The Next Thing

It was rainy and drizzly yesterday. Apparently the warmth and sunshine from the day before was simply a teaser. For me, it was a day to catch up on housework and to start on the second block for the New Mexico Kitchen quilt. And before I go on, I'm going to end today with another update regarding the new Blogger platform. I've done some investigation and experimentation since my last post. Living with not one, but two, electronics engineers has its advantages. But let's first back-up to the sad part of the blog...the peony. It continues to disappoint, but at least its closed bud provides interest.

If you look at the image above, you can sort of see that the petals are in tightly packed clusters. I can actually see the petals now, but they're still pretty tightly closed within their guard petals. Also, peonies come in so many shapes, and their blossoms offer a wide range of diversity in shape, color, and (one imagines) fragrance. The bud in the image above is shaped like a candle flame when it's completely closed. Two of the five I've planted are like that. The other three appear as you see in the image below...like hard marbles. The one below is also changing colors. It was completely green, but now it has tinges of red.

And our squirrel saga continues in the greenhouse. I'm going to cut and paste something I wrote on Facebook yesterday. My apologies to Facebook friends who have already read this message. I'll edit it a little bit, just for you. First, we found where they’re digging in...same place as before, despite our best efforts to stop them. So Mike set a trap for them inside the greenhouse. When I checked yesterday morning, the peanuts were gone, and the trap was sprung, but there was no squirrel was inside. (The trap is very sensitive, and I sprung it myself just by walking next to it.) 

So we set it again, and added more peanuts. When I checked it later in the afternoon, I SAW THE SQUIRREL!!! He was digging around in the pots where they’d already dug up the seeds and eaten them. When he saw me, he screamed, and then ran out the way he came in. Checking on the trap, it was sprung, but no squirrel was inside. Apparently, these “grey diggers” are too big for the trap. Also, he’d been chewing at the lettuce leaves, adding insult to injury.

So, I said on Facebook we were bringing out the big guns. As it turns out, there's a way to set the trap for larger critters, and so that's what's going on now. I haven't checked the trap yet this morning...and possibly that guy got spooked enough to stay away. Nevertheless, I imagine there's more than one squirrel doing this bit of dirty work in the pots filled with dirt. We'll see what the day holds.

Getting back to the sewing room, I've mentioned the New Mexico Kitchen pattern has some new little twists. When I worked on the first block, I had to figure a way to add fringe to a tablecloth without driving myself crazy. I'm not sure I succeeded on the not-driving-myself-crazy part (see squirrel hassle above). And, honestly, how would I know whether I'd driven myself crazy or not? You'll have to tell me what you think. As a reminder, here's what the first block looked like:

Six of twelve blocks will have fringe added to the table cloth like the one above. For the other 6 of 12, the table cloth is sewn to the background as an "overlay." The instructions told me to use a 3/8-inch seam, using a short zig-zag stitch, thus:

It's a little hard to see the zig-zag stitch in the image above, and so you'll have to trust me on this. I used the settings you see below. I offer this up for my own future reference, but it will work for you too if your machine is a Bernina 750QE

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Once I had the overlay sewn to the background piece, I used my sharp-point scissors to begin removing threads from the edge.

For this, I intentionally chose a fabric that frayed easily. When it was all finished, it looked like this:

Pretty cool, huh?

From there, I was ready to start with the fusible applique. As I turned to gather the things I'd need, I found my furry friend in the room with me. He wanted to remind me how boring it is being confined to the house.

He perked up a little when I offered him some dried catnip.

With him happily munching away, I got to work. First, I added the block name of "Salsa." I'm selecting fabrics based on the picture from the pattern cover.

Next, I moved on to the bowl of salsa and chips. There were a lot of pieces for this, and to get them placed and fused correctly, it seemed wise to use a pressing sheet placed over the top of the applique template. In this way, I can fuse everything together, then peel it off the pressing sheet to be fused to the fabric.

When it was fused to the pressing sheet, it looked like this. The drawn lines on the chips will be machine embroidered to add in some details. There are a few other lines in the red salsa, and on the bowl handles.

From there, it was time to quit for the day, but I added it to the fabric before I closed up shop.

There's still much to do on this. I expect to finish all the fusing today, but I doubt I can finish off the top-stitching before tomorrow. There are also borders to sew on when the top-stitching is finished.

Each quilt block from this pattern comes with a recipe. Here's the salsa recipe that accompanies this block:

Upstairs, Smitty was showing me how hard his life of confinement is, while slow-blinking his disapproval from his catio perch.

Let's all pause for a moment of silence for Smitty's terrible life.

Okay, now let's spend some time talking about the new Blogger platform again. And if this really is not your thing, then feel free to move along. There are more interesting blogs to read, I'm sure. So here's the "warning" that got me started on this whole thing...and you'll have to read toward the bottom of yesterday's post for any of this to make sense. Here's the warning that had me yammering on about it:

It is the third bullet point that had me worried, but read it more carefully and notice that it says "Shares within Google Photos." So...maybe not a share to some other platform? Continuing on...

As I've been going on, stomping my feet, throwing china cups, and generally whining about the changes coming to the Blogger platform, Mike and Matthew have been listening attentively. (They know to keep their wife/mama happy, if they want to continue eating.) Last night, Mike had the brilliant idea to experiment with uploading a photo from Google Photos to Blogger, and then deleting it from Google Photos to see what happens on the blog. And it just so happens, I keep a super secret "Test Blog" for just this kind of experimentation. My "super secret" Test Blog has its own nuclear codes and it requires two people to open and see it. (That isn't true, but I'll say it is anyway. I'm learning a lot from our President.) Also, you should know that the photos I formerly had in Picasa are still available in my Google Photos app. And, apparently if you're all set up in Google, Google Photos is part of the package, albeit with limited free storage. As I mentioned yesterday, additional storage will run you $1.99 per month. It's hardly a charge big enough to break the bank, but we're talking the principle here. No doubt history will remember me for the legendary stand I'm taking about the new Blogger platform.

But, anyway, here's what happened. So, I uploaded one of my old photos to my Test Blog, and then I deleted it from Google Photos. Then, I checked the blog again, and lo and behold, it was still there!!!! Okay, so then I did some more checking with my friend The Google, by asking it: If I delete a photo from Google Photos, will it disappear from Blogger? I didn't find an exact question to match mine, but I did find an answer:

So apparently, even if you delete a photo from Google Photos, it will still be archived at this link. And that will save you from losing it off the blog. If you run out of storage on Google Photos, you can safely delete what's there, and start fresh with ample free storage. Don't quote me on this because there could be some other twist on down the road. For now, I think using Google Photos is the best way to upload pictures to the new Blogger platform.

Here are a couple of other things I've noticed. You can upload photos in batches to Google Photos, and then choose them in the order you want them when they upload to your Blogger post. There is still a long delay from hitting the "Insert" button to seeing the photos appear in your post. Just be patient. Also, to delete photos from Google Photos, you'll either have to delete them one at a time, or...the more efficient way to give yourself this option is to create an album within Google Photos so that you can gain more free storage by deleting the whole album, rather than needing to delete potentially hundreds of photos one at a time. I created an album called "Blogger Uploads," and if I want to delete them, I can delete the entire album with one click.

I hope all of this make sense. If the whole Google Photos thing has you bamboozled (and why wouldn't it?) you can read all about Google Photos in this Beginner's Guide. If you have other questions, please feel free to email me. I'm not an expert, just an experimenter, but I'll answer you if I can. And, if not, I'll inquire of the two resident engineers to see if they know.

All right. The rest of the morning will be spent slow-stitching my sanity back together.