Close Calls

Well, our R-Pod is clean and winterized in preparation for hibernation. Charlie plugged her into shore power, so I could use the internal vacuum and check the convection/microwave functioning.

We removed everything liquid, all food and most of the bed linens. I dusted and vacuumed, using the hose and wand attachments for the internal vacuum for the first time. It reaches every "corner" of the pod. Then I went over everything with spray cleaner or glass cleaner, depending on what I was cleaning.

In the photo below, from the original posting at the dealership, you can see where we attach the hose to the internal vacuum, right below and to the left under the convection/microwave oven. The hose attaches to a hole where the little circle is. You also can just sweep dust and dirt up to the device and turn it on. The vacuum has a little door close to the floor (indicated by an arrow). You give it a tap when the vacuum is turned on, and whatever is on the floor right in front of it gets sucked up. We need shore power for this, of course.

I haven't tried emptying the bag yet.

While we were plugged into power, I tried preheating the oven in convection mode. It worked perfectly, although I didn't use it to cook this time. (Photo from our last camping trip, when I had to cook pizza without preheating.) 

We have decided that either it just needed to be rebooted (which happens when you unplug it and plug in again) or we had a malfunction caused by not enough shore power for what else we might have had going. (I might have had the little electric space heater plugged in while I was trying to get it to preheat.) While studying the problem, I learned a lot about what it can do and am really looking forward to trying it out again in the Spring. This was a close call, because we would either have to remove the oven from the pod or take the whole trailer in to repair or replace the oven.

We decided we could use the comforter on our bed in the house, now that the nights are getting colder. The pups really like the faux fur throw, so I brought that in, too, and our nice new sheets. No point in having the new stuff just sitting, waiting for our next camping trip!

I managed to get a little knitting in during the week and have several inches completed on the first sleeve of the Kultainen käki Cardigan.

I also finally got the borders on Soren's quilt. It was a challenge, because the pattern is rows of "portraits" of Scooby-Doo characters. Unlike woven stripes or plaids, the rows aren't perfectly even, and I had to piece all four sides to get them long enough, which meant matching the pattern across each seam. I don't have room on the floor for a quilt top this size (full), so I hung it over another quilt on the rail upstairs to get a photo.

One of my problems with piecing the border was that there were two different rows of portraits from the Scooby-Doo show. When you cut a piece the right size for one side, the next row on the uncut fabric is in the wrong place, so you have to trim that, too. Otherwise, they won't match up, and with this fabric, it would be very obvious.

Getting the entire outer border out of the fabric I had was also a close call. My leftovers:

See how I matched up the motifs below, in "my tip of the week."

A couple of times this week I found Sandy trying to climb up on the two beanbag chairs we had in the family room. He was trying to reach some forbidden items to remove to our backyard. We had the two beanbags piled up in the corner to protect (we thought) some stuff we had there. He must have thought they were there for his climbing convenience, because I found him on top of the upper one, helping himself to what was in the box up there. We moved one bean bag chair to the guest room and put the other one next to the backdoor, where he promptly discovered their true purpose.

I guess you can tell he really likes it now. 

The dogs and I have walked every day this week, sometimes with Charlie and sometimes just the three of us. I try to give them a little off-leash time at the beginning of a walk. The little wilderness area along the trail is good for that, but it's slated for development.

It will be sad to lose it, but I don't think we'll ever lose the trail itself, unless it's completely taken over by scooters, eBikes and bicycles. Saturday afternoon I was almost run down by someone on an eBike on the walk at Ponderosa Park going way too fast and on the wrong side of the trail. The trails at the park are paved, so the tires don't make that crunching sound, which is the only way I know when a bike is approaching, since they usually don't bother to honk, ring a bell or call out.

We had just come out of the dog off-leash area and were walking down the path, headed home. I heard a soft sound and glanced around to find the eBike bearing down on me and already within a yard of me. I screamed and jumped aside with Sandy, as the bike went barreling by, right where I had been standing. Charlie yelled at the kid (we think it was a kid). He thought it was a girl. I thought the pigtails were attached to the cap the kid was wearing, so maybe. The rider was small, though. We keep having these close calls on the trail, but a lot of older people come to this park so their dogs can play with others, and I'm thinking some pedestrian is going to get hurt or killed one of these days.

Sunday was the celebration of the Feast Day of St. Francis, which includes the Blessing of the Animals. The animals at this service were mostly dogs, although some other animals participated, some remotely or by photo.

This was Sandy's first time in church. The choir didn't sing, which is actually good, because when Dusty sees me with the choir, he wants to come to me. This time I got to sit with my family, and Charlie didn't have to deal with two dogs. 

Sandy did very well at his first time to get blessed. He sat when he was supposed to sit, stood when he was supposed to stand and bowed his head for the prayers. He was also quiet. Dusty wanted to sing at the wrong times during the service, but otherwise, he was good, too. All the participants received a medal of St. Francis for their collars (if they wear collars).

I did some cooking this week, of course. The most interesting thing, aside from salads, was this pizza.

I managed to get a new story written. All the photos are taken, too, but I'll have a chance to look at it again before it comes out on Friday and tweak it a bit. It's longer than usual.

Watch for it on Friday. 

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah or Classic Tales Retold, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Kultainen käki Cardigan. The EmPower People Kerchief is still hibernating.

What's on my loom: Some progress on the placemats. Watch for photo next week.

What's on my sewing machine: Putting the blocks together now for Johan's quilt.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: This week's story is an edited rerun from 2018, Charlotte's First Birthday. As Jolena bakes a cupcake for Charlotte's birthday, Mariah learns that Jolena came out of her box knowing how to cook and bake. It's her "superpower." Mariah wonders what hers is, and decides to write a poem for Charlotte for her birthday.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Die Unendliche Geschichte by Michael Ende. 

What's in my wine glass: Lone Star Daylilies Sangiovese 2019. I didn't know they made good wine in Texas.

What's my tip of the week: Matching motifs in piecing fabric can be tricky. First, you have to find the repeated motifs, then line them up vertically. With this fabric, I had to make sure I had the same line of images. (I made this sample out of the scraps to illustrate.) To get the pieces I needed, I had to do some trimming.

Then I matched up the black lines vertically, without worrying about having the images match up horizontally.

I sewed them together at that point with the usual 1/4" seam. Of course, the images were still broken up, so I folded the fabric that was on top so that the images lined up, and then pressed with the iron. (For my sample, the fold ended up between the portraits, in the black vertical line. This didn't happen when I sewed my border pieces together, unfortunately.) I think you can still tell what I did, though.

Then I went back to the sewing machine and sewed another seam right along the fold.

I trimmed off the excess, and this was the result. (Arrow points to the vertical seam.)

Here's a photo of the actual border on the quilt. (The vertical seam is where my finger is pointing, right through Scooby's picture, to the left of the black line.)

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 

Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook is available from the BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. Poems included are Valentine's Day, Keeping Pets, Back to School, Victor the Vulture, The Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

The stories in Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude, and they have them ready to ship now. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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