Dad's Surprising Spinning Wheel Hack (or is it a Kludge?)

Are you ready for a post that isn't related to politics?

I've been working at a part-time, work-at-home job for almost a year now. (If you are interested in information about the job, comment or e-mail me, and I'll tell you more. I'm continuing my tradition of not naming my employer on this blog.) Since my pain problems make it difficult to use the computer for long periods of time, I have to be judicious with the time I do spend on the computer. The same head and neck problems have been keeping me from spinning as well.

Also, I've gotten stuck in the trap of thinking that because it's been so long since I posted, I need to come up with a big comeback post. So I put off blogging even longer because I felt like I had to do something big. Then I finally decided that I just needed to blog something.

Excuses, excuses.

Anyway, recently the conrod joint on Mom's spinning wheel broke. It's the flexible piece of nylon that connects the wheel's treadle with the rod that spins the wheel. (You can see it in a diagram here.) I think sometimes pieces of leather are used as well, but Mom's Ashford has a piece of nylon.

You can go out and buy replacement joints. They're only a couple of dollars. However, by the time you pay for shipping you're paying an awful lot for a little piece of nylon. The best way to do it is to wait until you have something else to buy from the shop and ship them together. Either way, you'll have to wait.

So Dad set out looking for solutions. He tried several things. His search took him to Home Depot, where he found the answer.


You are looking at small piece of RG-59 Coaxial Cable. In this picture, Mom and Dad are working on screwing it into place. Dad bought 1 foot of the stuff for 27 cents, and he still has enough left over to replace several more conrod joints.

So if your conrod joint breaks, and you're having the shakes because you can't spin, go to your hardware store. Be sure to ask for RG-59 coaxial cable. There is more than one type of cable, and this is the one that proved to be the perfect size for Mom's Ashford Traditional wheel. (I would imagine that it's the same size for all the Ashfords, but you'd have to ask them to know for sure.)

They sell coaxial cable in pre-measured lengths with plugs on the ends at electronic stores. Don't waste your money on those. For this job, you need the cable that's sold by the foot. It will probably be in a spool that looks like this. Ask an employee to cut off a piece for you. Dad got an entire foot, but a conrod joint is much shorter than that. You could probably get away with half a foot, but it's not a bad idea to have some extra on hand in case you cut the first piece too short or something else goes wrong. (They may not sell lengths shorter than a foot anyway. I guess it all depends on your hardware store.)


Mom and Dad cut a piece the same length as the old conrod joint. The screws in the conrod and the treadle assembly screwed into the cable, so they didn't have to make any holes manually.


In the video above, you can see the finished repair and hear Mom and Dad talking about it. Mom was having some trouble treadling. It turned out that she had taken off the bobbin before they turned the wheel upside down for the repairs, and that was throwing the whole thing off balance. It's treadling a little better in the video below:


In case you were wondering, yes, we made the repairs on Super Bowl Sunday. (I think I'm remembering that correctly.)

Also, while we're on the subject, I should mention another solution I found on the Knittsings blog. They used vinyl boat cording from an upholstery shop.

As you can see by the title, I've been debating whether to call this a hack or a kludge. Wikipedia seems to imply they are basically the same thing. In my mind, a kludge has negative connotations. it's a fix that isn't very good, like the kind of things you find on There I Fixed It. Kludges are either temporary, desperate, stupid or any combination of those three. Conversely, hack has positive connotations. I'm using hack in the life hack sense of the word. Hacks are clever solutions you wish you would have thought of. Apparently they're not as different as I thought.

This may be a Kludge, because I'm not sure how long the coaxial cable will last. I don't know if Mom has any spinning in progress right now. Only time and lots of spinning will tell how well it works. A true conrod joint is still the ideal solution, but the coaxial cable will last until Mom orders something from somewhere that sells conrod joints.

I'm going to confess that I used hack in the title because I read this post that says headlines with the word hack (and surprise) have the tendency to go viral. I doubt a post about fixing a spinning wheel will go viral, but I thought I'd try it. I think it still sounds like my own voice. I use the word hack, at least online. The challenge with tips like these (as well as any writing related to SEO) is to use the information to your benefit without sounding like a robot. I still want to sound like me. I think I did ok.

