2022 Sewing Log

 

4 January 2022

I finally finished cutting out Bra C today.  After I mark the darts and fold lines on the bras, and sort the scraps and put them away, the project will have to go on hold until I get to Lowery and buy some yellow thread.  I'd planned to use 100/6, but the fabric isn't going to last very long, so I might as well use a matching color.

I really, really, REALLY need to darn my wool tights.

 

Wednesday, 5 January 2022

Someday I'll try to remember what I was thinking when I took photographs and put them in appropriate places.

Finished marking the bras, folded up the tables, and hung up the patterns.  All I can do before buying yellow thread (which I hope to do the day after tomorrow) is to put easing stitches at the front of each neck.

The brad is too short to accept the new patterns, so I drove my very last worn-out sewing-machine needle above it.  As if the dust on the tools wasn't enough to tell me that I haven't been sewing much.

Finally got around to putting the lace into the new box, shielded with pieces of a worn-out linen pillow case.  Didn't take long.  Found some doilies I'd forgotten about.

I put the scraps from the bras into the old lace box, suitably re-labeled.  I plan to put them into the linen box when I'm done pawing through them for bias tape.

The ironing board is clearable with the lace put away, but I don't have time to iron today.  I wash tomorrow, which may add more to the to-iron pile.

 

Friday, 7 January 2022

Finally finished pinning the neck binding of WL bra#3, sewed it, and it's hanging in the closet.

Perhaps someday I'll find time to start 2022SEW1.HTM.

Still no ironing done.  I plan to buy yellow thread tomorrow.  I have a scrap in my wallet, so I can't forget to take it with me.

I've been thinking what to embroider for inventory marks.  I plan to put them center front at the neckline, so they should be ornamental.  Making them obviously different is incompatible with making them small and simple.  I guess I have to go with the resistor code:  lazy daisies in brown, red, and orange.  Before shopping, I'd better verify that I have orange thread.

There was orange floss in the floss box in the foot locker, but not orange enough.  While digging down to the floss box, I found an elegant plastic D-ring buckle, probably from the thirties (It was 25¢), and moved it to the buckles & misc. box.

To my surprise, there was no floss in the backpack, save for a stray skein of yellow.  Then I remembered moving the envelope (zipper sandwich bag) of floss, so I took the beginning-embroidery box off the top shelf — not easy — and, as expected, there was a skein of very obvious orange.

 

Monday, 10 January 2022

On Saturday, I bought four yards of yellow quilt fabric, two spools of yellow thread (one for the bras and one to match the fabric), and a packet of four one-inch D rings.

Today, I zig-zagged the ends of the fabric and put it into the laundry hamper.  This got complicated, as the smaller bobbin of no-provenance thread ran out almost before I'd begun.  The other lasted for the rest of the job.  Much to my surprise, the double-wound bobbin lasted the full width of the first end.  But it went only a few inches into the second, and I had to unthread the machine and wind another.  Then it would appear that I didn't get it into the bobbin case quite right, and I had to remove both the bobbin case and the shuttle race to clean out the tangle.  I couldn't find the shuttle-race cleaning brush — truth, I was not in a mood to spend a lot of time looking for it and I have a stencil brush that works just fine.  But it didn't turn up at once after I'd put the machine back together, so I'm going to have to empty some drawers some time.  Luckily, the bobbin-tension adjusting screwdriver was exactly where it belonged.  I'd been adjusting the upper tension to maximum, so I gave the bobbin tension a little tweak after I'd finished the zig-zagging with the upper tension set to normal.  I'll have to re-thread the machine before I find out whether it was the correct tweak.

I put the newly-purchased thread into thread bags and put them into the cotton-thread drawer.  For once I did that before a label fell off and got lost!

Also put a spool of pink Bel-Waxed thread into the cotton drawer after putting the faded outer layer onto the double-wound bobbin.

Not as much sewing as I hoped to do, but I spent much of the morning cleaning the kitchen.

For some reason, I took time out to photograph the shelf where I keep miscellaneous threads:  silk that's still in the box, basting thread, 100/6 wound onto Subsilk spools, and so forth.  The piles of spools have chopsticks inside.  I've no idea what the ball of red crochet cotton is doing there.

 

Tuesday, 11 January 2022

I selected a "silver" snap for the phone pocket of the resurrected wool jersey and hatpinned it to the black pincushion on the curtain.

Then I dug out the silk scraps I'd used to make the other two reinforcements, for the dividers of the back pocket.  To my surprise, the larger scrap unfolded to a thread-straight forty by forty-five rectangle, no doubt left over from the scarf under my straw hats.  The other scrap is also thread straight, and has a thread drawn to cut off the selvedge on one edge.  It's four and a half inches wide and an inch more than three yards long.  The other selvage is in the zipper bag of silk and wool tapes.  I presume that I took it off the full length of the fabric when making the scarf.

I think that I will cut a four-inch square from this piece, using the drawn thread to continue cutting off the selvage — I appear to have cut off two four-inch squares to re-inforce the back-pocket dividers in the same way.

⁂

I used the embroidery scissors that I save for cutting silk.  I shall fold it smaller than the pocket patches, which will make it thicker in the middle.

I don't know what, if anything, I shall sew to the hem of the pocket.  Perhaps the end of the selvage that the patches are cutting off. Meanwhile, I'll pin the patch to the same pincushion as the snap, eat lunch, and go to bed.

 

Wednesday, 12 January 2022

Patch folded and basted and resting under a still-warm iron.  Leaving aside false starts and mistakes, I pressed the patch, put it on one of the pieces of plywood I keep around for times when I want a firm surface on the ironing board, drew diagonal lines from corner to corner, used my centering ruler to put tick marks half of a third to each side of the middle, folded one corner on one tick mark to meet the other — I used an eight-inch strip of thin cardboard still hanging around from some hemming project to keep the fold straight while I pressed it.

(In all subsequent steps I pressed frequently to keep the fabric flat and lined up.)

Basted in the crease, folded in the opposite corner, opened it up again and nipped off the under corner with my thread-snipping scissors, basted, folded in the remaining two corners, did not baste, but basted the previously-basted folds together to keep them lined up and not peeking out.  I took the orange basting out during this process, but could not see the blue basting.  When I find it, I'll take it out — and if I don't find it, who cares?  It's not secured at the ends, so it won't pucker anything.

The patch didn't come out any smaller than the patches under the pocket dividers.

Before starting operations, I pressed the flower-print T-shirt I washed a few weeks ago.  I've been wearing summer shirts under my black raw-silk shirt that unsnaps cardigan style.

I noticed a brown stain on the front of the jersey a while back.  It doesn't go all the way through, but it has had years to set.  If I can't get it out, I can embroider a fake darn over it.  It isn't a lot darker than the color of the jersey.

