The Other Ottoman

Furniture should be like jeans.  I should be able to purchase it as short, regular, or long.  I'd buy the short version.  Sorry to all the tall people.  You get to be tall and buy clothes without having to shorten everything.  Totally unfair.  So in my fairytale world of furniture...all the tall people just need to suck it up should your knees happen to hit your chin while sitting on my petite couch.  Imagine how much it sucks to have dangling feet.  Yep...totally sucks a lot.

And since it's mucho importante to perfect the art of being a lazy couch potato...I have to fix all dangling feet issues. I'd probably watch less tv if I weren't so dang comfy watching the thing.  But that would be a problem with a whole bunch of new Jersey Shore episodes to catch up on.  And sometimes...I allow the hubby to have the couch.  Yep...I'm nice like that.  Meaning = if he should take up residence on the couch before I do...I don't kick him off...well not most of the time.  So this leaves me with sitting in the leather chair.  With dangling feet.  Which is totally distracting while I'm trying to watch my very educational, stimulating, thought provoking shows.  Seriously...how can I follow the baby-daddy drama of the housewives if I'm distracted by my dangling feet.

So my chair needed an ottoman/footstool.  And it had to be round.  So I shopped.  And shopped.  And shopped.  And realized that was a huge waste of time.  Plan B = make my own.  So I bought a foam round ottoman from Hancock Fabric (on sale plus coupon = cost only $15).  Seems like it would be flimsy but I can sit on the thing with my full weight and it doesn't sink down.  Not one bit.  Then I used a really fluffy sherpa throw blanket we already owned as the fabric.  Fluffy was key to this project.  Why?  Well...I can only sew in straight lines.  And this thing is round.  Yes...round.  So somehow I was going to have to accomplish the impossible.  Sew the fabric into a slipcover with a round top.  Yes...round.   So fluffy fabric = hide the flaws.  Because there will be flaws.  And I have no patience to practice my technique with a test run.  Nope...just jump right in and hope it works.

Overall...I survived with only few casualties...a few thread jams, wonky seams, a broken needle.  And I didn't sew the needle through my fingers so I consider this project a complete success!

DIY Touch Screen Gloves

15 = Number of gloves that I own

  0 = Number of gloves that work with my iPhone

I live in the north pole and wear gloves for 6 months of the year.  Which I think should sufficiently explain why I own so many gloves.  Except that I have more winter accessories than most people who have lived here all their lives.  Hummmmmm.....

So I thought I would try to DIY my own smart touch gloves.  A quick Google search informed me that I would need some kind of conductive thread/fabric.  Which only seemed to be available online.  Really????  Only online????  C’mon really!!!! Why must every simple plan become sooooo complicated?!?!  Searching a bit more revealed that plain metallic thread may work.  Okay…that’s more my style.  So I found some metallic embroidery floss/thread stuff at Michaels that worked perfectly on my phone’s touch screen for only $2 bucks.  I was feeling pretty good about my plan and had visions of successfully converting all my gloves over to “smart” ones for only $2 bucks!  Genius, right?!?!

Until I started working on my first pair of gloves.  Let’s just say things started to head south pretty quickly.  And not the “I’m going to a tropical climate in the middle of winter” kinda south.  More like the dreaded “I’m getting older and my body parts are sagging” kinda south! 

First off...threading the needle was a b*%@#!!!!  During which time I unfortunately caught the attention of the little bads.  And they still love their strangs!  Needle + thread + kitties = Chaos!

Next, I tried to sew little metallic “pads” on a couple of different gloves, testing out different techniques and seeing what would work best.  Long story short…it took way too much time and was not very successful.  The conductive material still requires my fingers to be the conductor.  So the thread and/or fabric has to be sewn in such a way as to transmit current from the inside of the glove to the outside.  This was challenging to accomplish and resulted in many stab wounds from that bleeping needle.  Ya know...owning a thimble would have really come in handy.

Holy cow!  Did I really just say that..."owning a thimble"?!?  I was never a home ec kinda girl...yet here I am sewing my gloves wishing I owned a thimble!  That's crazytown!

So what's my progress to date on this glove conversion????  Well...I have successfully completed 1 "touch pad" on exactly 1 glove.  And it's not very attractive looking.  So with my most awesome success rate....I quit!  I'm throwing in the towel, or should say gloves, on this brilliant idea.  It's back to the drawing board.  Well...actually...to the mall.

Let me introduce the newest member in my glove family...

Update:

16 = Number of gloves that I own

  1 = Number of gloves that work with my iPhone

I'm sure no one saw that coming.  Ha! Ha!

Kitties Talkin' Smack!

Hey lady!  Don’t just stand there…c’mon over and give us a hand.  Can’t you see we need help retrieving our new toy from under this glass thing!  Yes…our new toy might just be a shell that we knocked out of your dish and probably shouldn’t be playing with…but that’s beside the point.  So you gonna help us out or what?!?!