Besides, if any of these posts have truly been about a hack, it's this one.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Bites

I'll get back to the title in a moment. I'm going to start with a different bird.




Mom finished crocheting this a couple of days ago. This is Kate Alvis's  Funky Little Owl Potholder, made with dishcloth cotton.






Then she got on a roll and started looking online for more crochet patterns. This time she found Doni Speigle's Flower Coaster pattern. I think she's planning to make more. They may be gifts.






I lent Mom some dishcloth cotton for for the flowers. She picked some out when I went to storage to get more yarn for the Epic Adult Surprise Jacket. The different yarns looked so pretty together that I had to take a picture.






The Epic Adult Surprise Jacket is coming along nicely. I'm glad I found these colors. There's a lot of blue and green, and a big red and orange section. I think these pinks and purples will balance those colors out.






This jacket is going to look a little crazy, but I think I can pull it off.






I'm ending with something sad. I don't think I've ever mentioned Dewi, the family parakeet, on this blog. Our family had her for 11 years. Last Saturday she quit eating. By Sunday morning, she was gone. The video above was filmed just four days earlier.

We knew she had been having some problems. We took her to a bird expert at Tomlinson's back in May after she started pulling out the feathers under her wings. He contributed the itchiness to old age, and he said she was thin. We knew her time was short, but we didn't think she'd be gone so soon.

I've debated whether the title I used for this entry is mean. Since we found the other bird, which Katie and Aaron have named Pico, I've wanted to write about Dewi. This was the title I had in my head.

We wanted a male bird, since we've always read that male parakeets are friendlier and more likely to talk. We've had several parakeets over the years, and all but Dewi have been male. Dewi surprised us.

Dewi was always angry and easily frightened. It was a long time before she showed any interest in interacting with us or even leaving her cage. And she was a biter.  These are traits I've always attributed to her sex.

After we had Pico in the house, I thought maybe we had been too hard on Dewi. Pico is sweet and didn't seem afraid of us, very different than Dewi. Maybe it wasn't fair of us to expect Dewi to conform to a role created by humans. The qualities that make a good pet bird aren't the qualities that make a good mama bird. Perhaps she was programmed to be more concerned with protecting her "nest" than sitting on our fingers.

I started to wonder what other birds would have thought of Dewi. What would have her role been if she lived with a flock of birds?

I had planned to expound on this further before we lost her. Now that's she gone, I can see that we accepted her, even if she wasn't what we were expecting, and in return she accepted us. Over time she began to come out of cage and sit on our shoulders while she picked at our shirts and our hair. She would get on our plates and try to eat our food, and we would let her. We were friends, and that's what mattered.

Twice More Without Feeling (and My Weekend at Shiloh's)

I feel like this sometimes.

About a week and a half ago, I House/Dog/Lizard sat for Aaron's family. You've met Spiny before. This is Shiloh. She spent most of Friday and a good portion of the rest of the weekend just like this, looking out the window, presumably waiting for her family to come home.

Shiloh is a good little dog. She rarely barks, she won't chew on your shoes and she's housebroken. As long as she stays away from other dogs, she's very well behaved. Shiloh just wants to be loved. She greets just about everyone that comes into the house, hoping that they will pet her. Once she establishes that someone is a friend, she follows them all over the house.

Shiloh doesn't like to be alone for long periods of time, especially at night. So that's why I spent the night there. I felt bad because she stayed up late with me the first night. I didn't realize that she wouldn't go sleep in her doggy bed until I went to the bedroom with her. In fact, she wouldn't even walk into the bedroom unless I walked in first, (Fortunately, she napped on the couch while I was in the living room, so she got some sleep in.)




By the second day, she was spending less time looking through the window. But she really perked up when Katie and Aaron dropped by.




Katie knew where Shiloh's clothes were, so we played dress up. There are three different knit and crochet items in this picture. Mom made the light blue dog sweater that Shiloh is wearing. She engineered it herself based on a store-bought sweater Shiloh already had. Later, Mom told me that she saw a bunch of knitting patterns online for basically the same sweater. She reinvented the wheel with this one. I'm still impressed.

In the shoe box, there's a Shiloh-sized purple scarf that Aaron's Mom knit. And the blue thing just outside of the box is a little neckerchief that Katie crocheted.




