Month: September 2016

Sewing Machine Feet

I am amassing a collection of sewing machine feet – some of which are more useful than others 🙂

1/4″ zigzag foot — works for anything, isn’t perfect for anything. I guess if I only had one foot, this would be it. Took me a long time to realize what made it a zigzag foot — the opening for the needle is a wide oval which allows you to adjust the needle position far left or far right (or use the widest zig-zag you’ve got). The *foot* doesn’t do anything ziggy or zaggy – it just has space for the needle to pass through if you’re using a zigzag stitch. Bit of a d’oh moment when I figured that one out.

1/4″ “quilting” foot with guide – I have trouble sewing in a straight line. I know this is a newbie problem, but it doesn’t make for nice looking projects. If I go through the process of chalking out straight lines, it’s better but still not perfect. I actually purchased this foot to get to the “free shipping” level at a sewing parts store and put it into a storage case for about eighteen months. I recently started an Ohio Star quilt for Anya and a Halloween tote … both of which I ended up ripping and resewing quite frequently because of uneven seam allowances. I remembered this foot and tried it out. Perfect straight lines. Corners that meet up! I’ve even used this foot for Anya’s backpack (straight lines on the straps!) and some clothing. For the clothing — 1/2″ seam allowance, I’ve basted a line at 1/4″ and then lined the baste stitching up with the guide for the real seam. Hokey, but it worked. I like this guide so well that I’ve purchased a foot with an adjustable guide. It is scheduled to arrive next week, so I haven’t actually used it. But I’m excited to try it.

Gathering/ruffling foot – Yup, I got the cheapest eBay one I could find and waited a few weeks while it posted from China. One distinct advantage of being a novice is that you aren’t prepared to judge quality – and while it’s possible you won’t have much use for the cheap junk because it is cheap junk … you might also avoid spending a lot of money on something that just isn’t useful. For the 60$’s I was seeing these at … I’d have to be in the bed-skirt business before I even thought about buying one. But for 5$, it was worth a try. I thought I’d get a lot of use out of this when I was making a tutu last year. Didn’t work at all for that – the thin strips of netting didn’t get picked up properly. I basted each strip by hand and gathered them by hand. I still plan to make a tiered corduroy skirt for Anya this Autumn, and I think the foot will work out better for that type of project (gather fabric #1 against fabric #2). Hopefully!

Invisible zipper foot – Another “cheapest eBay had” purchase. Kind of like my 1/4″ foot with a guide, this lets the invisible zipper run along a channel so you know you’ve got a straight line. Total niche item – if you aren’t installing invisible zippers … no need to get one. I bought my foot along with the first invisible zipper I purchased. I like it a lot because the channel keeps my line of stitches straight, but I could see a more experienced machine operator not needing one of these.

Regular zipper/cording foot – I got this in the store at Joann mid-way through making Anya’s backpack. I was able to make my own piping, attach it, and attach the zipper beautifully. I’ll use it again to attach the sleeping bag zipper. Another niche item, but I’ve been getting a lot of use out of it lately because of a few specific projects.

Walking foot – I got this to stitch the quilting on Anya’s Ohio Star quilt. It’s quilting design is just blocks that run along the blocks. I could do something really fancy, but I wanted her to be able to use the quilt before it got cold. I like it for this use – I was able to quilt my simple design quite well (although it’s a little challenging to move the crib-sized quilt along my sewing table … I cannot imagine doing a Queen or Cali-King sized quilt on the little machine.

 

Feet I don’t have:

Teflon foot or Roller foot – Not buying this foot was a bit of ignorance on my part. Anya’s backpack is lined with a laminated cotton fabric. I ordered the fabrics, insulation, and zipper … had everything ready to go, and then wondered if you needed to do anything special with laminated fabrics. Big thing is don’t pin them where you don’t want to see holes. I’d also read that it was difficult to sew laminated fabric without a Teflon foot. Oops! Her first day of preschool was only a couple of weeks away, and I didn’t want to lose a week waiting for a foot to arrive. I could not, however, find a low shank one of these in a reasonable driving radius. Or a snap-on one coupled with a snap-on to low shank adapter. Figured I’d try stitching up her backpack without it, and I didn’t have a problem. Most of the seams are wrong-side of two layers of laminate … which means I was stitching along the cotton side. There were a few places where the plastic part was facing the presser foot and I didn’t have any issues. I still might pick up an adapter so I can attach snap-on feet to my low shank machine

