86 degrees with 40% humidity is rather warm in the Pacific Northwest. So shopping we went as the stores are cool. We took 2 dying sewing machines to the dealer to use any parts they could.
Then to JoAnn’s as I have a gift card. The clerk managed to find 3 discounts on my phone for the items we wanted So I only used $13.00 and I bought 2 pieces of fabric and DH a skein of yarn for the babies hats he makes. But we wandered and look at other items as the temperature in the stores was cool.
Next, off to the eye doctor to pick up the prescription glasses. It was nice and cool there as well.
Target is a wonderful place to browse midday, when others are elsewhere. There were not many customers at noon. We did pick up a small plastic wastebasket. I was surprised at how their grocery department has grown.
Costco is another good browsing place. We bought some dog biscuits and light bulbs as well as a few groceries. But we took our times. 2 of the items we would have purchased, they no longer carry. All this cool browsing put about 500o steps on our pedometers. We finally came home mid afternoon and had lunch from the garden. I’m happy that we don’t have many of these days as we might have to get air conditioning in our house. Tomorrow is also supposed to be this temperature, so am lining up places to visit.
Today I woke up thinking of all the things I wanted to get done, then I remembered, that’s not the important thing. I didn’t get my list done, but I pray God’s list was achieved. And I am thankful for a large garden and the work involved because of it, especially when I remember those who don’t eat 3 meals a day. I count my blessings and ask to be a blessing to others. These are 16 pints of green beans for the coming winter from the 7# picked yesterday.
The Sew Fun this week was put on by Lana Jones. She comes up with ideas in her sleep – of which she doesn’t need much. These 3 signs used sticky metallic paper on boards and mounted denim. Aren’t they cute?
Using a piece of tile that she found at Lowes, she put metallic paper on these “rocks”. And they did look like flat rocks. This is such a wonderful way to give a little inspirational gift.
These are made of “Ice Resin” a product to pour in molds. These would make lovely jewelry or nice for key chains.
The animals at the top come with stuffing in a bag that can be removed from both the body and the head to make it easy to embroider. The two bags below them were from a pattern book “Sew Useful” by Debbie Shore. There were several items in that book to help you make storage items for the home.
The black dress and the dress with the green skirt were from “Sew Pretty T Shirt Dresses” Simple little dresses that start with a recycled or purchased T shirt in the child’s size. This would be a terrific gift for the busy mom or grandmother to sew.
This is where she caught me. I loved this lightweight jacket you see in peach and black. And it can be made totally on the serger. So I will be looking for fabric to make this.
This book also had some fun projects and the items in this book have both the patterns you can cut out or if you have a Accuquilt, they have a die by Edyta Sitar to make them.
This “Buddy Blanket Bear” has only a stuffed head, so if a young child likes to take a huggie to bed, one could either hand or machine embroider on the open skirt.
It was a very good Sew Fun, well worth my time. And there were several more items that didn’t really catch my attention. All I need is time for some of the projects that I all ready have, then I can take on some new ones.
After I got home, I had company. I did not get all my steps in, but will get them all in by the end of the week.
After all this, I took a brief rest on the deck. Isn’t this a lovely view? It was such a pretty day. Tomorrow will be more garden time and maybe zucchini bread baking. Don’t hold your breath on that though.
Today, I finally got around to this little project that has been on my mind for the past year, but hadn’t made it to my list. I put towels through my refrigerator door to keep them cleaner. The problem with that is they can get caught in the freezer and keep it from closing totally. The handle measured 16″ x 3 3/4″ around. I cut 5.5″ x 17″ for the front and the back. Next time I’ll make them 6″ x 17″ I cut a piece of scrap batting about 1″ smaller each way.
I sewed one side with a 1/4″ seam, then pinned the batting on one inside (pins on the outside). Then I put a seam across the top and bottom. After that I sewed a zigzag stitch down the length in several places. One could use decorative stitches. This holds the 3 layers together.
Then I sewed a piece of velcro to one side
I ran a straight stitch across the opposite side and pressed it under one quarter inch.
I flipped the piece and sewed the other side of the Velcro to the reverse side of this piece.
I put it on the refrigerator band lapped it before turning it to the back side.
Here it is finished and I’m so happy to have done this. I made 3 of them for the refrigerator and freezer.
