Showing posts with label John Urschel. Show all posts

Busy, Busy

I feel like I'm utterly behind at life this week and am overwhelmed with things I need to do and pay for.  Truly, most of them are no big deal, I just need more hours in my day. I spent a lot of time at appointments with my family last week.  It took almost a full day for my Windows-based tablet that runs my quilting software to update. 😒 I was also tinkering with my long arm because I felt like something wasn't quite right.  The tinkering took a lot of time, but I felt that it was necessary.  My husband ended up tightening my encoders, which helped.  I still felt like something was off with the tension and looked at external bobbin winders--the Juki has a built in one that is kind of testy.

 Saturday we ran a few errands and then went to pick apples.  Our "local" orchard is over an hour away. Coming from Michigan, where orchards are abundant, it's really difficult to find anything similar here in south central Indiana. So once a year we drive and pick apples.  

After we finished at the orchard, we drove another hour to the north side of Indianapolis so that I could buy an external bobbin winder.  The cost was hard to swallow, but I tried quilting with bobbins wound on it yesterday, and wow!  What a huge difference.  Testing with the Towa gauge was very even.  A quilt that I would normally have planned using 4-6 bobbins on only took a little more than two.  Just wow.

 Here is the winder I bought.  In case you wondered, I chose this one simply because I didn't have to pay shipping and could get it right away.  Well, other than the lengthy drive to get it.  Plus, I could double-check that my bobbins actually worked with it prior to purchase.  We did run into a bit of an issue during assembly--the screws very easily stripped out the threads, so my husband changed out the screws and added some nuts since the threads were trashed.  That was a pain, but otherwise things went well.

So.  I have been busy working on projects and have completed some of them.  But I cannot yet share.

 Here are a few sneak peeks.

I'm working on a binding tutorial and that should be available next week.  I'll try to set it up as a download as well as a post.

In other news, we finally got to replanting the garden.  The peas came up right away.  The lettuce is just starting to sprout.  It's planted underneath the structure for the peas. You can also see our very large "cool-a-peno" jalapeño plant that is still going strong.


I did manage to get the applesauce made.
Funny story--I added a bit of cinnamon, decided it wasn't enough, opened the cinnamon container to add more, looked down, and realized that I opened the wrong side of the lid.  It wasn't the side with the little holes.  It was the gaping hole side (aka the side to put a measuring spoon in).  I think I added about 1/4-1/2 cup.  Oops.  The finished applesauce has a decidedly brown appearance.  Also, I think my immersion blender is dying.  I could only use it on the slow setting and it was getting really hot and not really doing a good job at breaking down the apples.  That is sad because it's not that old and I only use it to make applesauce once a year, and maybe a soup once or twice a year.
I'm bogged down with figuring out all the things being a senior in high school requires.  It seems to be lots of time, money, and deadlines.  I don't remember it being that big of a deal when I was a senior myself, but maybe it's just because I was only responsible for myself, not an entire family.  Of course, my school was very small and we didn't have to sign up to participate in commencement; it was a given.  We didn't have to sign up for AP tests because there weren't any AP classes offered.  FAFSA?  Well, we did have that, but my parents did that for me.  

 Meanwhile, I am trying to teach my son beginning algebra.  He's picking it up quickly, but it's hard to find time right now to fit it in. The other morning he announced that I should quiz him on the two letter state abbreviations.  I asked him if they were studying that in school.  His reply was, "No.  It just seems like fun."  I find it weird that they haven't studied states and capitals.  Apparently that, like cursive, has gone by the wayside.  :(

I still need to do a lot of work on finally finishing off my quilting service website.  My father in law is coming down this weekend to bring our Murphy bed frame.  We are not even close to being ready.  And it's FLL season and our team is not yet prepared for competition, which is about six weeks out. I know it will all get done, maybe not perfectly, but at least finished.  It can still be overwhelming and stressful until that point though.

