My second machine was a bit of a lucky guess really. I wanted a sewing machine when I moved to Canada so I wondered into Sears and asked the lady which was the best machine for me. I didn’t really get chance to explain that I knew next to nothing about sewing and had never had an electric machine before she showed me an all singing, all dancing machine that was on sale and was apparently the best value for money in the store. She showed me how it came with all the different feet, which, she told me, was very important. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I trusted her advice and bought a Kenmore with all the bells and whistles.

I took a sewing class and learnt to use all the exciting features on my lovely machine, I sewed curtains and handbags that actually looked like curtains and handbags. When we moved back to the UK we brought what we could carry in our suitcases and left everything else behind. The sewing machine went to my sister, who, as I predicted, never got it out of the cupboard.

I missed my sewing machine, and although I couldn’t really afford it, it wasn’t long before I was out in the shops looking for a replacement. I wanted a real machine, not one of those super cheap mini ones that look cute but flimsy. I really wanted all the bells and whistles I had come to appreciate, but my priority was the price tag. I settled on the Brother X5 which was on sale for around £70.

The Brother machine was pretty basic, but it sewed and I used it on and off. I made more bags and a few gifts. It never really agreed with me though. It was a bit clunky and I missed the extras that I had got used to having on my Kenmore that this machine just didn’t have. It was a perfectly fine machine, but it wasn’t right for me, it just didn’t fit somehow.

My sister moved house and reluctantly dragged the Kenmore along with her. She asked me what I wanted her to do with it. She tried listing it on Craigslist but got no takers. I had browsed other machines online and tried to find a “will buy this when I can afford it” machine that had everything I missed about the Kenmore, but I couldn’t quite find anything that seemed to cut it. I didn’t really want to shell out for a computerised machine. I sort of liked the look of the Janome J3-24 but it still didn’t quite match the feature set of the Kenmore.

I started to read on forums about people who had brought their machines across the atlantic with them and used them over here with voltage converters, or some lucky souls whose machines were dual voltage. I wished I had brought mine with me, but I couldn’t make it fit into my luggage weight limit. I considered having it mailed to me, but it would have been a big hassle for my sister and it would cost a fortune.

Then I had a brain wave. My friend had been staying in Canada for a year, was living just near my sister, and was flying back to the UK. I was checking out her flight information online when I noticed there was an upgrade option that gave an extra 10kg luggage. Since she was coming to stay with us for a while, I hoped she wouldn’t mind bringing my sewing machine if I bought her the upgrade. She probably did mind, a bit, but she brought it for me anyway.

Kenmore sewing machine

When the Kenmore sewing machine arrived in one piece, I checked with my dad to find out what converter I would need. It turned out to be one of the cheaper ones. It was quite scary when it arrived and I had to plug it in. I phoned my mum for some emotional support. I connected up all the plugs and cables and flicked the power switch. The light came on! I was a bit excited by this point, but when I pressed the pedal and it sewed I was delighted!

The first things I sewed to get reacquainted with my lovely machine were some alterations to my friend’s clothes as a thank you for bringing the thing all that way. I’m really enjoying all the extra features that it has in comparison to the Brother.

I love the thread cutter on the Kenmore, and the automatic needle threader saves me so much time and reduces my stress levels. There’s nothing worse than not being able to thread a needle even though you’ve just cut the end of the thread several times to make sure it’s not fluffy but it still won’t go through.

The selection of feet that came with the Kenmore is really impressive. There are 9 of them, including a walking foot which is so useful. The brother only had 4 feet, covering basic sewing, buttons and zips. One foot I may want to use that I noticed neither machine has is an invisible zipper foot. I used these at school on the industrial machines I used for the sewing class I took and they made the job so easy. I may have to get myself one.

