Yeah, my world, bleary eyed in the dark.
Soooo, no great things to show. I dusted off and oiled up one of my beloved vintage machines, the Kenmore 90. Packed up some kid appropriate cotton, many good notions, and went to Walmart and purchased some more and 2 EASY patterns. Hauled it all upstate (and upstairs to the 3rd floor apartment) and gave daughter number 2 a sewing lesson. It was so much fun!!! She was interested, concentrated and listened and made a pair of shorts with my help that night, and a pair alone the next day. The machine is great for a beginner, sews kind of slow compared to all of my singers, very unfiddly about trivial things like TENSION (it sewed just fine with the check spring snapped off for a few months). Does fabulous free motion embroidery and quilting. Comes with a nice button hole attachment, and 30 cams for fancy stitches she'll use rarely if at all, and the original book. A very forgiving and easy to use and maintain machine, in a nice cabinet.
On one of my nightshifts, I got seduced with Tunisian crochet and went off on that tangent for a while, hooking up about 10 or 15 round dishcloths that are now waiting to see if I'll block them on a corner of a sewing table. Probably I will. I did many colors and they are kind of cute. I'm thinking hope chests for grandchildren, perhaps I should start some of those. Embroider some more pillow cases, that kind of stuff. I of course was inspired by a blog for that (Miss Abigail's hope chest) and it may be the site that led me to the shaker style dishcloths.
After I got a little weary of the dishcloth, I decided yes I COULD knit a sweater, especially if it were just a tiny little newborn sweater for the latest of my progeny due in October. I probably can knit this sweater (it's swinging from the needles in the dark picture above) but so far I've unraveled totally twice and partially twice. Novice knitting in the dark. Then I plan to do at least a matching hat, if not booties too.
I've been wishing to get back on the sewing machine. August tends to knock the breath out of me and it did this year too. I try to not put on clothes, let alone SEW any! My yard is overgrown, the flower beds have more weeds than flowers. Usually I get energized again in September, but the cooler weather is only now happening and I have 2 adult children moving families in with me this month, joining an adult daughter and her son already here. I have not felt like pulling out yardage and patterns to spread around and cut.
I've decided maybe if I finally broke down and got a dedicated cutting table I'd start projects more readily. Cutting is the part I hate because I have to make a place to get it done. Someday I'd like a long and sturdy table with storage below like I've seen in so many studio photos, but since I'm giving up my spare bedrooms for a time, I've decided to copy someone's altered folding banquet table. These plastic tables come in 30" x 90" and fold up for storage and have tubular metal legs. If you cut some pvc pipe into equal pieces you can insert the feet of the table into the pipe and get the table to perfect cutting height, a luxury for my tall self! They aren't as wide as I'd really like but should be more than adequate for most projects where cutting is done on folded fabric anyway.
