A new coaster project

Hello, everyone.

At the time I ordered the flowery bull pattern, I also ordered a little flower border. It may or may not become a border on a shirt--but it has certainly become a coaster design. I started with the method in the Sew4Home coaster project, only this time used the new border design.

At the bottom of the color change sheet is a thumbnail of the border the way it was imagined by the designer. (Appears to have been sewn out on ivory colored fabric.)

As iwth the Sew4Home project, the rectangular border bit was copied until there were four and the four were manipulated to become a hollow square.

At the end of the sewing, having accidentally cut a bit too narrow at the turning opening, I deployed basting tape to hold the opening closed for the edge stitching.

Finished. And there is still enough of the navy blue linen to make one more: a pair!

(Linen from stash, threads from stash on hand)

Project completed

Hello, everyone.

The nightshirt for DH is finished.

I haven't seen it tried on yet, but he likes it.

Detail of the pocket.

The fabric is the Telio Softique rayon spandex knit. It drapes very limply and it's hard to tell if it's going to feel "heavy" on. The pattern is Simplicity 1021, with the neck facing on the outside to give a bit of color. It really wants to just flop all over on the table when it's being cut, too--maintain shape? Hah! But with patience it can be dealt with.

This fabric sews a lot better with knit iron-on interfacing on the back. It got sucked into the needle plate hole more than once, but was rescued.

This was my first experience using the longitudinal zigzag the sewing machine calls "stretch stitch" in a project. It is very hard to rip out if the line bobbles. It does do a reasonable imitation of straight stitching for top stitching as on the neck facing.

A new project: embroidering onto a knit pocket

Hello, everyone.

There is always something to do around the house if you have a sewing machine. Even more so if you also have an embroidery machine.

DH had requested new sleepwear. As his preferred type isn't in the stores these days, that means sewing.

I found some rayon spandex knit on Fabric.com ( both navy and red solids) and decided that as long as I have these cool gadgets to work with, the chest pocket needed decorating.  I consulted DP, who organizes our sewing club and has much experience with machine embroidery, and also looked at the internet. Found a cute animal--DH likes it--and got to work.

I used wash-and-tear stabilizer on the bottom of the sandwich. Ironed on knit Pro-Sheer Elegance with the grain crossed from the knit grain--this is the part that will remain in the finished garment. Topped with Sulky Solvy, a non-adhesive sheer soluble that I like a lot, to keep the stitches lying nicely on the surface of the knit.

Yes, that is painters' tape holding the Sulky Solvy still on top! It's actually less tacky than my white sewing tape is.

This was the test sew-out of the bull. I mixed up the colors a little, used variegated charcoal where the dark brown is supposed to be, but it came out okay anyway I think.

The little bovine fits into the small 5x5 hoop of my machine, and fits perfectly onto the pocket piece.

Now if I can only find a use for the test project!

A new fidget

Hello, everyone.

I have made a new fidget--this time butterfly themed.

The zipper opens and closes, of course. A backing rectangle keeps the fur from tangling in the zipper coil.

The blue fur is pleasant to touch.

The pink ring turned out a little too heavy to have a long run of motion, so buttons were added to the ladybug ribbon to control the ring. (It kept trying to flip over to the outside of the fidget. I could see that becoming a problem in use.)

The yellow circle is able to turn because there is an eyelet hole under the button.

There are multiple cords with pony beads and the gray ribbon has both a narrow black tube and a larger blue one. (Not to say, a repurposed curler from a perm set.)

And on the black reverse side (fake suede fabric, so not slick) a rectangle in ivory fabric allows the owner's name to be added. This is the first time I've done this, and it seems like a good idea. It's pretty much impossible to write on the black fabric, and not everyone has printed name tapes on hand to stitch in place. Also this fabric would not take kindly to having the laundry heat-glue a tape with their hot irons.

I'm thinking of doing a collection of fidgets and seeking a place to donate them. DF had a very hard time with fidgeting with his hands and something like this lets a person wiggle their fingers without tearing up their nails and skin, or the bedclothes, or other things that come in reach.

There is still a good amount of furry fabric to work with in the stash, in various colors. And made-in-USA pony beads are suddenly in great supply in the sewing studio.

Reverted to "classic Blogger" and now photos work

Hello, everyone.

I tried again with the new Blogger setup. The photo upload was still not working. How these people managed to tangle up photo upload with google docs is beyond me. Maybe they should try proofreading their work.

I reverted the blog to the older format, which worked.

Now I can upload the photo of the two new Camino walking guides. They contain maps, suggestions for lodgings, brief descriptions of towns and areas of the path.

In this case, the path is the Camino Frances, which is the second-oldest of routes taken by pilgrims that begin roughly near the western Pyrenees. We walked it in 2014, going over the high route in the Pyrenees, called the Route Napoleon. (Blog posts from 2014 discuss this walk.) We would like to return to it and walk the lower route through the Pyrenees, called the Valcarlos route.

The very oldest Camino route to Santiago is the Primitivo, first taken as  royal progress/pilgrimage by the court of one of the Kings Pelayo when the relics were first rediscovered. It began in Oviedo, where his court was, and took a mountainous route to Santiago. We have not walked this route, but would like to in the future.

The oldest route from the Pyrenees (at least I think it is the oldest!) would be the Camino del Norte, which runs along the edge of the ocean. The villages are in little fjords and the path goes up and down a lot. Steeply up and down! (We walked this in 2017 and 2018, and blog posts from that time period discuss it.) The older routing connects to the French route at Arzua, and that is the way we walked.

I am not sure of the age of the Camino Portugues--interested readers can chime in their advice in the comments--but it used to run from Porto north to Santiago. Lately quite a number of people have been starting out in Lisbon. Like the Spanish routes, there are various walking options that allow one to either go inland or along the sea. We walked this in 2015, and blog posts from that time period discuss it.

Another old route is the Via de la Plata, the way of the platted road. (These days everyone remembers that "plata" means silver in Spanish and some call it the Silver Road.) This one is longer. We hope to walk it in the future.

As y'all can see, the go-slow retreat/pilgrimage on foot becomes an addiction. Also I have been privileged to visit Our Lady of Covadonga, the cathedral at Oviedo, and many other edifying churches.

It is not too much to say that I long for the days when we can walk the Camino again.

A wonderful mail delivery

Hello, everyone.

A couple of days ago we had a wonderful mail delivery: (Blogger refuses to allow me to upload the photo!)

Sadly I cannot show you the picture of the two new (current-year) Camino Frances guides. Blogger is messed up and will not let me upload a photo. It keeps hanging up in google docs...which is not where the picture is!

You know, the old Blogger worked fine most of the time. It never gave me problems with uploading photos. It never gave me problems with putting links in the posts either. And I didn't have to interpret strange symbols to begin composing a new post. 

It's ridiculous!

We got our new guide books for the Camino. These were new ones because the last time we walked the Camino Frances was 2014. (And with the China plague this spring, we had to postpone our Via de la Plata walk that would have begun right after Easter.) We decided to see if we could do a slightly shorter one later on, when Spain is again ready for visitors. We ordered the new Camino Frances guide books from Ivar Revke's shop in Santiago de Compostela. (Ivar is the proprietor of the wonderful, informative Camino Forum, which is linked in the sidebar.) 

We ordered two different books because, as with finding a new recipe, it's always good to read more than one and compare them. 

Perhaps in a few days Blogger will be working better and allow photo upload. I certainly hope so!

Another lily heard from

Hello, everyone.

Just for pretty!

This was one of the Asiatic lilies in a multi pack given to me by DD and her future spouse for last spring's birthday. It sprouted up in the fall and is going strong.

Spring flowerpots update, and a wild creature

Hello, everyone.

The last few posts have shown the progress of the holdover lily plant. This may be the last one for that plant this year, if it doesn't surprise us all by making seeds. (I haven't seen any bees coming around.)

Y'all can see that the main bulb has made many buds this year. It also has "pupped out" several stems in the pot and maybe in a couple-three years they will bloom, too. At the left in this picture is the stem of another Easter lily that was bought this year. It gave about 4 blossoms. In a little while I will find a larger pot--larger than the 1 gallon one inside the "decorator" purple can--and see if we can have two holdover lilies next year.

The yellow is one of the daylily plants that was brought over from the old house. The other three found homes in a flower bed, but there wasn't room enough for all four. It seems to be happy in the pot, anyway.

On another note, in March on one of the days we were sharing an afternoon gin and tonic (to frighten the plague-virii away) we saw a critter crawling around in the radio.

It's not very big, and we have no idea what manner of moth or butterfly it should become down the road. We did follow our standard rule of thumb: don't touch the fuzzy caterpillars. Some of them have stingers!

Today is the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, and by official proclamation in the US has been declared  "Law Day"--no idea if this name will stick around or not--as well as being May Day.

I was once told by my grandmother that on May Day in her youth they would make paper baskets and give flowers to their friends. As she grew up in eastern Montana, at the exact other extreme of the US (speaking north-south here) I suspect that any flowers they could find on May Day was a pretty big thing. Snow is not unheard of on May Day, and even on May 31 they sometimes get snow in those parts.

Here in South Texas, the first of May is well into "pretty darned warm" season. At this time of the year there is generally little rain and from now into fall what there is usually comes from tropical systems. Today the temperature has been well into the 90's F. (north of 32C for my metric zone readers.)

I have made about all of the elastic in the house into masks, and as the plague seems to be on the downhill slope now am looking toward other projects. DH wants some sleepwear, there is a piece of knit that looks just right for an infinity scarf for me, and hopefully the Kimberbell Christmas quilt classes will be able to resume at my local quilt shop. Also I have started working on a new fidget--still kind of misty and vague right now, but there is an oval of blue fur cut out for the base.