Back to the bees. Thank you to those of you who had ideas. We do have yellow jackets, but they haven’t been bothering us on the back deck yet, however, the hive was very definitely robbed. We’ll just take everything apart this year and clean it up (think hours and hours), then we’ll get a new start next year. This isn’t all bad. We will be putting new plastic on the hoop house in September and the bees are just to the back side. Now we won’t be bothering them. We’ll set the new bees up in the spring.
149 little purple hats – 146 from one bolt of fleece and 3 were from left over purple fleece. They are done and waiting for me to find a box to put them up until Sept. It feels so good to have things done with time to spare.
Then I finished a fun little wall hanging I was testing and sent in the report. I’ll have to show you that one in November.
The afternoon was spent playing with this. It takes 75 minutes to process a load of pints with beans after pressure is reached, about 45 minutes for it to cool down and then one must bring it back up to pressure and keep it there for another 75 minutes. Therefore 2 loads of beans takes about 4 hours. And I have to be there since the pressure changes “for no reason”. The stove is electric and doesn’t want to be constant. This time I soaked the beans for 24 hours, packed them in the jars without any cooking. It was so much easier, but next time I will put fewer beans in the jars and still fill them with water. I wonder if I could put salt in them or if that would keep them from getting soft. The top beans do seem a bit dry which is why I will try more liquid and a smidge fewer beans.
20 pints of red beans
This little 36″ square quilt is now quilted and bound. It will hang it in our room for a bit before a baby gets it as DH likes it. And it’s nice to be appreciated. Several of my readers also liked it. It’s a strange thing – one never knows what someone will like – this is not one of my favorites.
This morning I decided to dye two shirts that I really like, but are a bit tired. However I forgot to check the fiber content and because they had 40% poly, they didn’t take the dye. So I popped some fleece into the kettle in three increments so that I will get a heathered affect. It is dry now and sometime in the future, will get combed and spun. It is off my first female Cormo sheep so will be soft.
Then there was a matter of someone needing a large patch and this is what I found for her.
Sometimes one just needs a dessert and we still have 6 packages of frozen strawberries in the freezer, so shortcake was made.
And because my brother is coming in Tuesday evening and I don’t want to look totally unprepared, we ran off to Lowe’s and purchased a shade and a curtain rod, both will be put up on Sunday. I still would like to get a rug and may do that on Sunday as well.
I started to quilt this flimsy because I thought the machine problem was solved. It is not, the thread refuses to stay between the discs and therefore the horrible mess on the underside.. 15 minutes to put it in and two hours (with interruptions) to take it out. So after removing the stitches, it was on to better things.
The garden items that are in the ground, plus the blueberries, raspberries, grapes and apple trees all received their dose of fertilizer since it is supposed to rain tonight and then not again until next Tuesday a week away. Now that they have been fertilized, the rain can water it all in. I also did the plants in the hoop house and watered that in. My this all takes a lot of time. Oh, yes, I also had to get more peat moss as we are trying to improve the soil on the hill.
I pulled this out today, hoping to get to sew, but such was not the case. It is a very cute Martha Pullen design for the 18″ dolls and will refresh my heirloom skills. I intend to take it methodically (read that as slowly), so I don’t have to unsew any of it. I have the fabric, trims, buttons and elastic and I’m ready to go, when there is some me time.
A little shopping and this marvelous new workhorse came home with me today. Babylocks are quality machines and I anticipate much enjoyment using it.
This is her on the left and the Evolution she is replacing is on the right. She has a knee pedal, plus a larger harp area and the foot lever is on the front of the machine. The throat (harp) area is large enough to use on quilts, so this one should get much more use. I only used the Evolution for finishing off seams as it was difficult to get bulk through her. Now I have to clean the threads etc. off and put her up for sale. The store’s policy is that anyone who buys a used Babylock can take the operating lessons from them for free, so that will help, plus a used machine sells for a lower price than a new one.
Today is the first day of the rest of my life, right? Therefore, it is time to start learning how to use the serger for other than just finishing seams. I went to a class today and we learned this cover stitch decoration as well as how to thread the machine for this procedure. We also learned how to do another stitch, but since I didn’t have wash away thread, that didn’t get done.
