It arrived! The Bias Cut Blueprints book!

Today, Saturday.  Thank you so much to Rhonda Buss who blogs HERE , and had a contest for this wonderful book!  Bias cuts, the amazing things are back and really stylin' with the talents of Julianne Bramson and Susan Lenahan.  This was love at first sight.

You really should have a look in of Rhonda's blog.  She has a terrific sewing blog.  You'll love the new coats she has made and displayed this Friday.

Happy Sewing!

Friday Stuff...

Well, I don't know about you, but I reaaaaally miss Friday fill-ins, what can I say? That is one of the better ones, less obviously Xrated, at WeKnowMemes.  I'm not linking because I don't really dig the place that much.

As promised, here's a picture of part of the upholstery fabric sewing stash with which I have been gifted.  There is another almost full laundry basket in the closet.

This wonderful trove is doing it's best to cheer me up.   Big important birthdays are this weekend, and because of distance, we just can't be there.  Such is life.  Sometimes I think it would be nice to just be done with it all.  But then I get over it, and soldier on..... There is Beauty to be seen and photographed.

If you don't have anything else to live for, there is always beauty.  That's what the Great Spirit gave you binocular, color vision for, Me Beauties!   I just heard that humans are happiest when they can see sunrises.

HERE you go; you can float down through the Flickr River Sunrises

Thankful Thursday just under the wire....pant pant....

Today I went out to meet a couple with whom I'd chatted 6 months ago, for at least a half hour, over the patterns at JoAnn's, about the wonderful things that the wife was making with sample scraps.  She was wearing a beautiful little vest and carrying a lovely handbag, both made from the samples.

Well, last night the wife called and asked me if I was still interested in having some of these samples.  They still collect the materials  because otherwise all of it would end up in the trash. 

What I'm thankful about, today, is that the wonderful thing happened, they brought by bags and bags of sample upholstery fabrics still on their little hooks, for me to churn out articles of delight - meaning purses, toys, and tote bags, and perhaps even a vest or two.  These nice people do this for a long list of groups and individuals.  I feel so honored to be getting some of it!

He was a teacher of shop classes for years and years, and while doing this he came across a whole roomful of sewing machines that had been discarded because Home EC was cancelled at the High School he taught at, if I'm remembering this right.

So, mechanic and amazing person that he was, he started fixing the machines.  The next step was logical and simple.  He decided that making presentation bags for the gifts that his students were creating, in wood or metal shop, for their Moms was the best use of this bounty IF only he could find fabric.  In addition, he reckoned, his students could learn to sew.

Well, together, this amazing couple found the needed fabric in cast offs at the backs of stores and the rest is history.  Several thousands of little bags later, our paths crossed over the purse patterns sale at JoAnn's and as I said, I am now in possession of a treasure trove of sample fabric thingas.  And, I am so so thankful for this thing called Kismet!

It's gives me such a good feeling to know that such people are out there and working hard to make other people's lives happier while saving wonderful bits of fabric from the land fills.  Tomorrow afternoon I'll put up some snaps of my treasure.  I couldn't be happier if I were twins. 

Thankful Thursday, Chess Titans, and Generic Blah blah

I'm learning to play chess, on line.  It's awfully hard because once the black bishops move, I can't tell them from the pawns.  (You aging knitter's out there would understand this.)  The queen doesn't scare me too much because I already know she is deadly. (Off with your head!)   But that tricky king, seemingly so weak, can move in any direction one space.  So, just when you think you've got him nailed, he slaps you down.  And, to my surprise, the pawns can capture diagonally.  Of course, the game is more savvy than any beginner, but we beginners do have the advantage of a "back button"; the Chess Titans are helpless against a "back button".

I'm thankful I can see at all!  There, that's what I'm thankful for today, plus the ability to "back button" a Chess Titan when I need to (on line that is).  You can play real people on line but I declined.  There's a lot less humiliation that way. 