Button hole – I got a little geeky about sewing the button holes on Anya’s Christmas shirt. I own buttonhole gimp, twist, and wax … and sewed each hole by hand. Which was fine for five buttons on a super-special shirt. I’m sure I’d research machine-made button holes if I were doing this more often.

Open toe – used for freehand embroidery. My mom said the guy at the sewing machine store where she picked up her old Kenmore was amazing at freehand embroidery on the machines. I do hand embroidery in a hoop (I love Darice’s spring tension hoops!) and cannot imagine even trying to freehand a design on a machine. Then again, I cannot imaging paying a heap of money for a new snazzy computer controlled embroidering machine either. For now, Anya’s got fairly simple hand-stitched t-shirts.

Rolled hem – I use my serger for rolled hems, so no need for another rolled hem method. Same thing for overlocking feet.

Blind hem – Can’t say I’ve even seen a blind hem. May research them some day, but no pressing need.

 

Apple Faces & Strawberry Lemonade

Today was Anya’s turn to bring a snack to preschool. She wanted to make apple faces like we made for Halloween last year, but the school has a strict no-nuts policy. Shorter ingredient list — just Fuji apples, fresh strawberries, and unsweetened carob chips. Omitting peanut butter made affixing the carob chips to the apples more challenging. I debated using tahini – apple and sesame goes well together. But that didn’t seem to mesh well with strawberries and carob … so I decided to make little holes to hold the carob chips.

To start out, you need something to prevent the apples from oxidizing after they are cut. Lots of choices – submerging them in plain water, ascorbic acid, citric acid, or honey and water. Just make sure the apples get treated after each cut.

Core each apple. I used a really sharp tourn̩e knife and pared out little eyeball sockets. I used the same knife to pare out a mouth Рcut a straight line for the top and a concave curve under the straight line. The curved point of the knife popped the slice out quite nicely.

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Then drop the carob chips, points down, into the socket. Voila, a tray full of apple faces.

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The “juice” I made is strawberry lemonade — almost two pints of strawberries, juice from half a dozen lemons, and eight cups of water. It is sweeter and more strawberry flavored than I usually make, but I wasn’t sure if *lemony* lemonade would be palatable to everyone. I put the strawberries, lemon juice, and two cups of water in the blender and blended until it no longer had chunks. Put four cups of water into the jug, then added the strawberry/lemon puree. Capped, shook, and tasted. Mmmmm! It’s better cold, so we brought a couple of ice packs along – Anya’s owl bag is insulated, so the jug should stay cold.

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Anya’s Halloween Costume: Decision and fabric acquisition

Anya has gotten infatuated with princesses and doctors — so it was a bit of a toss-up which one she’d want to make for this year’s Halloween costume. But princess costumes are shiny and sparkly, whereas doctor costumes are … well, scrubs and maybe a white lab coat if you are feeling fancy. Sure there’s a stethoscope and maybe a bag. But I really should have been able to guess which would be more appealing in the end.

We’ll be making a Belle-like costume this year. I found a yellow/gold jacquard fabric that I’ll use for the dress:

dressfabric

And I picked up a sparkly net fabric to use for accents.

netfabric

I want to research the difference between using a lot of panels individually gathered and making a long circle skirt gathered along radial lines. The circle skirt would eliminate a LOT of seams, but I don’t know how the panels will look. Might have to take a little circle and see how it looks when it is gathered.

I am planning to use the same bodice from her Easter dress – it fit well, and I already have the pattern printed. I may make a long-sleeved version to be more seasonally appropriate.

The price of an egg

Pricing can be amusing – I always thought the 6$ roasted chicken at markets is 3$ chicken with today as a sell-by date. Toss it and you lose money, cook it and you charge more for it.

