observations and sewing woes

Saturday evening’s sky.

Today is my grocery shop day but so far only one thing on the list. It’s unseasonably warm this week, average temperature for this time of year is about 69˚ and it’s supposed to get to 81˚ today. The tallows, the ginkgos, crepe myrtles, the maple, and the pecans have lost all their leaves. The red oak and water oak not yet. This morning when I got up and let the dog and cat out I could hear the crows going nuts in the wild space at the back corner of the property. When I walked back there to see what was what, the entire large flock flew off to settle in a farther tree with their cacophony. I potted the three cuttings from the morning glory bush and the green onions yesterday, just the root end on some and two that had been in the fridge too long that I had growing in water. And I’m formulating a new plan to trap Ghost.

I finished Paisleigh’s blanket on Sunday. Saturday went fine, even to the point of running out of the pink thread I was using as I made the last stitch. Sunday, not so much. I had to go to the Evil Empire for more blanket binding and yellow grosgrain ribbon because what I had wasn’t enough so I picked up a new spool of pink thread to match the blanket binding. Once home I cut and pinned the yellow ribbon and the blanket binding (took me a half hour to figure out how to turn the corner) and threaded the machine with the new spool of thread and that’s when the trouble started as I was trying to sew the blanket binding onto the edge of the blanket. There’s a hook attached to the bar that moves the needle up and down that carries the thread  and about every six to eight inches it would slip out and the thread would become knotted with the bobbin thread. So, stop, clip the thread, remove the tangled clump, rethread the machine and try again. About the sixth or seventh time the thread was so knotted that I couldn’t move the needle up or down at all and ended up breaking the needle. FINE! Be that way.

I’ve had this happen once before but it was with a very old spool of thread and when I replaced it, everything worked fine. So after I replaced the needle I yanked that new spool of thread out and threw it away and finished sewing the satin blanket binding on with a much darker pink. Then I stitched the yellow ribbon down and was done.

And then since I don’t buy wrapping paper because I have a huge roll of white paper that I used for full size drawings 

that I bought before Hurricane Harvey and the house flooding and subsequent retirement from the etched glass so I did what I always do when I need wrapping paper. I painted my own. Quickly done with markers and watercolor, amateurish, did the marker first then the watercolor and should have done the other way around but gets the job done.

I’ve done everything I wanted to do, have already gifted two of the four presents I’m giving this year so let the day come and the Lost Days begin.