Constant-Width Potholders

Sharon decided to make some new potholders—our old, dead potholders are pretty scuzzy looking. She was planning to make boring, square potholders—then Jeff intervened.

He decided it would be cool to make Reuleux triangle-shaped potholders. These are constant width, which seems like a nice feature, but the points give a nice place for the thumb, with the opposite side flatter for the fingers.

Sharon had to add extra lines beyond the basic triangle because there wasn't enough lines to properly hold the layers together.

Things were going well until she reached the last step—applying the bias tape edging. She encountered a bias tape failure because she had lazily cut the bias tape not-on-the-bias and it really wasn't making the corners. She's going to have to go back and rip off the linen, and cut some new fabric on the bias.

Finally, the next day they are finished with true bias tape, made with just one seam. The points are sometimes still a little wonky due to the tight turn, but they're much better!

Here is the new potholder in action...

Quilted Proof of Pythagorean Theorem

Jeff designed a pieced pillow cover and  Sharon sewed it up this morning. For any math buffs out there, this visually demonstrates the Pythagorean theorem. I.e., the large square is on the hypotenuse of the right triangles (which are all the same shape and size), and the other two squares are on the two legs. A little thought shows that the sum of the squares of the legs have the same area as the square of the hypotenuse. There are 96 other proofs here.

He decided to use the same fabrics, so it would look more coordinated when both pillows are sitting on the couch together.

Quilting Today

Sharon doesn't intend to turn this into a quilting blog, but that is what she is working on right now. She put together the sample every-other square for the historic quilt. She is reasonably happy with the colors of the square, but not so happy about the beige fabric being slightly twisted so the striped pattern isn't straight across the piece. She may have to play with the fabric a bit and see if she can get it straightened out.


Sharon also decided to make a couple quilted pillow covers for the basement couch. She poked through some of the ready-to-use blocks in her new program and quickly designed a few options today. Then she got inspired to try making one up.

Her "quilting brain" is a little rusty, because this project was a bit of a challenge—it took her more than 4 hours to make this tiny two-block project. These blocks are supposed to be a purple-pansy-like flower, but the light to dark shading didn't work quite as hoped.

Jeff has been cooking up a storm lately—so many good foods! We're really enjoying our newly remodeled kitchen. He occasionally makes blog entries about his latest food prep exploits at his food blog.

Target Score!

Look what we got for $5 at Target! We're pretty happy with our score.

Even though we don't celebrate all the rituals of Christmas, we do miss having a tree.

Sharon has been storing different urls at Pinterest for ideas for making ornaments. We're planning a big Winter Solstice/Anniversary Party next December!

Jeff put together a few cookie plates for our neighbors. It pretty much cleaned out our cookie supply, which is probably just as well.

Happy Holidays!

We pretty much cancelled Christmas about a decade ago and have never really resumed celebrating it. When we moved down to California in 2006, we donated the bulk of our Christmas decorations and the meager few things we still possess are buried in storage. Other than a cute wreath Jeff made at a master gardener meeting, our house is pretty much devoid of seasonal decorations this year.

We do like to gather with family or friends for a nice meal on "the day," but otherwise we enjoy a nice stress-free December.

Though, we know that our family and most of our friends still enjoy celebrating the Christmas / Hanukkah holiday and we hope you all have a happy and safe holiday.

Still Waiting

When we ordered our new living room furniture in late-October, we were told it would take 30 days. Sharon presumed 30 days + shipping time. Well, it's been nearly eight weeks and they haven't even contacted us to let us know the pieces are shipping. They must have gotten lots of orders for the holidays. Though there really isn't a lot of reason we need the furniture sooner, Sharon is starting to get a bit impatient.

We did receive the bird cage, but before we even got the box all the way opened, we could see that they made us the wrong one! They made us the designer bird cage and we ordered the square-topped classic cage. So, back it went the next day. We have the base cabinet in place to the left of the fireplace and now we're having to wait another couple of weeks for the correct cage. Sigh.

We had unusually good light today so Sharon took the opportunity to get photos of the living room with the newly-hung linen curtains!

Sharon embroidered the wisteria pattern on the curtain behind the chair but not the one behind the bird cage. Sharon's not sure whether she'll take the time to embroider the curtain behind the bird cage because this curtain may get damaged. If the bird gets the opportunity, she pulls in the fabric between the bars of her cage and chews holes into it — she did it at one of the houses we rented in Cupertino.We'll have to see how close it hangs to the cage once all the furniture is in place.

24th Wedding Anniversary!

Today is our 24th Wedding Anniversary! Hard to believe it's been that long. We didn't make any big plans to celebrate this year. We had thought we'd be headed down to California this week; but that effort sort of sputtered out somehow. It's hard to leave the house these days!

We are having a very low-key day. We ordered Jeff some Muck boots at a local gardening store and did a few errands. Sharon dropped off her sewing machine for service so she can be ready to get started on her William Morris quilt once the rest of the fabric arrives.

We're going out in a few minutes to a restaurant we've never been to before—the Screen Door. It has a very odd name, but it has excellent reviews on Yelp, so we're going to give it a try. (Note afterwards, it was good.)