We recently stopped at McDonald’s during a marathon shopping excursion (and hungry/cranky tiny people are *not* good shopping partners). Don’t know the menu, so we went inside to take our time ordering. Sausage McMuffin = 1.29$. Sausage McMuffin With Egg = 3.29$. Umm, an egg costs 2$? An entire *dozen* eggs doesn’t cost that unless you want the “free range” “organic” ones from a major chain grocery store. A dozen from the guy down the street (fully free-ranged hens, but not certified organic) only costs 2$!

I know that pricing is determined by perceived value and demand. And the cheap sausage/cheese/English muffin option is included in the tiny ‘value menu’ section while the expensive sausage/egg/cheese/English muffin option is a huge menu tile in full color with a picture so a lot of customers (especially those in the drive-through who may not feel comfortable parking long enough to read the entire menu) may not even know the other option exists. But where else does a single egg cost 2$?!

Setting Bobbin Case Tension

I’d always been told to just leave the bobbin case tension alone — which seemed odd … why would they have a user-adjustable screw on something you should leave alone? If it is something that needs to be set by a professional … hide it, require an odd tool, whatever. A little flat-head screw right there … but, yeah, randomly turning it certainly didn’t help my stitches.

My husband’s mother used a Kenmore 158.17520 in the 70’s and 80’s, and it was sitting around the house when we needed a sewing machine. His dad let us have it – now I didn’t really know much about sewing machines. I had a compulsory course in practical making-it-in-real-life skills in primary school, and I remember using a sewing machine. But it was all set up and ready to go (maybe we had to thread it … but there were no settings being adjusted). Hadn’t used a sewing machine since. I wasn’t sure how much of my thread snarl was the machine and how much was my ineptitude.

Replacing the bobbin case improved things greatly, but I continued to get inconsistent results from this machine for years. The bobbin thread would be loose, and often snarled. Then I took a class in operating a long-arm quilting machine. There are some quilt projects I can do on the Kenmore (although with the loose bobbin thread & having to rip and re-sew … even that was iffy), but I have designed a computer controlled quilt motif for Anya’s butterfly quilt that creates a sun and rays in the upper right-hand corner of the quilt. And when she’s older, the star quilt is going to have a sunburst that would probably be easily done free-hand, but I know the lines would be straight and spaced properly if I build the design with an algorithm. To use the computer control, I had to know how to use the long-arm. I think I’m going to have an audience when I use my quilting design on their software … seems that there aren’t a lot of computer techies loading up complicated custom designs. But I need to make the quilt first!

Some of the early lessons on the long-arm were basic set-up. How to mount the quilt, how to thread the machine (which, I realized, was a pretty standard sewing machine from a different perspective and attached to a giant computer controlled rail system), and how to set up the bobbin. And the instructor said don’t mess with the bobbin tension. I asked her why — I’d read it online but never heard it from someone I could ask “why?”. We did it already, she said. I know this case is set up for the thread I’m using on this machine. They even drop some nail polish over some of the adjustments to avoid people screwing with the settings. Which begged the question … how did you set the tension?

She showed me that she could hold the bobbin in one hand with the thread between her thumb and index finger, put her other hand 4-5″ under the hand holding the bobbin, and drop the bobbin. It stopped itself just short of her hand. If it plummets and would continue dropping (especially if it will drop all the way to the floor), then your tension is too loose and you need to adjust the screw clock-wise. If it doesn’t budge, your tension is too tight and you need to adjust the screw anti-clockwise.

Now there’s a middle-ground. Generally 4-5″ of drop is good. It could drop 3″ or 8″ and maybe be OK. Depends on the thread being used & the upper tension setting. That’s where you get into trial and error. Sew something — if the bobbin thread is loose, then the tension needs to be tightened. If the bobbin thread pulls up to the other side of the fabric, the tension is too tight. Once you know the right amount of drop for a specific thread, then you have a setting for that thread going forward.

