July 30th, 2008
Joleen’s green quilt
July 30th, 2008
quilt plans
I took a break from the quilting to make a bunch of curtains for a friend of mine. Pam, who I went to Mexico with, just bought a house somewhere out in Texas. It’s like a big one-room affair with 50 X 60 inch windows all around, maybe 15-20 of them (?). She got a bunch of heavy sheets in various colors, mostly light blue, and we went to SAS fabrics, found a whole roll of wide lace for $5.00 and a big pile of grey and blue t-shirt material (by the pound)….
we folded the top hem over, put lace on the stitch-line and made two tubes, the lower one for the rod, the upper one for a self-ruffle, the lace on the seams stiffens it a little so the top hem on the sheet hangs a little off the fabric, looks real nice on a rod. So I took my break to sew those up. I put tubes in top and bottom of 40 inch lengths of the grey/blu knit so she can stretch it on top and bottom spring rods inside the window casings for insulation and privacy.
I was struck by the realization that the design time was equally as important as the execution. We carefully designed and ended up with a curtain that we had not imagined going into it. It stitched up with simplicity and clean lines.
Same goes for a quilt, although I’m a little more relaxed about design than most quilters I know.
On this one, I just started making pineapples out of green. That was the whole design at first. I went too far and had to take a whole row off, It was just too big, and more sqaure than I liked.
so now the center part is just the right size, I am now making the edges more straight, next I’ll add a ruffle, because if I don’t get wild soon, I will have a traditional quilt on my hands. I always get a little wild and add lace, button, ruffles, whatever.
When I get the ruffle and next border on, I will try to remember to put a pic up here.
I had to stop and think about it for a couple of days, but now have a definite plan for the next couple of steps.
July 21st, 2008
Mary, get your ‘puter up and running!
I went to Mexico the other day with my gal pal Pam, and visited the little old ladies in my life.
I stayed with Mom, and got to visit with Mary twice.
Mary just had her 93 rd birthday… YOU GO GIRL!!
Her parties are pretty wild, so I hated to miss this one, just didn’t have time to go to Rocky Point. But she had the big party; rented the hall, and had the band, the keg, the food, and everything.
I got some pics of Mary, Pam, Mom, etc, See if you can tell who’s who.
July 21st, 2008
Joleen’s Quilt
The pineapple quilt has got me in its grip. Here’s some pics of possible layouts.
I found a new (to me) patch…. the disappearing nine-patch. Go here to see it.
http://quiltsatcs.blogspot.com/2007/04/disappearing-9-patch-tutorial.html
So now it looks like the border will be the disappearing 9 patch.. It’s a real trick block and I whipped through 24 of them in no time. I used only 2 colors with a contrast for the middle block.
July 8th, 2008
Third part, scary Commercial dog food
Third installment in the kibble salmonella scare:
You should never let your guard down when it comes to huge corporations. They’re just trying to make some money, in accord with the American Dream (and it is a very good dream, I love capitalism).
Corporations don’t make the decisions; people make the decisions, and they have to please the board, which is made up of people who are yet another step removed from whatever the corporation does to make the money that makes the board happy. How can they police themselves? Really. It’s a very rare corporation that has any morals. The individuals that make up the corporate entity may be (and mostly are) very fine people, but a corporation cannot have a soul or conscience, really, it’s not in the nature of the beast.
That leaves it up to the consumer. The American Way (and again, it’s a darn good way).
Somehow i missed the salmonella poisoning issue of 2007, but found plenty on line about it the other day.
In August 2007, Mars Petcare voluntarily recalled select bags of its Red Flannel Large Breed Adult Formula dry dog food and Krasdale Gravy dry dog food.
Maybe I missed that because I had already started feeding them human-grade kibble (Canidae)and started cooking for my dogs, so I felt safe. I researched and settled on Canidae kibble for the human-grade ingredients and low carbohydrates, which dogs don’t need. I found some easy and affordable crock pot recipes. For instance:
Crock Pot Dog Dinner
chicken legs and thighs (we use the cheap ten-pound bag)
carrots
white rice or macaroni
Break the carrots into a couple of pieces and lay them on the bottom of the crockpot and put a layer of chicken on top of that so the chicken won’t stick. Pour in some rice or macaroni (a cup or less) and top with as much chicken as will fill the pot. Add enough water to leave a couple of inches from the top so it won’t overflow.
Set the crock pot up on the porch if you have a small kitchen like me, and out of your pets’ reach (it gets hot). The porch is also great because it smells up the whole house when it’s inside.
Let it cook four hours or so on high or six on medium, the chicken should fall off the bone when you stir it.
Take the long bones out, the rest will be so cooked that it’s okay. You need to use your judgement based on your own dog. Cool to wrist-temperature before you feed it to them and keep it refrigerated since there are no preservatives. Once it cools you can skim off the fat for low-cal diets. Use this in the same amounts as your usual canned portion.
Sometimes I add (very cheap) liver trimmings or pork kidney and the dogs really love it. Boy can that stuff stink while it cooks!
The reason I use white rice and pastas is because one of our dogs has an occasional digestive thing and the vet told me that if she wants roughage, she will eat weeds and grass, but bulk in the form of brown rice and whole wheat bran is probably part of her problem and not that good for her, although carrots in small amount are allowed. (She really loves her cooked carrots).
Cooking every few days is no problem for us and it’s a lot cheaper than canned. I also feel I’m generating less waste in the form of packaging than I did with canned, so that adds to the appeal for me. Dogs love this food and they don’t even care that it’s really, really good for them.
Lack of trust in commercial dog food generated by big business drove me to the point of cooking for my dogs, and it turns out it’s a good place to be driven to.
Good luck to you whatever you decide.
July 8th, 2008
doggie digestion
One way a dog’s meat-and-greens prefering digestive system helps dogs not get salmonella poisoning is that dog digestion is so rapid. They are a ‘short gut’ animal, with a digestive system only three (3) times the length of their bodies, and the subsequent speed of digestion helps the meal and any parasites or bacteria move out faster. The concentration of hydrochloric acid is ten times the amount found in vegetarian-type animal digesteve systems.
Compared to human digestion, the time for bacteria to be exposed to their system is far less. Compare total dog digestion time, from the bowl to the baggie, in a dog with a very healthy diet at 2-4 hours total digestion time. Two to four hours. Add more carbohydrates to a dog’s diet and you can slow the digestion down to 6-8 hours. That’s in a diet with lots of carbs, like most kibble-only diets. Try to compare that with human digestion. Go on, I dare you. I don’t know what human digestive time is average, but I know it’s a lot longer than that..
That’s another good reason we get the salmonella bacteria reaction and dogs don’t.