Shiloh makes me want to get a dog when I move to my next apartment. I could benefit from daily walks and waking up to a happy face and wagging tail. I've never been a dog person. When I was little I was terrified of them. I'm much better about dogs now that I'm older. Still, I don't know how I'd handle living with one. I'd need a dog as sweet and well behaved as Shiloh, and I suspect dogs like her are hard to find. 

Having fun with Shiloh was a nice distraction from all my pain problems. My procedure a couple of weeks ago went pretty well. The good news is that I'm confident that the Supraorbital Nerve is the problem. There was a very distinct heavy feeling where there is normally tingly pain.

The bad news is that it didn't last. Some tingling was back by the time I was in the car to go home. Two days later, it was back to normal, if not worse. Now it seems like my supraorbital nerve is back to its usual tingly state.

I finally had my follow up visit last week. We're doing this whole thing two more times, in hopes that the steroid will build up in the nerve. My next procedure is tomorrow. I'm up way too late blogging about this. It's hard to sleep, wondering how much relief I'll get and how long it will last. And I can't wait for more trigger point injections. Those worked really well on my back and shoulder for about a week and a half.

Through all this, I'll be staring out the window like Shiloh, waiting for a permanent solution.

At least I've met my deductible.

Cross My Heart and Hope to Die, Stick a Needle in my Eye...

Earlier tonight (or technically yesterday), we celebrated Mom's birthday. I made the cake once again. I think I should have left off a design element or two, but it's more fun than your average birthday cake. Still, it's no Monster Cake. It's a lemon cake and lemon frosting, so I added lemons, things that are yellow and things that complement yellow. The lemon slices got kind of soggy over time. Next time I'll skip the fruit.

Mom's birthday is actually Apr. 21, but we moved it tonight. Partly because Dad works late on Thursdays, and partly because tomorrow I get a needle in my eye.

OK, so the needle isn't actually going *in* my eye. It's going right above my eye, into my Supraorbital Nerve. I don't know any rhymes about Supraorbital Nerves, so I've been making this joke for at least a week now.

I'm convinced this has to be it. I can't believe I've had this headache for more than a year now. This solution makes a lot of sense.  This has to be the solution.

I'm still having upper back, neck and shoulder pain, but I've had some fairly mild pain days recently. Mild enough that I cut back a little more on one of my painkillers. If the headache is solved, I'm hoping I'll have enough momentum to push through and get my life back on track.

The Crafty Cripple is probably in the hospital for her surgery right now. Unlike her, I don't have a bunch of projects planned for recovery. I'll be home in the early afternoon, back to "normal" by Friday and I haven't been able to get to the storage unit for the yarn I need to continue my project. Hopefully we'll both be fixed soon.

Now it's time for my last snack before I have to fast.

WIP: Baby Surprise Jacket

I've been so distracted with "A Knitted Wonderland"* that I've gotten behind on my blogging. I have two FOs, a cake and a new WIP to talk about. I'm starting with the WIP.

It's my very first Baby Surprise Jacket!


Back in January I said I was daydreaming of a sweater made from my stash. I wanted a cardigan that was seamless or almost seamless. Mom suggested that I look through her old Wool Gathering newsletters for patterns. When I saw the Baby Surprise Jacket pattern, I immediately knew that was what I wanted to make.

In The Opinionated Knitter there's a pattern for an "Adult Surprise Jacket," the Baby Surprise Jacket's grown up counterpart. It's perfect for my epic stash sweater.

But first, I'm taking the author's advice and making a Baby Surprise Jacket before I embark on a larger sweater. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the pattern.


The Baby Surprise Jacket is both very simple and very complicated. Basically, you knit a wonky rectangle, fold it, seam the shoulders and end up with a cardigan.

At the beginning of the jacket I had no idea what went where until I did a row of increases to create a cuff. At that phase it was hard to imagine that I was knitting sleeves. A little while later, I was binding off a few stitches for the collar. It started making sense in my mind.

There are diagonal increases and decreases that work well with variegated yarn and makefor some interesting stripes. I went with some variegated yarn from stash. I would have liked to add some stripes, but I don't have anything that works with the yarn I found.

I'm using Baby Bee Sweet Delight from Hobby Lobby. I bought it ages ago for because I liked the bright colorway. So far, I'm happy with it. It's a nice for a machine washable synthetic yarn.