Other things the Kenmore does that leave the Brother in the shadows include one step automatic buttonhole rather than four step, and drop feed dogs rather then screwing a darning plate over the top of the feed dogs for free style embroidery. Not that I embroider, but who wants to fiddle with a darning plate if they fancy trying it out? Not me. The accessories compartment comes away leaving a skinny section for free arm sewing (for sleeves and such) on the Kenmore, but the Brother machine a part of the plastic body snaps off the front leaving a larger section that would probably be fine for trouser legs but not sleeves or skinny jeans. The Kenmore has a proper accessories compartment that fits all the pieces and spare feet in nicely like a drawer, but the Brother has a plastic pouch that you have to stuff into the space inside the removable section. It’s not exactly convenient. The Kenmore has a ruler printed on the front, and a seam guide beside and in front of the needle. The Brother only has the side seam guide. The Kenmore has a clear plastic cover over the top loading bobbin so you can see if you have enough thread in the bottom. The Brother has a front loading bobbin that’s hidden away so you randomly run out of thread.

The main reason I love the Kenmore though is that it just feels nice when I sew with it. The brother is kind of clunky and loud. The Kenmore glides. It’s not the fastest machine in the world, when I was switching between it and the industrial school machines, I found it incredibly slow and rather frustrating. The industrial machines are a distant memory now though, and I kind of like not having my fabric run off when I tap the pedal.

There is nothing really wrong with the Brother machine, it sews, it has a reasonable selection of features and stitches, and it was very cheap. It would be a great machine for a beginner or someone who is less likely than me to stress out about threading a needle. I didn’t come across anything that I wanted to sew that the machine couldn’t handle, although I didn’t try anything very complicated on it. If I hadn’t been spoiled by the Kenmore, I would probably find the Brother perfectly acceptable.

But the Kenmore! I love it. I was so excited about it arriving that I spent three hours researching extra feet and attachments I could get for it that would extend the possibilities of what I could achieve with it even further. I sew without yelling at it. I actually enjoy using it. It’s my sewing machine, and I’m so glad to have it back.

Ringo cowl

I thought it was about time I made something for myself so I looked through my list of bookmarked patterns and chose this cowl and some chunky wool yarn. It whipped up really quickly on a 6.5mm crochet hook and used less than a ball of each of the 4 colours.

I used Freedom Wool by Twilleys of Stamford in three shades of brown and a grey, and followed this pattern: Ringo cowl. Unlike the pattern, I also joined my last ring into the first ring, making a continuous loop rather than a strip of circles. I’m pleased with the result

See this project on Ravelry.

Bags I made

This christmas I wanted my gifts to be a bit special as well as inexpensive, so I chose to hand make a lot of the things that I gave.

As usual, I envisaged all sorts of beautiful things, and with six weeks to go I figured I had plenty of time to sort everything out and get it all finished in time. Of course I would…

I spent the last few days before christmas frantically knitting, crocheting and sewing. In the end, everyone got their gifts and seemed to like them, so I guess finishing things off at 2am on christmas eve night was worth it. It didn’t feel like it at the time though!

I made the kids school/shopping bags and purses, some of which are shown in the picture. I also made a scarf for one, a cardigan for another and a crown for the other one. It’s nice that they all have something made by me, especially as before now I have made things for other people and not got around to making things for myself or my family.

I am still making a cowl for a friend (yes, it’s late, but she’s not in the country yet so it’s OK). Another project that was particularly difficult was a rope knit doormat which I gave as a gift as well. I had intended to make more than one, including one for myself, but it was extremely hard work and very time consuming so I didn’t get it done. Perhaps when I’ve forgotten how difficult it was I may pick up the rope and giant needles again.

Although it was a bit hectic at the end there, I really enjoyed making gifts for people. It is nice to make something for someone in particular who you know will appreciate the effort you have put in. Next year I will have to be better organised and start much sooner!

Strawberry Moonbeam

I have been knitting, crocheting and sewing for years, and in the past I have ventured into selling my creations with some success. Since we moved back to the UK two years ago I have intended to start up again, but for one reason or another it has been put on the back burner. Last spring I decided I really wanted to give it another go, but the store engine I tried to use kept having problems so I lost heart once again. My wonderful other half, Ric, came to my rescue, and slowly (oh so slowly) started to build me a custom store.

Today, the store went live! I am so excited to finally be able to announce this!

