Is it Summer Yet?

 At the start of summer break, I planned to having a relaxing summer. I wanted to draw, practice flute, clean out my email inbox, walk daily, practice yoga daily, sew....So how's that going? I've gotten some art ready for stickers, but haven't actually drawn any new art. I practiced flute for about 15 minutes. I started the summer with shoulder pain so the flute, and yoga, had to be put on hold. I have been walking a lot--30 minutes daily, M-F and some on the weekend, as well as an almost daily 25 min walk with the dog after dinner (not fitness walking at all LOL). I have done a bit of sewing, which I'll go over. Also finished up a charity crocheted blanket and started a Christmas stocking. I have also had doctor's appointments, x-rays, ultrasound, physio, dentist, eye doctor...middle kid got her wisdom teeth out, both girls have jobs and need rides, youngest has the rink twice a week...it's been a lovely summer though not the relaxing, do nothing summer I thought it would be

One day, I got a phone call from an elderly man who's quite popular in our community FB group. I had previously repaired an old wool Mary Maxim jacket for him, and now he had a wool blanket he kept in the car that had a few holes. I said I'd take a look. 

Turns out, it's woven, not knitted, but this gave me a great opportunity to learn how to do mending using the weaving method! One of those things I thought I'd learn at some point. 

It wasn't too hard! He was very pleased with it. I also made sure to give it a good bath in wool wash. 

As well as making stickers on my Cricut, I made IG address decals for our trucks, and new dishwasher magnets. I was planning to make the silver one, white, but it was too transparent. The Tricolour one will be sent to my eldest. He expressed interest in having one, but didn't like our original one since when the Clean was upright, it was on the bottom. So I fixed that. 

I despartely needed new slippers. I loved the gold ones I had, with suede soles. I'm out of suede, so I got out the ToughTech I bought for swim shoes in the summer of 2019, as part of the cruise prep. 

I also wanted a new sleep mask. Currently, I use a dark coloured buff. It works fine but thought maybe something new would be nice. I wanted something with some shape, as commercial sleep masks gape along my nose. I had seen some really cool shaped ones on Amazon and thought maybe I could make something. I had a hard time finding a pattern, eventually landing on this one by a Korean YouTuber, for a contoured eye mask. She created it so it wouldn't rub on her eyelashes. It's supposed to bubble outwards, reminds me of fly eyes, LOL. However, my interfacing was too weak (she didn't specify in the video), and my fabric too wimpy, so I don't quite get that same effeect. Plus, I had trouble sewing the slippery fabric, then I trimmed the seams, turned right side out, and discovered I had sewn the elastic into the seam. Picked it out, re-stitched, turned right side out, and discovered that I must have snipped the elastic when I was snipping the seam allowance on the curves. So I had to rejoin the ends. Overlapping the ends has made the elastic just a smidge too small now, and I wake up with a blue line across my forehead. There is still some gaping around my nose, but it's not too bad. I think next time, I'll just make a flat one LOL.

One of the lettering tutorials I followed early in the summer. Going to make it into stickers.

There is a long story with this. The short version is I combined some different pieces I did into one, and made a background for my new laptop. The two mushrooms with faces, I drew them just by looking at reference photos! I'm so proud of them!

Megan bought a dirtbike, but has been cursed. Another attempt to go out and this happened. Sigh. Poor girl.

Finished this corner to corner crocheted blanket for the seniors. 

As I was getting near the end, I realized I wouldn't have enough of the green blend. So I created a plan to increase the pink (previously it had been one row) and decreased the green (it had been two rows). It's not quite the transition I was envisioning, but it's done. It weighed 600grams.

I made two versions of this dress very early in my sewing hobby--2007. I learned the hard way about full bust adjustments. Actually, I didn't learn it then, but this pattern showed why I needed a FBA. Check out New Look 6557 in the Labels section.

I found this pattern at a thrift shop and it seemed complete. It's similar to the above pattern, and Simplicity is the parent company. This one doesn't have the midriff band, and uses pleats in the bust instead of gathers. I thought I'd give it a try finally, but found it was missing all the bodice pieces except the front upper bodice. So I'm merging the two patterns.

I tried on the second version of the New Look dress that I made in 2007. I could zip it up this time, but after much searching, I found the original picture (which I didn't seem to blog!).