Then she mentioned that this machine needed the bobbin put into the case so the bobbin would spin clockwise as you pull. Wait, the bobbin insertion is directional?? Problem is that I cannot figure out if that’s clockwise as you look at it while it is in the machine or as you look at it out of the machine and are putting in the bobbin. Hopefully the manual indicates which is proper … but I think trial and error will figure it out too. I’ve noticed snarls, taken out the bobbin case to look at it, put it back together a random clockwise/anti-clockwise direction, and had the problem sort itself. Maybe I’m flipping the bobbin in its case?

But even without sorting the spin direction, I am getting consistent stitches with the bobbin tension sorted. WooHoo!!

Deregulation

I’ve always believed anarchy was a wonderful governance methodology — for very small communities of highly intelligent, self-aware individuals. I do not find the methodology scalable.

Pure free market principals suffer from the same problem. The free market involves informed actors making rational decisions. Rational is the word that always stood out to me — how many decisions (purchasing or otherwise) are truly rational?

But a recent report regarding a study from before there were regulations about disclosing the source of a study’s funding highlights the “informed” component. How can you be an informed actor without regulations that ensure the “facts” are not being paid for by industry associations?

This isn’t to say I believe we limitless regulations to avoid the possibility of an individual making a poor devision, or that it wouldn’t behoove us to review existing regulations to determine if they are still sensible. But I cannot understand anti-regulation fervor.

 

Debate “Instant Replay”

This: http://www.salon.com/2016/09/13/an-open-letter-to-the-commission-on-presidential-debates-bring-on-instant-replay/

Like my proposal of allowing AMT-exempted tax deductible donations to departments of the federal government, the implementation would be a little tricky but the outcome incredible. There are well defined facts, questionable facts, and then “facts” that have some kind of spin. It would be difficult to stick to the well-documented facts (is some research paper published by a group who got funded by someone benefiting from the result of the research still a “fact”?). I think I would stick to opponent flagged comments too — having a limited number of wrong challenges discourages challenging every statement. But as long as your challenge is substantiated, it isn’t like you’ll find yourself halfway through the fourth quarter, fourth down two yards from the goal line, and unable to challenge a call.

Alternately candidates could be provided a list of their top n lies and told that any of these statements will be immediately challenged by the moderator. The FBI says you were careless … you can say you thought you were doing everything you could, but were found to have been careless. There are recordings of you supporting a war, you can say you changed your mind as new information came to light (why no one does this is beyond me – the “he was for it before he was against it” thing a few elections cycles ago seemed to have such an easy answer to me. I was not privy to all of the information the President had available. Based on the information we were provided at the time, I was for it. Now that new information has been made pubic, I have changed my mind) but you cannot just say you opposed it.

OpenHAB Through A Reverse Proxy

This isn’t something we do, but my Google dashboard says a lot of people are finding my site by searching for OpenHAB and reverse proxy. I do a lot of other things through Apache’s reverse proxy, so I figured I’d provide a quick config.

To start, you either need to have the proxy modules statically built into Apache or load them in your httpd.conf file. I load the modules, so am showing the httpd.conf method. I have the WebStream module loaded as well because we reverse proxy an MQTT server for presence – the last line isn’t needed if you don’t reverse proxy WebStream data.

LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so
LoadModule proxy_wstunnel_module modules/mod_proxy_wstunnel.so

If I were reverse proxying our OpenHAB site, I would only do so over HTTPS and I’d have authentication on the site (i.e. any random dude on the Internet shouldn’t be able to load the site and turn my lights off without putting some effort into it). There are other posts on this site providing instructions for adding Kerberos authentication to a site (to an Active Directory domain). You could also use LDAP to authenticate to any LDAP compliant directory – config is similar to the Kerberos authentication with LDAP authorization. You can do local authentication too – not something I do, but I know it is a thing.

Once you have the proxy modules loaded, you need to add the site to relay traffic back to OpenHAB. To set up a new web site, you’ll need to set up a new virtual host. Server Name Indication was introduced in Apache 2.2.12 — this allows you to host multiple SSL web sites on a single IP:Port combination. Prior to 2.2.12, the IP:Port combination needed to be unique per virtual host to avoid certificate name mismatch errors. You still can use a unique combination, but if you want to use the default HTTP-SSL port, 443, and identify the site through ServerName/ServerAlias values … Google setting up SNI with Apache.

