Tuesday evening update

This should be my last hurricane Harvey update. We are among the lucky ones who weren't affected by the wind and water. Hopefully it won't be long before we can leave the neighborhood to buy food. We do have enough food on hand to feed us for about a month but it will be nice to be able to buy things like bread and milk again.

If you look at the map below, you can see something exciting that happened around 5:30 tonight. The sun came out and the sky is blue with a few fluffy clouds! It's hard to remember when we last saw the sun.

 

Tuesday morning update

All is well here this morning. It's still raining but only lightly. Although Harvey no longer looks anything like a hurricane, what's left of him is still sitting over the Houston area today and is dumping more rain.

 

Monday night update

As you can see on the map below, Harvey has shrunk quite a bit today. Although it did rain most of the day, the level of the water in the drainage ditch behind us has not risen again. There is only a foot or less of water in the ditch. The scary thing is that we keep hearing about the evacuations of subdivisions in our area which makes me wonder when our time will come. I don't think it will happen here though but people in those neighborhoods thought the same thing only to have to leave their homes today. I am a hopeful though because we are north of the creeks that have flooded and there are no creeks or rivers immediately north of us. I'm sure that's why we haven't been effected here. That and the good drainage system in our neighborhood.

I've decided to go to bed tonight and my husband will stay up this time and keep an eye on the storm. I'm weary from staying up all night for the past two nights with only catnaps throughout the day. I'm going to try to get a few hours of sleep. Well, that's what I was hoping to do but I just heard on the news that there is a tornado warning down near Galveston. That's nowhere near us but it's the first one reported today after the hundreds of warnings that came up yesterday. I thought we were done with the tornadoes. We're in the green area on the map, which is only rain, but that can change at any time and I don't know if I can sleep easy knowing that the storms are building up again for the night.

 

Monday morning update

We continue to be among the lucky people who haven't been flooded. The wind has picked up and they're predicting more rain for today. I've been hearing about there being flooding in a lot of areas around us so it's uncertain what will happen in our neighborhood when area rivers reach flood stage in the next few days. The street outside our house is no longer flooded and the drainage ditch behind our house has gone down to the point where I can no longer see the water from the house. That's a very good sign.

Here is this morning's weather map showing that we're currently going through a nice dry spell:

 

Another update

For the first time since the hurricane arrived, we're getting strong wind tonight. That's because the storm has been gradually moving to the east. The rain band next to where the former eye was is now just to the west of us. So, we are now being affected by the swirling wind and rain going around the former eye. Quite a few tornadoes have been popping up in that rain band tonight and hopefully we won't have a tornado here tonight. 

On the map below, the former eye of the hurricane is where you see an open round area that has no rain just to the west of the red and yellow storm band that we are close to.

 

Sunday night update

Not much change here except that it hasn't rained quite as much today as it did yesterday and last night. We had one scare this afternoon when there was a tornado warning for an area very near here. Nothing happened, thank goodness. We did get a closet ready in case we ever have to take cover.

Here is the current weather map showing my location:
 

 

Sunday morning update

I've been up all night keeping track of the storm by watching the news. We made it through the night with only one brief blip in the power and no water in the house. We've had a lot of rain here but no wind or lightening. Our street appears to be flooded on either side of us but not any worse than it normally floods with a heavy rain. Our house is at the highest point of our street so there is no flooding in the street in front of us. I heard on the news that we've gotten anywhere between 8-13 inches of rain in this area.

Here is the most recent weather map:

 

Saturday night update

It looks like we may get some wild weather tonight. The map below shows where we are in relation to the storm. We're currently in the green area but that red and yellow band is going to swing over us during the night.

Saturday update

Things are still fine here today. It's been raining off and on throughout the day but we haven't had much heavy rain in our area and not much in the way of wind. Below is the current weather map showing where I live. You can see that we are in the gap between the main part of the hurricane (tropical storm now) and the large outer band. That's probably why it hasn't been too bad here.

