Guest Writer Today

We have a guest blogger today. My wife Carol, aka TrailBoss, has agreed to write a post for today.

Hello Blog Friends.

Well, Jerry has been trying to get me involved in the blogging since he started it. He has completed the Blogging 101 course now and during that course he created a page for me—Carol’s Corner. So I guess it is time to start my blogging life. 🙂

I have been thinking about what to start with and have come up with a topic that I am sure many of you full-time quilters and sewers can relate to–how do you store ALL of that Thread???

My Li’l Sis, Donna, is coming to visit the end of February and I have asked her to take a storage box of my stuff to her house to keep for awhile. Therefore, I need to do some major rearranging in my Corner before she gets here. If you read J’s blog about Carol’s Corner you have an idea what my mess looks like at this time.

I have decided to start small. 😉 Below I have a picture of the amount of thread I have now. I have it all stored in a bottom drawer that I really need to use for something else.

I currently keep it all in zip lock bags sort of by categories: embroidery threads (blues/greens/purples; reds/yellows/oranges; browns/beiges/tans; black & whites), hand threads, regular sewing threads, hand embroidery floss, pearl cottons. Well, you get the idea.

My question for y’all is:

What have you found to be the best way to store your threads, taking as little room as possible?

And yes, I know that I really need to thin the number I have and I plan to do that also. That’s really tough because I just might need one of them sometime. (sigh)

I would greatly appreciate some feedback from all of y’all, especially those of you who are RVers or live in small spaces. I have declared to myself that the next days we have off I will begin the major rearranging. However, as I said above I am now starting small.

I’m looking forward to hearing from y’all, thanks for stopping by.

Carol

Special thanks goes out to the TrailBoss. She gave my fingers a break. If you are not a quilter or sewer, please feel free to share this post with your friends who are. You can copy/paste this link http://waggintailsrv.com/2015/01/30/guest-writer-today/ for sharing.

Thanks for stopping by, y’all come back now.

Carol’s Corner

Today’s post is about my better side, the one who keeps me straight and is available to call 911 when I am climbing around on roofs. My wife Carol has been my better side for 47 years now. As I stated in my Who We Are page, I think I’ll keep her. Carol loves craft projects as long as they require the use of needle and thread. When we bought our first RV, we had one strict requirement.  we had to have space for Carol’s Corner.

Here we sit in our first home on wheels. May 4, 2011 we drove to Elk City, OK to complete the purchase of our 2008 Cedar Creek 38 foot fifth wheel. By the time we got it back to our house in Corpus Christi, TX we determined that this very uncomfortable couch would have to find a new home because that is where Carol’s Corner would go.

By October 2011, this is what the space looked like with the couch removed.

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Then the pieces came in. I am sure glad I practiced the principle of measure twice and cut once as I squeezed the carcass through that narrow RV door. Carol was on the inside steering the carcass. We only had a couple of inches to spare. Once it was in and turned, it was easy to lay it down to position it in the space where the ugly and awful couch once resided.

With the top in place, it is beginning to look like a decent work area. The top is from a standard 6 foot long folding table similar to what is available at Home Depot, Lowes, CostCo, Sam’s or where ever you prefer to shop. For a closer look, click here to see the table Home Depot sells. I removed all metal legs and frame from the table. So all that is left is the light weight top.

Now Carol can begin to load up Carol’s Corner. Carol’s embroidery machine fits into the slot on the left when we travel and the roll out bins are turned around for travel so the drawers do not open.

We were in Blue Ridge, GA workamping at Windy Valley Llamas during the summer of 2012. Carol is deep in thought about the project she is working on. You can tell from this photo that we moved Carol’s Corner to the rear of the fifth wheel. It only made sense because it gave her a bit more floor space and much better natural lighting.

Carol’s Corner was doing just fine until on a whim, we decided to trade the Cedar Creek fifth wheel in on a 38 foot 2004 Winnebago motor home. The only way the deal could work is if we had space for Carol’s Corner. As you can see, the bedroom had this nice little sitting area. As with most RV furniture, we decided the uncomfortable chairs had to go. This is where Carol’s Corner would find a home.

We had fun squeezing the carcass into the motor home door. We did determine the magic number for RV doors is 28″. The 8 foot width of the motor home is the same as the 8 foot width of the fifth wheel. That made it easy for everything to fit just fine.

Carol is happy as a queen working away in Carol’s Corner. Her small ironing board is on the left, The red case on the left is her embroidery machine’s embroidery arm. She even has a scrap bag just to her right. Under the TV is her DVD player so she can catch her favorite movies while stitching away. On the right you can see her Ott light. It has seen better days. It got caught in the bedroom slide one day as we were setting up the motor home. Now we pay attention to where it is when we close everything up for travel. The crutches — we won’t go there.

