Bleeping bleeding thread!

Hello, everyone.

I've started a project that involves white ground fabric and red embroidery. I did some testing for stitches.

As y'all can see, I looked at which stitch to use. Whether to use the embroidery hoop. And whether my favorite stabilizer, Sulky Solvy, would be a good idea. The stitched samples were all ironed with a bit of water. What I completely forgot to do was to test the threads. Oh, how I wish I had done that!

I was humming right along, hemming and embroidering. Then I rinsed the first pieces to get the remnants of the Sulky Solvy out.

 Even this one, though not as bad as the others, has pink smears around the cross.

Ouch. A lot of work down the drain, which wouldn't have happened if I'd just checked the threads first. (There is a sizeable embroidery thread stash around here. Some came as anonymous hunks from Ebay. I think the sellers were unloading some cheap stuff they didn't want!) Moral of the story: don't be in a huge rush to start!

I tossed all the anonymous red thread hanks and bits that I could see. Dug around in the cupboard and found some still-in-the-sleeves DMC red thread. (By thread here I mean 6 stranded embroidery floss.) And then *water tested* the DMC thread. The lukewarm water in the dish stayed clear. I put the thread on a paper napkin to dry. When I returned, the napkin was still in the original color.

Tomorrow the project can get back on the rails again.

And the DMC thread hank is now being stored in a little plastic bag with its label sleeves, so it doesn't become an anonymous pile of red thread.

Night bloomers, a reason to get outside early in the morning

Hello, everyone.

It's the heat of summer here, but the rains a few weeks back have given us a real bounty of night blooming cereus blossoms. This is the plant with the pink flowers:

And this is one of the flowers, close-up:

They close up around 8:30 or 9 in the morning. But while they are open I think they may be the most beautiful flowers in the entire garden.

Sometimes a new tool needs to be made

Hello, everyone.

I have started a project involving lots of narrow hemming. Technically, it's 1/4" hems on lots of straight pieces of fabric.

I began by using the Easy Hem gauge that was inherited from my dear MIL. It had marks at the right distance, and a nice straight edge, and it is thin. I began by pressing the edge of the first piece of fabric up all the way around the piece, and then doing it again so the raw edge would be properly buried in the hem. Oops. The metal hem gauge got hot.

I thought about using various quilting rulers, but they're all plastic, and this needed to be pressed without any marked line, as the fabric is white.

Then I remembered that paper tag board can be pressed. (No, you can't use steam or water with it.) I drove over to the local Michael's store and got a piece of extra thick poster board. Then marked a 2" line across the 22" narrow end of the board and cut along the line.  After that, using the quilting ruler, I marked lines at 1/4" and 1/2" and other useful distances. Last of all, I punched a hole at one end and reinforced it with a bit of scrap.

Can you tell that the sun was shining through the window? Oh, well. The gauge works for the job. It's a little delicate, as it's 22" long and 2" wide, but it's hanging from a peg on the wall when not in use.

Little surprises, software edition

Hello, everyone.

When we came home and I turned on the computer, it informed me that it needed to do an operating system update. Y'all probably know which Monster Sized corporation that was. Anyway, after it ran some new stuff appeared on my taskbar. And oddly enough, one thing disappeared. I rectified these little bits and thought things were okay.

They weren't. The update messed up the Photoshop Elements. It no longer saved an edited file. It's hard to crop pictures when you can't save the cropped, smaller file.  After much fussing and web searching, I reverted to the previous version of the operating system. The one that worked just fine up until we left on the pilgrimage.

Then I opened up Photoshop Elements to check whether it was finally working. It is! In celebration, a picture of some airport art that I liked:

This is a largish file even in "save for web" but that's probably because of all the bunches of butterflies and crystals.

Looking back: San Martin de Laspra (further thoughts)

Hello, everyone.

I looked back and noticed that, while I had titled a post "San Martin de Laspra" I hadn't actually said anything about it in the post. (Sorry about that.)

The things I remember about San Martin de Laspra are these:

It really is on a hilltop. It is, in fact, on the highest point around.

The guide book says that one should bring food to cook. What the guidebook doesn't mention is that the cooking facilities are, well, basic. The large stove is, IIRC, a wood burning type. If you want to use it, you probably need to bring your own wood. And do whatever prep is required to get it ready.  There is a small, white square thing that looks like a microwave oven. It isn't. It appears to be a kind of toaster oven.  So when you go to the store (about a kilometer away down the hill, plenty of goodies but you have to carry it back uphill after you buy it) you need to basically plan on eating cold food.

The hospitalero was amazingly helpful and friendly. When the afternoon rain visited and the clothesline had to come inside in a hurry, he fired up a space heater to help the pilgrims' clothes get dry. And, as a number of the hospitaleros along the Norte do, he talked about the route ahead.  He pointed out that after Soto La Luina there are two choices. The standard Camino route stays lower and goes through a number of towns with ups and downs. The "scenic" route goes up to a ridge and mostly tries to keep a steady level...until the long, long downhill.

We enjoyed our visit to San Martin de Laspra, and with the caveat that one should buy "eat cold" food we wouldn't mind visiting there again. If we should be walking the Norte again, that is.

We appear to have been too busy walking up the hill and down the hill to take pictures of San Martin de Laspra, so for a photo today, a little flower that greeted us along the forested paths after San Sebastian:

Jack in the Pulpit

Block Play

Hello, everyone.

One of the new projects on the list is a baby-sized quilt.

This is a tentative draft of the layout, minus sashing and borders as y'all can see.

Fabrics in this medley are all from stash-on-hand.

The Texas flag block is new. I used the 5 point master template from Kaye Wood for the star. (I also have stash of cutting tools. It grows as one does more work with fabrics!)

If the arrangement still looks balanced with itself after a day or so, it will be sewn up into a quilt top, then quilted. 

After-action Report: Merrell Moab mid boots with Megagrip Vibram soles

Hello, everyone.

Y'all may remember that I got new hiking boots for this trip, with a special sole that's supposed to be better for wet surfaces.

Well, it is. The soles gripped just fine, both on wet and dry surfaces. Like these:

Wet pavement after a shower in Oviedo

Now if they would change the placement of the hooks at the top front of the shoe so the heel lock lacing will be more stable... the old boots were very stable with the heel lock. These ones have only 1 hook at each side, which is farther down from the top than the old top hook was. On the good side, they do have plenty of side to side room around the toes. And plenty of vertical room for them too.