My bust is definitely bigger now! This was 6 months after the reduction, and a month after recovering from giardia.

This is the first test of the new mash up. It's just the top portion. It felt a little bare and revealing in the V neck. So I altered the pattern pieces a bit more.

On the last few inches of sewing the lining to the bodice and I run out of bobbin thread. I start winding a new one, get halfway full, and suddenly the machine starts slipping. My other machine is getting looked at because it started making a noise! Ack. For the last year, every time I ran out of a bobbin, I tended to just grab whatever was somewhat close and already filled Now I'm down to a few bobbins, and they're those colours. Argh.

And that's pretty much it for now!

Yarn In: 150gr

Yarn Out:  600gr + 20gr = 620gr

Difference:  470gr more OUT than in

Costs: $15.22/213 days = $0.07

New Addition

Although I haven't blogged much, things have been going on. Finished a pair of pants, I'm working on a swim suit, I finished the edges of some table runners for my SIL. Been mostly in planning mode though. I have some new fabric!

 This piece is a woven and reminded me immediately of the shirts the men wore at my parents' 40th anniversary renewal party! I thought about making Rob a dress shirt but he recently got a huge assortment of very, very dress shirts from his BIL. So he is all set in the dress shirt division!

 This very large piece (I estimate it at 6m) says it's 80% rayon, 20% linen. It has a nice drape but still some body. I'm picturing  New Look 6457 in view E. I need to muslin it first though. And I don't have enough similar fabric to make a wearable muslin. Do I just scrap it together? I also thought about flowy summer pants but the girls said no. They always so no to that. Hopefully I have enough left over for a top, since I have blue shorts and blue pants, it will fit right into my blue capsule, and maybe the beige capsule. I'm picky though. If it doesn't match the beige pants, it'll need to contrast enough that it looks intentional!

The other great  gain is a "new" sewing machine! I saw a post on Freecycle for a 40 year old Kenmore. I haven't been lucky on Freecycle in a while, but I emailed and asked about it. It had been regularly maintained and used until recently but now seems stiff to turn the wheel and skips stitches. Okay, doesn't sound too bad. Skipped stitches could simply be a new needle!  It wasn't too far, so I didn't feel too bad asking Rob to drive me over (my truck is dead).

It has the manual (good, because it's different enough than my other Kenmores, when it comes to the dials), and the proper case, and the foot pedal! What it doesn't have is any extra feet or attachments. We sprayed it down with a silicone spray and let it sit over night. 

 Look at that zig zag, right on the edge!! I've never been able to do that with either of the Kenmores I've had!  The stitch lengths go from 8 to 12. There's no 6 like on my machine, but it does have a "B". This creates a stitch which seems longer than the 6 on my machine. And lately my machine is not very good at being consistent when I change speed.

 The stretch straight stitch and stretch "smocking" stitch had some tension issues. The bobbin case was quite loose, so tightening that helped. Also, this is a woven, with a universal needle, so not really the right application for either of those stitches.

 I decided to wash the bottom of the cover in my dishwasher. After it was all clean, I noticed the instructions. Well, technically I followed them, especially since I don't use the dry cycle.

My collection! At first, I thought I would give this machine to my mom. She just does repairs (mainly it was my dad that did them LOL). She could use the zipper foot and button tools from her machine. And it could go in her machine's cabinet. Then I would take her Kenmore, which is more advanced than either of these. I'd still be able to do zippers and button holes on my Kenmore (the one on the left. Confusing because it's my older acquired machine, but newer in age LOL). Then I realized there's no base for mom's machine. I'm not sure it would sit on a desk. We talked about me just taking her whole desk, but I LOVE my desk. And with the machine in a desk, you can't do free arm sewing. That is a must to me. So, it looks like for now, I will just keep it. I threaded it up and intended to use it for basting only in my next project (swim suit). But then I did some twin needle work with it...

So, so far, I've sewn with four different Kenmores, all different models. I love them, especially now I can do a proper zig zag. My MIL also has a Kenmore. She was trying to sell it before she moved, but no one would buy it so she just kept it. Maybe one day it'll be joining my collection! I saw it once, but I didn't pay attention to the model or anything. She's had it since the late 70s I think. And if anything ever went wrong, I know my FIL would have taken care of it!