I'm also thankful that it's raining a bit, and it's warm rain.  Warm rain in January must be some kind of first for San Diego!

I'm thankful for the Pacific  Ocean, and the Santa Cruz Big Waves



I didn't knit at my sisters because DH went, and when he goes, it's a lot of fun and a lot more chatting.  I didn't even take the knitting because I can't knit and talk unless it's something really simple.  Plus, I have to decide if I really do need another set of needles in 20" length.  I can't just keep buying stuff!  16 inch long circs should be long enough but I need all my attention on angora to decide because no one in their right mind wants to rip back angora yarn if something doesn't work out.  I gave Sis another beeswax heart so she could keep the first one on the wall in her kitchen.  She has tiny hearts here and there everywhere.

We picked up old lady Pfaff from her "spa" yesterday, and was told by the mechanic that she couldn't make button holes anymore - the Poor old Dear. So then there was a lot of grinding of teeth, DH's, as I was introduced to a Janome Magnolia, (It has a flower on it and I would be right back there in the 70's!) in an attempt to drag me into the 21st Century.  But when we got home, I pondered all the feet I've got for those two old ladies.  Mon Dieu!  I decided to just sew with wild abandon and let the chips fall where they may.  Next to the Spa is a real Dino, the serger, for a lube and oil change. Muscle bound Sergers are definitely not females, Even with prissy little names like "Bernette".

Wordless Wednesday shouldn't have all these words.

But, I won't get another chance to write if I don't do it now.

Long ago, weeks apart, in the park grass pictured here, I found a metal ring element from a pair of earrings that exactly matched a metal element found in the grass at Balboa Park.  They were part, the same part, of the same set of earrings.

Now, You tell me. What are the odds of that happening? 50 million to one?

This was in the time of Leonard Peltier and Pine Ridge.

I tell you, life is magic.  It's magical.  Let it be for you, too.

I think my Native American ancestors are trying to tell me something.  They are teaching me things about the real Life of Humans, and the living of it.  They are showing the help and guidance the Spirit World gives to lead us onto the right paths.


This Knowledge of the Elders is "Something Older Than America".

I listen to the wind, and to my heart, because they connect me to the Creator and to the Love he sang into being so many eons ago.  Listening carefully is the only way to hear it.  Listen to your breath, and your heart beating.  It has answers for you.  If Jesus says that the very Rocks will cry out, he is a Brother.  He knew.  We stopped listening.

Sewing News:
The Bernina came home two days ago.  Pfaffie comes home tomorrow.  I won't let them freeze up with dis-use again.  I want to make draperies, and dresses.  Quilts even.

 Knitting Report :I will take my small projects with me today to my sister's house, and cast on a hat and finish rows on Jane's Hedgerows and the green and yellow fingerless mitts. It's time to knit again.  Maybe my sister will like a nice warm little angora hat?


Travel Well, my Friends.  May you walk with Beauty all around you.

Second Sunday Post

It's late, I'm tired but can't sleep.  So you are my victims audience!

Making  beeswax hearts for the C team members requires a heat source.  So, DH set up his old iron ( that he used for waxing his skis, and his surf board) and put it upside down (and inside) a re-purposed metal frame for a wire colander, which is now deployed to the re-cycled metals bin. I've braced the frame up with house rocks, set the temp for warm, and will plug it in tomorrow.

Setting things up ahead of time seems to motivate me to get out of bed and get at it!  For instance, if I don't set up a sewing project at night, I'll never get to it.  This could be latent depression, or just that it's more comfortable in bed playing free cell on the netbook than it is to be up, gathering junk together for a project

I got a list of average -or maybe industry standard temperatures for home irons vs various fabrics from  HERE

Linen: 230 °C (445 °F)

Triacetate: 200 °C (390 °F) (do they even make this stuff anymore?)

