Darned math

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Suzanne

I was trying to do this crosshatched border as mathlessly as possible, however, I just dove in and didn’t think about the corners, and as you can see: when I did get to a corner, I horked it up. I’m using the IQ to actually do the cross-hatching, which is awesome, but it’s only smart enough to do what I tell it do, it can’t say “You moron, you did something stupid there and your lines aren’t going to come out even.”

Of course, it probably SHOWED me that on the screen, but on the screen, I thought it looked right. And even though I’ve remeasured my tick marks several times, I still can’t figure out what I did wrong.

So, I’m going to channel Scarlett and worry about it tomorrow.

Well, maybe not tomorrow, but definitely later. When I figure out what I did wrong, I’ll be sure to report in, so none of my fellow quilters repeat my mistake. Not that they would be tempted to make the mistake to begin with. They are all smart enough to make sure the corners work out before they blindly start quilting an entire border.

Telling on myself

Posted on April 28, 2010 by Suzanne

If you’ve been around the blog for awhile, you know that I take a somewhat perverse pleasure in telling stories on myself.

Well, I’ve got another one for you.

DSC02879 Telling on myself

I started making this baby quilt around the time that we were moving my crap back home from the shop. At some point, I set it aside, for a number of reasons.

When I say set it aside, you should not read carefully put all pieces in a basket or bag and put said basket or bag on a shelf where it can be easily found.

Oh no. That would make too much sense.

No, I shoved it willy nilly and promptly forgot about it.

When I picked it up Sunday, I had:

15 blocks

2 partially sewn strip sets

approximately 14 inches each of the blue and white prints. I knew (and why I knew this particular fact but not another, more relevant fact which I’ll reveal in a bit, I’ll never know…) that this was absolutely all I had left of these two prints. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the rest had been sold in the clearance sale at the shop.

Between that leftover yardage and the partial strip sets, I was able to eek out enough blocks for the quilt as shown — 30 blocks total. With the borders on, the quilt measures approximately 42 by 48, which is a little on the small side of what I normally do when I make baby quilts (I try to think of them more as kid quilts, that will still be big enough when they are toddlers…), but it would have to do, since that was all the fabric I had.

I do remember thinking, before I started quilting it, that I’d probably turn around and find another couple of blocks somewhere in a pile.

But…whatever. The quilt is quilted and now it’s time to bind it.

I went looking in my closet to see if I could find some stray strips of the black and white polka dot (before I cut any more off the bolt), and guess what I found? It’s like I was psychic, but it was even worse than finding just a block or two:

That’s right, I found THREE WHOLE COMPLETE strip sets shoved into a box in the closet. Cut up that would make EIGHTEEN actual blocks. Why did I not remember that I had sewed so many more strip sets together? Why did not occur to me that because I knew I had been somewhat cavalier with the quilt pieces, that perhaps I should look harder to make sure I had everything? Ay yi yi.

Plus? In the spot where I had originally pulled the blocks and other pieces from? Yeah, there were 2 more blocks there, too.

I need a keeper. Someone to save me from myself.

Read the Label

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Suzanne

This a Public Service Announcement, so that in the future, no one has to suffer the ridicule and humiliation I recently had to take from my husband. (Of course, the worst part is that he didn’t actually SAY anything ridiculing or humiliating, he just had to smile at me).

Anyway. The PSA.

In the future, when you are at Sam’s Club, and you are looking dishwasher detergent (because you are 100% OUT of dishwasher detergent),and you are contemplating that big jug of brand-name dishwasher detergent, but then you notice right next to it, the Member’s Mark dish soap, that’s cheaper, plus it’s phosphate-free…

Make sure you read the label to make sure it is actually dishWASHER soap. Not just dish soap.

Because you dishwasher will not like it when you load it up with regular dish soap.

On the bright side, you’ll have enough dish soap for your children to use for many years of happy hand washing.

Some day soon, I promise to get back to posting things about quilts and knitting and other crafty pursuits, but for now, I thought it was important to make sure that none of you make the same mistake I did.

You are welcome,

Suzanne

p.s. luckily for me, the dishwasher was fine, it just had to run a 2nd cycle to clear all of the suds out. and there were a lot of suds.

You did what?

Posted on February 19, 2010 by Suzanne

Last night, as we were leaving our dinner meeting, Mark was fussing with his cell phone. Apparently, the screen was blank, and he was messing with it to see if he could get it to work.

I asked if something had happened to it, and he got this sheepish look on his face.

“It took a dunk in some water,” he said.

Wait. What?

Apparently, yesterday morning, he had his cell phone in his shirt pocket and…he was checking on our leaky toilet. When he bent over, the phone slipped out and into the toilet.

Of course, he wasn’t flushing at the same time, and was able to quickly pull it out and dry it off.

After we got home, he pulled the battery and spent some time blow drying his phone. As far as I know, it’s OK now, but he does NOT get to give me a hard time about my cell phone anymore.

Picture me banging my head on the wall

Posted on February 11, 2010 by Suzanne

Since announcing the sale at my shop, I have sold a ton of fabric.

Seriously. A ton.

But hardly any yarn, and I just haven’t been able to understand. I thought it was a pretty good deal, but…maybe it wasn’t a good enough deal.

Well, tonight, I had an idea in my head and I wanted to check on a yarn color, so I toodled off to the online shop to look at what I have.

And there was only like 2 yarns in that category. Now, I’m pretty sure there are more yarns in that category in the shop, because I stare at it every time I’m in the shop, so I decided to poke around the rest of the yarn section to see if maybe the yarn I was looking for was misclassified.

There was barely any yarn in ANY category. Seriously.

Color me mystified.

So, I went to poke around the admin side of hte shopping cart. Yup, there was all of the yarn in the list…why wasn’t it showing up in the shop????

*Bad words*

Somehow, nearly all of the yarn had gotten marked as having Inventory Tracked, but the product quantity was…a big fat zero.

*Bad words*

This is not something where Suzanne accidentally checked a checkbox — we’re talking over 150 individual products. I suspect I know when it happened, but I can’t explain exactly WHY. Exactly why or how doesn’t really matter, but oh heavens.

Here I sit, imagining the people who have clicked through from Ravelry, or from the Google ad, or from the sale notification, wondering why I’m touting the yarn I sell, when it didn’t appear that I actually sell any yarn besides a few skeins of Opal sock yarn and Black Cascade 220.

*Bad words*

So! If you are a knitter, or know a knitter, or want to just look at some pretty colors of yarn, guess what! The yarn is now showing on my site! And it’s 30% off!

Yarn at Knots & Bolts