But all I have to get done before Saturday is the snap.

⁂

Before nap time, I put a stiff advertisement into the pocket and basted the patch in place, firmly enough that I can wool it around while doing the final stitching.

I placed it by tracing the pocket by feel and drawing a line across the top of the hem, and a short line to mark each side.  Then I used my shaku stick to mark two dots at the center (one on each side of the ruler) and used the dots to mark a vertical line longer than the diagonal of the patch.  Then I put each corner on one arm of the cross.

My card of darning silk has been missing for months, but there is enough wound on a razor blade in my white-Medici darning kit to sew on the patch, and probably the visible reinforcement as well.  And while searching out the scrap from which I made the patch, I found the patch-donor tights from which I unraveled it.  When they disappeared from the available-fabric closet, I had put them into the box of silk scraps.

I thought I might have had a wild hair and put the darning silk into the silk-thread drawer.  While searching it, I found thread bags and piles of thread bags and more thread bags.  Finally, I found an open thread-bag bag, with two bags remaining.  Returning all those bags to the bag in which they were bought would have been a chore, since they are very floppy, and the bag is narrow and opens at the top, so I fetched a sandwich bag from the kitchen.

Sandwich bags are indispensable, but I don't remember putting a sandwich in one.  It's so hard to get a sandwich in without disarranging it, and so easy to use a square of plastic wrap as a plate to assemble a sandwich on, then fold it up around the sandwich.

Next question:  #9 or #10 needle to do the final stitching?

⁂

#9, it's easier to thread.

I decided to do the quilting first, so that everything would be firmly in place while I stitched down the edge.  I used a piece of two-line correction tape to guide the first round as long as I could stand it.  Once the first round was done, I eyeballed a spiral to the center.  I'm not at all sure that I never turned around and went the other way; turning the entire shirt every few stitches got confusing. The quilting was spaced backstitch because the fabric is very thick.  I also used a sort of backstitched whipstitch to hem the edge; after coming up in the patch, I'd stick the needle into the fabric a little behind where I came up, to give me more room to dip down and come up in the patch.

 

Thursday, 13 January 2022

Ta Dah!  Yesterday evening I remembered that I've been carrying an almost-darned pair of silk tights in my go bag for months.  This morning I unwrapped them, and there was the darning silk.  There are only two wraps of thread left on the card.  That is a lot — the smaller will fill a needle multiple times — but I'm glad I now know where to get more.

There was one needle of darning thread left on the razor blade, but I planned all along to sew the outside patch with #50 silk, what used to be called "machine twist".  The snap itself will be sewn with buttonhole twist, of course.

As near as I can reconstruct my thoughts, I decided to use selvage for the outside reinforcement, then decided to sew the raw edge to the pocket and turn the selvage up, to save turning the raw edge under.  (I was still envisioning sewing by machine, and didn't think of not being able to until at some point I thought "but if I do that, I'll have to sew it by hand".)

Then I thought of extending the tape all the way across, then thought of making it double and folding it in half so one end wouldn't need to be turned under, then thought of sewing the ends together so both ends could be folds, then thought of putting the seam in the center and pressing it open so that there would be three layers where the snap goes.  At some point in the middle of all that, I decided to make the tape a little wider than the pocket, to transfer some of the stress off the corners of the pocket.

So the design was all set when I finally fell asleep.

In the cold light of late morning (It was after many people get up before I drifted off), I realized that sewing a rigid woven selvage to a stretchy wool knit would be more likely to tear it than to protect it.

But the planned design needs only to be shrunk down to a square:  I need a piece of selvage three or four turns of the cloth longer than twice the sum of the seam allowances, plus the allowances.  (The fold should lie a smidgikin beyond the raw edge inside it.)

This seam could be sewn by machine, but sewing half an inch by hand is easier than changing the thread and re-setting the tension — and this is my chance to try out the combination stitch.

Silk thread, #10 needle, the snap, and an inch and a half of selvage are on the ironing board, but it's nap time and a tiny seam in slithery silk requires a bit of brain.

⁂

Done and dusted.  It's not as pretty as I'd like, but it's ready to wear on Saturday.  I even had at the stain with a wet rag, but I doubt that I helped it any.

The ring was too small to press, so I basted the seam open, overcasting both folds at once.  I did all the basting with #50 silk, and continued with the same needleful to back-whip the edges.

When I got buttonhole twist out of the darning kit to sew on the snaps, I noticed that I didn't have two shades of white silk, but one spool of white and an empty spool that had been re-wound with darning silk.  So I took the needleful off the razor blade and wound it round the spool.

Oh, if you want some fun, look up "overcasting" or "buttonhole stitch" in Wikipedia.  It's just close enough to right that I don't think either article could be repaired.

I do hope that the weather will be fit to ride on Saturday.  It's awkward that I can't wear anything thicker than one silk T-shirt under the jersey.  If I wear anything that doesn't open in front over the jersey, I can't get at the cell-phone pocket.  But I don't think it's going to be cold enough that I can't carry the phone in my outer jersey.

 

Friday, 14 January 2022

All six darts are sewn in the three yellow bras.

 

Thursday, 20 January 2022

Cleared off the ironing board, pressed the accordion-pleated hems in a pillowcase and sheet, then ironed the four yards of yellow broadcloth that I washed on Monday.  Then I was too tired to press the six darts, so I ate a chef salad and went to bed.

I knocked the iron off the ironing board twice, and then knocked it over, but caught it (by the handle!) before it could roll to the edge of the board.

The first time it fell off, it bounced off the Kik-Step.  This meant half as far to fall, and the wheels of the step-stool are on springs that hold the non-skid skirt off the floor until somebody steps on it.  But the second time, I'd moved the stool so that I could plug the iron back in.

It doesn't appear to be any more banged up than it was before.

 

Monday, 24 January 2022

Pressed the darts in the yellow bras, using my larger ham.  I'm not sure the smaller wouldn't have worked better.

Then I ironed the edges of a sheet that was drying over two card tables, because the hems were still damp and also accordion pleated.  Pressing the edges of a sheet on the ironing board is a big crummy deal.  Taking a long piece of plywood and an iron to a sheet on card tables is fairly easy, once I figured out how to plug in the iron.

When shifting the sheet, I put the iron on its plywood[1] on a nearby foot locker, which was high enough because it's on a dolly.  The dolly is supposed to make it easy to drag the footlocker back to the sewing room after Roomba is done, but the cat likes to perch on it for a better view out the parlor window.

I didn't appreciate how useful the outlet in the ceiling is until I had to use the short reach of a wall outlet close to the floor.

[1] I keep a small piece of plywood under the iron because my ironing board is so thickly padded that the iron falls over without something firm under it.  This piece is banged up from the feet of the iron, so I try not to use anything else to support it.

