The best part is I am tired again. Two days in a row! I am cherishing this feeling, since it’s been so scarce of late.

And now, to bed!

In December me and Dean (mostly Dean) were researching BlackBerry phones and plans since his sister wanted to pay less for the phones her family had and maybe get new ones. It turned out there were some really nice deals around for Christmas, so we started debating the possibility of getting one for ourselves. Really, it came down to how much we’d use BBM, since that was the only thing that our friends used that our old phones couldn’t do.

I went for it since I’d be switching carriers and ending up on a plan that matched my usage better than what I was paying on prepaid, while Dean got one and stayed with his prepaid plan (did you know you can get BlackBerry on a prepaid plan now?).

The thing is, now that I have it I’ve been testing out its features to see how useful the phone could be for me. For the most part my assumptions have been correct. I don’t use the mp3 player because it eats too much battery and can’t scrobble to last.fm. I have an iPod that I love which does that job much better. I don’t play games on it because don’t like most of them, and the few I like (SimCity, Sims3) are best played on the PC. I didn’t opt for a data plan thus, I don’t use the social networking or email services, since those require BIS, which requires a data plan. Since I spend most of my time in places with wifi, and I have no need to be “connected” when I’m not in one of those places I haven’t missed that at all.

That means my phone gets used for pretty much the same things I used the other one for, except I use BBM all the time in place of texting, and occasionally check the internet from the kitchen (where before I’d run downstairs for the laptop, all freaked out the stove would catch fire while I was away from it – childhood baggage). I find the Calendar handy, and I sync it with my Google Calendar so I don’t forget about stuff, and like my other phone I keep my Contacts up to date so I don’t forget where you all live and what your emails are.

Writing this post I’m testing out the BlackBerry WordPress app, since I could see this solving the problem of wanting to write something and forgetting about it later. We’ll see how that goes.

It turns out aside from BBM, I use my phone the most as an ereader. I’ve been having insomnia the last 3 weeks or so, and reading on my phone means I can read in bed in the dark without having to get up and wake Dean up all the time.

At the same time, reading on a screen not designed for it is hard on the eyes, which makes me want to buy the other piece of tech I’ve been holding out on for years: a dedicated ereader.

From talking to people and reading Consumer Reports and reviews online, it looks like I’m going to get a Nook at some point this year. The last few times we’ve been in Windsor we’ve went to Detroit for shopping or dinner so at least I can go look at one in person first and make sure it’s the one for me.

I’ve chosen the Touch since I’m a tactile person and need to feel like I’m turning pages rather than just pushing a button. It’s not the same as a paper book but it’s good enough for my brain.

I feel really weird for getting this phone and wanting the ereader though. For years both of them have been in the things-I’d-use-but-don’t-need category, and that’s still true. It’s nice being able to BBM instead of texting, but I’d be fine without it. Likewise with the ereader. It’d be good to be able to read ebooks on a screen designed for it instead of on my phone or the computer, but I can still read them just fine that way.

Overall I’m happy with my phone and use it all day long. That makes it worthwhile. I suspect the same will be true if I do what I’m planning and get the Nook.

In the 15 minutes I was outside waiting for the bus, my pants, socks, and shoes got completely drenched. The rest of me wasn’t much drier, but was slightly protected thanks to my umbrella.

The entire time I was thinking if genies existed, I’d wish for dry clothes, some Wellington boots, and a proper raincoat.

He seemed to have a happy life; got plenty of attention and time to roam outside (and carrots, yummy, delicious carrots). He died doing one of his favourite things: sleeping outside in the shade of the plum tree.

I’m going to miss your quirks little guy, and your funny faces. Rest in peace.

No pictures because we were too mesmerized by the car-smashing to take any.

The original plan was to have the embroidery completed by the end of August 2010 since the wedding was Labour Day weekend. Even with the best of intentions and making some major progress over the summer, the towels were not finished in time for the wedding.

Lesson the First, in Two Parts

Part One:

You cannot resize a monogram designed for small-sized bath towels to fit on a bath sheet and use the same stitching methods.

