What I learned from Ripstop By The Roll (edited to add links)

Hello, everyone.  Today is just a short note about how glad I am that I watched and learned from the Ripstop By The Roll how-to videos that go with the sampler stuff sack kit.

The guys there have a great demonstration of what I can only call Mock French Seams. 

Today I am using it to seam perle-embellished tulle for a costume. (Yes, I'm sewing a seam with the narrow-width zipper foot. Nothing else sneaks by those stapled perles so well.) This looks a lot like a regular French seam, but only requires one pass under the needle. You just place the fabric right sides together, roll the edges together a quarter inch and then re-roll it again. Pinning A Whole Lot! At least on the tulle. Then edgestitch along the fold. I should have thought of doing this on the other seams of this skirt! It's a lot less fraught than the regular French seam, since the tulle cannot be pressed like some other lightweight fabrics.

Spring feels like it's here...(edited for spelling)

At least, right now it feels like spring. (Last frost date probably 3 weeks away, but today is tee shirt weather.)

The fiddlewood,  the happiest of the three, is putting on a flush of blooms, while still having half ripe berries and some old, ripe, black ones. This fiddlewood is in partial shade. The others have at least 4 or 5 hours of straight sun every day, and they're less content. These are native to South Texas and are supposed to get around 8 feet tall with time.

Walked at Bentsen State Park today

Hello, everyone. Today started out cloudy and cool, but we went over to the park anyway. There were a lot of birds for a change.

The turkeys were hanging out on the access road for the canal, later they went farther into the park and started vacuumung up all the dropped seed at the feeders. The boys did some tail fan displays but the girls didn't care.

There was a lone white pelican near the boat put-in, and a solitary roseate spoonbill as well. (Think big pink bird, not a flamingo.) 

The weather was good for walking, not too hot or cold and not much wind. The park has upgraded one of their bird blinds to have a roof and seating like their premium on on the ring road. This newly upgraded blind is in the very middle, accessible to a walk or bike only path. We saw a lot of cardinals and waxwings there. Green jays, of course. On the way out we also saw some chachalaca. So it was a nice bird-seeing day.

We got in a little over 2.5 miles today, this was a training walk to maintain fitness.

Lemons are ripe now

Hello, everyone.  It's lemon picking time, and so we're doing something with as many as possible. 

We have squeezed many lemons and filled an assortment of containers for frozen lemon juice. That way we have home grown lemon juice for much or all of the year.

The lemons that gave their peels to the recipe.

The lemon peel marinating in vodka.

This year we're doing crema de limoncello. Like regular limoncello, it's really sweet and involves alcohol. The crema also has boiled-down milk. This is about our third batch of the sweet dessert sipping drink. It's very tasty.

The second little fabric tree is done

Hello, everyone.  When I posted about the fabric table top tree a few days ago, I mentioned that the pattern makes two trees. The areas between the pieces of the bigger tree provide also three more triangles for a companion tree.

It's about half the size of the first tree.

Decorations are once again sequins, pailettes, and beads from stash. There was a little mother of pearl butterfly which got tacked onto the center panel (the "front") for a bit of an accent.

It's nice to have finished one of the "gonna-do" projects in the sewing room.

It's early for planting but...

Hello, everyone.  It's a warm, "Chamber of Commerce" weather day today--about 80°F, clear, sunny, just nice to be out in. So of course I was wanting to mess around in the garden.

This appears to be a volunteer fennel plant, left over from garden salad mix seeding in the past. It looks too spikey to be dill, IMHO.

I planted some "summer spinach vine" seeds. Instead of loads of leaves, that we could pick for a vegetable,  we get these little flowers. 

And the runt of the litter has made berries!

A more optomistic thing: we have decided that a corner of dying grass would be better as a planting bed. Aloes to the rescue! Also our Porterweed, a poinsettia, and a volunteer flower. A few rain lilies have been tucked in as well. 

A new Christmas craft project

Hello, everyone. As promised, a picture of the latest Christmas craft project.

As you can see from the pattern photo, this makes two fabric trees. The first is done enough to stand on the table. It lacks a seam or closure on the third side. If I do a seam as called for in the pattern, I have to find a place to store it standing up. The tree is around 15 inches tall, so this is a little bit difficult. 

If I do a closure on the third side, like maybe some little snap tabs made of ribbon, the tree can be stored flat with such larger objects as the Nativity scene.

The second tree has been pieced and cut out. It needs the binding on the three triangles, decorations, and the seams. (Plus closure?) 

The decorations on the tall tree are sequins, in stash, and #8 seed beads, also from stash.

Speaking of stash, all of the fabric and batting was in stash. I do think that my scrap batting was a bit too thick. If I make this again, I'm going to either cut the batting strips narrower than the fabric strips or buy a craft pack of the extra thin cotton batting for potholders and potato bags.

This is what needs to be done with the batting.