When you have a sophisticated high-tech embroidery machine you always need a back up. She recently discovered that the feed dog on the embroidery machine will not come up to operate as it should. While in embroidery mode, the feed dog drops since the embroidery arm moves the fabric every which way. Carol’s backup machine also works well when she is going to a sewing class.

I know the one question you are thinking – “Where does Carol keep her fabric stash?” Well, the fabric stash is under the bed. To be a happy RVer, you must be use all available space where ever it is found. I have my tools outside in compartment under the motor home, Carol has her stash under the bed.

The only problem with Carol’s Corner is she cannot be working on projects while I am kicked back in my recliner writing blogs. We were together in the fifth wheel but in the motor home, we are in separate rooms. The other problem is if Carol wants to work on a project and I want to go to bed, I get the recliner while she sews away. It works for us

I am sure you can figure out what this is. We call it the birth of a new project. Carol’s Corner will be busy for a while.

Hope you enjoyed the tour. Thanks for stopping by, y’all come back now.

 

Waiting On The Rain

The weather forecaster from WSB-TV in Atlanta said it would rain today in North Georgia. We are still waiting. As I write this blog, the temperature is 95F with 46% humidity. Yep, you guessed correctly. We are waiting with the A/C on. The closest rain clouds I can see on Weather Bug are in Huntsville, AL (180+ miles to our west). I would say we are not going to get wet today.

Now that is not a bad thing. Think about it. Let’s take a vote!

This morning, after chores and a hearty farmer’s breakfast, I hit the yard for “raking duty”.  The other day I mowed the grass around the farm-house and along the street front. If you recall from a previous blog, my choice of mower is this Kuboto 7510. It comes with a 61 c.i.d., 21 HP Diesel engine, 4-wheel drive, 60″ twin blade mower deck, and liquid filled tires (for stability and lower center of gravity).

It took about 4 hours to mow all the grass. The grass was pretty tall so we had a few spots that required raking. For that task, I used a 30″ wide Home Depot rake and the ChuckWagon. While most folks may rake into a wheel borrow, it would not be very practical to use a wheel borrow on this property considering the size of it.

On the left is an example of the load in the back of ChuckWagon. Actually this load is smaller than the other 3 loads. Once the grace is raked and loaded into the back of the ChuckWagon, it has to be dumped somewhere. We are fortunate to have a farmer very close by who loves llama poo and yard clippings.  So off I go to the farmer down at the end of Windy Valley Lane. Back behind his house is the poo field. Since it is on a hill-side, they can’t see the poo from their back deck. Also, llama poo does not smell like other poo so it is not odoriferous or unpleasant.

So what does 4 loads of grass clippings on top of llama poo look like? Well there it is on the right spread out to a depth of about 12″ and covering about 600 sq. ft. (15’x40′) The dung beetles are going to love that. Their dining hall now has a thatch roof. I am sure they appreciate all the work I do for them. (PS – you really have to click that link on dung beetles. It is a very interesting article based on a university study.)

While all that has been going on, Carol was busy doing what she likes best – quilting. I cannot show you any photos of her projects because the recipient(s) are not supposed to see the projects just yet.  Remember, yesterday we took her prized sewing machine to Chattanooga for repair under factory warranty. The dealer gave Carol a sewing machine to use while her’s was inoperable. It be cool if you could do that with a car being repaired under warranty. Fat chance!

Around 1:30ish, we decided to fix an early supper. I grilled a couple of burgers while Carol fixed Fat-Free Fried Okra. Now you want to know how to get the fat out of frying.  The trick is to use Pam (or equivalent) in a skillet. Prepare the Okra by slicing into 1/2″ chunks. After a quick water rinse toss the okra in a flour/corn meal/salt/pepper mix. (I would add a pinch of cayenne pepper if I were cooking.) Then spray up a skillet with Pam and fry them until done. So there you have it – Fat-Free Fried Okra. Or at least as close to fat-free as possible.

Other than that, I’ve been tinkering with the blog a bit. Trying to figure how to had a widget to this theme that will allow you, the reader, to select the font size.  Until I solve that, I have increased the font size one step and removed one of the two side bars on the right side of the page.  I also migrated the posts and comments from Blogger to WordPress so you can easily go back and read some of the earlier posts. Feel free to send me feedback about the look and feel of the blog. I am open to any suggestions. Whether I incorporate any of them is another matter. Seriously, I would love to hear back from you. One easy way to do that is by using the LIKE button below. This works just like the LIKE button on FB.

Well, it has gotten 3 degrees cooler outside since I started this entry, still no sight of rain, and it is now beer:30. Time to open a cold Blue Moon. Life is good. Y’all come back now.