I have listed what’s left of the stock that I made when we lived in Canada plus the few things I have made since we got back to the UK. I will be continuing to make and list new stuff after the holidays when life is less hectic, but for now there is plenty to choose from if you fancy doing a bit of last minute christmas shopping!

Everything in the store is hand made by me personally. I use environmentally friendly materials where I can source them, and knit, crochet and sew at home in my spare time. I design my own patterns or just make things up as I go along, so there are some unique and possibly slightly quirky items on offer.

I am not a fan of mass production, corporate control and boring shopping experiences. I want to live in a world where people are able to exercise their creativity, shop for items that have been made with love and care, and appreciate the craftsmanship that went into the things they own. I hope that my little store can bring a bit of these ideals into the world and maybe inspire others to give it a try as well.

Please take a look and if you like what you see, make a purchase or help spread the word.

Visit strawberrymoonbeam.com.

Android

I have just got a shiny new phone and I spent most of my evening last night going through the Android marketplace installing some of the apps I had on my previous phone, and finding some new ones to try out. Here are some that I find useful which you may not have come across.

Open Picasa Wallpaper

Open Picasa Wallpaper is a new one for me, but it might just be my favourite. I have a folder on my computer where I save images that I would like to use as my desktop background, and I have a program running that chooses a random one every so often. I thought it would be cool to have a similar set up on my phone too, using the same photos if possible so I only have to add images to a single folder.

I use Picasa to manage my photos, and I have it automatically sync my albums to Picasa Web Albums, so I set up this backgrounds folder as a Picasa album with auto sync. Every time I open Picasa to do anything photo related, it will sync up the folder to the web album for me. I just needed something to link that album to my phone.

A few google searches showed me a range of apps which claimed to automatically switch your phone wallpaper, but the first couple of apps I tried wouldn’t allow me to use a Picasa album as the source for the photos, even if I told the phone to make the album available offline. Finally, I came across Open Picasa Wallpaper which does just what I wanted. It lets me choose which of my public albums I wish to use, set the required interval, and offers an option to update the image only when on a wifi connection. It picks a random image for me, pops up a little notice that it’s downloading it, then changes my background for me.

Tallybee

Tallybee is an app I have been using for a while now to help me remember how many rows I have done when I’m knitting. Every time you tap the screen it increments the counter by one. You can also set a starting number and have it count down instead. I find it very useful especially as I’m usually chatting to someone on messenger or watching tv while I’m knitting, which makes it very easy to lose count.

Delete Old Messages

I rarely delete text messages as I read them, so I ended up with a huge number of them piling up on my phone. I didn’t want to delete them all because I was part way through a conversation or had a message containing information I needed. Delete Old Messages came to my rescue. It allows you batch delete messages that are older than a configurable length of time. I use it every time I notice the icon, and it trims my messages back to a reasonable number. They also offer a premium version which allows you to trim to a total number of messages, or to a certain number per conversation, and which automatically deletes them without you having to open the app. The free version is sufficient for my needs.

Fuel Use

The mileage calculator in our car seems to be quite inaccurate sometimes, so I wanted a way to work it out on the go. I headed straight for the Android market where I found Fuel Use, just what I needed. It allows you to calculate your fuel economy by entering the number of miles travelled, litres consumed and price paid. It tells you your miles per gallon, pence per mile and various other facts. You can also compare your MPG to the running average. As it is using actual figures for input it is more accurate than the car’s estimate.

Drinking Water

Another app I recently discovered that I have found useful is called Drinking Water. I don’t drink enough water, and I’ve tried unsuccessfully in the past to get into the habit of drinking more. This app has come to my rescue. When you install it, you tell it how many glasses you want to drink and what time you want to start and finish each day. It pops up a notification when it’s time for you to have a glass of water. Each time you have a drink you launch the app and tap one of the glasses. It spreads your remaining glasses evenly throughout the rest of the day for you.

Saffron crocus

Back in August my mother in law ordered some saffron crocus bulbs after I excitedly pointed them out to her on the internet. She divided the bulbs between herself, her daughter and me. I planted them up in September and during our recent house move I noticed that there were green shoots coming through.