Cotton: 204 °C (400 °F)

Viscose: 190 °C (375 °F) ( best known in it's Challis incarnation)

Wool: 148 °C (300 °F) ( we all know and love this fiber- not that most of us would be into ironing it.)

Polyester: 148 °C (300 °F) (Those Gawd Awful Double knits! Gah!)

Silk: 148 °C (300 °F)

Acetate: 143 °C (290 °F)

Acrylic: 135 °C (275 °F)

Lycra/Spandex: 135 °C (275 °F)

Nylon: 135 °C (275 °F) 

Since beeswax melts at 145°F and discolors above 186°F , I have to try, usually, a rheostat for safety.  Happily, the iron has a "warm" setting.  This is much lower than the silk , Acrylic or the Nylon fabric settings.

I'll add pictures, of the whole project, in a separate post on Monday.

Excavation Report:  I still have not found the tools, but I have found this tiny quilt project kit, which I will now put on the "to make list".  I was going to make it for the SR.  It's small, adorable and in keeping with my wish to work on small projects this year, as well as utilize or get rid of things.  I've had it since the early 1990s.  It's well aged, wouldn't you say?

By the way, Does anyone have a good recipe for white fudge other than Divinity, and not having peanuts in it?  I want to make some and all I could find is Divinity.  Is it really that good?

A day in the life of ....

Last night, after knitting in the thumb hole on the mitt, I put it away.  This morning I took it out again.  I cannot knit late at night anymore. 

This morning I dashed around after waking up late (because of being up half the night) so that the excursion force (Hubby) could be assembled.

First we went to JoAnn's to see whether all the patterns that I'd planned to nab were gone, and I was lucky enough to get them all, all three, and it was late!  I was surprised any Vogue was still there as they disappear fast!

The Sandra Betzina pants pattern had only ONE left in the drawer but I had no competition for it.  YayMe!    I also got a fabulous looking dress design by Sandra B. as well.  The hunt will be on through the stash for material suitable as soon as can be.   I know that I have a pretty big piece of browns and tans in a floral Challis.   But that is a lot of fabric in that dress.  It would be a shame if I had to BUY more fabric, y'know?  The many gored skirt is going to be made in the 3/4 length style.  I'm SO not into showing off my knee scar.

The pink polkadot box just grabbed me on the way to and from the pattern drawers.  I had to have it.  It spoke my language and had a bow on the front, what can I say.  My knees just went all rubbery, and I couldn't walk back past it with out snatching it up.

I  plan to spend the rest of my sewing days, after constructing a very special little girl's baby quilt, making carry-alls and bags for my  DDs, sister, nieces and Sista-friends.  I don't think brothers or nephews (or other guys) are into those things but I know that grrrls are!

The next stop was at THIS wonderful place.  Get Centered Clay Studio.  I got some Crawl Glaze, which will do amazing things, not quite the same as Slip Glaze, but I think I might be able to find that stuff somewhere.  The heart always hopes.   I think I'm going to love this place because I can get slab clay and other clay bodies there.  These were some of the pieces there.  

I got another wide angle shot of the whole wall in the entry part of the studio but with the camera that does clouds or flowers excellently but balks at indoor shots.  I'll put it up so that you can see how thrilling it was to step into this room.  But it's a crappy shot of gorgeous stuff.

Yesterday, while going through a box of stuff given me by my SIL, I found these:

OMG, Ponies!

Those, my friends, are a treasure:  48 Weber-Costello soft pastels.  I had thrown away layer upon layer of spent, too-old acrylics, and then saw that dusty box on the bottom.  I knew there was a Pony in that box! 

I will now curl up and go to sleep until any black (or mushroom) cloud goes away.   God help us, please, no mushroom clouds unless they are like the pretty ones in New Mexico just before a male rain.

I love sewing pattern sales

Today it is rainy. It also rained last night but I'll still have to water the plants. It's lovely we are getting any rain this late in Spring.