 

Tuesday, 25 January 2022

Baked a turkey today.  I'm sure glad I didn't have to start with a live turkey and build a fire in a coal-burning stove.  Or sit turning a spit in front of a fireplace.

Living post-Singularity is lovely.  (You can tell the fifties were a Singularity by the way people born after it are horrified when they learn that women weren't expected to take on a third or fourth full-time job before it.)

 

Wednesday, 26 January 2022

Ran a search for "bra" on my table of contents, looking to be reminded of how to leave a gap in a flat-felled seam.  The bra section of "Women's Underwear" says only "I wish I'd taken notes".

But 2017SEW2.HTM has pictures!

⁂

So I top-stitched one dart, then noted that it happened to be in the left seam, and hemmed the gap in the casing.  Then I trimmed the seam allowance on the dart and started to fold down a quarter inch in preparation for a pre-graded flat-fell seam.

Oops!  One must fold the quarter inch down before hemming the gap.  I left the hemming in, so that it could make creases before I get around to sewing again.

I've hung up the wash and had lunch, and it's time for my nap.

⁂

Didn't wake up until it was past time to prepare supper.

I didn't notice that I'd left the light on the sewing machine on until I came back to the dark room after I'd eaten, washed a week of dishes, and put the laundry away.

 

Thursday, 27 January 2022

I rather suspect that the light I left on is dimmer than it used to be.  I'll know for sure when I turn it on without bright sunlight bouncing off the snow outside my window.  [The battery is well and truly spent.]  [I hate throwing them out when they have enough juice to run a red LED for months.]

When I last washed clothes, I noticed that the knot in the elastic cord in the waist of panties HCJ#3 had come undone, so before resuming work this morning, I pulled the elastic out, put it back, and tied a good firm knot.

Then I thought that the light-yellow thread in the machine would be just right for replacing the stitches I'd pulled out, but changing the foot proved unexpectedly complicated.  It didn't help that I began by turning the screw that holds the needle.  I test stitched more than once to make sure I'd re-tightened the needle properly.

Next is to pick out the tiny hem that I sewed in the wrong order at my previous session.

⁂

I picked it out and basted it correctly, said to myself "Let's try an experiment and sew the other little hem before sewing the seam too."

At which point I noticed that had folded a quarter inch to the wrong side.  For a pre-graded flat fell, it should be folded to the right side.  Ah, well, it only means that the extra row of stitching is on the right side instead of the wrong side, and this thread matches well.  Since I'd trimmed the dart, picking the basting out was not an option.  [later realized that it also means that the slit will be on the outside instead of the inside, but I always have to hunt to find it.]

Then I basted the first fold of the little hem.  (Basting is easier than pressing when a hem is an eighth of an inch wide).  Folded it again and started basting . . . I really ought to change to another color of thread so I can pick the first basting out before stitching the hem . . . wait, I can wait to pull through and cut the needle off until after I've pulled out the first basting; I can tell whether or not I've got the correct thread by whether or not it comes out!

So I did, and sewed both hems, and started to pin Back B to Front A.

The second hem needs to be turned in the opposite direction to the first one, because they will be folded down to meet.  This error I will pick out.  After my nap.

I will complete Bra B before I continue working on A and C!

⁂

I managed to make the hem a bit narrower and more even on the second attempt.

In the close-up you can see that the raw edges overlap a bit at each end of the little hems.  The dramatic curve in the edge straightened out on the bed of the sewing machine.

All this mauling around had stretched the bias a bit, but a little gentle persuasion made the edges match.  The register marks helped.

I sewed the first step of the side seam just before sunset.  Next step will require a hot iron.

 

Saturday, 29 January 2022

While putting my wool jersey on, I noticed that a bar tack on the phone pocket had broken and some of the side seam had come unraveled — needle is easy, but where did I put silk thread?

In the mending kit marked "wool jersey", of course.  I used darning silk, so that undue stress would break the thread before tearing the fabric.

 

Wednesday, 2 February 2022

I darned a hole in my cheap yellow gloves yesterday.  Also organized my darning kits.  The black medici now contains only black medici and a needle, the supersnips having been transferred to the "wool jersey" box.  Removing the powerful magnet from the wool-jersey box stopped the metal stuff from tangling — I don't remember why I put a magnet in that box in the first place.  Perhaps I thought to keep my pins together.  Despite being inside a steel box, the magnet tended to stick to things in my go bag.

************************************************* L---T----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----T----R -->

 

******************************** 
Two broken links in 049:  basted arrows 
******************************** 

******************************** 
When sewing flat-fell seam with gap, sew entirely 
on the wrong side, using the stitches to tell 
where the fold is. 
******************************** 

******************************** completed side 
seam with gap in it. Other dart is next step. 
******************************** 

    

P L---T----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----T----R -->

*************************************************

 

Wednesday, 2 March 2022

Making some entries again!  I took some notes with notepad, and will stick them in here Real Soon Now.  Probably between rows of asterisks above this entry.

I might even get around to splitting off 2022SEW1 from 2021SEW2

But now, pressing all four sides of that %&@#! sheet has a higher priority.

 

Thursday, 3 March 2022

Well, I got two sides pressed yesterday.  I'm hungry for lunch, and I haven't even taken the leg board off the pressed edge I left on the ironing board.

I did install a monitor switch, so I can use the portrait monitor for Web pages — after I get around to rotating it ninety degrees.

Inspired by a trip to the dentist tomorrow, I changed the elastic in my old Capilene tights.  The hardest part was getting new elastic out of the elastic box.  I'd put all the black quarter inch in one sandwich bag, and in trying to neaten up the coil, I disarranged it more and ended up having to re-wind more than half of it.  Then I put it into a square snack bag so it wouldn't rumple again, and put the used elastic back into the sandwich bag.  The short piece of new elastic is now inside the silk casing on the capilene tights.  (I outgrew the tights, and added a strip off the bottom of a worn silk T-shirt to the waist so that they wouldn't ride low.)

These tights are so old and ragged that there is no point to sewing the ends of the elastic together; I left in the mini safety pin that I used for trying them on.

 

Monday, 7 March 2022

Friday through Sunday was otherwise booked, but today I quadruple pressed one selvage of the sheet and pinned it and stitched it.

Now the other edge of the sheet is on the ironing board, but I'm going shopping tomorrow.

Pressing the first fold of the hem hems before hemming the selvage hems made it much easier to keep raw edges from peeking out at the ends.

 


Opening 2022SEW has gotten too complicated for 
quick casual remarks, so I created a post in 
Agent.
    

    
Tuesday 8 March 2022 

Bra White Linen #6 blue is being worn only in the 
house in case I suddenly need to change.   I 
do hope that I can resume work on the yellow-linen 
bras Real Soon. 

