Habitat Quilt

Today, (Sunday) I started sewing a quilt top for the Park View Lutheran Quilting Ministry. This one will be a twin quilt for the Habitat For Humanity program. I cut this quilt out about a month ago, so it was all ready to sit down and sew.

Thankfully, the pattern went together better than the last one I did. The dimensions and instructions for that one were all messed up, and there was some operator error as well, during the cutting process. The combination of the two made it a ‘not so pleasant’ experience. Thankfully there was enough fabric to make the corrections. (Whew!) This one went better.

This one had a lot more seams to sew though.

Here is the completed quilt CENTER. I still have two sets of borders to sew on it tomorrow night after work. I would really like to return it to the quilters on Tuesday when I go sew with them.

I’ll add more pictures to this post when I am finished, so check back later tomorrow evening or Tuesday!

Update, Monday 9:45pm.

Finished! It’s off to the quilters tomorrow!

Have a wonderful week!

Goodbye Flushmate~Hello American Standard Champion 4

This Flushmate was the second one we have replaced. We got them when they were the ‘hottest’ thing. They both proved to be disappointments.

They have a compressed air tank which also holds the water in a tank inside the porcelain tank. When they start leaking, the water starts collecting in the bottom of the porcelain tank. That’s not a good thing. We replaced the Flushmate we had in the main floor bathroom a few years ago, and now the basement one started leaking, so we decided to just replace it. (photo borrowed from web to show what the compression tank looks like). I see now that they have discontinued this series.

We decided to get the elongated bowl, and chair height model again, like the main floor toilet. This one cost less than half of what the Kohler I bought cost. Go figure…. AND, I think it flushes better too.

We bought it Saturday afternoon (last week), Louie had help carrying it downstairs on Tuesday night, and Wednesday night, he installed it. My hero!  

Since we only have two bathrooms, hopefully, we are done dealing with toilets for a long, long time!

Have a wonderful weekend!!!

May Quilting~Twirling Star Quilt~And Another Habitat Quilt

Last Saturday was our last quilting get together until September. It was Christie’s turn for the block, so she brought her AccuQuilt Go fabric cutter and cut some half hexie’s. She brought a pattern for everyone and we all made a triangle section, as seen on the left side of the second photo. I think it is really pretty, but I’m not a fan of sewing Y seams, so I probably won’t be making this one. I love the colors she chose, and the batiks!

She also chose batiks as her choice of fabric fat quarters for exchange. I love batiks, but have not made a quilt with batiks yet. I have a lot more batik fat quarters. I need to plan something and do it!

After I made my one little section, I started sewing on a quilt top for the Park View quilting group. They present quilts to families with children when that family is presented their new home through Habitat for Humanity. Every child in the household will get a twin size quilt. Here is the center with the first border sewn on. I did not start sewing it all together until late Sunday afternoon.

…and the finished quilt top. I didn’t finish it until Sunday evening.

I’m hoping to take a vacation day and go quilt with them on Tuesday, so I will be taking this with me at that time to pass onto one of the quilting ladies. I’m also hoping to sew another Habitat quilt top together for them this weekend so I can take them two.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Quieting Down BROTHER 1034D

A couple weeks ago, I got brave and tackled a serger from a local church quilting group and got it serging.  This evening, after I had my evening nap, I got brave and googled how to stop a Brother serger from squealing. One of my Brother 1034D sergers serged just fine, but it made such an awful sound! Have I ever told you I LOVE Google?? It helps me with ALL of my problems! I found this video.

 

I thought it was very helpful, and I checked out my belt to see if it was loose, but that was not the problem. It still squealed.I removed the bottom cover and oiled, I removed the cover off the end by the needle, and I finally removed the whole left end cover. I found lots of things to oil. There are lots of rotating parts, and I oiled them all. I finally quieted it down.

I think I can safely say I have passed the stage of being ‘afraid’ of sergers. From the ones I have threaded, and checked over, they are all very similar.

New and Old Smart Phones

A month or so ago, Louie and I got new Smart Phones. We had enough reward points to upgrade early, so we each got a new Samsung Galaxy S4. I bought a couple phone covers that I switch often. I use a purple one like this one on weekdays, and the ‘quilty’ one below, I use mostly on the weekends. I don’t want to scratch the design off it, and it is not as ‘rubbery’ as the purple one, so I wouldn’t want it to ‘slide’ off anything and hit the floor.

The other day at work, I was only able to listen to our local radio station, (I work in a big metal building, which means poor reception). That radio station is OK most days, except for when they are airing a Cardinals game. I’m not a fan of any sport, so please understand….I’m not bashing any team. I just don’t want to listen to a live broadcast of a ball game. I got to thinking…which can be a dangerous thing, sometimes!!!  I started thinking about my old Blackberry phone that was just sitting around…..lonely. My blackberry was a nice phone, and I had a hard time thinking that it was just going to be thrown out sometime in the future, like all my previous smart phones. I started wondering if I could use it to play music, if I used a wi-fi signal. A lot of people at work use their smart phones with an auxiliary cord, and plug them into a radio that has an auxiliary jack. My radio at work does not have the jack. I have two other radios here that I could take to work, but they don’t have an auxiliary jacks either! Well, I thought before I got too excited, I should check to see if my old Blackberry would work this way. I came home, and dug out the BB and put it on the charger. As soon as it was charged, I enabled the wi-fi again, and downloaded the Slacker Radio app for Blackberry. I had music!!!!

Last night, I was shopping online to find a radio to buy to take to work that had an auxiliary jack. I found one, and will probably be buying it this weekend at the store. I also need to buy a cable, BUT this morning, I enabled the bluetooth and paired my BB phone with my Bose wireless speaker. I am enjoying listening to Air1 radio. I don’t want to take my wireless speaker to work, as the speaker if pretty large. Also, the parts I work with are oily, and I wear rubber gloves. A much less expensive radio will work just fine.

UPDATE: I didn’t buy the boom box. I bought a Bose Mini wireless speaker. (My enabler talked me into it!) NOT AT ALL what I was going to buy, but I can use either my old (or new) phone with tunein, or my ipod with bluetooth. Since it is much smaller, it should work good. I bought a protective cover for it, and a case to put it in. I also bought a small case to put both my phone and ipod in (not shown). These will NOT be left out at work when I go home for the day, but rather transported back and forth to work, or HIDDEN from second shift.

I know most or all of you already knew you could do this, but I am just so thrilled about this! I knew I could do this with my Nook HD+, but didn’t want to take that to work either. I have a Nook Color that I take to work to read my books on breaks, but I don’t think that would work as well either. I am just so happy my old phone won’t be sitting in a drawer anymore, and it is not hooked up to cellular service, so it’s free with just a wi-fi signal, which I can get at work. I just had to disable the settings on the phone for cellular service so the phone would not be searching for a cellular signal constantly and draining the battery. I can use it to surf the internet too! It’s basically like a mini computer!

Who knew? Not me!

Have a great weekend!!!