Cat blocks for Heartstrings finished

This is where I have been this afternoon.

Started out with this pile of pieces

and ended up with this set of blocks for the Heartstrings virtual block party for New Years Eve & New Years Day. They are very bright & cheerful & the quilt made from these will keep some child nice and warm.

These blocks are really quick & fun to sew. It's no wonder they're called Happy Blocks. The cutting is what takes the time. I have another two sets of 48 cut out and ready to sew so will work on that this evening and tomorrow.

Strips Cut!

Last night about 10:30 I went to my sewing room and cut the strips for the framing pieces for my Happy Blocks. I should have gone ahead and done the sub-cutting because once I got into bed I just laid there and listened to the wind howl. I always have a hard time getting to sleep when the wind blows so hard. I can sleep like a baby through the worst thunder & lightning storm, but a little wind keeps me awake. Strange, I know. But then I think mice are cute too. Don't want 'em in my house, but they're cute. :-)

Heartstrings Happy Blocks

These two piles are fabrics I dug out of my stash this morning to make Happy Blocks for the Heartstrings New Year's Happy Block party. The request is for bright, cheery fabrics for quilts for children, with novelty prints in the center and solids or tone-on-tones for the outsides of the blocks. The pile on the left is novelty fabrics left over from the alphabet quilts I made for my grandchildren, with coordinating TOTs. The pile on the right is bright cat prints with my hand-dyes for the outside strips. I'll make a complete set out of the cat prints and as many as I can out of the other novelties. This project starts out on New Year's Eve day and continues through February so there's plenty of time for making blocks. The blocks collected by Heartstrings for this project will make quilts for children who need something to brighten their days.

What I've Been Doing

Here's the quilt on my "design floor" that I put together on Friday. The blocks and pieced border pieces had been done for a couple months. I showed parts & pieces of it in an earlier post. Now I'm trying to decide if I want to put borders on it out of the fabric I bought for that purpose or just quit with the pieced borders and bind it in either black or strips of the hand-dyes pieced together scrappy fashion. Here's a couple pictures with the border fabric laid beside the quilt. What do you think?


I'd like to give credit where credit is due for this quilt design. I THINK it may be one of Judy L.'s QFAH projects. I made it from a picture I had saved from the Internet and didn't make a note of where it came from. I thought I would remember, can you believe that? :-)

Another Merry Christmas Past

We all had such a nice day today. The turkey was moist, the pies yummy, nice presents and some Wii action. Now I'm sitting here watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation starring Chevy Chase. It's kind of a Christmas tradition. I usually watch it on Christmas Eve, but I was just too pooped last night.
The "camper quilt" was a hit. And until it goes in the camper next summer they thought it would look pretty good in the living room too. Here's a few other pictures of our Christmas.






If Ashley saw this she would wish she'd given Grandma a nicer smile.

And last,but not least, some Wii video action:

Done!!

Here's the "camper" quilt all quilted & bound. These pictures aren't the greatest. The colors are a little off & the focus might not be the best, but the lighting just wasn't very good. The quilting pattern is "Bubbles." I really like it. It's pretty easy to do once you figure out how to properly line it up for the next row when advancing.

Today was the day to start some cleaning. I didn't get as much done as I intended. I'm always overly optimistic about how much I can get done. I still need to get some presents wrapped tonight, put some pictures on the digital picture frame I got my daughter, print out some gift tags. Maybe if I hadn't quilted and bound 4 quilts in the last two weeks I'd be further ahead. Three of those helped finance our Christmas so I shouldn't complain. Will just have to call it quits on the cleaning before I exhaust myself. Some things NEED to be done and others I just think need to be done. As long as I make pumpkin pie for my one granddaughter & get the presents ready, that's all that REALLY counts.

I'm wishing all my readers a very Merry Christmas. Enjoy your families, enjoy the food, enjoy the gifts. And, take a few days next week and just do something YOU will enjoy after all the work of getting ready for the holidays. And have a QUILTY New Year.

What have I been doing?

Today I finished quilting the brown/cream/black "camper" quilt. I showed a picture of it before, as a top, so don't have one here. It turned out pretty good, though there was a tension issue on one row. If the back wasn't such a busy print I would have had to rip out the whole row & do it over, but as it is, I just left it. It feels a bit rough on the back but I think it will be OK. The thread came out of the intermittent tension and caused the problem.

Yesterday was the special assessor's recall election. A loooooooooong day. Worked 13 1/2 hrs at the polls, then made a 50 mi. round trip to the courthouse to deliver the ballots and that blasted, heavy, awkward voting machine that no one uses. The heater on my car doesn't work very well anymore and by the time I got home I was so cold I thought I'd never get warm. To illustrate---even though I started it 15 min. before I left the polls I had to stop at the 2-mile corner to scrape frost off the INSIDE of the windshield because I couldn't see out any more. Might as well borrow a horse & buggy from the Amish.

