tryingtogrok.new.mu.nu

September 17, 2007

TRICK OR TREAT

I've been working on some new preemie hats for next month...

Posted by: Sarah at 04:06 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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September 13, 2007

TOGETHERNESS

I've organized a knit-along. Anyone want to join us?

Posted by: Sarah at 05:25 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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September 06, 2007

MAKING AN HEIRLOOM

After fussing and fighting and needle-breaking and ending up with a mere fourteen inches of thread left, the quilt is finally finished.

I wrote about the making of an heirloom over at SpouseBUZZ.

I am so happy about this project.

Posted by: Sarah at 07:59 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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September 03, 2007

FINISHED

OK, the snowman hat has a nose and the lion has a mane...

Posted by: Sarah at 11:36 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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WHY I HATE QUILTING

Here's what happens every time I quilt:

1) Get everything ready and get hyped up to start the project.

2) Sit down and quilt the first row.

3) Go to start the second row; top thread doesn't catch and I quilt several inches before I realize I'm sewing without thread. Remove entire quilt from machine and rethread.

4) Start again, only to find that the second time I inserted the quilt, the bottom layer got a wrinkle in it.

5) Pop in a Futurama disc and spend 40 minutes tearing all stitches out.

6) Finally make second row.

7) Without changing a single thing, start third row and find that tension has completely changed and a big knot forms on underside of work.

Cut everything out, spend 15 minutes unquilting.

9) Take all thread out, rethread, try on actual quilt because I'm a moron: tension still berserk. 5 minutes of unquilting. Unthread, take apart every removable piece of the machine, blow on it like an old school Nintendo, put it all back together, try again, this time on scraps: tension fine.

10) Put quilt back on machine, tension goes berserk.

11) Grit teeth, clench fists, shut off machine and return to my knitting where there's no #$%& technology between me and my craft.

Total time spent: all morning
Total rows quilted: 2

If I didn't want the finished project so badly, I'd throw the whole thing out the window.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:30 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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1 Time for a new machine? Or perhaps old-fashioned quilting, without the technology! I'm about to start hand-quilting myself, when I get all my pieces together.

Posted by: Green at September 03, 2007 07:25 AM (VqW06)

2 Okay, I will give you the advice my mother has given me, and I swear it is true: do not be cheap when it comes to thread. Only buy good quality thread. She buys Gutermann. That thread never ever ever breaks. I have been sewing like crazy the last few months making stuff for the wedding, and not one single thread break. And my bf, aka the sewing machine idiot savant (he knows more about sewing machines than anyone I know, since he reseached like crazy when it came to getting my machine) also seconds that advice. And wouldn't it be great if the solution to all this trauma was as simple a new thread?

Posted by: CaliValleyGirl at September 03, 2007 07:57 AM (deur4)

3 But I DID buy good thread, and it's a new machine. Next advice...

Posted by: Sarah at September 03, 2007 07:58 AM (TWet1)

4 I use good thread for the stuff I make on my machine. But quilts? Nah - I only do them by hand. When the time factor for fixing screw ups is calculated in, it doesn't take any longer that way.

Posted by: airforcewife at September 03, 2007 08:10 AM (emgKQ)

5 Boo hoo! I knew you had a new machine, but I was so sure this was a thread issue. I am fresh out of advice.

Posted by: CaliValleyGirl at September 03, 2007 08:17 AM (deur4)

6 Your machine might need maintenance. It might also hate the material you're using. What kind of machine is it?

Posted by: deltasierra at September 03, 2007 09:53 AM (r+3ie)

7 I'm with the 'do it by hand' camp. (altho I had had fond hopes of maybe getting a machine myself to be able to machine quilt the more utilitarian quilts in my stack) But you make me suspect it's not as easy - or quick - as I had thought! The one thing I finally let go of - hand-quilting-wise - is this idea of "perfect" stiches, all tiny, all straight, all uniform. I move a WHOLE lot quicker now, and no one seems to be able to tell the difference. (Not that most people would even look!) and one more thing: I roll and baste the edges so that the quilt can actually be used when I'm not working on it. Quilts take long enough to make as it is - might as well use them! I figured this out when my brother grabbed a quilt that wasn't finished and slept under it the night before he headed out on a year's deployment. My first thought was : how did he avoid getting stabbed by the needle? My second was: what a cool idea! And how I love it that the first person to sleep under that quilt (even before it was done) was my brother. . . . It's still one of my favorite quilts.