Within your VirtualHost definition, you need a few lines to set up the reverse proxy. Then add the “ProxyPass” and “ProxyPassReverse” lines with the URL for your OpenHAB at the end

ProxyRequests Off
<VirtualHost 10.1.2.25:8443>
        ServerName openhabExternalHost.domain.gTLD
        ServerAlias openhab
        SetEnv force-proxy-request-1.0 1
        SetEnv proxy-nokeepalive 1
        SetEnv proxy-initial-not-pooled
        SetEnv proxy-initial-not-pooled 1

        ProxyPreserveHost On
        ProxyTimeOut 1800

        ProxyPass / https://openhabInternalHost.domain.gTLD:9443/
        ProxyPassReverse / https://openhabInternalHost.domain.gTLD:9443/

        SSLEngine On
        SSLProxyEngine On
        SSLProxyCheckPeerCN off
        SSLProxyCheckPeerName off
        SSLCertificateFile /apache/httpd/conf/ssl/www.rushworth.us.cert
        SSLCertificateKeyFile /apache/httpd/conf/ssl/www.rushworth.us.key
        SSLCertificateChainFile /apache/httpd/conf/ssl/signingca-v2.crt
</VirtualHost>

Reload Apache and you should be able to access your OpenHAB web site via your reverse proxy. You can add authentication into the reverse proxy configuration too — this would allow you to use the OpenHAB site directly from your internal network but require authentication when coming in from the Internet.

Sleeping Bag Mathematics

I purchased two yards of the 44″ wide printed star fabric and one yard of the 60″ wide fuzzy green fabric. The fabric arrived, the zipper bits arrived, and then I thought “self, what dimension would make a good toddler sleeping bag?”. Wrong order of operations there.

Now the question is “what dimension sleeping bag can I make with the fabric I already purchased?”. Folding in half along the shorter side yields a 22″ wide sleeping bag. Anya’s waist measurement is 20″, and 22″ seems awfully snug even now. So I’ll use the measurement along the selvage edge as the sleeping bag length. 37″ is a little shorter than she is now, but my sleeping bags (not the camping-in-the-Artic mummy ones) have usually come up to my shoulders … so 37″ will work for years. Then the print’s is folded along its length and the fuzzy folded along its width making a 30″ wide bag. It’ll be 37″x60″ unzipped – which will make a decent “snuggling on the sofa” blanket after she outgrows it as a sleeping bag. Or so I’m telling myself 🙂

Removing Weeds From Walkways and Patios

We have an aversion to chemical herbicides – both run-off and run-on (Anya feet), so have been trying to find a good way to keep the weeds out of our stone/brick patio and walkways. Crawling around and pulling weeds is rather effective. Anya beams with pride each time she gets a root too. But it isn’t a sustainable weed-control method for the entire space. The string trimmer can be used to quickly cut existing growth, but since the roots remain … they return right quickly. I imagine the root system can only sustain regrowth for so long, but we’ve never managed to chop them enough to prevent regrowth.

We had to clean our water softener’s brine tank – and I figure there had to be some basis in reality for the stories about Scipio Aemilianus salting Carthage after the Third Punic War. Not reality of the “he really did it” sense, but it isn’t like folklore has conquerors spreading well composted manure over the fields to render the soil useless. We pored the brine over our stone patio (I’m sure salt isn’t good for stone … but it had to go somewhere). There is one particular low-growing brownish-red weed that still grows, but it blends in well enough with the stone that I don’t really notice it. Other than that, though, *no* weeds for the entire summer. Burned the lawn some, and this is only useful if you find yourself with thirty gallons of brine that need to be dumped somewhere.

Next year, I have more techniques that I want to test: vinegar, baking soda, and boiling water. Hopefully we’ll find a few more approaches. Then next Spring, we’ll do a controlled experiment. 1/n of the patio and 1/n of the front walkway will be weed-controlled with each method. We’ll see which one kills the weeds without running off into the surrounding lawn and which prevents new growth for the longest time.