Friday, July 18, 2014

7 Quick Takes (Vol 268)

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Don’t make me come over there and tell you what the rules are. You should know them by now. When you have finished here you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of my craving for a BLT with my own tomatoes, over to Conversion Diary.

A field full of blather just waiting to be plowed under.

1.
I am again obsessed with making Box bags. You know what those are, right?

Bags, shaped like a box, with a zipper on the top and sewn out of fabric. Usually they have an outer layer and a lining. I have made them before and they are very satisfying except…. most of the patterns that I had been able to find were made so that the inner lining had seams that were visible.

Visible seams bug me. They just make the bag look somehow unfinished to me. But thanks to the internetz I have found a lined box bag tutorial….and I am again obsessed with making them out of some of the vintage fabrics that I have been collecting.

But…..the pattern that I found made a bag that was a bit small for my usual knitting needs. How hard can it be to make a bigger bag, I thought to myself.

Harder than you think.

I had to do math.

I hate math.

The bigger bags turned out cute but sort of flat.

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See what I mean. The bag in front is the littlest one and it’s proportions are pleasing. But the other two bags, even though I like them, are a bit on the “not tall enough” vein. I was stumped.

And then I realized that there was one measurement that I hadn’t changed when I did all the maths for the other measurements. The corners. Duh!

So this afternoon I will make another box bag with different corner sewing dimensions. Let’s hope for the best.

2.
I stopped at the library today to pick up a book that came in.

There was a book sale……..

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I couldn’t help myself.

But that isn’t what I want to rant about for a second…….I want to rant about these people……

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Ignore the lady in the bright blue shirt, she was just doing what the rest of us were doing, perusing the boxes of books. No, the people that really chap my shorts are the ones with those little hand held scanners, or scanners that are plugged right into their phones. When I counted there were SIX of these people in this small room, scanning away and pulling books out of the boxes and putting them in bags that they had stacked up in corners or under the tables. Do you know what they are doing? They are scanning the books to see what the price is. When they find one that they “might” want they take it out, put it in their bag and then just keep it there until they are all done. THEN they go back through and weed out the books that they actually don’t want and leave them in messy piles here and there. Then they take what they do want, pay for them and then resell them for a higher price. But they do not want you to KNOW that that is what they are doing. I overheard a conversation between a legitimate person just shopping and the woman in the top photo who was scanning every book. The scan woman went out of her way NOT to actually tell the other woman what she was doing. I want to be clear on this, I don’t have any problem with these people coming in and buying books from the sale. Whoever buys the books benefits the library. What I do have trouble with is the fact that they don’t buy all the books that they cull out and while they have those books squirreled away the books are not available to those who might want to actually buy them. AND they make a mess that has to be straightened out by the people running the book sale.

Pantpantpantpant.

Getting down off my soap box now.

I need a cookie.

3.
After the library I had to run over to Office Max to buy a new mouse for my computer. That is boring and not really worth mentioning except for the fact that I stopped at five garage sales on the way back and managed to NOT buy a thing.

Patting myself on the back.

I am amazed at what some people think they might get for something at a garage sale. Lower the prices folks, it is a garage sale.

I was only tempted once, by these…..

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Two Blue Willow chop plates. But I already have 12 of these and I do not need any more of them, despite the nice ladies who were running the sale trying to talk me into them.

I walked away empty handed.

I think I DESERVE a cookie.

4.
Remember this photo from last week….

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My what to ME seems like an egregiously cluttered garage that made me crazy every time I pulled in or out of it….

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In the last week HHBL has sold two bikes and a bike rack on Craigslist. He is totally in love with Craigslist now and already has a list of other things that he is hoping to divest us of.

Operation Clean out continues.

5.
The next place that I am going to start “re-organizing” is the small area in the basement that holds my motley assortment of tools. It is not a happy place for me right now because I have screw drivers mixed in with hammers that are hanging out with wire cutters that are swinging with needle nosed pliers.

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It is a veritable tool box swingers club going on in there…..

I want one of these……

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I want one bad. Look at all those lovely drawers to store things like tools and drills and measuring tapes in. My heart pitter patters faster just thinking about it.

But I have to save up the money first. I have been keeping an eye out for something on the afore mentioned Craigslist but there hasn’t been anything that was any cheaper than what I could buy new.

Sigh, patience is good for me. Patience is good for me.

6.
I realized this week when I was scanning photos…..

I really need to spend some time cleaning up and cleaning out some of the photos that are currently residing on my hard drive. I have a bunch of duplicates of things and there was a certain time in my photography life where I couldn’t bear to delete any photo that I had taken.

Case in point, this photo……

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Auntie Poo trying to make Traveler play the little piano.

Or at least I THINK that is what was supposed to be happening. The photo does not convey that and yet it still resides on the hard drive.

Massive photo clean up and out shall be put on the list of things to do over the winter. It is just too nice right now to be stuck in the basement culling photos.

7.
Instagram, how I love thee. Let me count the photos.
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2 comments:

  1. Oh, I am right there with you on the Operation CleanOut! And I couldn't do it without Craigslist, either!

    ReplyDelete
  2. If only those plates were a little closer to NJ!

    ReplyDelete

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