Your Privacy

Lately I have been thinking about writing information on my blog about some computer/internet things that some of my readers might have some use for.  I don't want to bore you with alot of technical details, but when you use email, internet, and online social media, there are things that everyone should be aware of, and make the best use of....

Even though you prefer to quilt or crochet or do other sorts of crafting, I am sure that you use your computer and its connections to the world wide web. Many of you have cell phones of various types that can keep you online even when you are away from your home computer.   The world is changing, and it is changing FAST!  You can't really ignore some of this stuff...

As of March 1, 2012, GOOGLE, the big search engine and the entity that manages things like gmail, yahoo, you tube, maps and many other applications is changing it's privacy policy.   I was made aware of one of these changes because I was watching the CTV newscast from Winnipeg, Manitoba (even tho i live on the west coast, I have a cable option of what is called time shift channels, so I can watch tv from Newfoundland, Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta along with my own local channels). 

One thing that I learned is that if you have a gmail account, and it happens to be open, and at the same time (in a seperate screen) you do a search on google -- by some magic, that we mere mortals do not have the time or inclination to understand for the most part - Google can LINK your search request to your personal gmail account.  Now basically what this means is if I do a search on GOOGLE and type in say OHIO STAR -- which is a type of quilt block -- GOOGLE will LINK that request to commercial enterprises (who pay for ad space) to your email.   That means that a company that say is OHIO STAR Car Repair will send a advertising email to your personal email account (or any thing that relates to commercial enterprises that use OHIO STAR as a "tag").   Now remember, it can only do this if your email account is open at the same time as you are doing other things on the internet...  Don't Panic!   The main thing to remember is that YOU have options.   First you should go to http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/  where you can learn more than you want to know about these new policies...

It is not my job to bore you -- well, just this little bit, but I hope that you can say I am giving you some needed information, even tho it has nothing to do with quilting or crochet or going for rides in the country, or funny little black and white cats with their matching dog.  (had to put a photo in there to lighten up a serious subject)

Check out that privacy policy page, and once you get to the page, read  the section "Information we collect and how we use it".   Then there is on the right hand side of the page a little section that says "Privacy Resources"  click on the "Privacy Tools" and that will explain how you can OPT OUT of some of the automatic (underhanded big brother links) LINKS that you may have connected to your emails that you never thought could happen...

It is up to you to check out these things now that you are aware.  If there are things you don't understand about it, read it again, ask a friend to help you, ask your kids if they know what to do -- kids know so much more about the electronic world, don't they? 

So please, if you can't do it now, write yourself a note and set aside an hour or so to read about these new policies, take the time to understand them and do the things necessary for your own peace of mind to adjust your own privacy settings.  If you do nothing, you will soon be wondering WHAT?? or WHY??? or WHO's This???

Now, back to our regularly scheduled quilting, crochet, and crafty stuff!!  Tomorrow....

PS  I try to use language that we all understand but I just realized I used a word "tag" that may mean something different to many of you...  A 'Tag" in computerese is "is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information (such as an internet bookmark, digital image, or computer file). This helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching. Tags are generally chosen informally and personally by the item's creator or by its viewer, depending on the system. 

A Few Useful Links for Quilters

The last few days I have come across some interesting subjects that apply to quilters and can teach us a few lessons.  Lessons that cost nothing!  My favourite thing about the internet.  When you look for information on the internet and when you look at BLOGS it rarely costs a penny!

On Ellen Ann Eddy's blog is an explaination of the colour wheel -- not about the colours but about which colour wheel to use, depending on what you are looking at...

http://www.ellenanneeddy.com/weblog/?p=480

Susie Monday (quilt artist) has a very useful post on her blog about What Writers need for focus.  Pretty much the same rules apply to quilt making or for that matter EVERYDAY LIFE -- I know I break the first rule regularly and now I know that rule is the biggest challenge for most everybody...

Check out   http://susiemonday.squarespace.com/journal/2012/1/30/what-henry-miller-said-writers-read-artists-you-need-for-foc.html

And here is another ART Quilter's Blog that is just completely fun to look at!  Not just one entry, if you read not one word, the photos of quilts (not just her own) will keep your eyes moving as you scroll down the page!  Are you thinking you might want to create a COW Quilt after taking a look at her images?

http://marylouweidman.blogspot.com/

And even though I have the "button" over on my right hand side bar, I am going to suggest you go check out the Needle and Thread network.  Every Wednesday is a "LINK-UP" of Canadian Blogs with something new every week...  Just click on the red 'button' over there to explore a set of Canadian quilters and crafters.... 

Cooking like Gramma House

First I should explain that House was not my Gramma's real name.  I grew up calling her that because she lived in a house, while my other Gramma was Gramma Choo Choo -- Yep! you got it she lived and worked as Cook on a Train!