They will be only a temporary fix, because that 
yellow linen should have been in a dollar-a-yard 
bin. 



Wednesday 9 March 2022 

#6 hit the rag bin of the laundry hamper today -- 
right after I washed all the rags. 

When I took the clothes off the line, I found that 
a hem of an old hand towel, now doing duty as a 
dish towel, had come undone on one end, so I 
stopped folding long enough to re-sew it -- 
careful not to put it down at any time, because 
it's a *dish* towel. 

I quadruple-pressed the other selvage edge of the 
new sheet today. That will be the last time the 
iron will be required for this project. 

But I did climb back up and plug it in again when 
my favorite mask came out of the washer, so I 
could iron the headband dry, then hang it over the 
chair back where I keep it so the crinkle-gauze 
veil could dry. 

I think I have time to pin before supper -- I've 
laid out ingredients to combine and zap. 

6:09 

Pinned and sewed too.   I set a count-up 
timer, and it took me eleven and a quarter minutes 
to stitch six yards of hem.   I haven't 
measured the length of the straightened fabric. 

But I no longer feel up to thinking, so I'll read 
funnies and Usenet until bedtime. 



Thursday, 10 March 2022 

To start the day off right, I started pinning 
before breakfast, and finished just when my 
scrambled egg with potato and onion was ready. 

I set the count-up timer again, and sewing 118 
inches of hem took 00:19:29 (when false precision 
is removed, twenty minutes).   Ten of the 
twenty were spent starting and stopping.   It 
took five minutes and some seconds to sew the 
first end of the hem closed, and much to my 
surprise, the other end, which didn't require 
fussing and fuming, took from 00:16:30 to 
00:19:29. 

It's only 11:13.   I expect to put this sheet 
on the bed tonight. 

11:45 

I forgot to start the count-up timer before 
pinning, but that is just as well because I got 
interrupted.   I found that I'd sewed a pleat 
into the side hem, but this was at the very end, 
so I just cut the stitch that was holding it and 
trimmed the ends of the threads. 

12:11 

It took 18:?? to sew the hem.   I pushed the 
wrong button, the count-up timer didn't stop, and 
I was busy inspecting the hem and didn't notice 
until 19:05. 

The shorter time was partly experience hemming, 
mostly because I did a better job of pinning. 

14:01 

Ready to take a nap under my new sheet.   If 
they don't shrink a *lot* in the wash, both sheets 
will need to be shortened. 



Friday, 11 March 2022 

7:59 pm 

At long last back to the bras!  But I don't 
remember what I was doing. 

So instead of sewing, I copied 2021SEW2.HTM to 
2022SEW1.HTM, deleted the top of 2022SEW1.HTM, and 
commented out the bottom of 2021SEW2.HTM. 

Didn't get a start on copying notes from 
STOPGAP.TXT, but a made a pass at learning to use 
FileZilla.   Logged in just fine, but 
clicking "transfer" didn't get me anywhere.   
I hope it doesn't insist on copying the entire 
drive, because I can't get the entire drive ready 
to copy before the first files I cleaned up need 
cleaning again. 

 

12 March 2022

Learned how to upload!

After DH showed me how to upload a file, he wanted me to learn everything FileZilla can do.  Uh, let me practice that one a while first, eh?  Which degenerated into his constant campaign to get me to adopt the latest and greatest without checking to see whether any of the changes are improvements, and my stock replies about not wanting to spend my ten or twenty remaining years learning how to do things I already do perfectly.

I thought I could put the notes I took with Agent on the clipboard, then put 2022SEW1.HTM in a window and paste, but DOSBOX blocks that function.  (It also replaces my defined keys with Windows keys, as I finally figured out.)  But I can still continue taking notes:  all I have to do is to create a text file in folder PCW, then make a shortcut to it on the desktop.

Also marked all three bras for easing threads, but intend to stitch only B, and do A and C after B is complete.  I no longer remember what I learned making B, but it might come back to me when I get into the flow.

 

16 March 2022

10:44 AM 3/16/2022

Pulled the to-do list off the door, chose "neck yellow cot jersey", picked out some fine overcast stitches, used a crochet hook to pull out the spent elastic.

This time I'm going to *measure* how long the elastic is.

10:49 AM 3/16/2022

My head is 22"
Baby elastic stretched tight around my head is 12"
Wash-out mark placed at 13"

Old stretched-out elastic 26 1/4"

11:25 AM 3/16/2022

I'm turning into my late sister!  The gathered neckline looks fine, but I can feel it on my neck.  Moving mark out one inch.

11:31 AM 3/16/2022

Feels Ok.  I notice it when hunched over the keyboard, but it should be fine on the bike.  And I think the shirt will wear long enough for the elastic to start stretching again.

So I'll use larger stitches to re-close the gap in the back-neck seam.

7:56 AM

Oops, forgot to close the gap before hanging the shirt up.

 

Thursday, 17 March 2022

Sewed a up a slit in bra red ramie #c before throwing it into the wash.  I wonder whether there is a name for baseball stitch when you weave over and under loose threads in the middle.

"Darning", perhaps.

Still haven't closed the gap in the cotton-jersey jersey.  Since the seam allowances are hemmed down, there isn't any hurry.

 

Saturday, 19 March 2022

I used my toy sewing machine to put three easing threads into the yellow-linen bra in progress.  Also re-stitched the hems in an old hand towel now doing service as a dish towel — towels absorb much better after they have worn thin.  I'd put the toy machine away before I thought of it, so I used the necchi, which was still set up with ecru 100/6 from hemming the new sheets.

copy of a post to alt.sewing:

 

 On Sat, 12 Mar 2022 20:46:33 -0500, Joy Beeson 
 wrote: 

> Not too long ago, one of the Aldi Finds was a 
> tiny sewing machine for fifteen dollars.  After 
> verifying that it has a wall wart, I bought one.  
> Full review will appear when I've found some spare 
> time to finish playing with it.  So far, it 
> appears to be fragile but functional.  Very 
> fragile; the instruction manual emphasizes that 
> this is not a toy and children should not be 
> allowed to play with it. 
> 
> Pushing a button to start and then pushing it 
> again to stop might conceivably be adequate for 
> a large industrial machine that never sews seams 
> shorter than ten feet, but it's an absolute non-
> starter for garment stitching.  But the machine 
> also comes with a "foot control" in which 
> pushing the button will start the machine and 
> ceasing to push the button will stop it. 
> 
> The hand wheel is tiny and hard to turn. 

Saturday, 19 March 2022 

Today I found time to use the Easy Home Mini 
Sewing Machine to sew three lines of gathering 
stitches where I want to ease the neck of my    
new bra onto the binding.  The top tension is   
too loose, which perfectly suits gathering  
threads -- I usually use a double-wound bobbin   
to achieve that effect.  The top tension can be 
tightened, according to the manual.  I didn't open 
it today except to verify that it tells what sort 
of batteries to use in it, before putting the 
batteries that came with it into the battery 
stash. 