I have been checking on the shoots and in the last couple of days the crocuses started to appear. Saffron is meant to be harvested early in the morning as the flowers begin to open, so each morning I have crawled out of bed, put on my dressing gown and wellies and wandered out to check on the buds. This morning I found one beginning to open.

Saffron strands

Armed with my scissors and a tissue I carefully separated the petals to get to the red stigmas and snipped them off, leaving the pretty lilac flower. The saffron strands are drying in my kitchen and I hope to be able to collect some more tomorrow as there are a few more flowers that look ready to open.

The crocuses were surprisingly easy to grow. I planted them in pots because we were moving house and I didn’t want to leave them behind. They are to be planted quite deep and well spaced, so I have 3-4 bulbs each in large bowl shaped pots that I used to grow salad during the summer. I planted them, watered them in well and then left them completely to themselves. We have had a fair amount of rain so I haven’t needed to water them, and they are growing happily without needing any attention. The bulbs are said to multiply quite rapidly so I should have an even better crop next year.

You will need:

• 1 tbsp olive oil (or other cooking oil)
• 1 onion
• 1 red pepper
• 1 green pepper
• Mushrooms, as many as you like
• 1 can black beans (or 1 cup dried, soaked and cooked)
• 1 can kidney beans (or 1 cup dried, soaked and cooked)
• 1 jar passata (or 1 tin chopped tomato if you prefer it chunkier)
• 1 tsp chili powder (or more to taste)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• a handful of fresh coriander
• black pepper to taste
• rice to serve

Fry the onion in oil until soft. Add peppers and mushrooms and fry until soft. Add beans, tomato and spices. Bring to the boil then simmer for 20 minutes.

Cook your rice.

Stir coriander into chili just before serving, and season with black pepper. I like to stir the rice into the chili too, but you can serve it on top of the rice, or in a jacket potato, or however you like. Enjoy!

He reluctantly coded up a very basic web tool for me to use. Initially he thought of it as just another one of my crazy organising systems that would take up a lot of his time and not be very useful, but as he started to understand why I wanted him to make it for me, he began to see it’s potential. He has started working on creating a website that others will be able to use to help them decide what to eat, encourage them to cook from scratch using recipes and help them to eat a more varied diet.

The site is in the very early stages of production and is not yet available for you to join, but I am very excited about getting it started and I thought I would share the news and see if anyone out there is interested. The basic idea is that you input your recipes (there are plans for a recipe search so you can find new ones to try as well), then select what you plan to make. The list of recipes is organised so that recipes containing ingredients you haven’t used for a while are near the top of the list and those with ingredients you have used more recently are pushed down to the bottom.

Recipes you have selected are placed in your shopping basket, and a shopping list is generated, showing the amounts of each ingredient you will need to make your recipes. You will be able to mark which ingredients you already have in your kitchen, and print a list to take with you to the store. You can leave the recipes in your shopping basket for as long as you want so you can easily find the ones that you have chosen to make. When you have made them, remove them from the basket.

The system will keep track of when you last used each ingredient. If you add a recipe containing an ingredient you haven’t used before this will be given greater priority, encouraging you to try new things and increase the variety of your meals. You will be able to add an unlimited number of recipes.

Does this sound like something that would be useful to you? Do you want to be notified when it is ready to try out? Please let me know your thoughts!

Linux Mint

I have been using Linux as my operating system for several years now. I started with Ubuntu way back when they called it Hoary Hedgehog. By the time it got to Intrepid Ibis I was getting frustrated with it. It was changing a lot and becoming less and less my kind of thing. I started using its cousin, Linux Mint. I started with version 9 and upgraded to version 10. I prefered Mint’s simpler interface over Ubuntu’s sluggish but pretty one. Mint also fit much better on my 10″ netbook screen, even in comparison to Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix edition.