It was pretty cold here again today but the sun was shining and all the snow we got yesterday looked really pretty. Pretty cold. It's getting late, I have to work at the library tomorrow, so nighty-night.

Done!!

The customer quilts are done. The tree is up. Santas are set out. Rest of the decorations are up. Cookies for the exchange are made. Still have to make Christmas cards & get them in the mail. Still need to get a quilt of my own quilted for a gift. It'll all get done in time.

Look What I Got!!

Last night we went to my husband's work Christmas party. It was nice--meal, games, door prizes--I even won two $5.00 Hot Stuff gift certificates. I had heard that the Blarney Stone had gone downhill over the past year, but I thought the food was fine. Actually any food I don't have to cook and clean up after is usually fine as long as it isn't something like sauerkraut or cooked spinach. After the party it was still early so we stopped at Pamida to pick up a couple Christmas gifts and some stuff on sale. Best of all I got this new microwave--on sale for $80. My old one is at least 25 yr. old and is very slow to come on, plus the start button doesn't always work right. I think it was time for a new one, don't you? And I don't THINK it's even my Christmas present.

Library Giving Tree

Most years the Town & Country FCE Club sets up a Christmas tree in the library and decorates it with items that are donated to charity. Things on this year's effort will be donated to Bright Horizons, an area woman's shelter.

Wow, four posts in one day, that's setting a new record for me.

Thing #16 -- Week 11

Just to make sure I got ALL the information I read all the recommended articles on Library 2.0 & Web 2.0. A LOT to absorb, so my thoughts expressed here will be rather random.
[1.] Libraries ARE changing & computers and easier access to information are a big part of that change.
[2.] All this 2.0 stuff seems to mean librarians will spend an awful lot of time on the computer. What about acquisitions, cataloging, processing books for the shelf, circulation, reference, in other words, everything we've always done & much of which we will continue to do for the foreseeable future. Where will all the time come from? Not to mention all the new skills. I don't think we can get time from a government bailout.
[3.] What about our patrons & their skills? For any number of years yet, we'll have two groups of them -- Generation Y, the young people who have never known a world without computer technology, cell phones, IM, texting, social websites, downloadable music, etc., and the older group, some of whom are still struggling to learn basic computer skills & e-mail. That group is used to a library geared to books. It's what they know & it's what they want.
[4.] I think we need to pick and choose what 2.0 things we can make use of in our libraries. Introducing them slowly will make the younger people think we're not completely hopeless and will allow the older patrons to learn a little at a time and not feel totally overwhelmed, which is how I'm feeling a little bit right now.

Thing #15 -- Week 10

SlideShare. This is something that I don't think I will be using since I never have reason to use PowerPoint for anything. I did set up an account{http://www.slideshare.net/quiltinlibrarylady}, looked at presentations, picked out a couple favorites, commented, and added Nebraskacess as a contact. So I'm no longer totally ignorant about it. I WOULD rather read the slides from a presentation on SlideShare than on a hand-out where they are usually so small I can't make out the text. Or so dark nothing shows up. Maybe I could make a slideshow of my quilts & embed it in my blog?

Thing #14 -- Week 9

Delicious. I would associate this word more with food than computers. However, after watching the short video and going through the various exercises, I think I'll find this very useful. Maybe the most useful thing we've learned in this journey so far. I'm one of those people who works on at least three computers and have bookmarks on all of them. Of course, whichever computer I'm on doesn't always have the bookmark I'm looking for. This would certainly solve that problem. I've signed up for an account and will start moving my bookmarks over as I have time.

I checked out the Holdrege Public Library's tagroll and they have certainly done a lot with Delicious. I'm not sure I'll go as far as doing something like that with our lists of sites on our web page, but then again, never say never.

If I were to tag the NebraskAccess site I would use nebraskaccess & databases, as several others did. Then I would add magazines, biography and genealogy.

For me, the best part of Delicious is the ability to share bookmarks from any computer with Internet access.

Do you ever have days???????????

Librarians, do you ever have days when you just want to let go like this? A day when some patron just makes you want to tear them apart?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzbDdgWiaS0

One done!!

I just finished quilting my first customer quilt. The lady who pieced it is legally blind. She has help with the cutting but she does the sewing herself. She did a pretty darned good job. I have another one just like it to do for her too. Then I'll make and attach the bindings and a lady who helps her out will do the handwork.