When I started sewing, DH, who was in the next room 
engrossed in trying to make my new computer work, 
exclaimed "That's a noisy little thing!" 

The noise is distracting.  It's not only loud, it 
sounds *cheap*, as though the machine were about 
to fall apart. 

When I turn the handwheel, it feels as though the 
machine were in desperate need of oil.  I must 
look up whether it's possible to oil the machine. 

I think I could get used to the glitchy feel of 
the machine being either full on or stopped. 

Turned the light off first thing, since I was 
sitting under a chandelier, but I think it shares 
the fault of all built-in sewing machine lights:  
the light shines straight down, leaving no shadows 
to reveal details. 

Evening:  

Big plus:  the machine *has* a manual.  Perhaps 
that is because it is a recurring "find"; most 
gadgets go obsolete in less time than it takes to 
write a halfway decent manual. 

I just read or skimmed over all forty-two pages, 
and there isn't a word about oil.  It does mention 
cleaning the needle plate and bobbin compartment 
with a fine brush.  Says don't use nylon bristles.  
I rather suspect that that rules out the Necchi 
cleaning brush, but it's too big to fit into the 
mini machine anyway.  I do have some old horsehair 
stencil brushes that I have been using for fine 
cleaning for decades.  (I wonder whether I've 
photographed them for the entry on whisk brooms 
in the Tools chapter of _Rough Sewing_?  I can't 
do any serious maintenance on the Web site until 
my new computer begins to function, so there is no 
point in looking.) 

 

23 March 2022

shoulder seam t-neck

Did some chasing around to find the turtleneck.  I'd put it back into the closet.  Then I dragged the rocking chair into the living room, where the daylight was, and discovered that the magnifying glasses were not in the living-room hand-sewing kit.  Didn't take long to remember that I've been keeping my strongest magnifiers on the kitchen counter ever since we started giving the cat eighteen hundredths of a milliliter of aspirin-equivalent, as measured by a syringe with very small markings that rub off.

Poor Dave.  The last few weeks I've been getting increasingly frustrated by the accumulation of five-minute jobs that I can *almost* manage to find time for.  As we were putting the blankets back on the bed after rolling them aside for our bad-back exercises, and doing a very poor job of straightening them, I remarked that it was time to re-make the bed from the mattress up and change the sheet, "But I'm not going to do it now.  I've started a five-minute job and I'm going to finish it BEFORE THURSDAY!!!"

He really, really didn't deserve that.

As a measure of my hysteria, it's Wednesday.  My meaning would have been better expressed by "APRIL".  But only fictional characters get to have clear and accurate hysterics.

 

24 March 2022

I did change the bed later in the day.

repair pocket of red silk underdress

New strategy:  I took the largest and most-obtrusive job off the to-do hook.

Alas, when I was interrupted just before fastening off, I dropped the dress on the floor (after securing the needle to it) and dropped my thimble on it.  It wasn't too long ago that I wouldn't have dared to do that, but now the cat sleeps all the time and shows no interest in hiding dropped thimbles.

The red-crepe thread scrap hadn't been labeled, but was easy to identify among the linen strips pinned to the folded piece of wool nailed to the wall.  The scrap is considerably brighter than the dress, but the fine thread doesn't show.

There was a finished thread on a coil-less safety pin pinned to it, which was lucky, because I'd forgotten the rigmarole required to make sewing thread out of overspun crepe thread.

After putting the dress away, I drew a new thread to leave on the coil-less safety pin.  This wasn't easy, because the exposed threads at the point of the scrap had gotten tangled.  Finally I just cut the tip of the scrap off, losing about six inches of thread, and I've been careful not to remove the fluffy bits of warp thread to expose more weft thread.

After typing the above, I thought that it was time to start waxing the thread.  Having been wet and dried twice, it looked so tame that I forgot that crepe thread has to be waxed very carefully, and drew it over the cake of wax with a swoosh and sproing as if it were cotton, whereupon it sproinged into tangles that I couldn't undo, so I had to throw it out and start over.

(Pity I can't add time stamps to my special keys while my DOS word processor is running under Windows XP.

I just wet the replacement thread for the second time, and remembered that after running my fingers down the thread to squeeze out excess water, I must hang onto the end and drop the pin, and not release that end until the pin stops spinning.

When waxing, I must work my way up, waxing first an inch at the end, then two inches at the end, and on up to the pin.

But now it's nap time.

 

25 March 2022

12:35 PM 3/25/2022

Note:  when putting in short easing threads, leave long ends to wrap around the pin.

And the threads are *too* loose; puckers don't stay where you put them.

1:54 PM 3/25/2022

I gave up on tightening threads too short to secure, pulled them out, and started over.

This session with the Easy Home Mini Sewing Machine went easier, because I'd already found a usable outlet, and I knew how to unfold the power cord and the wires on the foot control, and how to fold them up again.  And I already had twist-ties to keep them from unfolding on their own.

I turned on the light, and it does indeed shine almost straight down, but from the left side of the needle bar rather than from the right.  In the light of the chandelier, I could barely tell that it was on without looking directly into it.  I think it would be useful when the general light is poor.

Tried to tighten the tension without consulting the manual first, and broke the top thread trying to pull out four inches for twisting around the pin.

It is, as usual "lefty loosey righty tighty" — the only memnonic I've ever found a use for, though I usually just visualize a canning-jar lid over the thing I want to turn.  It isn't mentioned in the manual that you need to push the knob in before turning it.

The tension I got was almost correct for real sewing, but with the slick synthetic that came with the machine, it's loose enough.

The all-stop, all-go speed has more effect on one's ability to control the direction of sewing than I'd have thought.  I hadn't thought it would have any!

But I didn't wobble enough to make the stitches unusable for easing.

I wound one set of ends around a pin set outside the area to be gathered — some incidental gathering in the half sun between each pin and the marked area will be all to the good.

Then I pulled the other ends until there were about as many puckers as I thought I could ease out, picked the stitches out to the pin, and wound them in a figure eight around the pin.  I put the centering ruler on them to make sure the easing was the same on each side.  I have eased out four bu of twenty.

It won't proceed 2:15 PM 3/25/2022 until after my nap, which is somewhat late — 2:16 PM 3/25/2022.

Sunday, 6:05 PM 3/27/2022

Between nap time and suppertime, I pinned the bias tape to the neck, eyeball-measured two seam allowances of overlap, cut the tape, pinned the piecing seam, and changed the Necchi to yellow thread.

