Thank you for the reminder, Lisa --

 Hello, all. I popped over to Lisa's blog to read her latest, and realized I'd not posted for quite a while as well! I always think summer will be slower, but it never is. Ah well.

Adam has been on his summer break for a week, and he's hit the ground running in his sewing adventures. There is so much creative energy in the house! It's lots of fun chatting about what he's making, what I'm making ...

I'm sewing little fabric bowls. They are ridiculously easy, and it's silly that I love them so much, but I do. I've made four, and will certainly make more.

Like Kate Jackson, I saved all my little scraps of fabric from the other projects I made. Then I decided to sew them together in a hodge-podge sort of way, and then cut it square, put some batting in it and a back on it, and run some bias tape around the edge. It's not fancy, but it sure was fun!

It was supposed to be a doll's blanket for my granddaughter, but it's really too stiff. It's sitting in my studio instead, being decorative.

This is a new piece of kit that Adam got me for my birthday -- a tapestry loom. I finally admitted that my big rigid heddle loom was NOT going to work for tapestry weaving, and I'm so very happy with this loom. It's made by Grebstk. I'm almost finished with my first piece on it:

I had many more cards printed this past week, from watercolors I'd painted and scanned before.

All of these are pretty new, except the geraniums. I especially like how the sunflower turned out. I sell 5 of them (with envelopes) in a pack. These sold very well at the market today. I thought this batch of 300 cards would last me for many months, but now I'm not so sure!

The chickens have been rather naughty. Mr. Sparky, the new roo, is often too scared to enter the pen if I'm in there. He's spent a couple of nights on the loose. The hens have been quite naughty and started laying their eggs in mysterious places in the yard. Today I discovered 8 eggs under our deck. They may have to spend some time in Chicken Pen Prison, so they remember how they are supposed to behave!

This lovely book is my new, very favorite devotional book. It's all Scripture.

The man who compiled the book, Jonathan Bagster, has combined many various pieces of Scripture for each day, twice a day, on various topics. Combining 7 or 8 passages of the Bible like that takes a deep knowledge of the book, and it's done in such a way that it makes connections among the passages that I'd never thought of before. It has sparked many new thoughts and feelings of wonder and thankfulness for God's Word. 

It's nearly mid-June, the weather is heating up, and our schedule is speeding up. I hope to have some time with the grandchildren soon, which I'm over-the-moon thrilled about!

Happy summer, friends!

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.

What's on my Camera?

Hmm. Let's see if I have anything to share with my dear blogging friends ....

I visited the thrift store and spent some leisure time in the bookstacks. Books were half-price, so I indulged in some that I normally wouldn't. I'm calling these "because the library is closed indefinitely" books. Also, "books I don't mind donating back" books.  That was a freeing feeling!

I have a little familiarity with all those titles except the Snow Flower novel by Lisa See. I've never read a Rosamund Pilcher book before, but I have an inordinate love of The Shell Seekers movie with Angela Landsbury.

Adam made "BLAT"s for lunch --  Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado Dip, Tomato Sandwiches. And yes, it IS that much better than a BLT. You're welcome!

My creative juices have been squeezed out of my brain lately, thanks to unrelenting worry. But here's one.

I sewed another stack of masks for the Masketeers group.

I found sewing easier on the mind than painting, so I turned  my attention to my cranky old sewing  machine. I cleaned the lint from the bobbin area.

I decided to clean it a bit more, needed instructions to do so, and discovered my grandmother's scribbles in the manual.

I'd love to ask her what "slow hand" means.

I began to disassemble some parts and give squirts of oil.

This is a hefty, sturdy machine with metal parts.

Our anniversary is coming up, and I want to make a second vest for Adam from the pattern I bought online. Below are the pattern pieces and fabric, all cut out. The brown fabric is the vest front; the lavender linen is the back and the inside lining.

Today I actually finished the sewing of the vest and tried it on him. It's a lovely fit, and I fixed the problems with the first vest. I have no photos yet; I'll show you it next time. It needs top-stitching, buttons/holes, and the strap along the back.

Adam is feeling a  bit better and is able to eat and (more importantly), cook! Here are a  few things he made in recent days:

Eggs Benedict for breakfast

Squash breaded (in corn starch) and fried in peanut oil. Guacamole dip in the back.

Homemade gnocchi with fresh basil and Parmesan cheese

Maybe that'll get you hungry for dinner! 

Today is a day for waiting. We're waiting for biopsy results from the dermatologist about Adam's illness. At this point they think it is probably Pemphigus Vulgaris, a very rare autoimmune illness, a skin-blistering disease. Not a very good disease to have, although it is treatable, and most sufferers live normal lives once the illness is gotten into remission. Usually that requires heavy rounds of steroids for a while, followed by other medications that keep it in check. So today, we are nervous, waiting for the call this week. It is the kind of diagnosis that can be a little life-altering. But I hope it will be better than the insane stress of the past 4-5 months of alarmingly increasing illness with no idea what's causing it, and nobody to help us. That's the worst. Many of you have been through these very rough patches in life, and come out the other side. We will this time too. Many thanks for your prayers.