Oh, I finally finished the John Urschel book.  It was really interesting and made me feel unintelligent at times.  But that's okay.  I learned a lot and also ruminated on how much math I've forgotten.  I was never anywhere near Urschel's level, but I sure was a lot better in my 20s than I am now.  If you don't use it, you lose it, for sure.
I am currently reading this classic.  It's hard to adjust to the older writing style.  I got about 1/3 of the way through during fencing practice the other night. Do you know the differences between mean, median, and mode and how they affect reporting?
And I just finished this one that my friend lent me.  So many interesting ideas.  We could do so much more.
I really enjoy reading.  I usually read several books a week, along with a few newspapers a day and some magazines.  Most of the time I prefer light-hearted romances or mysteries that I can get for free on my Kindle.  Things that I can read for enjoyment that I don't have to think hard about. Sometimes I switch it up and read more serious things.  :)  What do you like to read?

We're heading into gift season. Do you need something quilted?  Head over to my sister website, Quilting by Anne-Marie, for convenient online ordering.  I take quilts in person and via mail. Sign up for my newsletter for special savings.  Facebook your thing?  I'll be honest, it's not really mine, but I do have a Quilting by Anne-Marie page there.  It even has photos.  Stop by and like my page.  Love Instagram?  Follow me @just_anne_marie.  It's a mishmash of both my blog and my business.

As always, thanks for reading.
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Thoughts on Math and Other Things

I am working on a secret project.  I cut all the fabric as directed, started sewing, got to the trimming part, and thought, "What on earth?  What did I do wrong?"  We make an assumption or trust that the instructions are correct when we use a pattern and sometimes, unfortunately, that trust is misplaced. I didn't do anything wrong other than blindly follow directions. The cutting directions in the pattern were way off on the initial sizes to cut and sew.  

The pattern picture seems to indicate that I'd just be trimming a small margin off to end up at 1-1/2" squares. I cut around 1/2" off each HST.  This is why math matters.  There was so much waste.  I'm all for making HST slightly oversized to trim and get super-accurate.  I am not for making them so large that you could have made several more blocks just from the trimmings.  

 It brought to mind an interview with John Urschel, a former pro football player who is pursuing his PhD at MIT, that I read this past spring in TIME magazine.  I will freely admit that I hadn't heard of John Urschel before reading this article.  I don't follow football.  I am, however, a fan of math and reading and smart people, and this piece caught my attention.  I've been thinking about something Urschel said in the article ever since I read it. 

 “Some people will sort of joke about, ‘Oh, I was never good at math.’ But people don’t joke about being illiterate. Being mathematically illiterate is quite a dangerous thing.” 

This statement really got me thinking.  And while being a bit off on some quilt math isn't a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, being math illiterate is a big deal in one's life.  As a society we need to do better at educating kids in math, not just the facts, but the thought processes and understanding, and the practical uses of math.  It's not just Algebra and computation.  It's how we relate to the world, how things work, and being able to make good decisions based on facts.

 Along this same vein, we also need to do better at information literacy.  So many people blindly believe everything they read/hear from their chosen network.  People need to learn to think critically and evaluate the motivations behind why someone may present the information they do.  Are they trying to sell something?  Why would they say this?  What do they get out of it?  How do we know what information to trust and what makes some information more valuable than others?  It all fits together, math and information literacy and critical thinking.

 So, anyway, let's get back to sewing.  I'm most of the way done with the piecing on my son's NASA quilt.  I had to get his approval on the direction of the last set of borders.  This top is a kit from Riley Blake.  We swapped some of the fabrics since we'd previously bought some yardage of other prints in the line.
I am trying something new with piecing the backing using a panel as well.  The fabrics all shrunk when I washed them, so I think my calculations are going to be a bit off.  I think I'll still have enough yardage to make the back work.  You can see that I'll need to trim a good inch off the panel to make my side yardages work.  It'll be close, but fingers crossed it'll be enough.  It'll be fun to see how centered the backing ends up too.  It's hard to predict backing placement with the long arm.
I need to finish off my mystery sewing project since that has a deadline.  
I'm also planning to make some napkins. We had company recently and I didn't have more than four of any napkin except Valentine's Day, which wasn't appropriate for August.  So I'm going to use this dinosaur fabric to make eight napkins so that we have enough for most situations where we'd have guests. 
My friend gave me this Christmas flamingo fabric, so I'm going to make some fun napkins with it too.
Do you use cloth napkins?  What things do you make to reuse in your house?

 Linking with For the love of geese and My Quilt Infatuation.

 P.S.--I have a hold on John Urschel's book at the library.  I'll let you know how it is.  :)
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