John made a weird looking three legged table for a neighbor....I am not exactly sure why he doesn't want a fourth leg but it sure looks strange.


Happy New Year everyone!