There's a point where the increases and decreases meet in the picture above. That's the armpit. If you fold what I have so far, you get this:.


This pattern, like most Elizabeth Zimmerman patterns, is more like a recipe than a set of instructions. Specific row numbers aren't listed. So I want to leave some notes about row numbers, increases and decreases for myself and anyone else who's interested. If you follow her original instructions exactly, you'll probably have the same row numbers.

The original pattern suggests a gauge of five or six stitches per inch. I'm knitting five stitches per inch, mostly because that's what I got with this particular yarn and the first needle I could find. Five stitches per inch makes a size for a baby around one year old. Six stitches per inch will get you a newborn size jacket.

I think row ten was where I did the increases for the cuff. I spaced them out so that there was no M1 next to the marker.

At row 43 I found myself with 91 stitches, not 90 as the pattern says. I looked carefully at all my decreases. I think I decreased by two stitches instead of three in the first row. So on row 44, the first of the "work three rows even" I knit two together at the corner where I made the mistake. I think it'll be fine.

Row 47 started the increases, and I think row 60 was where I added the increases to add fullness in the back. I don't think I did a very good job of spacing them out. I miscalculated and one M1 was too far off to the side.

On rows 72 and 73 I did the neck shaping. As of right now I've finished row 79, and on row 80 I'll be doing some more mind bending shaping.

If you're new to the Baby Surprise Jacket you're probably still confused, I'll leave you with "Baby Surprise Jacket - The Movie." It's a short (14 second) video that I posted for the first time in 2008. I tmade it when we found an unfinished Baby Surprise Jacket that Mom had started years ago.


* - We recently found out that our display will be up another week. Now you have until March 25 to see the the installation.

"A Knitted Wonderland" Part 2 - FO: Tree Sweater

Here is our finished product. Tree 34 with it's sweater and its team, Katie, Aaron, Mom and me.


To recap, this is our tree sweater for A Knitted Wonderland. I recommend reading all my tree sweater blog entries if you missed them the first time. That way you can understand the overall project and see how we got here.

We used the assigned yarns, I Love This Yarn in Orange and Turquoise, Red Heart Kids in Pink and Lion Brand Vanna's Choice in Olive. I used US Size 7 needles for my portion. I don't know what size hook Katie and Mom used for their portions.


I had two sections with cables. I used a the large middle cable from the Braided Cable Scarf by Miriam Felton in the center, and put two simple cables on either side.


Katie used half double crochet for her portion.


Mom used single crochet on her portion, and Aaron helped us sew the whole thing up.

In this picture you can see the button and the crochet flower I added. To make the flower, I used the Little Flowers with Leaves pattern by Mimi Alelis. I wish I had added a few more flowers around the top. I think it would have added interest without being too distracting.


The day after installation day was the official project debut at Explore UT. Katie and Aaron had to work and Mom didn't want to fight the traffic. We were all pretty tired, and Explore UT is a massive event. But I wanted to see my tree in action badly enough to pay for parking and deal with the crowds.

I followed the arrows (like the one above) and caught the last part of Magda Sayeg's talk. I even helped answer an audience member's question about how long it took to make the tree sweaters. (Basically, I said it took me a month to make half of our tree, but it's hard to break that down into hours.)


After the talk I spent some time outside watching our tree to see if we had any tree huggers. I saw a few people take pictures with it, including the woman above. She took a picture of two little girls posing with our tree. This woman took a picture too. And that's just what I saw while I was sitting on a bench.


Some group was filling rubber gloves with helium and handing them out like balloons. They were all over the place. I saw one kid accidentally let go of his glove/balloon under our tree. It ended up stuck in the branches. The boy tried to knock at the balloon by tossing his water bottle at it before he gave up.

It's amazing the sense of ownership that developed after we put the sweater on the tree. I wasn't too worried about the glove/balloon, but I felt like it was my responsibility to do something because it was in my tree.

I wonder if it's still there. It seems like it would have lost helium and fallen out of the tree by now. Or eventually someone in charge of maintaining the campus would have seen it and gotten it out. There's no way I could reach that with my ladder. (Not that I had it with me during Explore UT.)


On Friday, March 18 it all comes down, and that makes me sad. But my family and I got to be part of something really cool. I'm glad I saw the link on Facebook, otherwise I would have missed the whole thing.

