Category Archives: Digital

Crafting, General, Quilting

I See Stars

I purchased this kit at a local discount fabric shop, many years ago.

Every once in awhile I pull it out and work on it a little.  Evey little bit counts on this project.

I have been struggling with how to fill in the outside corners. I tried making a template for the fill in spots = big fail there.

I decided to just continue the 2 1/2″ strips out.  As you can see it is not complete yet, but there is a spot of wonderment that just made me stop and take a breath.

The original pattern had the side points cut off – but I didn’t like that and since they gave enough fabric anyway, I decided to keep it whole and just kept going with it.

The whole reason I am posting this picture here is because of this:

 

 

 

 

 

That, my friend, is the center of a 5 point star quilt. I was more that flabbergasted when I turned it over and saw that it as close to perfect as anything I have ever seen on my table.

Sadly this now sets the bar for this quilt. I have the quilting design sketched out, I have a couple corners to fill in and trim this up.  The size is somewhere between 76 & 80 inches square.

General

2022 Wrapped up

I didn’t get much sewing/crafting done as I had planned to do this year.  The time just flew by.

I did get to do some different holiday decorating things and that was a lot of fun.  I did do a few more of the scrap Geese Migration blocks early in the year.

Most of the year was spent cleaning and re-organizing my room so that I could do more in there. The Reindeer window decorations would not have happened if I hadn’t cleaned/organized that room.

TableRunners-scaled
ChristmasRunner-scaled-e1668974098863
ChristmasRunnerBack-scaled-e1668974175845
HolidayColors-Runner-scaled-e1671406162831
20221128_075923-scaled-e1671406143986
20221121_114747-scaled-e1671405979513
20221201_122022-scaled-e1671406406835
20221207_112437-scaled-e1671406719891
20221201_122022-close
20221220_205042-scaled
20230102_134144-scaled
[Show as slideshow]

General

Giving of Thanks

Today is a day for giving thanks.
Thanks for what we have in our lives.
 
To those that are experiencing their first Thanksgiving after the loss of a loved one, I send you a warm, heartfelt hug.
 
Holidays are a time for coming together,
    our loved one that has passed was welcomed by their loved ones that went before them.
They are now free of the physical pain they suffered here,
    and are free to dance around the clouds.
While we sit at a table with an open chair,
    they sit around a full table.
While we watch football on TV,
    they are watching us as we sit down to dinner without them.
 
My heart is broken this Thanksgiving, but it is not empty.
It is overflowing with the memories of the things we shared while she was here.
 
 

General

Looking Back – 2015

So as I was putting together the post about the second “Red” quilt to be represented in the Geese Migration Scrap quilt, I went back to the Monochromatic Quilt Challenge that I did in 2015.  There was only 1 red quilt done for that challenge, but I just had so much red that I kept going with a couple more – I guess.

As I looked over that challenge, I also realized that I have only done 2 Geese Migration block out of the 6 in that group.  Looks like it’s gonna be a busy winter project doing all these large blocks – but oh so fun!!!

I will say it is fun looking back at some of these projects and reliving the experience of seeing all this little pieces coming together to complete these tops. I wonder what it will be like to actually get them quilted and bound as well? 

 

 

General

Oh the times we live in … they are a changing

I am allowed to have my beliefs about life, death, politics, spirituality and my feelings and passions about what I choose.
You are allowed to have your beliefs about life, death, politics, spirituality and your feelings and passions about what you choose.
 
If we agree – that’s great.
If we don’t agree – that’s great too.
I will always listen to your side as I expect you to listen to my side as well.
 
You cannot however attack me for not having the same beliefs you have – that is not right.
I am a free, educated, strong woman and I decide what is my truth, not you.
 
I rarely speak out on things, publicly. And if I see a person down, I may not agree with their choices and how they got to where they are but I will still treat them as a human being.
 
We all need to remember this phrase: “But for the grace of God go I”
You can replace “God” with whatever word suits you, but when it comes down to it, we are all one step away from whatever fate has in store for us.
 
In this world that we are living in, today more than ever before, no one is on stable ground. But when giving someone who has fallen on hard times by simply talking to them about general topics of life, a moment of acknowledgement is attacked – we need to check ourselves. I have lost people to depression and while their pain is gone, ours is only beginning for having lost them.
 
We have seen this year a virus run through this world that doesn’t care where you live, how much you make, the color of your skin, your age, your politics or religious beliefs – we are all equal in it’s eyes. Maybe that is the message we have been missing. We all say it, cheer it, post it on FB – but do we really live it back at home, behind closed doors, behind anonymous postings?
 
You don’t have to like my beliefs or my posting – that is your choice. Unfriend me, block me, it’s your choice.
But attack me, my friends or my family and I’ll step up to protect them and honey, I’ll bring the heat like you’ve never seen before.
 
We are coming up to some turbulent times in the next week. There will be a winner, there will be a loser. No matter the outcome let’s support each others rights to live in this world by our choices. There is no right candidate – there is no wrong candidate. There is the person that was elected and let’s all stand behind that person and come together as a country and support them to the best of our abilities.
 