Posted by: prophet at September 03, 2007 02:47 PM (Yagmr)

8 At this point if it was me I would pay someone to quilt it on one of those long arm quilting machines. Quick and painless. I like to make the top, but after that I quickly lose interest. I have a couple in the works....dare I confess that my husband could probably quilt it for me? LOL The news even did a segment on him. Now he is going to kill me!

Posted by: ABW at September 03, 2007 03:31 PM (kQWmi)

9 Each deployment I try something I have never done before, lets see this was what I did back in 2002.....it was a bad, bad experience, I did not fare well in the end, (think burned, stabed and bleeding). I was just happy that my lap quilt (square) was now ready to be framed! A good friend took pity on me and finished it, my one attempt will forever be just that. I am envious of your two rows....envious of all who can quilt.....I will stick with window treatments, less chance of me winding up in the ER!

Posted by: A Soldier's Wife at September 03, 2007 03:46 PM (M7kiy)

10 "But I DID buy good thread, and it's a new machine. Next advice..." Screw thread quality, don't pay someone else to do it, and no, your machine doesn't need service. Invite me to your house and we'll work on it together. Man, I miss you.

Posted by: Erin at September 03, 2007 04:48 PM (XRza7)

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There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living.
--The Count of Monte Cristo--

While our troops go out to defend our country, it is incumbent upon us to make the country worth defending.
--Deskmerc--

ABOUT SARAH

In a Nutshell
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Contrary to what you've just seen, war is neither glamorous nor fun. There are no winners, only losers. There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: The American Revolution, WWII, and the Star Wars Trilogy.
--Bart Simpson--

If you want to be a peacemaker, you've gotta learn to kick ass.
--Sheriff of East Houston, Superman II--

Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. You just leave a lot of useless noisy baggage behind.
--Jed Babbin--

Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.
--President John F. Kennedy--

War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours.
--General Patton--

We've gotta keep our heads until this peace craze blows over.
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Those who threaten us and kill innocents around the world do not need to be treated more sensitively. They need to be destroyed.
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The Flag has to come first if freedom is to survive.
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The purpose of diplomacy isn't to make us feel good about Eurocentric diplomatic skills, and having countries from the axis of chocolate tie our shoelaces together does nothing to advance our infantry.
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I just don't care about the criticism I receive every day, because I know the cause I defend is right.
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It's days like this when we're reminded that freedom isn't free.
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Bumper stickers aren't going to accomplish some of the missions this country is going to face.
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The success of multilateralism is measured not merely by following a process, but by achieving results.
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Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.
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First, go buy a six pack and swig it all down. Then, watch Ace Ventura. And after that, buy a Hard Rock Cafe shirt and come talk to me. You really need to lighten up, man.
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You've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting
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If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained -- we must fight!
--Patrick Henry--

America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.
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are usually just cheerleading sessions, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing but a soothing reduction in blood pressure brought about by the narcotic high of being agreed with.
--Bill Whittle

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
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We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other.
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We can continue to try and clean up the gutters all over the world and spend all of our resources looking at just the dirty spots and trying to make them clean. Or we can lift our eyes up and look into the skies and move forward in an evolutionary way.
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America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world.
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Recent anti-Israel protests remind us again of our era's peculiar alliance: the most violent, intolerant, militantly religious movement in modern times has the peace movement on its side.
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As a wise man once said: we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. Unless the price is too high, the burden too great, the hardship too hard, the friend acts disproportionately, and the foe fights back. In which case, we need a timetable.
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I am not willing to kill a man so that he will agree with my faith, but I am prepared to kill a man so that he cannot force my compatriots to submit to his.
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Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
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The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
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A man or a nation is not placed upon this earth to do merely what is pleasant and what is profitable. It is often called upon to carry out what is both unpleasant and unprofitable, but if it is obviously right it is mere shirking not to undertake it.
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A man who has nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the existing of better men than himself.
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I kept asking Clarence why our world seemed to be collapsing and everything seemed so shitty. And he'd say, "That's the way it goes, but don't forget, it goes the other way too."
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--Mark Steyn--

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The book and the sword are the two things that control the world. We either gonna control them through knowledge and influence their minds, or we gonna bring the sword and take their heads off.
--RZA--

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It is in the heat of emotion that good people must remember to stand on principle.
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--from a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt--

The world economy depends every day on some engineer, farmer, architect, radiator shop owner, truck driver or plumber getting up at 5AM, going to work, toiling hard, and producing real wealth so that an array of bureaucrats, regulators, and redistributors can manage the proper allotment of much of the natural largess produced.
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Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves.
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