Shiny stash-busting, part III

Hello, everyone.

We survived our latest cold outbreak, down here where it is almost never actually cold, and it's supposed to be warm all week. The orchid pots are on the porch--their tree no longer provides shade!--and the spiders came in last night but I'm planning to let them sleep outside for the rest of the week. There was an economy-sized cutworm on one of the spider plants--I didn't know they could get so big and fat! I tossed it into the yard and told the birdies "bon appetit."

The latest stash-buster is done:

Serger cover

Serger cover lessons learned: 1) Don't get any ideas about matching the sewing machine cover if you didn't check total yardage to start with. 2) Don't cut length (circumference in this case) until *after* the quilting is done. But I was going to have an opening of some sort there for ease of removal, just like on the sewing machine cover and my Kitchenaid mixer cover in the kitchen, so it's not drastic if this opening is a little bigger.

Next up: fidget mats. There is enough spring-green glittery fabric to make the base for 2 Alzheimers fidget mats and that is being organized now. Random bits of other things, the more textures the better, go onto the mats for dementia patients to fiddle with. It helps their focus on other things and keeps their fingers more limber. As a bonus, DM had given me a couple of short zippers when she was cleaning out her craft drawers and they will be perfect for these mats. If you go to Pinterest and use the search box you can find many ideas for these. And then you just use the textural things you have on hand, being sure to make anything that can't go through the washer removable and anything small and washable well-secured.

I did see an Amazon pin on the search results this morning, so apparently somebody has written a book or three about them, too.

If your calling to help others runs more to "Martha" things than "blowing horns in the street" things, this is an excellent way to do it.