Last night we had our FCE/Extension Club Christmas Party. One of our members invited us to her house and she & her husband cooked us a variety of Italian foods. It was all yummy but the tiramisu for dessert was wonderful. We all decided that her husband should give lessons to ours. He enjoys cooking, doesn't mind shopping, and while we were sitting around visiting he was in the kitchen cleaning up. What's not to like? I just wish I had taken my camera along to take a picture of the table. Jana has a knack for setting a pretty table.

Great food, nice gifts, grab bag fun and time spent visiting with friends. What more could we ask for? Well, maybe for our husbands to be more like Steve, but that isn't likely to happen.

Happy Monday

Well, at least the sun is trying to shine. We had a little dusting of snow overnight that is already starting to melt.

We had a nice quiet weekend, I had to work at the library on Saturday and my husband went to a late Thanksgiving potluck at his brother's. First thing that morning we went to Plainview to get my car, it needed to have the water pump replaced. I got the backing seamed and squared up for the "camper" quilt. It's all laying on the quilt machine table waiting to be loaded. I should have gotten that done yesterday but I was just too darned lazy!!

Last night I watched four episodes of Eureka on the computer. I always liked that show, but I don't think it's on any more. I like being able to watch shows online when I miss them on TV. The original CSI has always been a favorite & it's on on Thursday nights when I have to work at the library. Too bad CBS only keeps two weeks worth online, which I discovered when it was too late to see the first few shows of the new season. I totally missed Warrick getting killed and there was such a hullaballoo about that. But, hey, ABC keeps whole seasons online and I can watch all the Lost I want.

Saturday at the library turned out to be kind of busy so I'm hoping today will be quieter. I need to prepare for the Library Board meeting later this afternoon and I have a bunch of new books setting here that are cataloged but need to be processed for the shelves---spine labels, AR labels, stamped, plastic jacket cover put on. This time of year the patrons read more and it can be hard to keep something new and fresh ready for them.

Beginning the Season of Madness

We had a great Thanksgiving with family, everybody ate way too much, didn't even have room for much dessert. I took four pies to my daughter's for our TD supper and brought the biggest share back home. That's OK, pumpkin pie always tastes the best the next morning for breakfast, with a nice, hot cup of coffee. Left some pumpkin pie there since my younger GD wasn't feeling well and didn't get her fair share.After supper we spent some time going through the ads for today. Nothing popped out at me that would cause me to get up way before the crack of dawn & drive 60 mi. to Norfolk to fight the crowds. It's insane. I'd much rather sit in my recliner with my laptop on my lap & my credit card on the table beside me and shop online. So far, I've only bought one gift in an actual store. Like the title says, it's the season of madness, and I'd just as soon not participate too much.

Before we left yesterday I got the last two borders put on the "camper quilt" so now it's a completed top. I like the way it turned out. I thought the side borders might have a little bit of fullness even though I measured & measured & measured. I'll have to square up the corners & look them over again before I put it on the frame. If I still think they're too full I'll hit them with a hot steam iron & see if that helps. I haven't decided which pantograph pattern I'll use for the quilting, it's always a hard choice.

Since the day after Thanksgiving is the traditional day to start putting up Christmas decorations, I changed my blog background to a Christmas theme. Have you tried any of the backtrounds from TheCutestBlogOnTheBlock? They have so many pretty ones it's hard to choose.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Hope you get to spend a wonderful day with your family. We'll be going to our daughter's for Thanksgiving supper. She hosts our family and her in-laws. It'll work out well because some of the family also have to go to the "other side." Enjoy the day.

Housework helper

Just found this video. It reminded me of when my son would send the kittens for rides on his remote-controlled cars.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2008/11/25/kitty.roomba.ride.cnn

Wonderful surprise

Yesterday I had the nicest surprise. Roberta, a fellow quilting blogger awarded me the Kreativ Quilter Award. Thank you so much, Roberta.

This blog is something I started just six weeks or so ago as part of an online course, Nebraska Learns 2.0, through the Nebraska Library Commission. I am always amazed when anyone even reads it, never mind any thought of awards.

Part of being given this award is to pass it on to others and here are
The rules of the award:

1. The winner may put the logo on her blog.

2. Put a link to the person you got the award from in your blog.
3. Nominate 5 blogs.
4. Put links to the blogs.
5. Leave a message for your nominees.

