My New Machine

Back in May, we went out to breakfast for my birthday. As we were waiting for the food, Jeff told me that I wouldn't be getting my present until the next day.

Jeff: So, do you wanna know what it is?

Me: Kind of.

Jeff: (without waiting for me to make up my mind) It's a sewing machine.

Me: ?! :)

Jeff: Well?

Me: I don't know. Do you even know a good sewing machine from a bad one? 'Cause I don't.

Apparently, after reading this post, my incredibly thoughtful man decided that it was time for me to have a new sewing machine, instead of a hand me down with a broken belt.

He explained that he'd searched on Craftzine for advice. Eventually, he ended up using the customer ratings on Amazon to choose a Brother CS6000I because it's supposed to be a really good model for beginners (not too complicated), but at the same time has lots of great features for more advanced sewing (if I ever get to that point). And it was a really good price, which, frankly, was my biggest concern. I spent the rest of the day getting more and more excited at the prospect of a working sewing machine.

Here's the phone conversation we had after it arrived the next day.

Me: Umm, the machine's here.

Jeff: How do you like it?

Me: I'm sort of freaked out by it.

Jeff: I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Me: But, it has like 60 different stitches and all these feet and I don't know what they're for.

Jeff: Does it have a manual?

Me: Yah, it's freaking me out even more than the machine is.

So, of course, once I got over my techno-fear concerning a computer in a sewing machine (!), I fell in love with it. If you've been to visit my house anytime in the last several months, I've probably shown it to you.

It's super easy to use and even though it's huge, the manual is totally understandable. Though, it wasn't until this weekend that I read far enough into it to discover it does an overcasting stitch, which is the awesomest thing I've ever done. For all I know, all sewing machines have this feature. I've never done anything other than straight and an occasional zigzag.

Maybe one of these days I may even attempt a buttonhole.

I know. Wow.

At Least Someone's Finishing Projects Around Here

Joey spent most of yesterday making this little guy. His name is Charles Pipsqueak.



She started with a detailed plan and everything. The feet crack me up. I'm impressed that she even picked out the eyes and actually planned for them to be different sizes with different stitching.



I especially love the expanded view labeled with the materials.



Except for sewing him closed at the very end, she did every bit of this herself.

And, apparently, this is how you bring stuffies to life (with a burnt out lightbulb and a flashlight), which, I suppose, is much better than a kite and a thunderstorm.



I guess it's never too early to start thinking about Halloween.

What I've Been Up To

Here's a peak at what's been taking up my time lately.

How to Resize Flickr Pictures

When I copied in the Flickr code from the meme on Monday, I adjusted the size of the picture. Since there was a comment about how to do just that, I thought I'd share what we learned as both Joey and I explored the concept of ratios.

Joey did her own meme for us to practice on and to share with you all.



1. Joey sticks his tongue out..., 2. SouthWest Chicken Pasta Salad, 3. This Little Girl Wanted To Come Home With Me, 4. PURPLE HAZE, 5. Awesome Edger, 6. Miss Lemon + Miss Lime + Miss Sprite = Bubbletastic shoot!!!, 7. France: Eiffel Tower, 8. strawberry short cake, 9. The Zookeeper's Girl, 10. Animal Family, 11. "Goofey", 12. P8010038

First of all,
How to add pictures from Flickr
-Click 'All Sizes' above the picture of yours that you want to add.
-Click the size you want.
-Highlight and copy the HTML code that's under option 1.
-Paste it into your blog where you want the picture to go.

Normally I use the medium size for pictures, but it was a bit too small for the mosaic, considering how tiny the individual pictures were to begin with. And the large size was way too big.

The good thing is that even though they don't give you the option on Flickr, you can easily choose something in between. But, it involves a teensy bit of math.

Basically, when you're looking at "All Sizes", the numbers along the top are a consistent ratio of width to height. And when you look at the coding underneath, toward the end you'll see something that looks like this width="936" height="1245" with numbers that correspond to those at the top (depending on which of them you have clicked).

All you have to do is change the numbers in the code so they fit your page while keeping the ratios the same.

If you don't keep the ratios the same, you end up with something like this


or this


So here is the math. It's not hard, so don't panic.

