So today, I sent my son an email telling him I hadn't got the parcel he said he was sending me...
He said he hadn't sent it yet.
He forgot to ask my address.
Shows how often he sends stuff, eh?
Well, then I sent him my address, but I asked him how he would find me if he didn't know my address if he drove here.
His prompt reply was. You go to Safeway every week but I bet you don't know what their address is...
I may have to change this blog title to Neil being Snippy...
But then my reply back, was that at least I was still (and always be) smarter than his father, even though it looks like my kid was now smarter, or snippier than me...
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Too Much Stuff and Sewing in it ANYWAY!
How desperate one becomes when it seems to be impossible to sew! I took or maybe the word is THREW some of the stuff from my fallen down shelves into a pile, made space to roll on my chair between the sewing maching and the ironing board and did some SEWING..
.
First what some many call mindless sewing -- though it is something I saw on another blog at least a year ago, and a member of my quilt guild brought an example she tried out. Sewing together dozens of pieces of the strips of selvege that gets cut off the fabric yardage. I sewed my strips onto some non fusible light interfacing that I had in one of those shoeboxes of stuff that fell down with the shelves -- that was handy, it was a box that was right at the top of the pile!
It takes a long time to sew those strips together, so once I figured I understood the concept and could see how my fabric selvedges looked, lined up all together in one piece, I stopped. The piece of fabric that I created from those bits, was enough to make a journal cover... I have a thing for those blank books in the dollar stores, this one turned out quite nice, I thought so anyway. Now, another thing to give or keep, depending on need at the time...
.
First what some many call mindless sewing -- though it is something I saw on another blog at least a year ago, and a member of my quilt guild brought an example she tried out. Sewing together dozens of pieces of the strips of selvege that gets cut off the fabric yardage. I sewed my strips onto some non fusible light interfacing that I had in one of those shoeboxes of stuff that fell down with the shelves -- that was handy, it was a box that was right at the top of the pile!
It takes a long time to sew those strips together, so once I figured I understood the concept and could see how my fabric selvedges looked, lined up all together in one piece, I stopped. The piece of fabric that I created from those bits, was enough to make a journal cover... I have a thing for those blank books in the dollar stores, this one turned out quite nice, I thought so anyway. Now, another thing to give or keep, depending on need at the time...
Now having not quite managed to wear out my sewing urge, I decided that perhaps I could use a new cosmetic bag -- I don't even wear make-up (never did like the feel of foundation and powder) but my "cosmetic bag" will hold some asprins and toothpaste and brush and other little necesessities when we go on our little 2 or 3 day adventures around BC or perhaps slightly further adventures into the rolling hills of Alberta.
My little cosmetic bag is about 8" deep by 7" wide, I want to find some sort of 'pull' to attach to the zipper, yet.
What I learned today: Try never to deny your urges, they just get stronger...
My cousin sent me a link to Fly Lady (you heard of her, right?) because she thinks it will help me to organize my sewing room.... Hmm, not sure how having a clean sink will help me with the caved in closet shelves, but thank-you anyway. Maybe I will be nice to my husband, and show him how nice a sink looks when it shines -- will he take the hint and shine the sink? Bets?
Monday, July 20, 2009
The Sewing Room
Aw-well...
I was going to write today all about How I became a (famous) fashion designer --- in fact I thought about it for a day and a half and pretty much had it all layed out in my mind... BUT. I went into my sewing room this morning and.... I wish you could see .... but I forgot to take a picture...
Suffice to say that the shelving unit in the closet collapsed. Three shelves, about 6 ft wide came crashing down, fabric, button boxes, shoe boxes with lace, embroidery threads, beads, a couple of baskets of odd bits of weird stuff. Fabric just does not slide off a shelf and remain in the folds that it was in on the shelf. Fat Quarters, in little neat rolls in baskets, fall WillyNilly every which way, unroll and somehow get between the folds of a 10 meter length of backing for another quilt. It was just plain luck that the plastic boxes with beads did not open on impact and create even more disorder! One small button box did have its lid pop off and of course that was the box of buttons -- all the smallest white ones...
Now, all my current stash is kept in open plastic baskets ( that I bought from a store closing and the baskets were used for soap and small toiletries displays) so, of course most of the fabric fell in jumbles and I wonder how some of the reds which were on the far right of the middle shelf, ended up between some of the blacks that were placed in the middle of the top shelf...
