Memorial Days and Making Memories

It's been a week since I posted anything...hard to believe that I have so little to say!  That's not true...I have a lot to say, at least that's what my family would say.

Yeah, yeah...whatever.

I finished a few things recently.  In no particular order...but mostly reverse order...

Avelyn came over Friday to fix the roof on her yurt.  When we originally cut the fabric, we were going by the directions that were given to us by a yurt maker, but some of the numbers were off.  While I don't hold grudges for giving us erroneous information, I am disappointed that we had such a steep learning curve.  There were several times when we said, "wait a sec...that doesn't sound right."  After doing the math, we discovered where things had gone a little sideways and had to make adjustments.  The yurt roof cover was one of those things.  First the rafters were about 8" too long, then we cut them down on site and drilled new holes with a battery-powered drill at September Crown.  Then we put the cover on which was about 18" too short, allowing passers-by to peek in over the edges and see everything going on inside...like people sleeping or changing clothes.  How in the world we managed that, I have no idea.  So, long story short, we had to cut 18" wide curves to add to the edge of the yurt cover.  Hopefully we got it right...  First we sewed the curves end-to-end, and flat-felled the seams.  Then we sewed the length to the cover and began to flat-fell the seams, only to have the sewing machine give out.  The strap that runs the wheel is frayed and needs to be replaced.  The bobbin winder wasn't working, either, so I was hand-winding all the bobbins.  Let me tell you what a fun task that is....

When it's all done and the numbers are set, we're going to write a How to Make a Yurt book using hard numbers and step-by-step directions.  We won't make a million on it, but we might be able to get people to make a good, sturdy weekend home without breaking the bank or suffering the grey hairs that we did.

I haven't mentioned to Kelly that I'd like to try to make another bigger yurt...but I'd have to sell the square Regency tent to fund it, I think.  The other option is to make modifications to make ours 18' across by making longer rafters and adding a length to the khana.  I'm hoping that this will not require making a new tono.  However, it will require a new roof cover and another panel to go the rest of the way around the outside.  Experimentation may be afoot this summer....

I finally finished the weaving project that has been on the loom for the last few weeks that will probably go up for sale at July Coronation.  I didn't have a particular plan for this one, so I'm happy to let this one go.  I wanted to repeat the Baronial and Kingdom colors but on a narrower band, so I omitted a few cards on the ends.  It ended up being about 2 cm wide, and just over 4 yards long.  On Thursday, while Miss Bekah was visiting, I warped up another weave with yellow, red and white to make a weave in Ithra colors.

A quilt job for Judy that has been delivered back to its owner.  This was a fun little project and I did my favorite swirly "Dr. Seuss Feather" stitching on it.  She gave me the thread to work with, a blue King Tut spool.  It worked pretty well, but it's much heavier than I'm used to.  The yellow pieces up in the corner was the test area to get the tension set correctly.  I removed it after taking this picture.  I just couldn't find my seam ripper at the moment.

The kids had a track meet a week ago.  The younger grades, 1-3, had theirs at the school being host to three other schools for 50- and 75-yard dash, relays, and potato sack races.  Ben participated in five different races, receiving five purple "participant" ribbons.  Winning isn't everything...but at least the ribbons were purple...his favorite color.  OK, second favorite.  He had a pretty good day and was a good sport about not placing in any of the races.  He was treated with a grape shave ice afterwards.  It was a purple themed day.

The 8th grade students helped as sitters for the younger ones between races so that teachers could focus on organizing their brood for the various heats.  Mostly I think the 8th graders ate candy and snacks from the sale table.  Ben stopped to cuddle with his big sister after every race, which was good--I knew where to find him.  I was asked to keep an eye on him and help make sure he made it to his events.  I actually ended up losing him for a while when I turned my back for two minutes to talk to another parent, which resulted in 10 minutes of searching before I found him rolling down the small hill from the basketball court to the field.

Memorial Day weekend has arrived and our long weekend is sliding by too quickly.  We are mid-way through and have yet to do anything of significance.  Other than Spring cleaning my bedroom--tossing out a ton of paperwork, changing sheets, and vacuuming under and behind furniture.  There is still a bit more to do, like packing away the extra winter quilts and bagging up the donation stuff behind the door, but it looks a LOT better.

My sewing room needs the same kind of treatment and I've been pecking away at the bins of scraps, cutting them into squares of 2" up to 6" (in 1/2" increments) and bagging them up for scrap quilts.  The baggie of 2" squares is in my car along with a needle, thread and scissors and I have been piecing them while I'm waiting to pick up kids, sitting at the coffee shop before a meeting with a client, or at functions that are not for me (like the cast party for the play).

The other thing I've been working on for the past couple of weeks is scanning old photos, like this one from 2002, into the computer for a photo album for Emma.  I finished one on Shutterfly and will be giving it to her as her graduation gift, but I have many more photos than would fit into one album, and have thousands of photos from the pre-digital age that I am trying to put into a birth-to-five book.  There may be some overlap and I know I'll have to do at least one more album for high school years, which can also include all the grade school photos that won't fit into these first two albums.  I will have to do albums for Cammie and Ben in future years, also.