My nominees for the Kreativ Quilter Award are:

1. Flicsha at http://flicshasews.blogspot.com/. She gets more projects done than I would even dream of starting. Quite a few of her projects are on the "arty" side and she has a wonderful color sense.
2. Tanya at http://tttl1998.blogspot.com/. She and her friends make lovely quilts, but what I enjoy most about her blog is the stories about life in Japan. It's a glimpse into another culture we don't often see.
3. Bonnie at http://quiltville.blogspot.com/. I've followed her web page for a number of years and her blog for the past year or so. She has inspired me to get my stash organized and to get those hoarded fabrics put into quilts. Her website http://www.quiltville.com provides a host of wonderful patterns for shrinking those stashes.
4. Anita at http://grannyspatches.blogspot.com/. The amount of work she gets done is an inspiration to me. And she does beautiful work. She has just suffered a loss & I hope this award brings at least a little glimmer of sunshine into her day.
5. Mary at http://maryquilts.blogspot.com/. Mary is one of the founders of the Heartstrings group and the work she does for charity is wonderful. She is also an enthusiastic photographer and I enjoy her pictures of the Minneapolis area so much.

Please pay a visit to these ladies' blogs and take the time to go back in their archives to get to know them. You'll find they are all great people as well as inspirational quilters. Also, go to Roberta's blog. I bet you'll covet her sewing room just as much as I do. (grin)

Feeling wintry

It's feeling wintry around here today. Wind, colder temperatures and occasional snow flurries. Supposed to stay this way for the next several days. The gas bill came on Monday and it had already doubled from the last one so it's going to be a cold winter. Cold outside, cold at work, cold at home. Sometimes the only way to get warm is to crawl in bed for a while. I think I need some of those fingerless gloves for work because my fingers get too stiff to type when my hands are cold. We're trying to cut heating expenses at the library so it's never really warm and the heat ducts are in the ceiling. The heat never quite reaches the level I'm at when working at my desk. I really wish it was April instead of November.

On the quilting front, I got the first inner border put on the "camper" quilt. I plan to put on a narrow black one and then a wider one of a rich, dark brown print.

I finished the customer Christmas stockings & was going to bring them to work with me today and have her pick them up, but I forgot. Oh well, I promised them for before Thanksgiving so I still have some time.

A few days ago I did some Christmas shopping online and the packages are starting to arrive. So far I've only bought one thing in an actual brick & mortar store. I'm not fond of shopping at all except for books and fabric, and I do most of the book shopping online too. What in the world did people like me do before the Internet?? Oh, right. MAIL ORDER CATALOGS. lol

Been sewin'

Last night about 9:15 I sat down to sew and got the blocks for my brown/tan/black "camper" quilt put together into a top. This picture isn't the greatest since I took it at night and couldn't get far enough back for a good picture. Today I want to get the first inner border put on and get the outside border cut and pieced. I want a black border between the two but discovered that I don't have enough of any one black fabric on hand to make one. I have some ordered from Keepsake Quilting that should be getting here any day and then will be able to finish. I've seen some of these Disappearing Nine-Patch quilts that I really didn't like but I think this one is turning out well. Here's a tutorial on making the Disappearing 9-Patch: http://quiltsatcs.blogspot.com/2007/04/disappearing-9-patch-tutorial.html .

Movin' on

Today I got tired of dealing with Bloglines and moved on to Google Reader. Bloglines had been misbehaving & even though they said it was fixed the notifier still wouldn't pick up new posts on the sites I was subscribed to. So far Google Reader seems fine but only time will tell. I'm too old to put up with this 2.0 stuff that gets aggravating, ya know?

What's on my cutting table

I did manage to get some sewing done this afternoon. Got some blocks sewed in rows for a quilt for my DS &DDIL for Christmas. They got a new camper last spring and were hinting VERY broadly that they sure could use a quilt to match the camper interior since the comforter that came with it was pretty chintzy. I know they'll be happy with it.
I also got most of the customer Christmas stocking parts cut out. When you need to do something you really don't have much interest in it just hangs over your head until you do it. That's how I am with these.

Here's a pic of my other cat sound asleep on the bunk bed in my sewing room. The one I showed this morning is still asleep in the same spot. These cats really know how to spend a gray, gloomy & windy day. It started snowing again a little while ago so it looks like it'll be a wet start to deer season tomorrow.

Not much happening

What do we put on our blogs when there isn't much happening? Why, the obligatory cat picture, of course.
It's such a windy, blustery day here today and I think he's got the right idea. Sadly enough for me I'm not a cat and have to do boring things today like dishes & laundry. Maybe I'll get to sew a little. I need to work on some Christmas stockings for a customer. I told her she'd have them before Thanksgiving when she talked me into doing them back in the summer. My Premier is missing me, I haven't done anything on it in a while.

Thing #13....Twittering

I've just spent some time learning about Twitter..............reading the articles, setting up an account (I'm opl_lady), posting first tweet, started following a few other posters. All interesting enough but I don't think it's going to become a regular part of my life.....either personal or at the library. My personal friends aren't into this 2.0 stuff and at the library it's just me & two aides who aren't interested in these things. Our form of communication most times is a sticky note on the desk.