Now there are people that are going say this is an attack on them – well, this is my stuff. If you take offense to this then maybe there is some truth here that you don’t want to admit.
 
Sorry for the long post, I can only hold this stuff in for so long and it ALL comes spilling out at once. Like this, don’t like this, block me, unfriend me – I don’t care. But if I can give a glimmer of hope to one person out there with this long post it was well worth it.
 

Peace, Love and Bobby Sherman ( I am a child of the 70’s )

Just to lighten the mood a bit after this rant.
https://vitalsignsblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/modern-hollywood-values-vs-peace-love.html

General

So long August, Hello September

Well August came and went so quickly – I barley noticed the heat!!! We had lots of really hot hot days here this last month.
I did start a new project – although from everything I’ve read, it’s like watching paint dry – well wood that is.

General

April flew by

Wow – turned around and there goes April.

This month was filled with lots of uncertainty and disbelief.

We all seem to be paralyzed with what is happening, not only in our space but around the world we all live in. There couldn’t be a more accurate phrase/image that this for us right now.

Access Database Programming, Computer Programming, Digital, Internet

Access VB – create ODBC connection to download data – part 1

I am transitioning a program from manual data entry at a registration table to online registration and item entry done by the sellers.

This is from an application that I wrote for a non-profit/hobby group that holds a monthly auction – similar to a swap meet. People come and bring their stuff to sell and the buy other peoples stuff.

Currently we have an online form that sellers enter their items and prior to the auction start we do a mass download that fills the onsite program with all items. Then item labels and lists are printed along with bidder cards so that the sellers can stop at the check in desk and pick up their packet when they get to the auction.

The challenge is that we close item entry at 7am and the auction does not start until 11am – we have to drive 2 hours to get to the auction site and up until now, there has not been an internet access at the location. So the download had to happen before we left the house.  An internet access has been made available and so I wrote this code so that we can download at the time of check in – allowing people much more time to enter the items they were bringing into the online form.

The programming problem is that when an access database with a linked table (non local) is opened the ODBC connection needs to be “refreshed” at that time, however it will close when there is no activity (?). AND the kicker is that the database/program will need to be closed to reactivate it. This is a well-known annoyance and according to all the forums I have read lately they are supposed to be working on it but nothing has really been seen to have changed as of yet. So you have to do a couple of work arounds.

Here is my take on the subject:

*** This will not run if you are running this application using Access Runtime – you must have a full version of MS Access to get this to run – at least that is what 20+ hours of recoding, testing and research has proven to me so far.

***the ODBC connection will time out – not necessarily when you plan it to – Connection Timeout=6000 – doesn’t necessarily mean what it should. According to all the documents I have found you SHOULD have to close the program and load it again for this to work. What I did find out is by having the timeout=6000, yes the connection will close. And if you try it again once it closes or feels that it has been quiet for that period of time, you will be a error/message that the ODBC connection is closed. However, if you continue working with the database program still open, after a period of time – more than the amount you have set in the timeout option – and you click the button it will refresh/reset the connection and start working again.  I am testing this but it is difficult to get exact measurements because each time you ‘test’ it, the timer seems to get reset so you start counting all over again. But I have gotten it to work pretty regularly/irregularly.

From:

Form is a seller information form.
Find the seller database and there is a button to “Download Items”

Code:

Dim myDB As Database
Dim tdf As TableDef
Dim strCN As String
Dim imsg As String
Dim pRecCount, aRecCount As Integer

‘get count of items for this seller before download
pRecCount = DLookup(“CountofIID”, “qrySellerStats”, “sid = ” & Me.SID)

Set myDB = CurrentDb()
Set tdf = myDB.TableDefs(“tblItems-web”)
‘Debug.Print tdf.Connect

strCN = “Driver={MySQL ODBC 5.1 Driver};” & _
“Server=1.2.3.4;” & _
“Port=1111;” & _
“Database=database on server;” & _
“Uid=username;” & _
“Pwd=password;” & _
“Connection Timeout=6000;”

tdf.Connect = strCN
tdf.RefreshLink

DoCmd.SetWarnings False

‘access query to download the data and append to the database for selected user

DoCmd.OpenQuery “qryAppendFromWeb_sid”, acViewNormal

Set tdf = Nothing

‘refresh form to show new items downloaded
Me.subfrmInputItems.Requery

‘find how many records are in the database for this seller
aRecCount = DLookup(“countofiid”, “qrySellerStats”, “sid = ” & Me.SID)

If aRecCount > pRecCount Then
      Me.type.Value = “M”   ‘sets a field on the form that items were entered online
End If

imsg = aRecCount – pRecCount & ” records imported”

Me.Refresh

DoCmd.SetWarnings True

MsgBox (“Import Process complete – ” & imsg)

~~~~~~~~~~~

So to get around the problem of the connection time out issue I rewrote this to use a secondary database just for downloading the data.