I've started into the pattern on the two Tosh socks, and will concentrate on getting them finished in June. I plan to do a lot of knitting in June as it's the very last fairly cool month we will have!


The picture of the new patterns has a little story. I waited and waited for Simplicity 3571 to go on sale. I had a Butterick - the pattern with the heads cut off up there in the near darkness- but it didn't have the detail of commercial PJs, and that's what I wanted.

I used to do things without patterns and swapped pattern pieces etc, but that was when I was young and frisky. Now I'm just into comforting and babying my brain and saving all that mental energy for the really important stuff, like World Peace and other incredibly illusive enterprises.

All that aside, I bought 3571 after months of waiting for it to go on super-sale. I was afraid it would disappear before I slapped down $9.00 for it, at 40% off two weeks ago! Well, one week later.... In came the JoAnn's ad that had Simplicity patterns on sale for $1.00 a piece. I got even. I spun through the on-line site and marked every one I'll ever want out of the current offering. I believe the sale is on until Monday. I might get a few more. hehe

You have to take your revenge when you can! It's a harmless form of aggressive (Combat?) shopping. Generalissimo Zippi has taken her shopping to a new level.

Short rowing on a DROPs pattern...

I am knitting a triangle scarf from DROPS with their yarn and got to the short rows. I think something's missing in this, like perhaps "wrapping" a stitch for short rowing within a garment. I'm sure what they are trying to do is to shape a sort of "cuppy" shape over the shoulders but this pattern really is short on information on these short rows, and I'm wondering if you just go back and forth, leaving gaps in the knitting? Is it just me?

I'm sending out an SOS, for help because the only thing on the web that I could find involved wrapping stitches when doing shaping at shoulders on a flat knit sweater. It didn't seem to apply.

Otherwise life seems to be chugging along. We sold some exercise equipment, and I can actually TOUCH the book case behind the table in the small part of the SR. Progress is small but progress is ongoing. Yay!

We ordered the bull dog clips for making lamp shades. I have used clothes pins for other ones, lately the hanging one in the laundry, but that one is made of cloth. These will be made of a plastic and covered with fancy something or other, if the plastic can be found. I must remember to keep repeating, like a mantra, that this is where the fun in life is - making things that someone is willing to charge you an arm and a leg to do for you, and from China most likely.

Knitting things

The Blanket strip is done, and I'll send it off on Monday. This really is a project that has an "I love you" knit into every stitch. I'll tell more about it after the end of February when the whole project will be presented.  To jazz it up a bit, I knit one heart at the beginning.

I've grafted the toes into the Paton socks, and the next pair of socks is being thought about rather deeply. I'd like to do Jane's Hedgerows again with the pattern just in the leg. My feet are at that tender age when they object to socks with a pattern on the instep. Alas...

Back in the days of summer when it was too hot to knit, I picked the elastic out of some nice knit pants.  It had shrunk in the dryer the first time the pants had been washed! Elastic isn't supposed to do that, but that's what happens when elastic is not pre-shrunk. As the knit pants were all commercially sewn, of course, that elastic was stitched in to within an inch of it's life with what looks like a draper's machine. I'm sure it was a normal eight thread over-locker but GAD was it a pain to pick out that stuff!

So, this has spawned an organizing frenzy, as I'm getting the sewing room back to normal ASAP because there are sewing projects waiting to be done for summer - pull on seersucker pants and a few tops to justify the existence of the fabric in there - as well as the pattern stash - and probably a few hats, too.

Next to come will be draperies for the house, Yay! So far, the only semi-new ones made were for the back door that takes magnetic rods. Those curtains were left over from an old project in a bedroom, which I then shortened, put on the door, and decorated with two matching bows from Jazzie's groomer. It's sweet and pretty but the wrong color. I like it though because it's sky blue and reminds me of the bay on a calm day.

Here's some flowers!  Dalias from the West Side Farmer's Market in Santa Cruz.  Enjoy!