All but threading the needle; I need to sit down to do that, and I wanted to leave the chair at the computer. 6:09 PM 3/27/2022  

Wednesday, 30 March 2022

7:48 PM 3/30/2022

I sewed the bias binding to the neck of the bra sometime today.  Needs to be pressed before I sew the other edge down.

7:49 PM 3/30/2022

 

Friday, 1 April 2022

Pressed the tapes of the two masks that I washed on Tuesday, and put two back-up masks into the laundry bin.

Then I pressed the neck of the bra as it lay, first on the tape side, then on the bra side.

When pressing on the tape side, I paused at the easing in front to turn it over and press out the puckers, afraid that if I pressed while I couldn't see them, I would press them in.  Seems to have pressed nicely.  When I got to the joining seam, I pressed the seam open, re-pressed the turn-under that sewing the seam had undone, pressed through a wet rag, and pressed again until it was dry.  I had trimmed the ends of the seam allowances earlier.  I'll have to trim at least one of the shoulder seams when I turn the binding to the right side and pin it, which I plan to do as soon as I finish typing.

I put the larger ham away, got down the sleeve board, and pressed the tape away from the bra.

It was after lunch when I did this.  I slept late, but not that late.  A stray copy of Alfred Hitchcock that I found while clearing the ironing board takes some of the responsibility for the delay, but not all of it.

The stuff on the leg board on the ironing board had reached a tipping point and needed to be sorted.  I found a letter I'd put on the ironing board so that I'd be sure to remember to answer it last December.  [On closer inspection, it was the December before that.  I have posted an apology.]

7:58 PM 4/1/2022

Pinned and stitched the neck after supper.

Pleasantly surprised that the stitching was just at the edge on the wrong side too, I inspected the inside first.  It was just on the edge all around, save for three or four inches where the stitching wandered into the binding.  Well, the fold is a seam there; no chance of raw edges escaping, and it *is* the wrong side.

Then I turned it over and the stitching at that place missed the binding entirely.  Didn't think of puzzling out how too far in on one side could be too far out on the other side, just picked it out and re-sewed.

This time I over-corrected for an inch or two, so the binding is a tad too wide on the right side, and the stitches miss the binding on the wrong side.

One has to look really close to see the mistake — I had to take the bra to the high-intensity lamp to check how wide the mistake was while writing the above paragraph — so I'm calling the neck finished.

Next up:  remember where I put the box of yellow scraps and make more bias tape.

8:27 PM 4/1/2022

 

2 April 2022

I have two scraps selected and on the cutting mat.

I have written somewhere how much bias for the armholes, but it's easier to measure again:  about 22".

Evening:

I marked tapes on two scraps and cut the two longest.  One will probably make an armhole facing on its own; the other will need an extra piece.  I'm waiting until it's pinned to decide which extra piece to cut.

After supper, in fading overcastlight and an inadequate ceiling lamp, I basted a quarter-inch fold to the wrong side of each piece.  I'd marked grain arrows when marking the strips, and chose the edge that made the arrows on the two strips point the same way.  The two sides of this fabric are identical, and I don't suppose that sewing a cross grain to a long grain would matter, but it's almost no trouble to be consistent.

 

Monday, 4 April 2022

1:35 PM 4/4/2022

Starting to pin:  folded side of bias tape measures 22 1/2".

2:09 PM 4/4/2022

Woohoo!  The tape overlaps by a seam allowance almost exactly.

The other piece is 16" long, so I'll need to sew on a piece at least 6 1/2" long.

11:10 AM 4/5/2022

The folded edge of the bias strip for the other armhole is twenty-four (24") inches long.

8:15 PM 4/5/2022

Pinned.  It looks as though I'll cut off half an inch when I sew the ends together.

 

Wednesday, 6 April 2022

9:45 PM 4/6/2022

And I did cut off half an inch, as measured along the fold.

I've made a good start on pinning the casings.

I also cut a couple of inches out of the waist elastic of my white linen drawers.  They should stay up much better now.

Very little progress on replacing the dead computer.

 

Thursday, 7 April 2022

10:17 PM 4/7/2022

Pinned a crease into the casings.  Note:  I must transfer the lines I fold on to the right side of the other two bras; will make folding much easier.

 

Wednesday, 13 April 2022

1:10 PM 4/13/2022

Mem:  baste crease, don't pin.  When basting second fold, stitch far enough from the fold to catch the raw edge.  This also leaves room to stitch a ruffle without catching the basting.

I transferred the folding line to the other side with blue chalkpaper.  Crease basted, about to stitch.

1:32 PM 4/13/2022

I wanted the ruffle to be narrower than the toe of the straight-stitch foot, so I put on the zig-zag foot, set the needle in the middle, and guided the fold against the inside of the toe and the visible feed dog.  Worked better when I twigged to the feed dog — gives a bit of advance warning.

It worked well when I paid attention.

Time for lunch and a nap:  1:35 PM 4/13/2022

8:20 PM 4/13/2022

Darn silk tights

One of the two pairs, that is.  I've been doing without silk tights all winter, but there are a few weeks of cold days left.

I appear to have worked back-and-forth buttonhole stitch at each end of the runner to stop the running, and I'd begun to work lengthwise, first one edge and then the other, probably lengthening the patch of point de venise fabric at each end (which would shorten the length of the edges) at each turn-around.  There were about two rounds.

A long thread was hanging from the darn.  I threaded it into a needle and continued the round of buttonhole, but with much larger stitches than before.  When I got to the end, I began baseball stitching the edges together, trying to work into the buttonhole stitches, and going under the runner threads as much as I could.  At the end, I worked a few buttonhole stitches to secure the thread, then running-stitched up the darn to weave the end in.

I'm not going to post a magnified close-up of the darn to brag about how neatly I work, but it looks as though it will hold.  (And it is underwear.)

So now they are in the closet waiting for Saturday's ride.  

Thursday, 14 April 2022

6:39 PM 4/14/2022

With one thing leading to another, I spent most of the morning tidying the sewing room.  It's still an unholy mess, but now we can put the not-quite-working computer where the one that died was.  

Tuesday, 19 April 2022

I thought that embroidering a little flower would take only a few minutes, but I kept getting interrupted and having to move my stuff.

I finally got the needle threaded today, when there was ample time to work while my lunch was cooking.  I tied a knot in the end and stuck the needle in a couple of inches from the spot; since I planned to tuck the end in with the wig hook I bought just because "Hey!  A *real* steel crochet hook, for the first time this century!", and since it wasn't standard, I didn't put it with the other hooks and it didn't vanish with them.  (I still think the roll of hooks is in the wooden box that most definitely is full of tatting shuttles and doesn't contain any crochet hooks.)

Umm . . . I thought a couple of inches would be plenty, and it was, but the wig hook didn't fit under the stitches, so I used one of the tatting pins I keep with the emergency tatting shuttle in my go bag.