So, as I said Gramma Choo Choo was a professional Cook -- and good enough to create menu's for the upper classes travelling by train -- back in the 1940's and 50's there was not much travel by plane and train travel was quite elegant, apparently.

ANYWAY.  Gramma House was just a regular family cook, mind you for 10 children and a husband!

I cook more like Gramma House than like Gramma Choo Choo...  In fact I doubt that I am even close to being as competent as either, but I try, sort of...

I know that Gramma House had very few recipes, most of her cooking was meat, either roasted or boiled or fried along with potatoes -- I don't think she ever made any kind of noodles or rice.   But she did love beans, Beans in everything and every kind of beans she could find.  Fresh Green Beans, fresh yellow string beans, dried white beans, kidney beans!

Well, last night I decided to cook like Gramma House.  I got out the slow cooker and checked out the pantry and freezer.  I am calling it Meatball Chili...

The Men thought it was one of those GREAT meals!  Tho you must take into consideration that they both worked a 8 hour day at their job and a pot of hot and ready food is number one on their list when they walk in the door at 6pm...

So.

Meatball Chili (in the slow cooker)

dump each ingredient in the slow cooker and turn on LOW for 6 hours.  Eat

20 frozen Turkey Meatballs - thats what I had but I am sure beef, pork or chicken would work quite as well...  and it is 20 because I get 4 meatballs and the men each get 8 -- if you have a different count, go ahead and put in what you need -- same as the carrots, I make them eat a carrot for every meatball!

20 baby carrots, whole

1 middling size zuchinni chopped up, skin on.

3 stalks celery, chopped

1/2 medium onion chopped fairly fine

2 tablespoons honey garlic BBQ sauce, your favourite brand

1 can kidney beans rinsed

1 can diced tomatoes  14 oz or 400 gr

2 big tablespoons chili powder

1 tsp cumin

a few drops tabasco, depending how much "heat" you like

And I know the consensus is to add salt and pepper, but i am supposed to watch the salt intake and my son doesn't like salt on things, so each person in my house adds their own salt as desired...

 
Now, I know that when writing about a recipe you should show a lovely enticing photo of the food, just before you serve it up.  BUT.  I didn't expect it to be quite so appreciated!  And I must add, tho, there is a problem with having Meatballs in Chili....

They picked out all the meatballs!  So the few spoonfulls left at the bottom of the pot doesn't have a meatball in it...  It is a good thing that in my house, THE COOK always gets first dibs on the food or I would have been eating vegetarian chili!

Thanks to Gramma House and her style of improvisational cooking I can create my own masterpieces (and terrible failures too)!

Stacks of 3 1/2 inch Squares

I grew up in farm country, North of Winnipeg, Manitoba.  The worst blizzard ever recorded was part of my early teen years...  The snow blew from Friday afternoon (of course) til Monday morning (wouldn't you know it!) 

I really dislike snow!

I now live where it doesn't snow so much and it certainly doesn't get the prolonged freezing temperatures that happens in Manitoba.

Oh, by the way, the background photo that you see on my blog here was taken by my sister-in-law, Karen and is a view from near their cottage at Winnipeg Beach, MB.   It looks so cold and yet it is somewhat compelling and you wish you could stand out there and watch the wisps of snow drift across the frozen lake.

So the last few days we have had snow -- and I have not been out, other than my back yard since the snow started...

From my sewing room window I can look out across the neighbours property and watch the snow pile up.  The Crows congregate in a tree with red berries for their lunch, while the chickadees and juncos take turns at the bird feeders in the backyard...

I have too many UFO's to count but I also have a shoebox full of squares cut at 3 1/2 inches from the scrappy bits from other projects.  I started cutting the leftover bits way back in Y2K...  I use some but mostly they stack up.  With no real intention I started to arrange and re arrange some of the squares...

So, what else to do except start to sew 3 1/2 inch squares together.  With a Plan, sort of...

I put togther 20 - 16 patch blocks.  I had been thinking perhaps a Trip Around the World, but when I got to 20 blocks, I realized that really wouldn't work there were not enough of some fabrics and the quilt would need to be square. To do it properly I would have to continue til I had 36 blocks and I didn't want to make such a big quilt, even though there are still alot of 3 1/2 inch squares in those shoe boxes!

So after a couple hours of playing with placement, this is what is on the design wall now...

Today it has started to rain and the snow is almost gone.  I should get out into the world...

I think I will wait a bit and perhaps go think up another project.  Ya Think?

How to BE Together for 40 years Without Really Trying or Love the One Your With

Valentine's Day will be upon us in just a month.

Everybody loves Hearts and there are so many ways to create crafty hearts to symbolize the feelings and idea of being in Love.

40 years in a partnership is symbolized by the RUBY gemstone, so perhaps the red ruby heart carries even more meaning when you have lived and worked and laughed and cried and struggled and dreamed with the same person for that length of time...