Anyway, the really interesting thing about this is I have no idea when this great catastrophe occured! Was it in the middle of the night, was it while I ate breakfast outside on our deck in the back yard, or maybe it happened when I took a quick run to get some cucumber, green pepper and tomato to make a Greek Salad? Hmmm? Or maybe it came down in slow motion making a special effort to create havoc in silence. This whole thing falls into the category of " when a tree falls in the forest and no one is there does it make any sound?"
I have spent about 3 -2 hour stretches repacking, resorting, and piling baskets and things on the floor -- have to wait while I can get a new or maybe stronger shelf system back into the closet. The shelves that came down have held the weight for about 3 years, so that long, you would think it would last forever -- I guess not, eh?
Mind you, now, I seem have gone off on a tangent, actually somewhat thankful of this event -- I think I am going to rearrange the whole room. Yeah! I guess I have gone a bit whacky again so I suspect that my alotted sewing time will be occupied with rearranging time.
EXCEPT, the weather channel is predicting a heat wave here -- the sewing room is the sunniest room in the house and quite often the warmest. Difficult to work in if you are lifting and sorting, so this may take longer than I want it to...
Will have to tell the story about the fashion design in a day or two -- once I wrap my head around sewing instead of organizing sewing stuff...
What I Learned Today - if you want an assistant to help pick up stuff, don't yell at him -- he might go off in a huff, put on headphones and ignore you...
But if you can believe this -- I actually enjoyed the whole day!
I was going to write today all about How I became a (famous) fashion designer --- in fact I thought about it for a day and a half and pretty much had it all layed out in my mind... BUT. I went into my sewing room this morning and.... I wish you could see .... but I forgot to take a picture...
Suffice to say that the shelving unit in the closet collapsed. Three shelves, about 6 ft wide came crashing down, fabric, button boxes, shoe boxes with lace, embroidery threads, beads, a couple of baskets of odd bits of weird stuff. Fabric just does not slide off a shelf and remain in the folds that it was in on the shelf. Fat Quarters, in little neat rolls in baskets, fall WillyNilly every which way, unroll and somehow get between the folds of a 10 meter length of backing for another quilt. It was just plain luck that the plastic boxes with beads did not open on impact and create even more disorder! One small button box did have its lid pop off and of course that was the box of buttons -- all the smallest white ones...
Now, all my current stash is kept in open plastic baskets ( that I bought from a store closing and the baskets were used for soap and small toiletries displays) so, of course most of the fabric fell in jumbles and I wonder how some of the reds which were on the far right of the middle shelf, ended up between some of the blacks that were placed in the middle of the top shelf...
Anyway, the really interesting thing about this is I have no idea when this great catastrophe occured! Was it in the middle of the night, was it while I ate breakfast outside on our deck in the back yard, or maybe it happened when I took a quick run to get some cucumber, green pepper and tomato to make a Greek Salad? Hmmm? Or maybe it came down in slow motion making a special effort to create havoc in silence. This whole thing falls into the category of " when a tree falls in the forest and no one is there does it make any sound?"
I have spent about 3 -2 hour stretches repacking, resorting, and piling baskets and things on the floor -- have to wait while I can get a new or maybe stronger shelf system back into the closet. The shelves that came down have held the weight for about 3 years, so that long, you would think it would last forever -- I guess not, eh?
Mind you, now, I seem have gone off on a tangent, actually somewhat thankful of this event -- I think I am going to rearrange the whole room. Yeah! I guess I have gone a bit whacky again so I suspect that my alotted sewing time will be occupied with rearranging time.
EXCEPT, the weather channel is predicting a heat wave here -- the sewing room is the sunniest room in the house and quite often the warmest. Difficult to work in if you are lifting and sorting, so this may take longer than I want it to...
Will have to tell the story about the fashion design in a day or two -- once I wrap my head around sewing instead of organizing sewing stuff...
What I Learned Today - if you want an assistant to help pick up stuff, don't yell at him -- he might go off in a huff, put on headphones and ignore you...
But if you can believe this -- I actually enjoyed the whole day!
Friday, July 17, 2009
Ecology Friendly?
My own political take on this subject...
Exactly, what is ecology friendly? Like practically every human fad or popular idea, it is different things to different people.
For me, being kind to the world around me, mostly means to RECYCLE. Now this is not a new thing in my life -- recycling, reusing, and repurposing has been part of my life since I was a child. It comes naturally. My mother taught me that composting was the first rule of being a family home cook. We had a huge garden and although the soil was fertile, all the potato peelings, the carrot tops and other non edible parts of the vegetables that we grew, always went straight back into the garden plot.