There are links about this project all over the Internet. I'll leave you with a link to all of my pictures and some coverage from The Daily Texan.

A Knitted Wonderland from The Daily Texan on Vimeo.

"A Knitted Wonderland" Part 1 - The Installation

Last Friday was installation day for A Knitted Wonderland, and I think I've spent more time uploading pictures to Flickr than I did sewing up the sweater. I have so many pictures, I've decided to share them over two blog entries.


In case you're tuning in late, "A Knitted Wonderland" is the latest project by Magda Sayeg, who is known for her yarn bombing work. In January she invited knitters all over the city to help her cover the 99 trees in front of the Blanton Museum. I've written more about it in greater detail in previous entries.

Mom, Katie, Aaron and I arrived in the afternoon not long after the installation officially began. I packed the leftover yarn, some carefully selected knitting notions, safety pins, water, an old sheet to sit on, sunscreen (that we didn't need) and a ladder.

I couldn't wait to get started when I saw the very first people sewing up their tree sweaters. I went to the front desk to get our tree sweater and signed in at the table. All four of us had to sign waivers, one for using ladders and one allowing people to take our pictures. Apparently someone is filming the process for South by Southwest. They had drinks and cookies, although they went fast.


Mom was the one that suggested safety pins, and that was a good idea. I was thinking we'd baste the sweater, but pinning it was easier. We were told to leave some negative ease, so it was pretty tight. We were worried at first. I knew we'd figure something out. You can see the big gaps here.

But once we started sewing, it started coming together.


We started at the bottom and worked our way up. We could get away with being a little short on top, but not at the bottom. It ended up being about the right length. I found that sewing was easier if we moved the safety pins to close the gaps as we seamed. That way we didn't have to pull together so much fabric at once.


I used the Mattress Stitch on the knitting section, and the stitch was close to invisible. I showed Katie and Aaron how to do the mattress stitch, and they both caught on pretty quickly. (I think Mom already knew. I learned it from The Knitters Book of Finishing Techniques a while back.) I think Aaron did a big chunk of the seam in this picture. We took turns sewing, so I've lost track of who did what.

As you can see, we just whip stitched the crocheted sections. We didn't know any awesome techniques for seaming crochet.


Getting the seam straight was easier because we pinned the tree sweater first. You can see Mom straightening out the tree sweater here.

Despite all our measurements, the tree is kind of unpredictable with all it's knots and bumps. There's one area in particular where my cable looks pregnant. But that's part of the fun, and knitting is forgiving.

There was one team* that managed to get everything almost perfect. I wish the picture I took wasn't so blurry. They made a little "skirt" at the bottom and left a hole for an especially large knot. They may have been the only team to use all ribbing, which is smart. Ribbing will stretch as much or as little as you need it to. I was impressed. We weren't nearly that precise.

Off and on we all took breaks and went to run around and see the other trees. I ran into Alicia from the Austin Meetup Group sewing the tree sweater for her team. I also saw Sandra Singh and helped her find a tree 55. She took our picture and put it on her blog.


I have all my pictures here. I'm going to share some of my favorites, like the one above. This team added sleeves to their tree "sweater."


This tree has a different stitch pattern for every color. We debated doing something similar, but I don't think we could have gotten it this uniform.


I really like this one. This group managed to do a lot of colorwork while following the guidelines.

I also saw stripes within stripes, people with matching accessories and a snake. I wish I could have taken a picture of every single tree.


I was worried that we wouldn't finish in time, but we got to the top faster than I expected. For the record, I did do some work from the ladder. I couldn't reach up this high for very long because of the pain from the pinched nerve, but I wanted to say I did it. (Mom did most of the work from the ladder.) I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to do this because of the pain. Of course, frequent breaks, three people to help sew and carry everything and a Flector Patch helped.


At dusk, we were finished, and we had time to spare. Installation was blast. I talked to so many people. Two men visiting from New York asked us a bunch of questions about the whole project, and several knitters complimented my cables. We had a great tree ready for Saturday.

And Saturday is a story for another entry.


* - I'm assuming these were teams. I know a few people knit entire trees all by themselves, but most people worked in groups.

Tuesday Tens: Ten Reasons I Didn't Want to Buy a New Purse

I bought a new purse tonight. Guess which one's the new one?