When we started out on this journey we had no thought or goal or plan to get this far!  When you are 19 years old and your partner only 22, what can be on your mind but LOVE -- and that is LOVE in really big letters.

It surely has not been an easy journey and we never thought it would be, we never thought about it at all, really.  We woke up every morning together and we took care of the things that presented themselves each day.

Sure, we had dreams and plans but we never believed that those things were just my dream or his dream.  We always worked together.  We replicated ourselves in the form of two very satisfactory boys (now, well grown men).  We worked together and believed together.   And we always told people that what he says is what I mean and what I say is what he wants. 

We always stood up for each other.  We always respected each other.  We never called the other one names and we never swore at each other, even in rather heated 'discussions'.  We always figured out a way.   We never gave up on each other, even though there were disappointments, we worked to understand and repair the things we could.

We have always been ONE.

We got married in the front room of this little house at the corner of Dalton St and Mountain Ave in Winnipeg, Manitoba on a bitterly cold day in January.  The 22nd day to be exact.  It was a small wedding in my Mom and Dad's house with only our closest family there to witness.  I wore a short lace dress that cost less than 10 dollars and he wore a brown suit that came from the 2nd hand store.  Our rings came from the jewellery counter in the Woolworth's store downtown on Portage Avenue and were not real gold...

We shared a meal at the Shanghai Restaurant in Winnipeg's Old Downtown that hosted 35 friends and family and cost my dad 96 dollars for the whole thing.

It was the most stressful day of my life!  I can honestly say, I did not particularly enjoy the day.  In fact, I fainted half way through the wedding ceremony.  My Mom thought I was being dramatic!

I was just scared sh*tl#ss!

I cannot say there has been a day in those 40 years that I regretted.

We have come from being teenagers together to being old foggies.

It was an easy thing to do and yet it is something that not everyone can do.  Life treats you how you expect it to and there is no way to stop it from passing by.  You grab what you can, and hold on to what you need and want.

You don't throw things away just cause they get old, you find a new use for it or a way to revamp it or accept it.   I am pretty good at reusing and recycling things, so treating a relationship that way is not so far fetched.

I cannot imagine life without, Chris Barker,  the man I have spent my life with and I would never wish I had a different life.  The best part is there is still time to learn and be more and do more and just be TOGETHER.

Don't ask me how it's done, and don't ask me how you can do it as my only answer is what you have heard many times before.  One step at a time.  It's like making a quilt, I guess, you sew all the pieces together and stitch the layers so they become so knotted together it is impossible to rip it apart and eventually it becomes ONE big thing.

Triangles

I have this thing about sewing triangles.  I love to sew triangles.  I sew triangles when I can't think of anything else to make!  I have a shoe box full of triangles, sometimes alot of the same and sometimes not so many -- depends on the fabric that I have at the end of bigger pieces to make into triangles and sometimes it just depends on how much I am craving a certain colour.

I made these blocks from triangles in the bright blue, green, orange and red, each with white after seeing a really bright beautifully made granny square afghan.  Do they look like granny squares to you?

These navy blue and white quarter square triangles were done quite a while ago, mainly because I was trying to figure out if my particular sewing style needed to have the starting squares cut a little larger than the actual requirement.  I was reading some instructions that said if you make the starting square 6" inches and trimmed the block down after it was sewn, you would always have the right size.  So these were an exercise in accuracy.  Do you practice sewing, just to improve your sport?  You don't always have to be "playing a game" -- time to practice is just as useful.

 I wanted to make 4" quarter square triangles (4 1/2 inch unfinished) and if the starting square was 6", that became alot of waste!  I mean alot! Like 5/8 inch on two sides!

 So I made the square at 5 3/8 -- technically to sew it perfectly you add 1 1/4 inch to what you want the finished square to be when you are sewing this type of triangle.  I decided to add an extra 1/8 inch for varience.

 I discovered that I do sew a pretty accurate 1/4 inch seam allowance and that extra 1/8 inch extra was most often trimmed off -- thus a bit of waste. The few triangles I sewed with a slight difference in the seam allowance made the 1/8 inch extra worth the time that it took to trim the piece, because there would be the occasional one that would have sewn up just a tad too small to have a perfectly pieced complete block.

So adding that 1/8 inch leeway works for me, but adding 3/4 inch leeway is far too wasteful...

These practice triangle have been combined with that lovely deep red to create the traditional 12 inch square Ohio Star Block.

How do you put together triangles?  Do you find them to be as soothing to create as I do?  Do you use sewing of any sort to calm your nerves and ease the stress in your life?

I love sewing triangles!

PS.  These sets of blocks will be in the Etsy shop early in the week, just in case you are looking for a quick way to get started on a quilt AND in case you find making triangles troublesome...