 

Hurricane update

I have my beading stuff put away for safe-keeping while we wait out hurricane Harvey. We live on the north side of Houston so the weather isn't as bad here as it is down south. The heavy rain is due to start here tomorrow and will get worse on Sunday. I will try to post an update each day as long as the power stays on and we don't get flooded. It has never flooded at our house in all the time we've lived in the Houston area so hopefully we won't this time.
 

Playing with my beads...Black & Red Fringe Earring Sample

• 8/0 seed beads "Matte Black" (no info available)
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica beads "Opaque Black" (DB10)
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica beads "Opaque Red" (DB723)

My sister-in-law saw some long fringe earrings in an Etsy shop and asked me if I could make some for her but with much shorter fringe. I couldn't just make a chart from the original photo and crop off a bunch of red beads from the bottom of the fringe. The whole fringe design had to be adjusted to suit the shorter length. I got the design right but I really goofed up when I made my first sample, which is the earring on the left in the photo above. I messed up on the number of red beads in the fringe. Rather than actually count them, I saw on the chart that each strand was three beads longer than the previous one but didn't take into account that there were also more black beads in each strand. I shouldn't have added three more red beads to each strand like I did. Oops! I made the earring on the right correctly.

 

Playing with my beads...Claire's bracelet pattern samples

My good friend Claire Lee, who owns Supply Emporium on Etsy, is working on her very first bracelet pattern. It's similar to Deborah Roberti's "MiniDuo Bands" but it calls for SuperDuos instead of MiniDuos. There are a few other differences as well. Claire asked me to give her tutorial a test-run so I made some samples in the five colorways below. Claire made the bracelet at the top of this post and also the red and black one at the bottom.

Claire's pattern does not have a name yet and it is not yet available in her shop. She is in the process of working on the diagrams to go along with her tutorial. While you're waiting to buy this pretty pattern, visit Claire's Etsy shop HERE for an amazing array of gorgeous beads as well as bead packs (patterns sold separately) to make lots of popular bracelet patterns by designers from around the world.

This bracelet comes out about 3/4-inch wide and the pattern works best with Toho seed beads. My first sample below has Miyuki beads and it doesn't lay completely flat like the other four samples. I have added links in the supply lists below to beads that are available at Supply Emporium.

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• Silky beads "Turquoise Amber Picasso"
• 3mm fire polished beads "Turquoise Amber Picasso"
• SuperDuo beads "Chalk Green Lumi"
• SuperDuo beads "Crystal Gold Luster"

I love these Silky beads. They're from Claire's Etsy shop and I haven't seen this color anywhere else. I put a little faux loop on this sample. This is not how the actual button loop will look.

• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Metallic Hematite" (81)
• Silky beads "Alabaster Lila Vega"
• 3mm fire polished beads "Stone Amethyst Luster"
• SuperDuo beads "Polychrome Orchid Aqua"

• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Antique Bronze" (223)
• Silky beads "Alabaster Red Luster"
• 3mm fire polished beads "Transparent Pink Topaz Luster"
• SuperDuo beads "Ruby Luster" (Pink Luster is similar)  
• SuperDuo beads "Crystal Gold Luster"

• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Antique Bronze" (223)
• Silky beads "Alabaster Senegal"
• 3mm fire polished beads "Opaque Gold and Smoky Topaz Luster"
• SuperDuo beads "Crystal Gold Luster"
• SuperDuo beads "Opaque Gold and Smoky Topaz Luster"

• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Antique Bronze" (223)
• Silky beads "Alabaster Vega Luster"
• 3mm fire polished beads "Bronze Illusion"
• SuperDuo beads "White Terracotta"
• SuperDuo beads "Crystal Gold Luster"

 

Good article about beading needles and thread

While you're waiting for me to blog about my beadwork, check out this great article by Deb Roberti at Around the Beading Table. Click HERE to read Deb's article.
 

August 2017 Calendar