Coping

There are times in life when we flourish, and times when we only cope. I'm amazed at some friends who are seeming to flourish during this pandemic, which is wonderful! More and more, I am just coping. I don't think it's the virus and all its daily terrors that are getting to me so much. It's Adam's complicated, baffling, exhausting array of illnesses he's had since mid-March. We are both worn out.

So tomorrow morning I am going to Ocracoke to visit a friend for a few days of rest. I intend to do nothing, until I want to do something, and then I'll only do what I want ... a sure recipe for discontentment, haha! We will have fun, and I plan to eat from the Mexican food truck nearby. I want to smell sea air and walk along the sandy alleys on the island near the tiny shops. Otherwise, I don't much care what we do.

I went shopping at the local thrift store yesterday, hooray! Here are a few clothes I found to take to Ocracoke:

 A linen skirt and thin, drapey blouse above, both of which I had to mend a bit ... and below, my favorite shirt.

I also found toys for grandchildren to play with, when they come to Nana's house. Want to see?

 a castle (needed some repair)

 a barn

 beach toys

a bulldozer

I'll take a couple of books and my watercolors to the beach, just in case I want them. I still haven't found a book that's grabbed my interest, so I've returned to old, faithful Mr. Trollope.

 This one below is more of a booklet.

I sewed a little pouch for my paint brushes. Art cases are rather expensive. This one is a temporary fix.

 Slip your brushes in those slots, plus anything larger in the two end slots, and then roll it up.

 I had this very cute red fabric, but alas! it had drops of superglue dotted all over it :(  I cut the girls out of the fabric, and appliqued them onto my pouch. I think she's so cute.

 I ended up painting four versions of the orange tulips. This last one was on 9"x12" Arches paper, very nice, rather expensive paper. 

 If you are not bored of painting quite yet, here is a series of goose/goslings I did, following a lovely video by a painter on facebook.
First one. I didn't like the color of the goose.

 So I gave her a brown body.

 The water is hard to get right. A third attempt:

 Are you still reading? Bless you! 
What's Adam doing, on days when his mouth isn't killing him with sores? He's at his computer, starting up a new youtube endeavor! He's making tutorial videos for people around the world who play a game called "Crusader Kings." The existing videos are poor quality, but millions of people play this challenging game. He's been a good game-player for most of his life. He got himself a new "gamer" chair that is more comfortable than the wooden dining room chair he was using:

 And, the last of the peas. The cool spring garden is coming to an end.

You're lovely to bear with me. I may post on Ocracoke. I'll certainly take pictures and post afterward. Time to rest my nerves. What is it that Mr. Bennett says to Mrs. Bennett ... that her nerves have been his constant companions these many years? I feel the same about my nerves!

At Last ... I Finish Something

I finished a book! Hooray! 

I have a stack of about 10 unfinished books.

 I've watched three film versions of Rebecca, but none of them compare to the book. Du Maurier's use of the unreliable narrator is superb. What a tool to use in a suspense novel! 

I also finished a sewing project ... kind of. It needs buttons and button holes for sure. This is the Vest Mock-Up:

It could take me years to put those buttons/holes on.

 Both fabrics were junky pieces in my stash from the thrift store. I used them for their weight -- heavy, sturdy fabric for the front, thin, silky fabric for the lining. The welt pockets were most difficult.

 I learned much in this first trial run. I'll make some changes to the pattern in my next attempt.

Today I painted something to replace a sunflowers painting I did last year that I tired of. It was hanging in the guest room. It's 22" x 15".
I sketched in the white picket fence. Then I started with the roses.

 I added some shading on the fence and the green background around the roses.

 More shading, more leaves, and some blue sky.

 You probably can't see any difference between the above photo and the one below, but I felt it needed something ... more depth. So I added thin pen in many of the roses and darkened their centers. Just little changes.

When is a painting finished? When you put it in a frame and it's too much trouble to take back out.

 See the pen?

Recently I returned to a simple, lovely piece of music, "Clair de Lune," part of a suite by Debussy that I memorized and performed in college. "Clair de Lune" was the easy, throw-away piece. Not anymore! I've lost much skill, but I still want to play. It's peaceful.

This piano piece needs SO much work.

 Tonight Adam made just fried broccoli and cheese sauce for supper. It's been a long day, and we're both spent. It was perfection! He mastered this dish after working at a restaurant in his 20s where it was served. The batter is light and perfectly crispy.

That's about it, folks. I haven't been to the garden in two days. The strawberries are probably screaming to be picked. Instead, today I went to a coffee shop with a friend. We sat at a picnic table in a park and enjoyed our coffee and pastries, and talked about how much we miss simply meeting with friends and doing things together away from home. We're ready for life to come back to normal. Sadly ... the Covid-19 virus is not ready yet! It's more efficient at contagion than we are at containing it. We can wish all we want, but it has the upperhand, medically speaking. Still, I think we'll be going out and shopping and visiting again soon. Our goal in isolating was to preserve our healthcare system, and we have accomplished that, correct? So now it is time to roll our sleevies up, face the hard fact of the virus, protect our at-risk people, and get back to living as safely as we can. I'm so proud of the medical folks who are working tirelessly for better treatments and a vaccine! Let's keep our chins up!