Now, I may have "hermit" tendencies, but I just don't feel a need to be constantly connected to other people via things like Twitter & IM. I don't even have a cell phone, for cryin' out loud, and always wonder who all those people are talking to when I meet their cars on the highway & they all have a cell phone glued to their ear.

I'll keep reading the accounts I'm following, at least for a while, & try to post to mine, maybe it will grow on me, who knows?

Me Change My Mind?? Uh, Maybe.

Just thought I'd add a little eye candy for Thanksgiving, or Turkey Day, if you will. Plain backgrounds are good and easy to read, but I've been looking around on TheCutestBlogOnTheBlock.com where they have some really nice blog backgrounds and thought this one looked like fun. If you tinker with the fonts, sizes & colors a little, the colored backgrounds aren't that hard to read.They are putting out the Christmas ones but I thought it was a little early for that. So what if the stores have had Christmas merchandise out since July. I like to take the holidays as they come.

Countdown Clocks, Thanksgiving Countdowns at WishAFriend.com

Are Cats Smart??

We all wonder about our cats' actual intelligence. Well, maybe not all of us, but it has crossed my mind. (Easily entertained.) Read #2 on this blog entry--it might answer the question, "Are cats smart?" once and for all:
http://www.crazyauntpurl.com/archives/2008/11/shlumpy_top_tem.php
And I'm supposed to be working!!! :)

Thing #12 -- LibraryThing

I'm all recovered from election day now and back at work on the 23 Things. Last Tues. was a loooooooong day. 6:30am to 9:30pm by the time I took the ballots to the courthouse after the polls closed.

I just finished learning all about LibraryThing and entered a few books that I've read. I like how quickly it catalogs. We'd have to pay extra to get that feature on our library automation system. When I get some time (ha) I want to explore the groups some more, I've only looked at a couple so far. I'll be honest, when I first read about LibraryThing my first thought was, "Wow, another social networking thing. Just what the world needs. But, at least it's about books." After reading further and actually using it I can see some possibilities. Maybe we need a 24th thing -- how to clone yourself--so we have time to try out some of those possibilities in our libraries!

Anyway, here's the URL to "my" little library: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/linda5264

Librarian's Desks

When I was doing the Flickr "thing" I saw that Nebraska librarians were participating in the "Librarian's Desk" group so I joined & uploaded a couple pics of my desk at work. I can never seem to make it work to link to
photos on Flickr so these are uploaded from my own computer.

Free digi-scrapping stuff

Times are tough. We need free stuff! (Did you notice? It rhymes? LOL) And I found another great website for getting free digital scrapbooking stuff, quite by accident. Here's the URL: http://www.digiscrapdepot.com/
Another great site to help find free digi-scrapping stuff is: http://ikeagoddess.blogspot.com/
She posts just about every day with where the free stuff is.
I don't get much scrapping done, but I have GIGABITS of stuff ready to use. Have to be prepared, you know? LOL

Is this ugly or what?!!!

Have you ever seen anything as ugly as my new ironing board cover?

The companies who make these must have contests to see who can produce the ugliest ones. It's rare to find a pretty one.

NOT "No Buy"

I read quite a few blogs and email lists, including Stashbusters, and a lot of the participants are going "no buy". For some it's just fabric, but for others it includes books, tools, gadgets, whatever. The only things you are allowed to buy are things necessary to finish a project, such as batting, backing, sashing or setting fabric that you can't find in your existing stash. I don't buy nearly as much quilting fabric and quilting "stuff" as some quilters do, but I do try to "stimulate" the quilting economy ocassionally, as shown in this picture.

The quilt shop in O'Neill, Quilter's Candy Shoppe, hosts birthday parties for customers. I attended one for my friend Flicsha on Wednesday. The shop offers 15% discounts for guests, so we all get presents! :) I have plans for all the pieces except maybe for the small pile of remnants in the upper left corner, which I bought because I get tired of looking at the same stuff in my strip drawers all the time. I bought the Christmas prints just because I like them and I think I might be able to use them to put together a quilt from some Christmas blocks my group exchanged at our Christmas party a few years back and a panel I got as a gift or door prize or something. The rulers are to replace my old ones that are getting in pretty bad shape after all the years of use.I just love those Creative Grid rulers & I DESERVE them. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

$10M Cat

Now why can't my cats be moneymakers like this one?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/29/japan.station.cat/#cnnSTCVideo

Thing #11

Well, I'm up to Thing #11 on this journey called Nebraska Learns 2.0. The exercise for this item is to blog about technology, any technology. That's a pretty broad field so I think I'll try to keep to technology as it applies to our local library. I've worked there long enough to remember typing (on a typewriter, remember them?) a minimum of 3, up to 6 or 7 catalog cards for each item added to the collection. I remember when someone needed something we didn't have in the library we would try to come up with something to order on Inter-Library Loan using an outdated Books In Print because we couldn't afford the newer version. I also remember telling patrons they would just have to go to a larger library, maybe Norfolk, to have a better chance of finding what they needed. It's been a long time since I had to do that.

