I'm Sewing Again!

 WAY back in the day (40 years ago ... 30 years ago ...) I sewed a lot. I sewed my own clothes, and they were just as silly-looking as the thrift store clothes I wear today, haha! But patterns became expensive, and fabric became very expensive, and I stopped sewing.

Recently I've been watching some old Kate Jackson youtube videos. (Kate Jackson, an older lady from Northumberland, UK, not Kate Jackson of Charlie's Angels!) Kate quilts, but she also makes small sewn house decorations: pillow covers, window and door hangings, little throws. So I held my nose and jumped into the pond of sewing again. I followed her video instructions for a Log Cabin pattern pillow cover:

Front (above) and back (below). I prefer the back. Obviously, I did an inferior job coordinating the strips of fabric, and ended up with that whole swath of solid pink ... bleh. But it was a first attempt, an educational moment.

Love the envelope closure - so easy!

I'm now working on pillow cover #2. It will be better, I hope. Here is the Log Cabin front piece, done yesterday:

I also did a little window hanging using a method that Kate calls "pixel pictures." I ironed some carefully-measured squares of fabric onto a square of fusible interfacing, did some sewn seams according to Kate's instructions, and ... tada!!

I was pretty pleased with the result, and Adam congratulated me on my measuring accuracy. It's tiny, no wider than my hand, but I wanted to discover if I enjoyed it before I committed to a large one. Kate has large panels of this kind of thing in her home. She makes pillow covers with them too. She has another method for making a similar project into full-size curtains. I'm not trying that yet!

I'm knitting the final square on my 2nd mitred square blanket!

My foray into sewing has coincided with Adam's new interest in this hobby also. First he worked hard to refurbish my very old treadle Singer machine. Then he bought a $5 White machine at the thrift store. Then he bought a $50 Japanese machine online. He's gone crazy for sewing! He wants to make clothes for him and for me. I'm in favor of that, as long as they meet my high standards for Bohemian Hippie attire :)

$1/yard - not bad! Lightweight linen-like fabric

We've been buying fabric at the thrift store nearby. Apparently a lady donated over 17 big tubs of fabric! She was going to open a fabric store, and changed her mind.

Meanwhile, Leo:

"Mom, I blinked. Take it again."

His favorite spot. Beau's favorite spot too ...

I made kissy noises, and he turned around.

Where's That Winter Robe Again?

 It's freezing outside this morning! I don't mean that literally. It's actually 49 degrees. But after a few 85 degree days, 49 feels like freezing, and I'm wondering why my winter robe and turtlenecks are inside my old trunk. Brrr!

However, it's the perfect temperature for yard work, in my opinion. After I get done on Ye Olde Computer this morning, I'm heading into the Horrible Shade Bed to murder some honeysuckle vines. The elephant ears and iris need rescuing before they succumb altogether.

That's the end of the bed that's already been rescued. I'm inching my way down this long bed. It's taken a couple of weeks, and my hands ache, but it's worth it.

A friend posted an article recently about stress and our health, and I admitted to myself that it was time to back away from some stressful online reading (aka, news). The flipside of that is, I must be mindful to fill my mental time with more positive things. Gardening. Chickens. Painting. Music. More important, I need minutes in the day when I just sit outside (before the mosquitoes take over for the summer) and relax. Look up into the tree tops. Breathe deeply.

I don't remember having to be so deliberative about my mental health (for lack of a better phrase) years ago. Is it because I'm older and more mentally fragile now, or is the world a more mentally-damaging place? I wonder. 

This is an elephant ear hosta. I have three of them. The leaves are huge, but the plants themselves get massive too. It's my favorite hosta.

Granny Marigold, you'll be proud of me -- I actually baked something recently! I should do it more often, but I'm rarely in the mood to do baking. These are Mary Berry's scones with sultanas in them. They were tiny. They'll be in a youtube video soon.

Did I tell you already that Roo Roo died? He was killed by a predator. So I went to visit my good friend and fellow chicken lady, Melody, and she gave me a New Roo. His name is Mr. Sparky. He's half naked neck (which I'm not fond of) and half Wyandotte (which I love).His face it turned away from us, so that's why his head looks funny -- not helped by that red naked neck either!

That's Brownie, giving me the eye ball. She's a grumpy old lady who's only just started laying again. Recently she got herself caught in some bird netting. I disentangled her, and you'd have thought I was murdering her! She squawked and screamed. But when I got her in my arms and petted her, she calmed right down. Silly bird.

Speaking of silly:

All I can say about Leo (full name: Sir Jackanapes Leonitis Spratly, so we can also call him Jack Sprat), is that he's constant entertainment.

One day recently when Adam was off work, he made shrimp burgers. They were so very good!

The other thing I'm doing right now is the farmers market. I'm now the "contact person." Nobody wanted the job, so it fell to me. It's a tiny little market, a few vendors. But we have fun and we make a little money.

So I'm still spending lots of time each week making balms and soaps and painting cards. One of these days I'll back off of those hobbies and do more of what I really love: writing, spinning, painting. Just not yet.

That's all the happy stuff, because we don't write about the sad stuff, right? 😀 We are all here to boost each other up! No worries -- I have my little share of worries, but nothing more than usual.

Time to sip my rapidly-cooling coffee, do my daily Wordle, and head to the grocery store. Then I shall do a bit of honeysuckle murdering, just when it's flowering. Isn't that awful?