In Hot Water

Today I started a new project.

Here’s part of it.

And here is another part.

Emily’s not feeling too well today. She often has cold legs and feet, and when she is sick they can be ice cold. We put a hot water bottle at the bottom of the bed by her feet. But we don’t want the bottle to touch her feet so we will wrap it in a blanket. The other day I had a grand idea. What about making hot water bottle wrap or bag?

So here’s what I came up with. I made the rose one first and then found it was a little difficult to fold the bottle tight enough to get it into and out of the bag.

So with the second one I left most of the top open and put straps and a button on it to hold the bottle into the bag.

I enjoyed this project and it was very easy to sew.

Until next time. Thanks for listening ~

The Little Gardener

It was Grace’s turn to start some vegetables for our garden. 

She helped to break open the little planter pots and put the new seeds inside.

This was the most interesting vegetables we planted this year.  It is a lemon shaped/colored cucumber.

And this was the most interesting seed. 

Do you know what plant this is? (no, its not written on the list below my hand…. )  I know but I’m not telling!  I’ll let you all guess.

So now all the seeds are planted and in their little green houses.  In a few weeks we’ll have new topsoil out in the garden and begin planting our sprouts.  I’ll take pictures and post them when the time comes.

Thanks for listening ~

Emily at School

My husband and I both got this notice in our email yesterday. 

Please check w/your freshmen student and be sure they have turned in their class registration form for next year's classes.  If they haven't, they can return forms to their English teacher or to the Guidance Center.  Thank you.

Hummm, next year?  I don’t know that I can see the end of this year yet.  Emily is doing pretty good, but she is having school at home this year.  It seems to be working out well, especially in light of the H1N1 virus going around.

At home we’ve been working on a scrapbook.  Each time someone from school comes to visit we either work on a learning experience or we put something in the scrapbook that we already talked about. 

Last week we read about Betsy Ross and made a Betsy Ross page in her scrapbook.  Today we planted the vegetable seeds for our garden.

Some seeds were large.

And some seeds were pretty small.  I put the seeds into the little starter beds and then had Emily poke them in with her finger.

She was not very impressed.  We put the top on the little planter box.

And the box is set in the kitchen greenhouse.

Until next time, thanks for listening ~

Feeding Pump Problems

Emily has visitors from her school a couple times a week. Here we are doing the Chicken Dance for her, which she totally enjoyed! Oy, what a work-out!

I was reading a post of a fellow blogger who was having troubles with her child’s feeding pump. We’ve had our own feeding pump challenges lately.

We changed to a Kangaroo Joey not too long ago, because of the ability to get free water pumped each hour (through a second bag attached to the pump), along with the formula. But oh boy, we had a terrible time with this pump. It doesn't pump correctly unless you hang the bag just so many inches from the pump, no higher, no lower. Yes, that is part of the instructions. What? You mean I can't hang the bag where the top of the formula is more than 6 inches higher than the pump? If I do it pumps too much formula at once… If lower than the pump it doesn’t pump enough formula. How could the FDA allow such a pump into existence?

After I accepted that fact and only hung the bag so the top of the formula is 6 inches from the pump. It worked for a few weeks, then we started having troubles with the bags.

Occasionally I would get a bag that wouldn't allow formula through the tubing, some sort of blockage. Then I had about 5 or 6 bags in one case with blockages in the tubing. With the last case we had I noticed the part you put into the pump so the formula would pump through, well that part didn't fit correctly on the pump.

Our feeding pump dilemmas finally came to full blown disaster when one day I noticed Emily’s feeding bag was still full, even after the pump had been going for 6 hours. What a surprise! 6 hours, on the clock, 6 hours on the pump which measured 300mls, and I thought she was getting fed. Nope.

I looked at the tubing, took it off of her gastrostomy tube (g-tube), and not one drop of formula was coming out of the pump, even though it was humming right along. It appeared that the tubing had some sort of a clog or blockage even though it had primed correctly. Did the pump beep in error like it should have? Nope. It just pretended to pump, for 6 whole hours! Grrrrrrr

I hope we are the only people this has happened to.

After so many problems and issues with the Kangaroo Joey I decided we should go back to the Kangaroo Pet pump. That is the type we used before the Joey just a month or two before. So I called our medical supply company and asked for a Pet pump again. To my surprise there were NO Pet pumps in stock. And they weren’t going to get any new ones.

I was told that the maker is no longer producing the Pet pump, and all the medical supply company can get is the Joey. Oh great…..

I searched Emily’s room and found our very old antique Pet Pump (so old that Jered used it from ages 8-16, he’s now 26). I had recently, in the last year or two, purchased a new battery for it, just in case we ever needed it. Well, now we need it. I was pretty sure this pump would be our saving grace.

After using the pump for a few days it appears that it isn’t pumping correctly, about 10 mls less per hour than is programmed to pump. I called a friend of mine. She has an old “brick”, the Kangaroo 324. Tried and true, it still works. It’s not really portable, but it does work.