My mother, had the same pots and pans and cooking utensils, the same dishes and glasses for most of the time that I knew her -- even when the glasses in the cupboard became diminished because of breakage, the new glasses were not bought new -- she spent 5 cents and bought a glass or two from a second hand store. Things lasted longer -- or maybe the replacement cost of something was just too high, so we looked after things and they had long useful lives.
My dad, like many family men, went to work each day -- then he came home and did things around the house - he might fix the cord on the toaster, he might go out and help weed the garden. My dad never worked overtime -- maybe he was lucky but his day started at 7am and ended at 3:30pm, he was often home from work before me and my brothers were home from school. He did his own oil changes on his car -- and he knew that used oil damaged the soil and even the water table, so he never dumped the used car oil on the ground -- though I do not know where or what was done with it, I do know it didn't get dumped. This was WAY back in the 1950's and 60's and 70's.
There were so many things that were just part of our daily life, that these 'practices' were carried on as I became an adult. Now, in the past few years, there are tv and various types of print ads telling us to be kind to our planet, and suggesting ways that we can do that. Taking back the plastic bottles to be recycled or even in some cases finding ways to reuse those bottles for oneself... Now when I was a child, one of the things that we did for ENTERTAINMENT was to go bottle hunting. In those days, all the bottles were glass, pop bottles and beer bottles paid 2 cents when taken in to the store or to the (few and far between) bottle return depot. Sometimes in summer the family would pile into the car and my dad would drive us out to a section of highway (this is probably not safe today) and he would park the car into a pullout -- we would climb out of the car and walk along the now dry ditches looking for bottles thrown from car windows -- how disappointing to find a bottle that was cracked or broken! We could earn a dollar or two on an afternoon walk like that. Even when we were children, it amazed us that people would throw money out the window (literally) like that. Later as a teenager, I came to realize that throwing beer bottles out the car window also meant that someone was probably driving drunk!
Now today, no one except the man or woman living on the street or who is in dire financial trouble goes bottle hunting. It is obvious that bottle recycling remains a good source of cash, even if it is not walking along rural highways to find them but opening and often climbing into the big garbage bins outside of apartments or businesses. I am still amazed at how much people simply throw away of the money they earned by working -- I recently found a great deal on 35 -500ml size spring water for $2.99, except here in BC there is a ecology charge on bottles and of course the return deposit charge, so 5 cents a bottle for the return deposit and then the ecology charge -- it made the cost more than the actualy water cost -- i paid $6 plus! At least by returning those 35 bottles some of the money came back to me to be used again toward food or other necessary purchases... Doesn't seem like much? Well, since bottle return is a major part of my household recycling, in six weeks of saving those bottles, and other return for deposit containers, we usually get back between 20 and 30 dollars! We feel like that is worth the effort for the return.
I certainly am not begging you or anyone else to start making the little effort to save not only some money but also to help save the planet -- because, if no one put those bottles into the bins, the people who go out to collect them and who very much need that bit of extra income, would not have it... Though, if you throw your bottles and other items in the garbage, you could be kind and put a dozen of those bottles in the plastic grocery bag that you originally brought them home in to make it easier for the bottle collectors (notice I have tried all through this story to not say dumpster diver? aw but now I have!)
I have concentrated on bottle return here because it is the simplest and most obvious way to start thinking along the lines of saving the earth.
Because fabric seems to be MY ELEMENT, I have found great ways to recycle various fabrics, I buy 100% wool skirts or suits and remake them into various things, a scarf, a cushion cover, even quilts (without batting) I use t-shirt's that have faded or somehow gotten too small or more rarely too big, into cut strips that can then be crocheted into any number of things, most often cat mats (my cats do love to have a new napping pad!) or a crochet basket or tote bag or ...
I use my quilting scraps to make more quilts, just with small pieces and more random colours or I give the scraps to other quilters to do the same... I use older clothing pieces to make barbie doll clothes for my 4 nieces -- fabric is one of my favourite recycling chores.
So finally, and the whole point to this is that being a good earth friendly human is not such a new thing, so I wonder why it is so hard to do. I think it really boils down to the fact that we are too rich. You say no? If you have to scrounge for your daily meal you cannot be lazy, just looking for enough bottles to buy yourself a few potatoes or a piece of meat is not the life for a lazy person... I suspect the laziest people are the ones who put compostible material, recycleable bottles, the daily newspaper, the coffee grounds and the broken dishes all in the same bag to put out on the curb to be taken to the landfill, that they are protesting is becoming to full and that the city wants to move not too far from their homes...
thanks for letting me vent...
