Valerean

We were very lucky to be spared the bulk of Hurricane Idalia's destructive power yesterday. The storm passed very quickly, and aside from some very minor tree damage we emerged unscathed. I'm not sorry we made all the preparations that we did, either. You never know with these storms.

My guy and I spent another day out having lunch at our favorite cheap ale house; my excellent fish and chips were $6.99. We then tried to work off some of the calories by walking a nearby two-story mall. Mall walking is what old people do in summer so we don't pass out from the mid-day heat. My favorite person's favorite boutique was having a big sale, but I resisted the urge to buy her something. With her vagabond lifestyle she really doesn't need more stuff to lug around with her (which is why I mainly send her money or things she can eat.) On the way home we stopped at an antique shop I've always wanted to visit but never had the time to, where I found this shabby chic mini apothecary cabinet. It's perfect for storing all my needles for handstitching and the sewing machine.

My guy took me to see this local collector (and possibly the maker) of some awesome yard art. Their entire property is covered with brightly-colored metal sculptures, garden figurines and signs. My immediate impression was that the owner is someone who is a) really happy and b) does not give a damn what people think. We should all aspire to this mindset. :)

It's not every day I walk out into the backyard and find a flock of wild turkeys roosting on the fence. From their coloring I'll guess these guys are Eastern turkeys (the other species in our state, the Osceola, generally live in the panhandle.) With all the development going on around us, woodlands are being cleared, and this flock was probably driven out from their territory into our neighborhood. It's not a good idea to feed wild turkeys, by the way. They lose their fear of humans and can become aggressive, and also stick around when they should be wandering and foraging. Wil turkey hunting season ended in April, so these guys should be safe as long as they avoid the dogs some of my neighbors let out without a leash.

The latest track for Tropical Storm Idalia, which will probably become Hurricane Idalia tomorrow, has us in the cone of doom now. It doesn't have much time to strengthen, but Gulf storms can be tricky, so we'll just keep a close watch on it. I already have a month's worth of posts scheduled to publish, should our power get knocked out for awhile, but don't worry. We're well stocked and prepared, and we'll be fine. I'll let you know how we make out when I can. Image Credit: The National Hurricane Center

This is the old dust cover for my sewing machine. I picked it up at quilt show probably twenty years ago because I needed one and didn't have the confidence to make my own. I do appreciate how long it's lasted, but it's really not me. When I found these fabrics in my scraps lot last month I thought, "Let's make a new dust cover for the Singer." So I did. Rather than use an existing pattern I drafted my own, which allowed me to tailor the cover to my machine and make it reversible. It's how I feel about sewing, in fabric form, I guess. Anyway, definitely more me than the old cover. :)

When I purchased these two quilted art tags from 14carrot I wanted to make them into book covers using thrifted fabric, as I did with the ones I used for my journal. These would be for holiday gifts, though, so I tried not to mess up sewing the covers last month. I meant to make them both from this sunflower print, but my first attempt was too small for the sketchbook I wanted to cover (the curse of yellow!) The second attempt turned out okay, I think, but I then ran out of sunflower fabric. The second cover with the nectarine-colored floral fabric turned out a bit too large, but it still fits the sketchbook, so I decided to use it. The most frustrating part of sewing for me is measuring. I always make mistakes, usually because I eyeball things when I'm sewing instead of marking the measurements on the fabric. Or, when I do mark the fabric, I make a mistake with the ruler. I know this is my weakness, and I can keep practicing and hopefully get better with it.

I seem to be having a streak of good luck with Chinese dramas, as coming in as another near-perfect production is Lighter & Princess , a bad boy/good girl college romance that just about knocked my socks off, and demonstrated that with the right actors and script even propaganda and censorship can't ruin an awesome series. The story: From the very first day at university good girl Zhu Yun (a deceptively simple character depicted perfectly by Zhang Jing Li) butts heads with bad boy Li Xin (superbly portrayed by Chen Fei Yu), a computer prodigy whiz who basically blows everyone out of the water the minute he taps a keyboard. At first their rocky relationship seems doomed to become a bitter rivalry, but somehow it doesn't. Gradually Zhu Yun finds out Li Xin has a tragic past, partly the fault of her strait-laced mother, who got him expelled from middle school for hacking. While Li Xin does everything he can to scare off Zhu Yun, who isn't easily spooked, you get a

It's rare to have a perfect day anymore. Life's frustrations, the ongoing fear-mongering and rampant bigotry in the world are depressing (to me, anyway.) I don't like people much anymore, and I have to struggle a lot with urges to completely withdrawal into myself. Fortunately my guy realizes this, I think, and drags me out of the house to run errands or go for a drive, when he's really just trying to get me away from it all. This practice is why we enjoyed a perfect day last month by making a trek we do once or twice a year, and stopping for lunch at a roadhouse. The food was pre-pandemic plentiful and absolutely delicious; my haddock sandwich was the best I've ever had. From there we then went to the Russell Stover outlet to get some sugar-free candy for me. This is always like my personal Christmas. We were still too full from lunch when we got home to bother with dinner, but we decided to have some watermelon from the garden. This is the small