I am using two different monogram patterns that were both designed to be stitched at a height of 4-5 centimetres. Because the towels on the wedding registry were bath sheets, I decided to go ahead with my original plan and just enlarge the pattern to match the size of the towels. This resulted in letters 12-15 centimetres high. Because I was originally planning on satin stitching the towels with cotton floss (to match the fibre content of the towels and leave them machine-washable), I attempted to do this with the resized monograms as well.

Part Two:

Satin stitching does not work at large sizes with thin thread.

Satin stitch is the one that you usually see on machine-stitched embroidery. It’s a bunch of parallel stitches that fill in a space, placed close together to create a smooth satin-like finish. Hence the name. But one thing I didn’t know before undertaking this project is that satin stitching cannot be worked effectively to fill outlines larger than 5 milimetres or so, especially when you need the lines to be wide and follow sharp curves.

Lesson the Second:

The fabric base of regular bath towels is extremely loosely woven.

This is something I hadn’t considered extensively before. How often do you really look closely at the weave of a towel? The focus is usually on the loops that you can see, not the structure beneath them. Even so, I had planned for this to a certain extent by using cut-away interfacing to support my stitching on the underside of the towels, and water-soluble interfacing on top so I could see the pattern and keep the loops of the fabric flat while stitching. Despite all of that, it’s still extremely difficult to stitch evenly on terry cloth.

Lesson the Third:

Upsized patterns do not work well with the same thread called for for the original pattern.

Two strands of cotton floss works well for 5cm high monograms, but barely does anything on a 15cm monogram. Just saying.

The Solutions:

1. Use an alternative filling stitch instead of satin stitch if you are going to upsize a pattern so drastically.
2. Use tear-away interfacing underneath the water-soluble one to provide more support while stitching. This means from top down you’d have: water-soluble interfacing (with the design traced onto it), tear-away interfacing, bath towel, cut-away interfacing. It’s quite the sandwich, but you want to be able to stitch effectively and also have the design hold up once the towels are in use.
3. Choose a surface stitch instead of one that goes through the fabric. Otherwise you’ll be stitching through all of those layers of interfacing and the towel. It’s hard on your hands and makes for slow progress. I’m using detached buttonhole. I still had to stitch the outline through all of the layers, but the majority of the stitching after that is on the front of the fabric only.
4. Use more strands of the thread you were planning to use, or use a thicker thread entirely for your stitching. This will scale the stitches to match the new size of the design.

Since I’d already started my towels, I did not add the extra layer of interfacing or upsize my threads, but I highly suggest anyone attempting to stitch on terrycloth towels do this. It will greatly reduce frustration and keep your project from becoming a chore.

At first it seemed like a mild cold, but progressed to an ear infection which I cured with the aid of an ear syringe and some drops. All seemed fine. I was feeling great for the first time in weeks and could get back to being productive. The next day it hit me. Over the course of a few hours I felt progressively worse. By the next morning it was obvious that I’d caught the flu. Bugger.

The reason it’s bothering me enough to blog about is because my parents are visiting this weekend for the first time in 8 years. If I can’t shake this in the next 24 hours the weekend is going to be, “Hi guys, so glad you could come! Don’t come near me or touch anything I’ve touched until I wash it, or you’ll get sick….No, I can’t do that with you. I’m too tired and sore….Let’s not go there, there’ll be too many people and I don’t want to infect everyone.” Sounds fun, right?

The preceding three months, however, were a deviation from what has come to be my normal routine. I was hired on contract to be an intern in the IT department of the local library. This meant that my job was to support the IT staff and do whatever needed doing, and hopefully learn something along the way. The work ranged from simple software and hardware upgrades all the way up to a major marketing project. I did end up learning some things here and there about computers, but mostly I made new friends and learned a lot more about my library.

Image from yarn.com.

This seems to be my go-to pattern when a yarn is frustrating me or I can’t make up my mind. These socks are going to be for a friend of mine from high school that I have recently come in contact with again. This yarn is perfect because this colourway has all the shades she likes to wear. It should match everything.

My one complaint with this yarn is that it’s very splitty, but that may be helped by switching to Addis instead of KnitPicks needles.