What I learned today: Those who benefit from the 2010 olympics in Vancouver, BC are generally not those who are paying for the show... My taxes will be paying for the show and I will not even be able to see one event, nor would I earn any money from a olympics created job, they want me to volunteer, tho!
Exactly, what is ecology friendly? Like practically every human fad or popular idea, it is different things to different people.
For me, being kind to the world around me, mostly means to RECYCLE. Now this is not a new thing in my life -- recycling, reusing, and repurposing has been part of my life since I was a child. It comes naturally. My mother taught me that composting was the first rule of being a family home cook. We had a huge garden and although the soil was fertile, all the potato peelings, the carrot tops and other non edible parts of the vegetables that we grew, always went straight back into the garden plot.
My mother, had the same pots and pans and cooking utensils, the same dishes and glasses for most of the time that I knew her -- even when the glasses in the cupboard became diminished because of breakage, the new glasses were not bought new -- she spent 5 cents and bought a glass or two from a second hand store. Things lasted longer -- or maybe the replacement cost of something was just too high, so we looked after things and they had long useful lives.
My dad, like many family men, went to work each day -- then he came home and did things around the house - he might fix the cord on the toaster, he might go out and help weed the garden. My dad never worked overtime -- maybe he was lucky but his day started at 7am and ended at 3:30pm, he was often home from work before me and my brothers were home from school. He did his own oil changes on his car -- and he knew that used oil damaged the soil and even the water table, so he never dumped the used car oil on the ground -- though I do not know where or what was done with it, I do know it didn't get dumped. This was WAY back in the 1950's and 60's and 70's.
There were so many things that were just part of our daily life, that these 'practices' were carried on as I became an adult. Now, in the past few years, there are tv and various types of print ads telling us to be kind to our planet, and suggesting ways that we can do that. Taking back the plastic bottles to be recycled or even in some cases finding ways to reuse those bottles for oneself... Now when I was a child, one of the things that we did for ENTERTAINMENT was to go bottle hunting. In those days, all the bottles were glass, pop bottles and beer bottles paid 2 cents when taken in to the store or to the (few and far between) bottle return depot. Sometimes in summer the family would pile into the car and my dad would drive us out to a section of highway (this is probably not safe today) and he would park the car into a pullout -- we would climb out of the car and walk along the now dry ditches looking for bottles thrown from car windows -- how disappointing to find a bottle that was cracked or broken! We could earn a dollar or two on an afternoon walk like that. Even when we were children, it amazed us that people would throw money out the window (literally) like that. Later as a teenager, I came to realize that throwing beer bottles out the car window also meant that someone was probably driving drunk!
Now today, no one except the man or woman living on the street or who is in dire financial trouble goes bottle hunting. It is obvious that bottle recycling remains a good source of cash, even if it is not walking along rural highways to find them but opening and often climbing into the big garbage bins outside of apartments or businesses. I am still amazed at how much people simply throw away of the money they earned by working -- I recently found a great deal on 35 -500ml size spring water for $2.99, except here in BC there is a ecology charge on bottles and of course the return deposit charge, so 5 cents a bottle for the return deposit and then the ecology charge -- it made the cost more than the actualy water cost -- i paid $6 plus! At least by returning those 35 bottles some of the money came back to me to be used again toward food or other necessary purchases... Doesn't seem like much? Well, since bottle return is a major part of my household recycling, in six weeks of saving those bottles, and other return for deposit containers, we usually get back between 20 and 30 dollars! We feel like that is worth the effort for the return.
I certainly am not begging you or anyone else to start making the little effort to save not only some money but also to help save the planet -- because, if no one put those bottles into the bins, the people who go out to collect them and who very much need that bit of extra income, would not have it... Though, if you throw your bottles and other items in the garbage, you could be kind and put a dozen of those bottles in the plastic grocery bag that you originally brought them home in to make it easier for the bottle collectors (notice I have tried all through this story to not say dumpster diver? aw but now I have!)
I have concentrated on bottle return here because it is the simplest and most obvious way to start thinking along the lines of saving the earth.
Because fabric seems to be MY ELEMENT, I have found great ways to recycle various fabrics, I buy 100% wool skirts or suits and remake them into various things, a scarf, a cushion cover, even quilts (without batting) I use t-shirt's that have faded or somehow gotten too small or more rarely too big, into cut strips that can then be crocheted into any number of things, most often cat mats (my cats do love to have a new napping pad!) or a crochet basket or tote bag or ...