Once my scraps lot arrived last month I wanted to have some fun, so I decided to do a one-day piecing project with these Asian, solid and tonal fabrics. The Asian scraps are pretty, and I used their colors to put the palette together from what was available in the lot. I cut all the scraps into three-inch strips, which was the width that would use up the most fabric. I then stitched all the strips together end to end to form one very long strip, and then began sewing the strips together by doubling them each time (you can see the technique in this video for Valerie Nesbitt's 40-minute scrap quilt top.) You never know what you're going to get with this random chance piecing style, so it's fun to see how it turns out. All my waves strips migrated to one end of the pieced top, but that's why it's random -- and (with another piece of fabric for the top and a strip of black for the bottom) here's what I made it into: Yep, the birds needed a n

Here are some pics of the fabrics I found inside four of the ten bags that came with my scraps lot, which I measured last night. I measured only the scraps that were at least 1/8 yard or larger, so there were plenty of strips and trims that I didn't measure. The total yardage of the 117 fabrics I received that were 1/8 yard or bigger was 44.25, which includes fifteen one-yard pieces and two 2-yard pieces. I paid a total of $32.07 including shipping for the lot, so that works out to seventy-two cents a yard. Looking carefully through the entire lot made me almost positive that it originally belonged to a quilter. Aside from the two flannels everything else is quilting cotton. The scraps in the bags are sorted by color, holidays or are the kind of assortments you'd find at a quilt show. The cut fabrics are in patchwork-suitable blocks. Also, none of the fabrics have been laundered, which is typical of quilters. I'm really pleased with the value, too. I

The lot that made me break my promise to quit bidding on Goodwill auctions arrived, so let's see if it was worth it. This was listed as "14lbs Fabrics Collection Lot w/ Scraps" but only a few pics of maybe ten fabrics. As you can see I got a lot more, mostly quarter to half yard scraps, strips, blocks and leftover cut fabrics. Two (possibly more) fabrics are definitely over a yard. Everything is bright, clean and has no smell at all. All but two of the scrap fabrics are quilting cottons, most from JoAnn. The two oddball scraps are juvenile flannels. I also scored ten ziplock bags stuffed with even more pristine scraps; these look like project leftovers and perhaps some scrap bags purchased at a quilt show. One bag has templates for making three sizes of face masks, elastic, and soome precut mask pieces waiting to be sewn together. All of these bags are quilting cottons, and since I found some store bought and homemade binding, I'll guess this is a qu

I have to blame the summer issue of Art Quilting Studio for inspiring me to try making a trio of art quilts as my first small series. The cover art shows a machine and hand embroidered garden art quilt that made me remember some vintage sheer organza samples I had. I sandwiched those with recycled white linen, cotton batting and some art cloth as backing to make three mini quilt foundations. Rather than follow the instructions from the magazine, I decided to slow-stitch these three pieces and see what came out of that. I did the blue flower from a memory of seeing a similar slow-stitched bloom on Etsy. The cream roses nestled in the V of a tree trunk are another interpretation of that moment in the mountains when I chose roses and joy instead of despair and bitterness (aka one of the best decisions of my life.) The third piece has no meaning; I just stitched the flowery patterns I saw in the sheer layer.

Over the years I have managed to dull or break every seam ripper I own, with the exception of this cheap little plastic one that belonged to my mom (the one at the bottom of the pic.) Yet after something like sixty years of service, the blade finally grew dull, and there's no way to sharpen it. I've struggled on using it as it is because it was Mom's, but my hands aren't thanking me for that. Finally I invested in a new seam ripper/stiletto combo tool (in the little purple bag.) The two-in-one tool is really beautiful, has a nice weight to it, and is self-capping. To use the ripper or the stiletto, you just have to pull out and reverse the ends. I got this from Quill and Hive on Etsy. It was a bit pricey, but I wanted to invest in a better ripper, too, to save my hands (thank you, Theo, as this was possible via your birthday gift to me!). As for my mom's old seam ripper, it's been with me too long to toss out, so now it will retire to my

My guy loves meatball subs, but the quality at the sub shops has been steadily declining, so I decided to try an idea for a meatball sub he could dip that I based on the construction of some of the party rings in this Tasty video . I used two cans of crescent rolls (16 altogether) to make the crust, and a small bag of thawed frozen Italian meatballs that I first browned in a pan plus about a cup of low-fat mozzarella as the filling. I assembled everything on a parchment paper-lined baking pan, and then I baked it for 14 minutes in a 375F oven. The dipping sauce is just a jar of garlic/onion marinara sauce that I warmed up on the stove. He really loved it, although I think the next time I make it I'll use my own meatballs and sauce, and sprinkle a little oregano and basil over the filling.

I'm thrifting so much this year it's easy to imagine me with rooms filled with second hand stuff like this wire basket. So you don't worry here's what I've been doing with some of my finds. The wire basket now holds the embroidery thread for whatever project I'm working on. I was working out of plastic bags; I prefer the basket as it's something I can leave out that looks nice in the sewing room. I've been thrifting picture frames as I need them. The latest pale wood frame I bought was specifically for this slow-stitch textile art piece for my home office, the decor of which I'm still tweaking. This wooden box planter was also a need-buy. After I cleaned it up, I asked my guy to drill some holes in the bottom, which he actually replaced because it was just a thin piece of crap wood. I then got some seeds 14carrot sent me with my last order and planted them in it. Hopefully something grows in there. :)