Well, it’s a Cold day in January! It is freezing cold out. Literally. 32 degrees outside right now.
That means it’s in the mid 50s in the barn, where I live.
The cats where all curled up with me last night. Normally sister sleeps at the foot of the bed, but her and brother where curled up tight last night.
I am curious as to how cold it will be in the bathroom tomorrow morning.
2 weekends ago, I finally got my tent set up to air out. The tent had been packed up for a few years, so it was time to set it up. I let it get rained on, and some windy days to work the wrinkles out of the tent. When fabric sits folded too long, the creases can set, and the cloth can tear along the creases. I don’t want that to happen.
I patched up a few spots that needed it with some patch tape. I also sewed up a weak spot on the rain fly that I had hand sewn last time I used the tent. The bag had a 4 inch tear on one of the seams, so I sewed that back together.
I remember getting the tent at Walmart. It is HUGE! 18’x12′ It has 2 doors, and 2 curtains, so I can have 3 different rooms in the tent. I have a large rug in the living room I had gotten for college that fits in the tent quite well. So when I use the tent, I use that rug to keep from walking through the floor. I really like this combination.
When I went outside to rub the tent down to get it good and clean, it started to rain! Of course!
Well, move on to another project and when the tent dries out, go back out and finish packing it up.
My First Project on my new sewing machine. I decided to make a cat bed for the cats. I don’t have a pattern, so I will make it up as I go along.
Here is my new sewing machine and the fabric I picked out for making the cat bed. I set it up on a folding table I got in college.
I made up the sides as a single long piece of fabric. Here you can see the batting I am adding to the sides. I am using quilt batting as it is flat and I can roll it up and shove it in the side.
Here is the side made up.
Here I am sewing up the bottom. Round and Round I went, I think I went around this thing about 4 times playing with my new machine.
Here I am making the pattern for the bottom. I am using a sheet of butcher paper. It’s the only large paper I have in the house as I don’t read newspapers.
I folded the paper in half, and halfed that and halfed that, etc. until I had this little wedge. A single cut gave me a perfect circle shape.
Here is the pattern on my fabric. I have the fabric doubled up so I can cut the top and bottom at the same time.
SNIP SNIP SNIP. I have a nice circle cut out now.
Here is the sewn up bottom. I cut out a couple of layers of batting for the bottom smaller then the fabric.
Here is the finished cat bed. Looks pretty sharp, eh?
Here is the bottom view. I know the cats would drag this thing around until they find a place they want it at, so I tried to make the underside look decent as well as the top.
Hrmmm… Design flaw. I don’t think Sister will fit into it comfortably.
Sister doesn’t know what to make of it.
If I push hard, I can get Brother to fit. Back to the drawing board, I need to make this bed about half again as large.
Well, it’s been a while since I have had time to post much of anything.
Walmart was selling a Brother LS-30 sewing machine on black Friday for $54. The Wallmart near me still have a few on Sunday so I picked one up. It isn’t the heavy duty walking foot machine I want, but it will suffice for the time being.
I have been making and fixing a few things just to get used to the machine. It’s been a while since I used a sewing machine back in highschool.
I have made a couple of stuff sacks, and fixed my tent. I have been playing with some heavier materials, threads and needles to practice for making the skin for my Kayak!
I was hoping to have the kayak done by the end of this year, but I don’t think I am going to finish it today. I think I am going to set a date for completion for the kayak of March 20 – the next equinox.
Just an idea for storing canned goods. I see that rack like they use for the Cambells Soup Selects at my local grocery store, and I want something like that for my kitchen.
The basic idea is that the cans sit stacked up in a rack on their side, and you can put the new cans on top, and you take the oldest can out of the bottom. Just like those fridge soda can despensers.
I know I use a lot of canned corn, tomato soup, and canned fruits, but I think that can of cream of celery soup is about to expire. I would need to make a high and low volume set of can holders.
There would be ‘normal’ shelves on the bottom couple of feet for larger canned items like that massive can of baked beans, and the family sized can of cream of mushroom soup. There would be shelf or two up on top for those odd cans like that can of coconut milk – I don’t know why I have it, but it’s good until 2010 so I am keeping it.
The whole thing would be on a tall, narrow drawer that pulls out. I would probably place it next to the fridge, and have it be as deep as the fridge. The cubby that the fridge is in would need to be vented outside – it should be anyhow during the summer, and optionally have it vent into the kitchen during the winter. But that is a different topic for a different day. Heat will damage the food, while canned foods won’t spoil, they will go bad – taste funny, be less nutritious etc. This cabinet will have a couple of computer case fans to pull air in off the floor, and vent it out the top. This should keep the canned goods fairly cool – room temperature at least. Maybe put a thermostat on it so if the temp inside the cabinet is warmer then the intake temp, it will run the fans. I may be cooking and warm the kitchen up enough that it is cooler in the cabinet then in the kitchen. Hmm, I could even run the cold water pipes for the kitchen sink up and down radiator style in the back of the cabinet to keep it cooler. Interesting idea.
Ideally, I would like to cool the whole thing down to like 50 degrees. I wonder if I can canabolize a small fridge and make a cooled pantry. I could hook the thing up on a solar panel on the roof, and when I have sun, it cools, and when I don’t, it doesn’t. It’s not like the cans NEED to be cooled, they will just last a lot longer if they are cool. I read somewhere that food will store twice as long for every 10 degrees cooler it is kept at (or the converse, it will spoil twice as fast for every 10 degrees warmer it is stored at). So bringing the temp from 70 to 50 would quadruple the shelf life of my canned goods.
I am also trying to figure out how do make a can counter so I can tell how many cans of food in a particular slot I have. It would be great to have digital access to this counter so that I can have my pantry make a shopping list for me. It would be internet enabled so I could pull up a list of what i have with my phone, or SMS the pantry asking it what I need to get. A cheap sensor to count cans as I would need dozens of them. Mecanical switches would get very expensive, and be difficult to place to relaibly read any diameter can I put into each rack. Optical switches would probably work. A preasure switch on the face of each slot could measure the weight of all the cans pressing against it. Maybe make a series of metal contacts each hooked up to a resister. I could then read the resistance from one side to the other with a simple R/C timer circut. As more cans are added, the resistance will drop (parallel resistances). I could then have the computer poll each slot, read the resistance, and calculate the number of cans in each slot.