The important thing to realize is that all the ratios that Flickr has made available on easily clickable links are essentially the same number (like 1/2 equals 2/4 equals 50/100 equals 0.5) if you divide one by the other. (Um yah, I know that's pretty much the definition of a ratio, but I'm working on the assumption that many of us have been out of school for awhile and are as freaked out by math as Joey is. If you already knew all of this, you've probably also figured out how to resize a picture and aren't reading anyway.)

Adjusting the Size
-First I decided what I wanted the width to be. For my blog, this width = 500.
-Then I found the ratio of the picture by taking the height of the original (1245) and dividing it by the width of the original (936), which came out to be about 1.33.
-I multiplied this by my desired width of 500 and came up with 665 for the right number for the height.


Homeschool Note
This is totally not how we covered it when Joey and I talked about it (because although it gives a simple process for solving this problem, it doesn't explain why, which is the most important bit).

We covered fractions and cross multiplication and even some algebra, though she didn't realize it at the time. She fought me most of the way because she has this irritating block with math. When she hears the m-word, she just shuts down mentally. But, she really wanted to post her meme, so there was some motivation to figure this out.

Eventually, we got the math down to this...
622,500 = 936 x ?
(622,500 equals 936 times something)
she said, "wait, wait, wait, shhhh, hold on", opened the calculator on the computer and did 622,500 divided by 936.

Let me tell you, I did the happy dance. Literally.

Weird Kid Wednesday- Give a Kid a Camera

Monkey just told a funny joke.





And this one is just sweet.

Especially Tasty Iced Tea

I'm not normally a huge fan of iced tea, but lately Jeff's been making up massive quantities of different kinds and I've sort of jumped on board. He uses the coffee maker, which I've never actually operated before now, so there's another skill I've added to my repertoire. Though I only know how to make tea in it, not coffee. 'Cause I'm lame that way.

His method is super quick, too. So I'm all over it.



Ingredients
2 tea bags of regular iced tea
4 tea bags of flavored tea
Sugar or whatever sweetener you use- I use Agave Nectar. (anywhere from 3 T to 1/2 cup)
Ice (enough to fill a Gallon sized pitcher)
Water (enough to fill a coffee pot)

How To
Put the tea bags where the coffee normally goes in the coffee maker, making sure that they're laying flat.
Fill with water as you normally do.
Turn on coffee maker (which has now become a tea maker).
When it's done brewing, turn off the machine and stir in the sweetener.
Let it cool a bit.
Fill a gallon pitcher with ice.
Pour the tea over the ice.
You're Done.

My Favorite Flavored Tea
Chai Tea
Orange Zinger
Good Hope Vanilla (from The Republic of Tea)
The Republic of Tea has a lot of fun and tasty Superfruit Teas too.

I just did a bit of math to figure out how much this costs per 16 oz glass. And even with the more expensive teas, it's still less than 15 cents a glass (unsweetened) and less than 20 cents a glass (sweetened with Agave Nectar).

Flickr Mosaic Meme

I found this at Riot 4 Austerity and thought it looked like a fun way to waste an hour... and learn about making mosaics.

Which I guess means that it wasn't a total waste of time.



1. Happy Easter Wendy ......, 2. my sister, the blue-eyed Indian bride, 3. Wheat Field with Crows 2008, 4. Let's Get Green! Please take a moment to read..., 5. Portrait of an Egyptian Gosling, 6. Gin & Tonic, 7. Olive Grove. Pescara, Italy, 8. Put Chocolate Pudding on the Top Shelf !!, 9. Doula helps, 10. Product Of Our Parents, 11. :: dork in mid-air, 12. P5110028

The instructions to create the mosaic are:

Type your answers to each of the questions below into Flickr Search .
Using only the first page, pick an image.
Copy and paste each of the URLs into the mosaic maker.

Questions:
What is your first name?
What is your favorite food?
What high school did you go to?
What is your favorite color?
Who is your celebrity crush?
Favorite drink?
Dream vacation?
Favorite dessert?
What do you want to be when you grow up?
What do you love most in life?
One word to describe you.
Your Flickr name.