Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day's to all you mothers out there! I'm in awe of all you do.



Speaking of amazing mothers, check out the cover that my sister did for Joy Kogawa's recent book, Naomi's Tree (Fitzhenry & Whitside):



I was going to spend all day yesterday sewing, but it was just so GORGEOUS outside that I couldn't stay indoors. Jeff and I did shopping for housestuff and then did some gardening outside.

We also picked up this cool stackable planter for our back deck:



I immediately planted some of my herb and flower seeds (flowers: nasturtiums, which are edible!) as well as splitting and transplanting my chives. I'll also be transplanting the seedlings I've been nurturing indoors, once they get big enough. Look, my forget-me-nots are sprouting:



I've sprinkled cayenne pepper around my outdoor planters to discourage squirrels from digging in the freshly potted earth. When I woke up this morning, the planters were untouched -- I'm going to have to find a bulk supplier of cayenne pepper, I think.

After doing gardeningstuff, I went for a 5 km walk, picked up some seam binding and groceries, then came back to do some serging. I found out how to remove the needles from my serger and learned how to do a 3-thread overedge, rolled hem, narrow hem, picot edge, and flatlock. Some of the stitches required disengaging the upper knife. I love typing that sentence because it sounds way more impressive than it really is. "Don't bother me, dear; I'm disengaging my upper knife." Heh.

I was most intrigued by the rolled hem and flatlock stitches. I can easily see using a rolled hem as decorative edging for seams on lightweight fabrics but also on ruffles and lettuce edges. I want to learn how to do lettuce edges -- those are the slight ruffles you see at the bottom of gauzy and other light/knit fabrics. I'll need to experiment with adjusting the differential for that, I think (another impressive phrase).

Flatlock is also an interesting stitch. A flatlock is a reversible stitch (has two right sides) and you basically serge the pieces of fabric together, then open them up and press the seam flat -- the serged part is the right side (it's not hidden but part of the garment's decoration). I've noticed a lot of sportswear with flatlock stitching these days.

Jeff's amused by my new obsession with stitching. I was upstairs on the couch examining the quillow that the Gladney clan kindly made for me some years ago. In the old days, Jeff just would have thought that I was admiring it in general. This time he said, "You're trying to figure out how it was made, aren't you?"

Anyway, I also cut out and started a dress. I almost cut out the pattern from the wrong side of the fabric BUT didn't because I'm now in the habit of checking a zillion times. Also almost sewed the interfacing to the wrong side of the fabric (as usual). I'm still making mistakes, but not quite as many as before.

I have both my sewing machine and my serger out on my craft table these days, going from one to the other, depending on the stage of my sewing projects. I feel like such a Sewing Goddess as I switch back and forth...at least until my seams inevitably start wobbling around curves and I have to unpick them (happened twice yesterday).

But for a few brief and glorious seconds at a time, I can pretend I almost know what I'm doing.

It's quite the heady sensation.

Babylon Five Virgin update

SPOILER WARNING: The blog below focuses on my reports while watching Babylon Five for the first time. An LJ feed is also available. If you haven't seen B5 yet and don't want spoilers, please DO NOT click below.

Season 3, Episode 58: Ship Of Tears

Season 3, Episode 59: Interludes and Examinations




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