Recently I have been slightly frustrated by some minor problems with Mint. Sound has always been not quite right for me. When more than one application tries to play sound at the same time, especially if one of those applications is flash player, the sound changes to a low pitched growl, similar to music that has been slowed down. Occasionally when this happens, all sounds end up being the same pitch, so everything sounds like it is being run through a robot. This is amusing for a while, but gets very annoying.

Another strange sound related issue that has been driving me crazy is specific to Skype. In order for other people to hear me, I have to set the sound to come out of the left speaker only. Otherwise the microphone just doesn’t work. It works normally in other applications, just not Skype.

I came across a video online that I couldn’t play and decided that it was time to try a different OS. I wanted to stay with Linux and Gnome but try something new that may not have the sound problems I had been experiencing with Mint. I hadn’t tried Ubuntu for a while and it had the new Unity interface so it would be a bit different. I knew I could install it and set it up easily and I didn’t fancy trying anything to unfamiliar (last time I did was a disaster, Gentoo and I do not get along) so Ubuntu seemed like a fair choice.

As Mint is based on Ubuntu, the startup disk creator understood the Ubuntu ISO and I was up and running on a live USB drive pretty quickly. Unity was very pretty and seemed to give me maximum screen space, which is always a bonus when you use a netbook as your main computer, so I decided to install. Unfortunately I still couldn’t play the video that had sent me on a search for a new OS in the first place, but I had set up Skype without having to set the sound to the left speaker only, so it seemed like a good move.

Less than 24 hours after installing Ubuntu with Unity I gave up. I didn’t like not being able to see what windows I had open. Mint shows the current windows in the bar at the bottom of the screen but Unity put them in a sidebar that slides off the screen unless you point your cursor at it. I didn’t like the Mac style file menus at the top of the screen instead of in the window. I kept trying to use the menu for a window that didn’t have focus and wondering why the options I wanted weren’t there. I didn’t like the messaging menu, even after managing to get it to use Pidgin and Gmail instead of Empathy and Thunderbird.

I thought perhaps if I just switched back to Gnome it would suit me better. I installed the package and logged in using Gnome instead of Unity. I had forgotten that Ubuntu had two bars for Gnome rather than the one I was used to in Mint. I lost a bit of screen space, not good. I tried to edit the bars, but that feature seemed to have disappeared. I tried to live with it, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I downloaded Mint 11 instead.

A few hours later and I’m back with Mint and Gnome and one bar at the bottom just how I like it. I can see what I need to see without it disappearing off the screen or taking up too much valuable space. I can edit the bar if it does anything I don’t like. I can use it the way I want to use it, which seems to me to be the whole point of using Linux in the first place. I haven’t yet tried Skype, but if I have to switch the speakers to left only in order to use it and occasionally have my sound distorted or robotificated, I will be in the same position I was in already, which is much preferable to putting up with an interface I dislike.

I will keep my eyes open for alternative systems to try out, but for now I’m relieved to be back with Mint. It suits the way I think and the way I want to work with my computer.

Our new kitchen is amazing. There is so much more usable space than our old had, which makes it a lot nicer to cook in. The electric oven produces crispier food than my old gas one. I haven’t got used to this hob though, while it is gas like my old one, it seems to be a lot hotter. This is useful for boiling water but not so good for simmering soups. My last attempt resulted in a thick, stodgy paste. Yum.

The living room in our new house is smaller and cosier than the old one. Although there is no spare space, there is still enough room for everything we use it for (namely sitting on the sofa watching tv or surfing the internet) so I don’t mind that it’s smaller. I do miss watching the birds in the garden from the sofa, our new living room is at the front of the house.

I love our new bedroom, which is in the attic. We have a gigantic bed which didn’t really fit in our old house, and now we have space to walk around it, and spare space to keep all my sewing and craft supplies.

The girls are enjoying their new arrangement, they have a bedroom between them and what we call the family room, a playroom/living room of their own. They seem to prefer it to the old house where my eldest had her own room and the younger two shared.

The garden here is amazing, there is so much space and potential. I can’t wait until spring when I can get out there and make use of it. It’s a shame we moved just as it started to get cold and dark.

We’re feeling settled and at home now, and we’re almost organised. I think we’re going to enjoy living here.