I use my quilting scraps to make more quilts, just with small pieces and more random colours or I give the scraps to other quilters to do the same... I use older clothing pieces to make barbie doll clothes for my 4 nieces -- fabric is one of my favourite recycling chores.
So finally, and the whole point to this is that being a good earth friendly human is not such a new thing, so I wonder why it is so hard to do. I think it really boils down to the fact that we are too rich. You say no? If you have to scrounge for your daily meal you cannot be lazy, just looking for enough bottles to buy yourself a few potatoes or a piece of meat is not the life for a lazy person... I suspect the laziest people are the ones who put compostible material, recycleable bottles, the daily newspaper, the coffee grounds and the broken dishes all in the same bag to put out on the curb to be taken to the landfill, that they are protesting is becoming to full and that the city wants to move not too far from their homes...
thanks for letting me vent...
What I learned today: Those who benefit from the 2010 olympics in Vancouver, BC are generally not those who are paying for the show... My taxes will be paying for the show and I will not even be able to see one event, nor would I earn any money from a olympics created job, they want me to volunteer, tho!
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Participation
I am a summer person - I love summer and I hide from the snow in winter. So many people I know do their best and greatest work during those cold gloomy months -- but me -- well my best inspiration and my motivation to work, comes just about NOW...I have been ill, since the middle of February, so really I didn't care about creating or fixing or experimenting -- all I cared about was --- well not much. NOW, I am almost back to normal and my first complete project is done and I am on my way to loving my sewing machine and needles and pins and fabrics once more. I finished making a fabric postcard this morning.
The quilt guild I belong to does not meet in summer, but there are a few members who want to keep in touch and make quilts and things, so thanks to Darcey, we have a postcard exchange. This little card evolved over a couple of days, in fact I didn't even know I was making a postcard to begin with! I recently finished crocheting a scarf and hat set (maybe a christmas gift?), and there was a short bit of the yarn left, barely enough to use for anything. The other night at about 2am, I picked up that bit of yarn and created three little "flowers" so that took care of the scrap of yarn -- only about 3 inches left!
The very next morning, I got an email from Darcey telling us the theme for this month's postcard exchange would be green and purple. Again, more scraps, this time a bit of recycled wool -- just enough of the dark green to make half of a 4 x6 postcard.. I added the lighter green recycled wool along with some stitches in bright green rayon thread, a couple of buttons and put all together to send a complete postcard off to my exchange partern in the next few days...
What I learned: I like being part of things...
Ya Gotta Start Somewhere...
So now Miss Snips is no more, but I am still here...
Snippy? Me? Well, I wanted some part of Miss Snips to be reborn in this new story, so I chose that bit about being Snippy, and really, I can be -- and it gets me into trouble -- alot...
Some of the things about this ongoing story is that it will be more personal, so you may be reading about some of my RANTS -- I am rather political so I am going to let my opinions loose on occasion in this blog.
A few years back I wrote a personal blog about my everyday life -- my sister found it and became rather irrate at some of the things I said, so I stopped writing it. But now I am thinking that what I wrote is what I felt and what I wanted to say and since in the past few months my sister has declared herself to be an only child, I don't need to concern myself with what she thinks of what I say or do. Now since I am not concerned about hurting feelings -- I really don't set out to be mean -- but my opinion may not exactly match yours or some other person -- so you should remember that it is just my opinion or my point of view. And not a particularly influential point of view at that! Just mine.
One of my top priorities in life is to constantly be learning. Many years back I read a quote that said something about trying to learn something new EVERYDAY and I do try to do that. Somedays the thing(s) that I may learn may not be so obvious and I may not even notice that I came across a new idea or method or thought, but I do know that even small things influence the way we or maybe just me, live our life. So I am going to try to make a point to take note of something that I learned each time I write this blog.
I do plan to aim this blog at my crafty side mostly, but like I said, I will interject some of my opinons and some of my daily life events, so I am hoping that you can find time and that I can hold your interest so that you will enjoy the words that I set down here.
So. Welcome to my new blog and don't hesitate to leave me a comment now and then...
What I learned: Things change, whether you want them to, or not...
This photo is the beach at Sechelt, BC - we went for a 3 day drive a couple weeks back, and discovered a quiet little world only 4 hours away from out townhouse. We will go back again, there are beaches and parks and little towns yet to discover. . .
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