TECHNOLOGY has made the difference. Specifically computers & the Internet. There's an awful lot of downright crap on the Internet but there are also lots of excellent resources. One does have to be careful about sources, but now if I can't find exactly what a patron needs, I can at least look on Amazon.com or in other libraries' online catalogs to find a book to ILL.

The library got its first computer early in 1992, after using a loaner from the Northeast Library System for about three months. That was the first I had used a computer. Since then I have gone from DOS, through several versions of Windows up to XP. Windows Vista came on my lastest laptop but my printer would only partially work with it and my scanner not at all so I nixed Vista and put XP on. It's a Sony & if you are at all familiar with the way Sony does things you know there's a long story involved. Let's not go there.

Anyway, from the library getting that first computer in '92, we've gone to 5 public use computers with Internet access, an automated circulation system & OPAC, a digital microfilm reader that prints through a computer, and a laptop & digital projector. As the librarian, I've done purchasing, set-up, networking, repairs and lived through switching to automation. I've built web pages, added RAM memory, changed out hard disks and power supplies, set up wireless networking. Not bad for a girl born just barely after TV was making an appearance in the American home.

Technology keeps taking us in new directions. When I first started working in the library we had books, magazines and the vertical file (remember those?). Oh, and vinyl records, jigsaw puzzles & sewing patterns. The records, puzzles & patterns went by the wayside and we got books on tape, now books on CD or in mp3 format. Video tapes have given way to DVDs. Currently the big push is for gaming in libraries. Seems libraries try anything to get people in the door. The thing is, with all this great stuff how do you get the money to pay for it all? As a small library in a town of less than 400, with about 400 registered patrons we have to ask ourselves just what it is we want to be doing. Yes, we make use of technology to provide for our patrons' needs, but the biggest share of our budget is & will continue to be spent on books. Our library will not become the local gaming arcade. Spending money on that would take away from our primary goal of providing reading material and information for our community. We pick and choose our technology to best suit our goals.

Now, I've rambled on for long enough. It's time to check out the blogs of other Nebraska Learns 2.0 participants.

Pretty much a flop!

Saturday was the library's annual Scholastic Book Fair and I must admit it was pretty much a flop--didn't even sell $200 worth of books. We do it to earn books for the library and needless to say, this year we didn't earn many. I keep hearing, as does everyone, how bad, bad, bad the economy is and I guess it's so bad people aren't even buying inexpensive paperback books as Christmas gifts. I can't blame it all on the shoppers, or lack thereof, because Scholastic usually sends us 9 boxes of books and this year they only sent 7. Of course the ones they shorted us on were the sale books and the picture books---the biggest sellers. Oh well, it's over for this year & we have a few months before we have to commit to doing it again or deciding not to bother. We also are having our used book sale for the rest of this week and they are not exactly going like hotcakes either. I see the dumpster getting a big donation next Monday. Does anyone hate anything worse than sending books to the dump?

Basic is best

After trying several different blog templates I came to the decision that simple and basic is best. I tweeked it a little to make it easier to read and I can play with background and text colors. I'm going to call it good (just don't hold me to rigidly to that statement). I'd really like the whole thing to be wider but haven't figured out how to do that.

Update: Well, duh!! To make the whole thing wider all I had to do was choose the stretched version. How simple is that? Now I need to find a picture for the header to dress the whole thing up a little.

What's been keeping me busy lately

Here's some of the things keeping me busy lately. This is Quilt #2 quilted on my Gammill Premier Plus. It's one of my eBay tops and is prettier in the picture than it is in person. Still needs to be trimmed and bound to be called finished.


The pantograph I used is called "Swirl" by Norma Sharp.





And, here are some quilt blocks and pieces waiting to be pressed. Progress on this quilt top has been slow and part of the reason is pictured below.



I've been dehydrating pears for the last two weeks and that's what is in the small dehydrator. The big one is my new Excaliber 2900 with nine trays. It's full of Golden Delicious apples sprinkled with a little cinnamon sugar. It holds about 3/4 of a 5 gal. bucket of apples and is wonderful. The little one holds about 12 sliced pears so I suppose it would hold about the same amount of apples. I'd be doing this till Christmas!!

I really, really wish blogger would make it a little easier to put the pictures where you want them. It seems like no matter how I try to position them, they go wherever they want.

ANOTHER new page template!!!