With all the job interviews I've been going on, the subject of what to wear has been a common topic of conversation with my family. It's an interesting study in class and gender roles. There are specific "rules" in place for men that don't exist for women, and I'm confused.

I even ordered a suit from a catalog that was on clearance for only $20. It was black, single breasted, with pants. After being on back order for two months, I finally tried it on for the family. Aaron's brothers said I looked like Giovanni from Pokemon. I sent the suit back.

Since my first interview in March, Mom keeps saying if anything is making me look unprofessional, it's my purse. It's dirty and the bunny's chewed on it. I agree that I could use another one, but I don't think it's that big of a deal, especially when it comes to job interviews.

Tonight I finally got one at Target. It took me close to an hour to pick one out. I even took a bunch to the fitting rooms and asked for a mirror to "try them on."

I've been resisting getting a new purse for a while, even though (as Mom kept telling me) there's lots of cheap ones that are professional enough at department stores. The reasons are complicated. Here are some of the causes of my procrastinating:

1. For me, a purse is like a car. Personally, I don't have tons of purses. I have a little evening bag that I've had since high school. It's too sparkly for an interview. I have a small purse that's sort of like a small backpack. It's made of a similar material and has lots of zippers and pockets. I use it for traveling, theme parks and similar situations. It's more secure for going on roller coasters or being dragged through the airport, and it's lighter if I'm going to be doing a lot of walking. But it's too casual for interviews.

And then I have the one gets used constantly. That's the "car." It usually only gets replaced if it "breaks" (like the time my strap broke and I kept having to staple it together) or I see a new that's perfect. I don't switch out much, and I don't want to. I'm reluctant to buy a purse either based on job interview standards alone. And I don't want to rush the purse buying process since it'll be constant companion for a couple of years.

2. I'm really proud of myself for getting rid of so much stuff, and I can't bring myself to have another purse sitting in my closet. I've never been the type to buy lots of purses, but I have a bought a couple here and there because I liked them. I also kept old and "broken" purses for that "someday" that never seems to come. I got rid of most of those. I don't want to hold on to another purse, even if it is my "job interview" purse. And I don't want to spend money on a purse to use once and give away.

3. I want to buy a quality handmade one or make one myself. This is a big one. Anyone else suffer from the I-don't-want-to-buy-one-I-want-to-make-my-own Syndrome? I usually only wear one scarf at a time part of the year, but I would really use one good knitted or crocheted purse. But then it's hard to decide, and for one that's really functional I would need lining and a zipper.

I'd also like a purse made by someone else from Etsy or a craft show. The problem is it's more expensive. While it's understandable that it would cost more, and it would be worth the investment, I'm unemployed and can't spend more than $20 or $25 right now.

4. Picking out a purse requires me to reflect on who I am and where I am at life. Here's where sociology comes in. Walking through Target, I deemed some purses too young, some too old, some too professional, some not professional enough, some too shallow, some too dull, some too sexy, some too conservative and on and on and on. Materials, silhouettes, colors, patterns and size all evoke certain ideas and personalities in my mind. Big "hobo bags" remind me of fashionistas and soccer moms. Neutral colors seem bland. Purses with big logos on them seem shallow (even if no one's ever heard of the brand.) Straps made out of chains seem like something sexy, like you'd wear to a club. And the little envelope purses with fun prints and pictures (the ones that appeal to me the most) look like they're for teens and college students (not a good look for a job interview.)

I'm not sure how many of these ideas apply to our culture in general, but I'm sure they're there. That makes me want a "special" purse even more.

5. I feel like a shallow person for believing everything I wrote in number four. I can only hide behind sociological pondering so much. I do care about how I look and how people judge me.

6. Purses that match the image I want to convey don't match what appeals to me aesthetically. Shiny! Sequins! Eye Bleeding Colors! Prints! Cute Animals! Unicorns! Glitter! Rainbows! Weird Shapes!... usually don't make for very professional purses.

7. When it comes to purses, I still have some baggage. (Pun intended.) It took me a while to embrace the concept of carrying a purse. The feminist in me felt like I should be able to get by without one. I finally decided not to feel ashamed for having a purse. My gender is lucky to be able to carry a small bag with them and fit the social norm, rather than trying to shove everything in our pockets or carrying a full size backpack or laptop bag everywhere. Except for one item on that list, I think those are items both men and women need. I like to have my wallet, checkbook, keys, inhaler, medication, pens, chap stick, tampons and eye drops with me. Recently I've been carrying a big tape measure because I've been looking for storage ideas for my apartment. I think women have the right idea.

