I started this while Robin was in the hospital. With a few tweeks, I made these based on local native birds. Here are some photos!
Western Robin
Western Meadowloark
Red Wing Blackbird
Western Blue Bird
Western Tanager
Dark Eyed Junko
Black Caped Chickadee
All for size comparison. While they aren’t true-to-life size, they are sized relatively.
I’m having the pattern tested now and hope to have it available in my etsy store soon!
Google used to be such a great package. I am not as happy with it anymore, though – especially since they are tying everything (specifically Picasa Web) into Google +.
I have met my photo data limit and, if I want to add any more pictures without paying their monthly fee, I need to delete some photos. But some of those albums have copious notes with the photos. A brief search reveals no solutions to this. :/
I guess I can copy each comment caption to a text file and put it in the folder with the photos, but sheesh … it took lots of time to put those comments in in the first place, so that’s even more work now.
And on top of that, I get a warning that some of the photos are linked to a blog (mainly this one) and they will no longer show up in that blog now that they are deleted. Although those changes won’t show up for 24 hours. I’m sure it’s very much true if those images were used on a Google Site (which is where my Epic Summer Cross Country Train Trip notes are) … so here’s the flip side to the benefits of such an integrated system. :/
UPDATE: Yup … the photos no longer link up in my posts here. So there’s another time sink … Blerg.
Previous posts have explored my penchant for technological fiddling. Tonight I am simultaneously testing two new apps for my Acer Iconia tablet: the wordpress app and a typing app called Float and Split Tablet Keyboard.
Float and Split Tablet Keyboard
Since I hated the default qwerty keyboard, I decided to play with the 3rd party apps available, but first I had to recognize what I didn’t like about the default. 1) to type effectively I needed a place to set the tablet down or pick with one finger, 2) I felt switching to the symbol keyboard was awkward, 3) it took up too much space.
I found this app that has a variety of keyboard settings. At first, I really liked the two, separated split keyboards that floated over what I was working on, but after a while I’ve drifted to the stationary split keyboard with the number pad in the middle. So far this is improving my journaling experience.
WordPress app
So far straightforward and a bit easier to type and edit in than the desktop version. I haven’t posted any photos yet, so here goes!es!
Robin
Picking a photo from the gallery was easy, but trying to go and insert a break after the text is a pain. You think you’ve put you’re cursor where the break will go, hit enter, and the break happens somewhere else. Trying to go back and delete out characters trying to fix it, is difficult without possibly deleting the photo. Horizontal alignment doesn’t appear to do anything while you’re composing. Going back and putting the photo online after the fact is much easier! I haven’t found a way to wrap text around photos yet… And now I’m going to insert a photo taken right now…
Awww… sleeping baby.. So, that seemed to work well! And now its time to get ready for his 6am meal!
Editing after publishing is easier than new entry or on the desktop! Mostly. Because the photos are just the html tag, so its easier to work around or with them! Sweet!
With Robin in the NICU, I needed something to do with my hands. And, since he was going to spend a lot of time in bed, I decided to make him a mobile to look at. I looked for ideas and developed my own pattern for the bird bodies, then I looked at photos of real native birds and simplified them. Right now they are taped on ugly sticks, but when we go home I’ll put them on some cantilevered branches. Here is one of the birds (the Western Meadowlark):
Since my Epic Summer Cross Country Train Trip, I have finished a few projects – the two most important being my wedding and delivering our baby via c-section. Here is a quick photo survey of some of the other projects:
2011 Time Travelers Ball Figurehead decoration (pre-paint)
My last post was nine months ago! Sure, I had a lot of things come up since then:
The 45 day Epic Summer Train Trip (which also still has a lot of back-posting that needs to be done)…
Being proposed to quickly after returning home and then quickly coordinating a wedding…
Getting pregnant IMMEDIATELY after getting married…
Being a lazy pregnant lady and feeling overwhelmed with my day job…
I have done some projects, not nearly as many as I’d like, but finding a new sewing blog (Polka Dot Overload) has inspired me to get back into a) the sewing, etc and b) the blogging!
