Blog Break

We all need a little break every now and then . . time to recharge our batteries. I’m there. I’ll do the drawing for the Color Palette Challenge on Saturday, the Stash Report on Sunday and the Design Wall on Monday posts. I should be recharged by Wednesday or Thursday but if not, I’ll do the On the Needles post on Friday and surely by the next week I’ll be back but my guess is . . you’ll hear from me Wednesday or Thursday.

Oh, I almost forgot . . I have a special post for Monday. It’s no wonder my batteries are always low . . too much to say, not enough time to recharge. Seriously, I’ll be here but not posting as much. I’m not going anywhere, just taking a bit of a break so don’t anyone think something’s wrong . . it’s isn’t!

Lessons on Preparedness

The one thing I know about preparedness, from having gone through a week without power after an ice storm in southwest Louisiana, and another week without power after a tornado in Kentucky and almost a week of not being able to leave our house after a 20+ inch snow storm in Kentucky is this:  I will never be 100% prepared for every possible scenario.  I’ve learned to do the best I can and make do with what I have.

If you’ve seen any of the news on TV or in print media, you’ve seen the lines for folks waiting to buy gasoline.  Having generators is not a guarantee that “life as we know it” goes on.  I’ve always thought that having a generator gives most a sense of false security.  If your power is out for a few hours or even a day or two, a generator is fantastic but if power is off for days and days, a generator is almost worthless.

Whole house generators require mega amounts of fuel.  Most are hooked up to natural gas lines.  If you notice in New Jersey, gas meters have been taken out and there’s gas spewing into the water/air.  I doubt there are many in the hardest hit areas who have an uninterrupted supply of natural gas.  Portable generators take a good bit of fuel if you’re running them a lot.

We have diesel and gasoline generators and have considered getting a propane generator because we have more propane fuel here than we ever have diesel or gasoline.

The only thing I would ever plan to run with a generator is the well, which we can run for not very long and fill the tank and that will give us enough water for showers and washing dishes.  We would also run the generator for 4 – 6 hours a day to keep the food in the freezers frozen.  I still can all my vegetables and about half the beef, pork and venison that we get and my freezers contain the remaining half of the meat, as well as a lot of fruits that I buy on sale (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries), as well as some prepared meals that I cook ahead.  Anything in jars is safe — power on, power off, moves across several states.

Generators can be great but please don’t put all your eggs in one basket . . don’t think because you have one, life will go on without missing a beat.

The news out of New York and New Jersey is so very sad but we can all learn a little from the experiences of those folks.  I’m thanking my lucky stars that in the event of a major disaster in my area, we live in a rural area and not in a major city.  I’m thankful that we have our well and as long as it has water, we control our supply and I’m thankful that we have a septic tank and it will not back up into our house because of a power failure.  know there are folks who would be thanking their lucky stars to be in a city and not in a rural area.  Look at what’s going on there and think about how a disaster on that scale — whether it be a hurricane, a flood, an earthquake, even a collapse of our economy . . how are your preparations going to hold up?

I doubt many of those folks in the area affected by Hurricane Sandy ever thought this could or would happen to them . . mass transit out for days, no gasoline, no power for as long as it’s going to be out.  Don’t bury your head in the sand . . unexpected things can and do happen.

If you lose your home and everything you own, obviously the preparations you’ve done are gone too.  We cannot plan for everything.  Short of losing everything, most any prepping you do is better than nothing.

 

 

Fabric for Nicole’s Quilt

Having a nice fabric stash makes it so easy when I need to pull fabric for a new quilt.  We do have a local shop about 30 miles from here in Santa Anna and they have a nice selection of fabric.  I could go there and choose fabrics but it’s so nice to walk into the closet and get just what I need. Trying to order fabrics that need to be so close in color, and all need to work together would be quite difficult without seeing the actual fabrics.

I didn’t pull the browns yet for the chain blocks.

These are the first fabrics I pulled for Nicole’s quilt.

I often use a Ruby Beholder to determine the value of the fabrics I’m thinking of using.  Other times I simply eyeball it but the most valuable tool for me for determining whether colors work is my digital camera.  I seem to be able to see more — whether it’s value or even a mistake in piecing, by seeing a photo than by seeing the actual piece.

When looking at the above photo, it was apparent to me that the yellow is brighter than what I want to use in this quilt.

The yellow was changed out and then it seems the blue directly behind it is too bright.

The blues were swapped out and I think I’m happy with the choice.  The cream in the center, which represented the background, has been removed in the bottom photo and seeing the lighter of the yellow/gold fabrics without the background fabric, had me questioning whether it would work but then I realized that it doesn’t work with the tan carpet but it works fine with the ecru background fabric.

A whole color scheme can need tweaking when just one color is added.  By removing the ecru background fabric, and just seeing these against the carpet, these fabrics lose their “zing” but when placed back on the background fabric, I love them all.

The fabrics are chosen, the cutting will soon begin.  This quilt needs a name.  Any suggestions?

#10 Sock Finished

Yesterday I had hopes of finishing these socks by the end of this weekend.  Last night after dinner, I had planned to go back to the sewing room and start working on Nicole’s quilt but she had not yet seen the fabric I had chosen so I didn’t want to start that quilt until she had seen the fabric and told me she liked it.  She has now told me she likes it!  :)    Not wanting to start the quilt yet, I picked up these socks.  The heel wasn’t turned yet, but I had done a few rows on the heel flap.  I knitted and knitted and didn’t stop for anything and by bed time, I had these socks done!

Notice that I hung them over the snail that holds the dog leashes so you can see it’s dark outside.  This means that at the end of October, I had finished my 10th pair of socks and I’m back on track to finish 12 pairs this year.

The yarn in these is Online Supersocke 100.  Towards the end of the second sock, I came across three knots where the yarn had been spliced.  That’s never good and pretty aggravating.  I used the Simple Skyp pattern, with a modification or two.