Add the Denim and some Zips..

Blue Denim

Some stick note pad love, and some Zips....

All bundled up.

Sorry this is partway bass akwards but I'm ending a rather long day here and not thinking so well. I need to get into the comfy chair with my book. Amelia Peabody and her hubby are excavating a new tomb. Woo hoo.. and just in time for Halloween- well, almost!

So, I hope you enjoyed the photos of making a Packet and were maybe inspired. This is the best I've felt, mentally, for a long, long time.

Oooops! Oh My....

Christmas is coming down, literally. I'm taking the trees down today and tomorrow. But the Angel got impatient. She wanted to go back in her box, so she tried to leap into my sister's arms on Friday. We observed a day of mourning, Saturday, and now I will put her away with a tiny glue mark and a new lace neck scarf. She actually had tried to die before, but somehow survived it. You just never know what an angel is thinking, do you?

There has been no knitting but a lot of mindless picking out of stitches at the top of some RTW pants that were ready to wear until they were washed and the elastic shrunk in the drier. I should know by now that you CANNOT wash elastic waisted pants and then DRY then in a dryer unless you made them yourself.

My brain is trying to digest other new and scarier things these last few weeks, so it's burping out a lot of tried and truisms collected and based in the antiquated crafts part of ( I hope) the cerebellum. Or maybe sewing is only a hibernating craft? Anway, the brain is marvelously able to get through the dust bins, usually, to make room for new thoughts and more relevant fears. This is normally considered a good thing but, generally speaking, there's nothing normal about my brain.

A shopping trip reveals buttons from trash bits!

The Manly Buttons... What could be more manly than re-cycled buttons, I ask you?

I thought it was very cool that La Mode started making re-cycled buttons, and some of them are made to look like wood burl. Very pretty buttons. These are a little greener than they appear. And they are a little closer to the flash than they should have been. :o)

St Anthony

I have to say a big thank you to that WONDERFUL Saint Anthony, to whom I appealed, which came about on advice from a friend out in the deserts of the Great Basin.

St Anthony helped me find not only the power cord but a wrist watch that had been missing for two years. Now, if the glass vase would show up, that would just about cover everything that's gone missing and caused heart scald.

Try this if you lose something, nothing ventured nothing gained.

This is the incantation:

"Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, please come around. Something is lost and cannot be found."

I found a pretty picture of him, too:

St Anthony from Google Pictures

And HERE is where I found it.

So lovely.

Now, back to this sewing machine sprucing up project.

The Heavy Lifting

 

This doesn't look heavy, but to me, inside the machine, it looked normal.

Well, needless to say, it wasn't normal. What I thought was going to take hours and hours, DH spotted immediately and called it a "shunt". Isn't it cute? It's what the bench mechanic left in when he checked out the hapless machine some years ago. Since I didn't need to use this nice little Singer, I never ran it at home to see what was what.

This machine is going to my other dd who also likes to sew, and it's one of those heavy duty workhorses that Singer used to make that will sew just about anything, maybe even metal! Yesterday there was an "easter egg hunt" to find the other accessories, some of which I am POSITIVE the dust bunnies ATE! But DH found those as well, digging under the sewing table to unearth them. There be Cams!

Followers link.... and adventures with BIOS

I've been trying to figure this gadget out for quite awhile, and finally put one in under my profile.

Happily I have a follower, thanks D., so that part's working. hehe.

I'm still sewing buttons on the red coat, got the green one done. DH and I had a little computer upgrade for more memory (wouldn't it be nice to have something that could implant into a human brain for that?) and some more of something else. I forget right now just what that's called but it speeds things up. I could use an implant for that, too. All of this rejuvenation took place several days ago, and was to speed up the computers for an new game.

Now the fun starts....

I'd never booted up my computer since the change so at 3 am that morning, not being able to sleep, I trotted into what we jokingly call the "Office" to do some stuff, check out bloglists, check forums, you know, the daily general maintenance.