I had used chalkpaper to marked a vertical line to show the center and a horizontal line to show how high to put the flower, so I changed my plan to embroider a six-petal lazy daisy for a four-petal daisy with tiny specks between the petals.

It was going well until I started the first speck and got the thread into a tangle that I didn't believe even while I was unpicking it.

And when lunch was ready — I had to move my stuff!

Luckily, everything was on the cutting mat I'd used to protect the table from the marking wheel.

When I resumed work in the evening, I was surprised to learn that I'd nearly gotten the tangle out.

But I'm not pleased with the result.  The design is a nondescript square, and it's very ugly on the wrong side.

I tried it on for the first time, and I think I need to ease the lower half of the straps and part of the lower armhole when I sew bias facing on the other two.

It supports quite well.

I wonder how many of you are old enough to remember the big scare campaign to get people to stop using outlet splitters, using pictures of power cords arranged to look like tentacles?

Neither Dave nor I can remember what octopusses were called before that.  I tried Froogle, but none of the sales names are suitable for "hand me the octopus" use.

A few weeks ago we had to deal with wanting to plug wall warts into a power strip, and an octopus that really did look like an octopus was the answer.  Dave picked up one that had six outlets and said "This one is a hexapus."  This led me to calling a short extension cord that simply moves the outlet to where you can reach it a "monopus".

For several weeks I've been keeping the stepladder in the sewing room because I've gotten a bit too wobbly to feel safe plugging the iron into the ceiling while standing on the step stool.  A few days ago, I realized that if the outlet were only a few inches lower, I'd feel safe standing on the step stool — it's stretching for something that's *almost* out of reach that throws me off balance.

So I asked Dave whether there was such a thing as a monopus designed for heavy current.  He whipped out one of those he'd had out when solving the power strip problem, and said it was designed for more current than the wire leading to the outlet.

The monopus has been lying on the ironing board ever since, since I haven't had occasion to iron and the ladder had become a set of shelves for important things I didn't want to forget about.

So I got up, cleared off the ladder, plugged in the monopus, and put the ladder away.  I think I'm going to want one about twice as long.

 

Monday, 18 April 2022

2:08 AM 4/19/2022

Yellow linen bra B will be ready to put away as soon as I embroider a brown flower on the front.  Had all the tools and the thread laid out when it was time to medicate the cat right where I'd laid out the bra, so I stuck the ruler and scissors on the pincushion, gathered up the needle boxes etc. in the bra, and moved it to the ironing board.

Hah!  "B" for "Brown"!  But A and C will be red and orange.

 

Thursday, 21 April 2022

6:18 PM 4/21/2022

Today I had occasion to use my overnight bag as an overnight bag — and found my long-lost fine knitting needles!  I had, for some reason, put them into the ticket wallet in one of the outside pockets.  This may date back to when I was giving knitting lessons (to which nobody showed up, but it was pleasant to have an hour dedicated to quietly doing hand work) about ten years ago — there was also an allen key for locking the ramp-room door when I went home.  (Nowadays, the key that is supposed to be on the window sash always *is* on the window sash.)

I guess we don't get around much any more.

For a long time, I used that bag as a go-bag for waiting rooms, then began always using my attaché case instead, and the overnight bag filled up with digest-size magazines.

I'm taking the silk tights with the hole in the ankle, and darning supplies.

I don't think I mentioned that when I put on the tights I finally finished darning, I noticed a runner trying to start, and dabbed undiluted bottle starch on it in the hope of keeping it small, then I went out to comb my hair (I always comb outside before a ride as a check on my clothing) and was hit in the face with pellet snow propelled by a wind strong enough to make it sting, and that ride was cancelled.  And all the following nice days disappeared as the prediction got shorter.  I walked to the post office yesterday, but that just isn't the same as a pleasant all-day ride.

 

Monday, 25 April 2022

11:42 PM 4/25/2022

I thought I took the tights mentioned above to Frankfort last Friday, but when I sat down in the hotel room to darn, I found that I had the other pair, which needed more-extensive work.  The lamp beside the bed was feeble, so I had to move to a chair beside the window.  I'd been expecting to pick it up in a few minutes when I put the work down, so I left the curtains open, which was a help when we were parking the car after going out with nieces for supper.  Only our curtains were open, so it was easy to pick the space beside our room.

I finished the mend while spouse was getting a TEE today, and went out to the car to fetch in the tights with the small hole in the ankle.  The hole, as usual, looked bigger when I started to darn it, but I was pretty well along when it was time to wrap everything back into my bandanna-size furoshiki.

The lights in the hospital were as good as daylight, and I made small stitches.  Not as regular as I'd like, but point d' venise darning isn't fussy about lining up with the grain of the fabric.

We're low on bread and milk and cat food, so no sewing tomorrow.  I doubt that I'll remember what I did on the first bra when I finally get to start on the other two.  Bra YL brown is in the laundry now; I found it quite comfortable.

Much to my surprise, bra WL#3 orange is still hanging in there despite being hole-thin all over.  I wear it only around the house, for fear of suddenly needing a change.

11:38 PM 4/26/2022

Realized today that all I need to do to stop my jeans drooping is to sew one more buttonholed bar tack on each side.

11:40 PM 4/26/2022

 

Thursday, 28 April 2022

10:03 AM 4/28/2022

It would take only a minute to oversew the faded bar tack on underpants HCJ#1, but the brown floss is in the lower compartment of the footlocker in the parlor, and I'd have to select a needle.  I need to sort out a resistor code of embroidery floss and put it in a convenient place, with a #9 crewel stuck in a bit of wool.

Finished one pair of silk tights Monday, and was more than half done with the small hole in the other when Dave came back from the TEE.

Wearing the silk tights on today's all-day ride.

 

1 May 2022

Poked my thumb through WL#3 orange while adjusting my clothing today.

 

Monday, 18 April 2022

2:08 AM 4/19/2022

Yellow linen bra B will be ready to put away as soon as I embroider a brown flower on the front.  Had all the tools and the thread laid out when it was time to medicate the cat right where I'd laid out the bra, so I stuck the ruler and scissors on the pincushion, gathered up the needle boxes etc. in the bra, and moved it to the ironing board.

Hah!  "B" for "Brown"!  But A and C will be red and orange.

 

Thursday, 21 April 2022

6:18 PM 4/21/2022

Today I had occasion to use my overnight bag as an overnight bag — and found my long-lost fine knitting needles!  I had, for some reason, put them into the ticket wallet in one of the outside pockets.  This may date back to when I was giving knitting lessons (to which nobody showed up, but it was pleasant to have an hour dedicated to quietly doing hand work) about ten years ago — there was also an allen key for locking the ramp-room door when I went home.  (Nowadays, the key that is supposed to be on the window sash always *is* on the window sash.)