Yet I still have this lingering idea that purses mean weakness. So I tend to avoid buying them.

8. There's functional things to consider. There's size of course. I bought a cloth covered purse even though it will be harder to clean. I prefer one big pocket to five smaller ones. A zipper is essential. I put back one purse based on lack of zipper alone.

Because my headache seems to be related to neck and shoulder pain, I thought a lot about how it would affect my posture. As much time as I spend carrying my purse, this is a big deal. Instead of the one long strap I've been using, I got one with two short straps that hold the purse right under my armpit. I figured using different muscles would help.

9. My purse really *shouldn't* factor into my job interview at all. The car analogy alone is proof of this. You don't try to but a car to match your outfits, or buy one just for interviews. Think about luggage too. You don't worry about carrying a black suitcase while you're wearing brown shoes. I wonder thought, when men buy briefcases, do they consider how they will look with their clothes?

10. The more your parents bug you to do something, the less you want to do it. 'Nuff Said.

I'll leave you with an example of how my purse got so messed up in the first place. I took this picture while I was writing this entry.

Friday Bits and Pieces - Catching Up

Here are some bits and pieces that didn't quite fit anywhere else.



Tuesday was Mom's birthday, and we celebrated on Wednesday. I already posted the tawashi I made for her. Jules made a pineapple upside down cake. Katie gave Mom brownies, a special double-walled cup and Aqua Globes.


Last Saturday Before Jules arrived, I had Katie trim my hair. This is the after picture. The before picture is here. (Obviously, she didn't cut very much.)


I'm leaning towards these glasses. Everyone except Jules likes them. I'm thinking about going to Lenscrafters this weekend to see my other options. I'm probably going to get something similar if I don't get these.

I'm starting to adjust to my CPAP. I can sleep for most of the night with it, although I seem to drool some while I'm wearing it.

Hill Country Weavers is having its Second Annual Warehouse Blowout. I didn't go to the first one, but I plan to drop by tomorrow. Even if I don't find anything, it blows my mind that Suzanne has enough stock to fill an entire house, and hold a sale in a warehouse.

Gauge is having a sale too. I'll see you there.

OPP: Sewing Edition

I seem to be "nesting."

I'm at Mom and Dad's tonight. The big Ravelry party at The Knitting Nest is tomorrow, and I want to get there early. Mom and Dad's house is much closer to the shop than mine, so I'm spending the night.

Earlier this evening I tagged along while my parents went to Home Depot to look at water heaters. I found myself drooling over detachable shower heads, plants and decorating ideas. These are the type of things I never think about. Add in all the Crockpotting, and it seems really weird.

I've also been thinking more about sewing. It seems like a good time for some sewing OPP (Other People's Projects.)


Mom made this in one evening. Apparently the fabric basket tutorial from the Pink Penguin has been making the rounds among sewing bloggers. Now I want to make one too.

I think I'm going to put the Pink Penguin on my Google Reader. And find that sewing machine I picked up on Freecycle ages ago.


I have a better yarn stash, but Mom has a better fabric stash. (Which makes sense, since she actually sews stuff and I just talk about it.) She has started a coin quilt similar to this one using stash fabric. I really like the fabric choices, because they go together without being too "matchy-matchy." It's very authentic.


Last Saturday, while I was assembling my spinning wheel, my sister's boyfriend was learning how to sew.

Aaron goes to Texas State, the same school I graduated from. (Except it was still Southwest Texas State when I went there.) He found this Bobcat patch, and decided that he wanted to put it on his Texas State sweatshirt. And he wanted to do it himself.


Mom showed Aaron how. Here is his practice sewing.


When it was time to actually sew on the patch, Mom found some glittery gold thread on hand that matched the patch.


Here's the finished product.

I did a little bit of sewing as a kid, but I have some trouble with little things like straight lines, even stitches and cutting along dotted lines. I don't consider myself proficient in sewing, but I know a little bit. Maybe I'll pull out that sewing machine.

Someday.