We still need a newer pump, and I prefer the Kangaroo Pet, but until one is turned in to our medical supply company, we have two old and older pumps to use. I thought about the special needs child support list I am a part of online, and posted a want ad there. I did get a reply and a lady said we could have her pump. I’m hoping and praying it is on its way. In the meantime we’re watching the pumps carefully to make sure Emily is getting fed correctly.

Thanks for listening~

From Squares to Ships

Valentines day was fun. All the girls of the house were gifted with talking stuffed animals and lots of chocolate. Yummm!

I started a new project. Here’s a peek.

It will take me a while to make enough squares for my quilt (Yippee, this one will be for my bed!).

In the meantime I took a day off from embroidering squares to embroider a Navy ship on a pull-over sweat shirt for Jeff. He was in the navy for a few years and served aboard the USS Albany, a guided missile cruiser.

I looked around on internet and found a navy ship design that looked similar to the USS Albany. I purchased the design and tested it on a comparable material.

No problems with the test material so I centered the hoop on the pull-over, this was difficult. The material of the pull-over was thicker and more difficult to maneuver. I used a medium stabilizer backing.

The design stitched perfectly and looks great!

And Jeff liked it.

Thanks for listening ~

Oh Happy Day!

Today I worked on kitchen towels.  I started with daffodils.  It was a lovely design but the white thread kept breaking.  I came to the realization it was the stabilizer I was using under the towel.  I persevered and continued threading the machine as the thread broke, and I finally finished the design.  A difficult chore but it turned out really nice.

I told you I would show you my next mistake in my embroidery.  Ok, here it is.  I accidently hooped the second towel in the wrong direction.  I forgot how my towel was laying and the flowers were going to lay sideways when finished.  I didn’t want the design to be sideways so I stopped stitching and turned the design on the machine (yes it has that capability!).

The leaf on the right and the stitching to the lower right is the mistake.  I started over, re-programming the embroidery layout, and just stitched over the mistake.

When I finished stitching the tulips I can hardly see the mistake.  I’m thankful it is barely visible.  I pulled out the stitches to the right of the leaves and clipped the wash-away toping close to the embroidery so there wouldn’t be very much to wash off.

After going through the laundry this is how it turned out.  Oh happy day!

A nice addition to my kitchen towel drawer.

Thanks for listening ~

Its All Coming Together – Part 2

Putting this quilt together would be a very big job for me.  I have no idea what I’m doing so I decided to go to my sister’s house and have her help me.

I used a flat sheet for the back and a polyester batting for the inside.

My sister Tracey and I used safety pins and started at the center of the quilt to secure the pieces together.  Once the quilt was pinned I took it home and began to quilt between each embroidery square.

   I used white thread so it is a little difficult to see the quilted area in this picture (you can click on any photo to see an enlarged version).  I used a rose design for the quilting.

Once the quilting was complete I hand-stitched around the edges and sewed everything together.

I bet you were wondering who is the lucky recipient of this very pretty quilt.  Grace kept asking if I was going to make her one of these….  Maybe another time Grace.

And now its done.  Time to pack it and mail it off.  Happy Birthday Trista!

Thanks for listening ~ 

Its All Coming Together – Part 1

I finally finished embroidering all the quilt squares.  Time to start putting them together.

Now I’ve never done this before so I’m just guessing how to do it.  I sewed strips of the squares and then cut them apart. 

Once they were cut apart I sewed strips along the opposite sides of each square and then sewed the rows together.

Isn’t that pretty?

Time to put the edging on the quilt top.  Wow, I actually sewed it together, and it doesn’t look half bad.

Next, the quilting.  To be continued…. 

Thanks for listening~

Sleep Walking

Well, I know you guys have been wondering where I was. We’ve just been busy this week.

Grace is in 3rd grade and she loves reading books. Yesterday in the car she asked me, "Mom, are there books about sleep walking?"

I said, "What, sleep walking? I doubt it."

"Oh darn."
I could hear the disappointment in her voice.

Then I asked her, "What do you want a book about sleep walking for?"

She said, "Because I want to figure it out."

I started to laugh but knew I had to hold it in because she was deadly serious.

I told her, "Grace, you walk around enough during the day, you don't need to learn to walk around while you are asleep."

And so goes life in our house. Sometimes its hysterical!

I’m still working on projects with my embroidery machine. This was yesterday’s project.

I embroidered a design on a small re-usable shopping bag. I got it a little crooked. I think next time I’ll mark the bag so I get the hoop on straight.

I’m also working on a quilt. This is quite a feat for me since I don’t really like to sew. However the quilt squares are embroidered which makes it fun. They will have sashing (a frame) stitched around each square. All of that will be sewn together and then the batting and back put on. My sister has said that she will help me get it together. So watch for updates and pictures.

Here’s a sample of the quilt squares.

There are 10 different squares and I’m making 4 sets, or 40 squares.

So far so good! I can’t wait to get it all together.

Thanks for listening ~