Monday, July 24, 2006

Getting there slowly

We are making slow but fairly steady progress on our quilts for the NEC. Gems 1 is two thirds of the way to being quilted and Gems 2 is two thirds of the way to being pieced. It's not where we wanted to be but it will still be done in time.

I've done some playing with the the wiring for 'See Sound'. I am fairly happy with it. With only 4 LEDs to a transistor it seems to be reasonably bright, but now I have a new problem. I think the microphone needs to be more sensitive. Clapping, and some words will set it off but clicking your fingers at it won't. I am not great at electronics, but given that there is a variable resistor that adjusts the sensitivity of the microphone, could I just replace it with a lower resistance. I might just try removing it and see if that helps. I suspect it won't I think it is already turned down to almost zero. After that I either need a better microphone or more amplification. The latter is definitely beyond my scope.

I've been complaining about our unseasonable weather for a while now. What I hadn't realized until yesterday is how bad it is everywhere else. Which has lead to discussions of global warming, and the idea of a reversible quilt based on that concept. I've had a few thoughts along that line before but the idea of a double sided quilt really appeals. Of course to do it the way it looks in my head it would need to be a mirror image on the back and perfectly aligned, so the 2 images could be quilted together and the quilting make sense on both sides. It is very tempting but I think I will have to kick it around my head for a while. It would have lots of interesting technical challenges. Oh and thinking of climate change, by observation, the size of the world is changing noticeably when temperature fluctuates more than 5 degrees C. Well my little world anyway. So I will wait for the next drop and inflate it as much as I can. Even with my best effort it isn't that hard so should be fine if the temperature rises again.

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