Last night I tried out another new template for my blog. Actually I was trying to put a Halloween theme on, messed it up, tried another one & couldn't make it work, so just decided to go with something basic. The green floral was really pretty, but a bit to frou-frou for me so I ended up with this blue one. I like it but don't know if it will be the final one or not. There's just so much choice out there in cyber space!! LOL I also learned the hard way that changing templates can erase your list of blogs you read, widgets, gadgets, even your profile. And, sometimes they mysteriously come back. HA!

Thing #10

Image generators--fun I guess. Could be an excellent time waster, sure wish I had more time. I tried this one at: http://makesweet.com to create this:
http://makesweet.com/mixer/wbK03qxI34

Thing #9

Who would have thought there would be so many Flickr tools and 3rd party programs? It kind of looks to me like there are people out there with programming skills who don't have enough to do. LOL I played around with a few of them but didn't find anything I thought would be useful in the library, though that's not to say there aren't any, I just didn't have a lot of time to spend on looking. I did play a little bit with one called Gickr--allows you create animated GIFs (GIF animations) from your flickr photos. It's homepage is: http://gickr.com/
I thought it might be used to display photos on a web page or blog.
http://gickr.com/results4/anim_b9ba63fc-11b6-7684-0502-65ec06034426.gif
I can't say that I like the effect at all. The animation shows up on a separate window from the blog.

Thing #8

Learning about Flickr has been interesting. I have albums on Webshots & Multiply but had never tried Flickr. Maybe because it is "THE" photo site these days is why I shyed away from it---never follow the herd, you know? Anyway, I went ahead and set up an account, which was easy since I already had a Yahoo! identity. Then I posted a couple pictures to the Pets of Nebraska Librarians group--------and,ta da, here they are at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/petsofnelibrarians

Here are my two kitties, Nicky & Nuey. They are posted to the Pets of Nebraska Librarians group, but if you aren't part of that group you might not be able to see them.

A Happy Ending

I'm happy to report that the lost dog story has a happy ending. This morning I put posters with his picture up around town & within an hour I knew he belonged to a local Amish family. He had followed their buggy into town on Saturday and was snooping around town when they went home so couldn't follow them back. I just took him home a little bit ago, and he was SOOOOOOOOO happy to be there and the kids were hugging and petting him. Everyone is happy, including me, who isn't stuck with a dog she really didn't want. I'm just wondering..........what will be the next critter to show up in our garage?? Better keep those doors closed.

Look what turned up in my garage

Friday night it was a possum, who was happy to leave once we got him out of the garage. Saturday night it was this sweet little dog, and once my husband coaxed him out of the garage he decided he wanted to stay. I have no idea where he came from or who he belongs to. He's very sweet and friendly and hasn't been lost for very long since he's nice and chubby. We really, really don't need a dog since we already have two cats. One has already shown him who's the boss around here and the other one would go back to living in the basement and never coming upstairs if he was allowed to stay. He's obviously a house dog and couldn't stay outside during the winter. Why do lost animals always find their way to us?

Thing 6 &7

I've taken to RSS feeds like a duck to water. It just makes keeping up with the blogs I read so easy. I read quite a few quilting and scrapbooking blogs and needing to check each one, each day was becoming a chore. Now, Bloglines tells me if there's an update & I don't waste time going to each one, only to be disappointed when there's nothing new. I've also added some feeds to library related & computer related blogs, now that keeping up is so simple.

RSS feeds were one of those things I knew about, just never took the time to learn what they are all about, how to use the readers and what was in it for me. Nebraska Learns 2.0 gave me the incentive I needed.

I did it!!

I know that I'm hopelessly behind the times, but last night was the first time I had ever IMed. I know everybody, young & old, uses Instant messaging all the time, including my granddaughter and the young people using computers at the library. My family & circle of friends has been content with e-mail for the most part. If we want instant communication we still pick up the phone. Anyway, I had a nice conversation with Allana at the Library Commission last night, so I guess I have completed Thing #5. I really don't see myself using it a whole lot though.

Would it be useful at our library? I just don't know. I'm certainly very clumsy at using it and I don't see my two aides being a whole lot better. For the present we will still rely on the telephone for reference questions that don't involve a patron coming in and standing in front of the desk. But, I can at least tell my granddaughter that I CAN IM. I doubt if she'll want to become my "friend" though. It's probably not cool to IM with Grandma. LOL

Pears & more pears

Today I'm once again working on pears. There's a batch in the dehydrator and I'll can a batch. For dehydrating, I peel them with the apple peeler so all the slices are uniform, put them on the trays and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Dry until leathery. Delish!! as one of my favorite authers, Philip Craig, used to say. I just wish I had a bigger dehydrator than my little round one with only 4 trays. It can only handle about a dozen sliced pears at a time and we had a super bumper crop this year. Same goes for apples. I still have some of them in the fridge and want to try drying them with the cinnamon sugar too.