Upon booting up, I was confronted with an unusual boot screen, and it hung there forever. I shut down the CPU, waited, turned it back on and the same old, same old. Figuring it was time to go "pro-active, I hit the escape (flee for your life?) key-

"Oh Bios, Oh!". I thought, "Alrighty, What's this? I have never seen this choice, and it's actually giving me a choice? Oh, what to do what to do?" The curser was inoperable, so, remembering how to get my characters to move around in games, I started pushing the arrow keys-

"Hey, its moving something!"

Finally, I was getting somewhere, and given the choice to save changes or cancel I chose "cancel", getting more worried about all this stuff called BIOS. Uh oh, back to the same screen.

I twiddle with the various ornaments and antennae of my tinfoil hat, sat up straighter in my chair, and peered at the choices. "OK" or "Cancel". Well I already knew the "cancel" thing got me nowhere. So, I clicked "OK".

Somehow this is what it wanted, this bossy BIOS screen, and let me into my "stuff". I worked awhile, shut down the computer and tiptoed off to bed.

The next morning, when I finally woke up very late, I told DH all about the adventure. As his expression showed increasing alarm, I vaguely remember hearing him say, "I'll be right back."

He went in to check on the BIOS. He came back a bit later, being assured that all the settings were fine and the computer was fine. Then he asked me exactly what happened, starting with how I even got into BIOS setting at all?

I said, "well, I pushed ESC because it said to, and the other thing didn't work at all anyway".

He said, "Well it's a good thing!"

I asked him if that would that have made the BIOS disappear? He started laughing.

So I said, "Well, I figured they would have had to make computers pretty idiot proof, or else computers would never had made it THIS far".

He laughed and I laughed, and he kissed me on the forehead and walked out of the room, chuckling to himself. The only thing I knew about BIOS up to that time was that you could "flash it". Sounds sort of Kinky, eh?

One of the coats

 

The buttons are going on tonight as we watch a video, but this is the finished coat. The hood is generous and almost the size of a Kinsale cloak. The pockets are big for nice warming of mittened hands. It's a very snuggly coat. It's an adaptation of a Saf-T-Pockets long coat, but only one layer of 300 Polartec, which is a lovely soft fabric.

Retro Apron Pattern. Yay!

 

Isn't it great? The one I want to make is the one on the right. It seems just perfect for cookie and bread baking.

A Tribute to the "Cook" & a Rant Caution

 

DH just about stands on his head to get our little wort of a doggie to eat, so this is for you, Sweetie!

Today is a dentist day-another blasted filling replacement, so AR and PJ, today I am not going to get to sew at all. I did knit this am before breakfast, snugged up in bed with a cuppa and the wee doggie across my knees.

I used to love to sew but somehow it just became scary how far I'd go to avoid doing any at all. I would pin my dresses together where a seam failed, or even tape up a sagging hem rather than mend any favorite old piece of clothing. I was really OFF sewing. It's starting to come back, but it's slow. I waited nearly all my adult life for a room dedicated to sewing, now I can't stand to be in there! *rolls eyes* The sewing machine is on the dining room table in all it's messy glory.

RANT WARNING!

We watched the film, "In the Valley of Elah", again last night. If you read the post about a San Diego Marine on The San Diego Peace Guy's blog, you will understand just how gut wrenching that movie is. There is a report that a controlled drug, Ecstacy, has had trials for use on PTSD and worked wonders for the men involved. But, dayammit, I just don't know which way to jump on that one. The problems are huge but, another drug? My heart does these little jumping around things when I think of the whole PTSD issue and all that some heartless wretches have asked of our soldiers. I could go on and on but I won't. Nuff said. Anyway, IF any soldier is reading this, please know that a LOT of Americans think about you every single day, and some practically every minute, as we go about our daily life.

Proof of Actual Sewing Activity! Yay me!