Here’s a brief list of the projects I’ve finished since getting back from my trip and I will endeavor to write about each: Mounted my 1954 Elna to a treadle table, wedding stuff (my dress, sash, awards, banners), height charts, Time Traveler’s Ball figurehead, Civil War era dress, some footies, fleece scrap stuff, poly shrink jewelry, and a wire-crochet necklace.
Current projects: MAME lighting (a wedding guest sent me instructions with photos on how I can fix the lighting, I just need to do it!), an articulation treatment android application, and working through all my sewing/craft UFOs. The goal is to free up space in the craft room, then pick just a few types of projects to pursue and put the rest away in the attic or basement until we move and I can have a craft room again. We’ll either need the room for our office stuff or for Sprout in the next year or so.
This week I altered a body double to maybe predict my fully pregnant shape so I could drape a knit cotton dress on it. The next two projects will be to finish a snails trail pattern quilt and to sew the doll cloths my mother cut out when I was toddler (her job is to find the dolls she sewed to go with the cloths so we can put hair and cloths on them and give them to my kid!).
Welp, I’ve been devoting most of my time recently to the RepRap. Have I shared that webpage, yet? Here it is (again?): prototype 3d printer.
I’ve also been procrastinating by steam cleaning most surfaces in my house and creating a spreadsheet of my patterns which is accessible through an app on my phone and google docs. The app on my phone includes a photo of the cover, so I can look for what I want on my phone and not have to dig through all my patterns … although the patterns aren’t in any sort of order (YET!!) so, there will be digging happening anyway. But I could do that at the store before I bought more, so that’s awesome.
Oh … and I should admit, despite how much I’d rather not: spending lots and lots of time playing Animal Crossing. I never realized there were so many ways to organize and sort things in this game!! I’ve almost earned a “Perfect Town” status and then I’m cutting down trees and replanting based on value and proximity to the store … Hrumph, excuse me! I’m getting a bit too excited about that.
I’ve had an order for two pairs of footies so I will work on those this Friday and I’ve decided to just sew up all the rest of the fleece I have into random sizes. Any extra fleece will become hats and scarves for gifts or cheap sale in my Etsy store. And then NO MORE. Unless its for friends.
Getting that link reminds me how far away I’ve gotten from the original point of that store … all I’m doing now is trying to sell the random stuff I make and I need to actually work on a crazy motorized costume!!
As I’m planning for my Around-the-Country-Train-Trip I’ve been thinking about how I want to document it. I have just downloaded an app for my phone to update my wordpress blog, so this is my first test of it! 🙂
…So, I might go to this plant sale. (Pic from phone gallery).
And I know two kitties who will be very unhappy with me while I’m gone! (Taken a new photo through the app).
I’m not sure how these photos are going to be placed in the post… guess we’ll find out soon!
So, my cousin gave me these cool glass flowers. But I’ve never known what to do with them. I embellished some jars (earlier post) and with the ‘left overs’ I decided to try to make a set of jewelry. This is what I’ve got so far.
The long series of chain and single flowers will be a necklace, the short series with flowers wrapped close to the chain will be a bracelet and the two single flowers will be earrings.
You can see some extra leaves and clumps of ‘berries’ I may incorporate.
I was going to attach these large hooped chains to smaller chains at the end, but they flopped around badly, so I went back and got more of this flat chain.
I’ve added some leaves to the necklace chain.
I like the earrings – which are kind of hard to see here. But I don’t like the necklace very much. Is that just because I don’t personally like lots of dangling things? Or is it too much? What might make it better?
This is what I have left over. I don’t generally like the berry things, but I do like how the light makes them glow. How to encorporate them?
I also thought I could use some extras to make barrettes.
Thoughts?!
After using Warren’s very handy flash to help map the buttons, I’ve assigned some buttons to the MAME software, hooked the computer up to the tv and hacked control panel and was able to load up the Golden Axe!
… I could only move up and left, but STILL … It’s getting nearly done!
Once I finish fixing the control mapping then it’ll be ready to be played. I do have some pretty-fying I want to do:
