Morning walk sights

 Hello, everyone.

"Morning walk sights" is the title of this post, but there is actually only one walk picture for this one.

It is from yesterday's walk, I looked up and saw a great cloud of birds flying in a line. By the time I got the phone out and awakened, the organized line had turned into a sort of blob. Is it migrating hawks?

This was not as early as the last morning sky photo, we left the house about 0700 yesterday. 

On the sewing front, I bought some fabric from mail order and thought I was getting a knit. Oops. And oddly enough the penny didn't drop for me until *after* I had cut out a top in it. Now I am going to try putting a zipper in on the side...it goes over the head fine, but the semi-fitted waist area doesn't go over the bust well at all. So I will try adding an invisible zip on the side seam.

On the plus side, I did have enough off-cut to make a gift bag. 

This bag has French seams (there is a tiny "decorative element" at the sides where the serging to remove raveled threads sticks out), boxed corners, and a casing with two openings at the top. I ran one ribbon all the way around from the left opening and the second ribbon all the way around from the right opening, and knotted the ends to keep the ribbons from getting lost. It is a reusable bag! With a cheerful, non thematic print that can be for almost any kind of gift.

The fabric was bought from Fabric.com, and I think it's a rayon or rayon-poly blend. Very light weight, but opaque.

A small catch-up on sewing this last week or so

 Hello, everyone.

As it's August in South Texas, projects that can be done inside, in the air conditioning, appeal more than others.

Besides, Christmas is coming. (All y'all that think I am making things for you, close your eyes.) 

The Flowery Bull is making another appearance. 

Pinning the facing (outside facing) onto a new garment.

And a pair of "Woopsies"--The top stuffy was embroidered onto the reverse side of the minky-style fabric. (He doesn't look too bad, but all the lovely cuddly fuzz on this one is on the back side.) I may give the birdie away to someone...well, as I'm too old for lots of toys, all the toys are give-away items. And if you don't know that his front is on the wrong side of the fabric, he's fine. Perhaps some folks prefer him the way he came out!

The bottom stuffy was an experiment with a free design. The directions called for felt, which I used. The photo with the directions online didn't show felt as having been used, it showed something in the linen or cotton woven zone. There is a reason for that. The felt fabric doesn't have a lot of strength to resist pulling, such as the pulling involved in turning a tiny pillow right-side-out through a 3/4" wide hole. In the event, I widened the hole some, and used needle-nosed pliers to *carefully* pull out as much as possible. The pointy bottom of the heart was not going to come out at all, as it's just too narrow at the bottom. Then I stuffed it and closed the opening with red thread and ladder stitches. 

I guess the heart is good for a bowl filler piece. It's about palm-size.

New stuff

 Hello, everyone.

As things go, one of the plastic legs on my keyboard broke. (I loved that keyboard!)

As y'all can see, the little plastic pin that holds the leg out gave out, and tape was required just to use the keyboard. (I used some of my sewing tape as it was not too wide for the job.)

Sigh. I loved the feel of the old keyboard, and I was used to the amber backlight that told me the keys were powered up even if nothing was going on elsewise. 

After reading about keyboards in the internet and hunting about for a mechanical keyboard to replace the broken one, I settled on a Logitech one at Best Buy. I had it delivered because it's a headache to deal with curbside pickup for small things. 

The new keyboard doesn't have the row of game oriented keys that were on the left edge of the old one--which I never used--and so it's an inch or two shorter across the front. As a bonus it also has a plug where the mouse can be attached and then a unified cable bundle carries the signals down to where the cable splits and each half goes into its own USB plug. I figure that it will keep down the amount of potential back-of-desk tangling that goes on.

The picture may not make it completely obvious, but the new keyboard has a white backlight thing going on. It came set so bright that I had to turn it down a couple of levels! Who wants a keyboard light so bright that they can practically read a paperback book by it?

A program note: sewing projects and embroidery projects are going on around here and I intend to describe them over the next few posts.

Nature's beauty

 Hello, everyone.

This morning I got going early and while walking Da Pooch saw this sky.

Fortunately the cell phone had come along for the ride.

I had been sleeping late recently and had forgotten how lovely the early morning skies look.

After the hurricane, flowers

Hello, everyone.

The hurricane brought us a good helping of rain. Now, a few days later, the rain lilies are performing.

I got the mother bulb clumps from Yucca Do, a specialist nursery that used to be in the Beaumont area. (Much missed, I hear a while back the gentleman retired.)

These little bulbs are happy in our climate, and with a bit of water they don't go all the way dormant in the summer. When we get a decent rain, up they come! There are three varieties blooming in this picture. They are related to the more trumpet-shaped, larger ones that have been shown before I think. At the bottom the white ones have buds up but are not open.

A little sewing

Hello, everyone.

Last week, before the storm hit, there was a little bit of sewing accomplished.

DH had said he wants to have another mask. (This brings him to three.) I thought I'd make one for myself, too, and the piece cut from the cranes fabric turned out to be large enough for two. These are all a larger size than the pattern called for, the flowers at 9.5" wide and the others at 9.75", I think. I underlined all of them with some gray voile that has been lying around the sewing space for years. 

If travel to Spain ever opens up--the news media seem determined to panic-monger their way into no one ever being allowed to travel ever again!--I will get to decide which one or two masks gets to go with me. 

The plan is, use common sense and courtesy. This works out to carrying a mask and if the people in an area are wearing them, pull it out of the pocket and put it on. (That's the courtesy part.) There is also the abiding thought that perhaps this is not the year to really try to stay in the group bunk houses (albergues) and where there is a pensión or similar, stay there instead. (That is the common-sense part.) I remember that the county west of ours, even before masks became a "thing" in our area, was very much into wearing them to contain germs during the current outbreak of "stuff." It is my thought that if a village or town is wearing the masks, even if there isn't a law requiring it, courtesy recommends the rule of St. Augustine: "when in Rome, I do as the Romans do."

Pretty doggie

Hello, everyone.

It has been busy around the old homestead this past week, with both canine and youthful visitors. Very little embroidery work was done, very little walking-with-camera was done, and to cap it off we had the edge of a hurricane this weekend.

The happy hostess of the canine houseguests. 

The reaction of the baby Caribbean Tree Cacti to the almost nonstop rain during the night and off and on all day. They had to be picked up from their pan, the water dumped, and then be put back. The pan was moved farther from the edge of the porch, too.

Hoping to resume more usual activity levels in a few days!