Last night was our Quilt Club meeting at the library meeting room. As it turned out I had to work so I was double tasking like mad, playing librarian and quilt club host at the same time. It worked, my fellow quilters and the patrons are all pretty tolerant, I just didn't get to work on a quilting project like I usually do.

My Baby....................

I've talked about my quilting machine in previous posts so here's a picture. It's a Gammill Premier Plus on a 10 ft. table. That's all the bigger I had room for -- both room size and purse size! LOL

That's the only actual quilt I've done since I got it over two months ago. I have some not-so-beautiful tops purchased on eBay that I'm going to use as practice pieces. Only problem was that I didn't have backings & batting so made a flying trip to O'Neill last Friday to get some. There's at least 35 yds in this pile. Not so good for my quilt club goal of using what I have but it's needed to finish projects and that's allowed.

I'll start with the least-beautiful eBay top and work my way to the one I like the best. Maybe by then my quilting will have improved enough to tackle one of the tops I pieced myself and REALLY like. Don't know what I'll do with the practice quilts, guess they could always ride in the trunk of the car in the winter or become donation quilts. While they may not be the most beautiful quilts ever made they will keep someone warm.

Something Quilty

Even though there were two buckets of pears waiting for me to do something with I decided I'd rather sew today. So I did the second row of stitching on the corner pieces of my Indian Hatchet quarter blocks. When I trim the corners I'll cut between the two lines of stitching and have my quarter block and little HSTs to use in another project.

The Indian Hatchet blocks will be combined with these 16-patch blocks made of my hand-dyed fabrics to make the top.

Partial Indian Hatchet blocks & black & white strip sets cut to 5" will form the inside border. I have some black fabric with bright dots for the outside border. I'll have to remember to post a picture of the top when it's finished.

Prettier!!!

There now, isn't this template a lot prettier than most offered as basic Blogger templates? I've found a wonderful new time waster on the computer---looking for Blogger templates----bet I could waste HOURS. Just what I needed, you know??

Backin' up a little

It occurred to me that I never posted about Things 1 & 2. I'm expecting NE Learns 2.0 to be a great learning adventure. Maybe everyone wouldn't agree but I always find learning new things to be a great adventure. I've been a life long learner for as long as I can remember, and a lot of things I've taught myself from books, videos & dvds. Now we have all these wonderful online learning opportunities.

Regarding the habits of lifelong learners, I'm probably best at playing--I play with computers, I play with my fabrics, I play with my quilting machine and sometimes working at the library is almost more play than work.

Now for the rest of them: #1. Always. When I learn how to solve a computer glitch the end I have in mind is a working computer. When I had to learn to time my quilting machine the end I had in mind was good stitches. When I learn to make a new quilt block I expect to have a quilt someday. #2. Always. If I don't accept the responsibility for my own learning, who will? #3. A computer that won't boot up is definitely a problem and a real challenge. #4. I guess I have confidence in my abilities as a learner because anytime there is something I want to learn to do, I do it. #5. You should see my collection of books, manuals, magazines, videos & dvds. Plus, I believe in always having more than one computer available for doing research when one of them fails. #6. See #5. #7. I guess I do this without even thinking about it. I'm always helping patrons at the library with using the library or computers or microfilm reader. People are always calling me with computer questions when they have problems & I help them as much as I can. Now, fixing a sick computer over the phone is a CHALLENGE :) Especially when the person on the other end of the line is pretty much computer illiterate. #7 1/2. Play, Play, Play. The part I love best!

Librarians are SO creative

How about a librarian's fashion show? Here's an address on Flickr showing pictures of a fashion show where all the outfits are made out of things from the library--romance novels, microfilm, cds, etc. If it's in a library they've used it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sheree11/sets/72157607525433065

Just startin' out

My very first post!! I set up this blog as a part of the Nebraska Learns 2.0 project through the Nebraska Library Commission. I have to admit that while I want to learn about these technologies that I'm not very familiar with, I also find the opportunity to earn those 15 CE hours without burning expensive gas as darned attractive :) Can you say "darned" on a blog post?? Oh well, I just did.

Just to tell you a little about myself: I am a Library Director of a library in a very small Nebraska town. My family consists of a husband, daughter, son, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, three grandchildren & two cats. Mustn't forget the cats, they think they should rate higher than any of the others, LOL. In my "spare" time I like to read (blogs mostly, of late), piece quilts, scrapbook digitally, research genealogy and learn to master my new quilting machine that I just got in August. I know I probably spread myself too thin, and now I'm adding the Nebraska Learns 2.0 to my list for the next few weeks. We'll see how it goes.