Technical Tantrums and Other Fun Ways to Spend Your Week

The following section contains an explanation for my week+ absence based on a petty first-world problem.  Feel free to skip down to craftiness after the asterisks.

I am a little naive at times.  When my RSS reader (Reeder) told me that it would continue to work after the demise of Google Reader, I believed it. I didn't confirm that it would indeed work closer to the planned date.  Nope.  Imagine my surprise and dismay on July 2nd when it didn't. Blerg! Apparently, they're working on it but it wasn't going to be ready in time. ( I find it important to add here that I am not a total Luddite; I have embraced new technology faster than the average bear, but I'm rarely a first-adopter and I am cautious regarding change.  I still don't like the new Flickr....)

I went looking for a replacement, hopefully temporary, as I love Reeder - I had it all set up the way I like, I was happy with the interface, and it synced across all my devices.  I wasn't crazy about Bloglovin' but the Feedly app wouldn't let me login on my phone.

So then I spent a day and a half importing all my carefully curated feeds manually into Bloglovin'. I was then too tired and annoyed to read any of them for a few days.  And when I sat down to delve in, I hated it. I would even say I loathed it. It changed my settings randomly, wouldn't adapt to needs and ways of doing things, and it wouldn't import some of my feeds for seemingly arbitrary reasons.  I threw my hands up, closed the computer, and stewed.  I tried the mobile app.  Hated it, too.  Had that existential blogger moment where I questioned why I even bother to blog or read blogs, and in the grand scheme of things, what does it all mean???  I moped, offline, for a few more days.

Then, missing the interaction and inspiration (and my damn hockey news!), and blindly hoping that they'd already found a solution to Reeder, I returned to the desktop. Alas, no. But I spend another day manually importing my precious feeds, (and adding several more that I don't really have time for...)  into Feedly.  While it's not Reeder, it is more adaptable to what I'm looking for and how I use RSS.  I could breathe. It'll do.  Faced with an overwhelming total of posts in the 4-digits, I spend another afternoon going through each feed to clear out posts prior to when I'd checked out of the interwebs last week.  That brought it back to a manageable level. That's where I left it last.  Manageable.  Though I still worried about how to read on the go, which is how I do most of my non-comment/lurker reading.

Imagine my delight when the phone app for Reeder has been updated to work with Feedly. And all is right  moderately okay again in my blogging universe, though I still have some catching up to do. Phew.  Sometimes, technology is not worth the paper it's printed on....

******* (These are the asterisks I meant...)

During my impromptu blogging hiatus, I threw myself into sewing.

A July bee block for SimplySolids is done. It was very fun to do, though she'd warned us to be conservative with the fabric.  I didn't want to end up short so I made a little template for each row, save the last one, and used it to cut a triangle from each fabric ahead of time, and religiously trimmed each seam so that it would be easier to line up the pieces.  One pink triangle got a little cheeky but I didn't notice it until I'd already packed up the block for sending. I can see it in the photo but I'm hoping it's not a disappointment to my bee mate...

On my own bee quilt, I have almost all of the blocks (just two to come in) and I've started working on the sashing and border strips.  The sashing strips are 4.5x16.5" and are made from the scraps left over from the blocks. It's much farther along than this photo but I still have the top and bottom "border" strips to do. I've even made the binding!  I'm really enjoying this whole process.

I also finished up the charity quilt made by our guild but I'll save that for another post!

There were rumours this week of looking for a summer job but visiting family and a nasty chest cold that's left me worse than sotto voce (in fact, zero voce!) has quelled that idea.  I'm spending a lot of time watching movies, knitting socks, and glaring at people who ask me questions they know I am unable to vocalize an answer for and then make fun of my hoarseness. (That's right, Dad - I'm writing at you! Now, quit giggling.  It was funny when Seester was the voiceless one, sure, but you've gone too far... "What? What was that? Heeheehee."  Too far, sir.  :-P )

Still kickin'

Well, it's been real... lol.  I find that in the spring, I need a little more downtime than the rest of the year due to the season-shift and the migraine-related consequences that come with it.  This year, with its whack-tastic weather has proved to be a little more difficult than usual and results in the frequent disappearing act.  It's not that I don't miss reading blogs and keeping up on the haps but this last little while, I kinda skipped the glare of the internet - my laptop sat abandoned - and my sewing machine gathered more dust from disuse than lint from overuse.  It's Easter break so I've had the week off but while I had big plans, I crashed hard instead. My productivity was more of the passive kind - I cleared tons off the PVR and watched almost the entirety of Game of Thrones. (I was also holding my breath approaching the NHL trade deadline... Phew! Dodged an unneeded goalie-sized bullet there!)

This was the first day of Spring 'round these parts.... Chest height snow. After the first two melts.  Yeah.

So, I'm a week behind on everyone's blogs if you've been missing my comments or hits on your site. Sorry, I'll get there. :-) (Oh, so very Canadian....)

I am working on a tutorial for the random piecing demo I did at the Saskatoon Modern Quilt Guild at our last meeting and I'm hoping to get it up before the end of the weekend.

The guild has a couple of challenges going at all times.  The one we just finished was the Ugly Fat Quarter Challenge.  We all brought an ugly FQ, dropped it into a pillowcase and took turns pulling one out. What did I get? A green/brown floral monstrosity.  I went pouch because I was mentally blocked and after experimenting unsuccessfully with some FMQ and mock-trapunto, I was running out of fabric.  I did manage to quickly design my own gnome-y accent for it though and it makes me happy.  My sister thought the pouch was cute and it now lives with her.

'Scuze the shaky photos - took them months ago.

Our current challenge is a Two-Colour Crayon Challenge.  You pull two crayons from a magical toque and those are the colours you're stuck with.  You can use only those colours, and neutrals if you really feel you need them.  I pulled yellow and white.  And as much as I'm happy with how it's going, it will also be living at Seester's.

I managed to get my Simply Solids Bee block finished.  Karen @ BungalowBayQuilts asked for Scrap Jar Stars and I was thrilled that I had tons of scraps so I could make it really colourful for her. Hopefully, colour was what she wanted because, boy, there's a ton in there!

The major project I had planned for the break was the quilting on a quilt that's sat waiting, basted and ready, since the middle of January. Well, folks, it's already the end of Thursday and this is how far I got.

10 minutes in...

But when HotWheels interrupt your projects, it's really hard to be annoyed at a lack of progress.  Nephew's learning about why we don't keep pushing the button with the scissors on it...

And since you may have noticed this, I'm not on Crackbook, I don't pin anything, I don't use Twitter or Instagram, and am kinda lame and inept at using Flickr.  Therefore, please understand how very difficult it was for me to do the following.   I am resentfully claiming my blog on Bloglovin'. (I am a curmudgeon, yes, I get that.)

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Yeah.  I have no plans to use it - I'm happy with Reeder - but I know that I keep a pretty low profile and thought it might make it easier to find me, if you're looking.

Now - I'm going to send some overdue emails and get back to reading.... Have a lovely one!