I guess we don't get around much any more.

For a long time, I used that bag as a go-bag for waiting rooms, then began always using my attaché case instead, and the overnight bag filled up with digest-size magazines.

I'm taking the silk tights with the hole in the ankle, and darning supplies.

I don't think I mentioned that when I put on the tights I finally finished darning, I noticed a runner trying to start, and dabbed undiluted bottle starch on it in the hope of keeping it small, then I went out to comb my hair (I always come outside before a ride as a check on the weather) and was hit in the face with pellet snow propelled by a wind strong enough to make it sting, and that ride was cancelled.  And all the following nice days disappeared as the prediction got shorter.  I walked to the post office yesterday, but that just isn't the same as a pleasant all-day ride.

 

Monday, 25 April 2022

11:42 PM 4/25/2022

I thought I took the tights mentioned above to Frankfort last Friday, but when I sat down in the hotel room to darn, I found that I had the other pair, which needed more-extensive work.  The lamp beside the bed was feeble, so I had to move to a chair beside the window.  I'd been expecting to pick it up in a few minutes when I put the work down, so I left the curtains open, which was a help when we were parking the car after going out with nieces for supper.  Only our curtains were open, so it was easy to pick the space beside our room.

I finished the mend while spouse was getting a TEE today, and went out to the car to fetch in the tights with the small hole in the ankle.  The hole, as usual, looked bigger when I started to darn it, but I was pretty well along when it was time to wrap everything back into my bandanna-size furoshiki.

The lights in the hospital were as good as daylight, and I made small stitches.  Not as regular as I'd like, but point d' venise darning isn't fussy about lining up with the grain of the fabric.

We're low on bread and milk and cat food, so no sewing tomorrow.  I doubt that I'll remember what I did on the first bra when I finally get to start on the other two.  Bra YL brown is in the laundry now; I found it quite comfortable.

Much to my surprise, bra WL#3 orange is still hanging in there despite being hole-thin all over.  I wear it only around the house, for fear of suddenly needing a change.

11:38 PM 4/26/2022

Realized today that all I need to do to stop my jeans drooping is to sew one more buttonholed bar tack on each side.

11:40 PM 4/26/2022

 

Thursday, 28 April 2022

10:03 AM 4/28/2022

It would take only a minute to oversew the faded bar tack on underpants HCJ#1, but the brown floss is in the lower compartment of the footlocker in the parlor, and I'd have to select a needle.  I need to sort out a resistor code of embroidery floss and put it in a convenient place, with a #9 crewel stuck in a bit of wool.

Finished one pair of silk tights Monday, and was more than half done with the small hole in the other when Dave came back from the TEE.

Wearing the silk tights on today's all-day ride.

 

Wednesday, 11 May 2022

9:44 AM 5/11/2022

Bra white-linen #4 orange went into the rag bin today.  Might not be enough to make a cleaning rag when it comes out of the washer.  When I saw that it wouldn't stand another washing, I thought I'd wear it until it failed; after all, I didn't have to worry about dirt stains.  But it's been embarrassingly long, and the biggest hole still isn't quite big enough to impair function, so instead of putting it on this morning, I pulled the elastic out.

I think I've done some sewing since the previous entry, but crippled computer and whatnot.  And this text file has gotten long enough to be a pain to fold into the real copy.

I'm planning to wear my new yellow linen bra to my skin exam tomorrow.

 

Sunday, 15 May 3033

11:22 PM 5/15/2022

Closed a tear in my blue dirt-kneeling pants before planting the marigolds I bought Friday.

Used the yellow thread that was in the machine for the two bras that are not under construction.  It doesn't show as much as an attempt to match the stonewash or dirt would have.  I straight-stitched a double-pointed dart, then finger-flattened the seam allowance while zig-zagging it flat.  The free arm came in handy for the second operation.  I did a much better job of smoothing into the undamaged fabric at the ending end than at the beginning end.  Perhaps I should sew the next tear both ways from the middle.

 

Monday, 16 May 2022

1:52 PM 5/16/2022

Found a pillow case with a hem that is coming out when sorting the wash.  By good luck, this goes into a load to be washed the next time I change the sheets, so it didn't add to the "don't do a five-second chore" bucket.

I couldn't even put on a digging-in-the-dirt shirt without making a big deal out of it.  And the shirt I found needs to have the tail cut off and made into one or more pockets.  Probably just one pocket, as there is hardly any wear left in it.  Meanwhile, I'm sticking my timer into my bra.

A dirty-work shirt should be dry before I get up from my nap.

1:59 PM 5/16/2022

 

Monday, 16 May 2022

11:24 PM 5/16/2022

lost patch for snap on jersey, ran out of time for pillowcase.

The day *not* to do any ten-second tasks.

 

Tuesday 17 May 2022

4:58 PM 5/17/2022

Spent the entire morning washing dishes.

After putting supper into the oven, I changed the thread in the Necchi and sewed up the hem in the pillow case.  It's one that I made from a worn-out sheet, using an existing side hem.  It must have been in the closet for a long, long time; the sheets before the muslin sheets I'm using now were linen, and I'm pretty sure the sheets before them were scenery muslin — took them *forever* to wear out.  This pillowcase is quilt lining.

Then I took a pocket made of yellow jersey out of the picked-off pocket box and sewed it to the worn-out undershirt I'm wearing.  That, too, must be very old — DH hasn't worn undershirts since he retired.

Yesterday I decided to use the remaining sunlight to pick a left-over reinforcement off my only halfway decent summer jersey, baste or sew it into place for sewing a snap on my phone pocket, wash out the dirt stain on that pocket — I must reach into it with dirty hands rather frequently — run it through a rinse-and-spin cycle, and hang it up to dry in case I wanted to wear it today.

When I made that shirt, I had the brilliant idea of making one wide patch pocket across the front, and dividing it into a notebook pocket and a candy pocket by putting a pencil pocket in between.

(I've had that shirt for a while!  But I kept making candy pockets long after I got so fat that I could ride without a hard candy in my mouth.  I rather miss having the extra space now that my cell phone has taken over the right-shoulder pocket.)

Like most brilliant ideas, that didn't work out, so I cut the pocket into two and moved them up.  But I never bothered to pick out the reinforcement that had been under the top of the pencil pocket.

I picked it off rather easily, and admired the construction.  I had cut a piece of one-inch cotton twill tape three times the width of the tape, and sewed it into a ring with seam allowances half as wide as the tape.  It's hard to tell when it has been washed so many times, but I think that I zig-zagged over the seam to keep it pressed open.  When turned right-side out and flattened, it was a neat square three layers thick.  Then I overhanded the selvages together to keep it neat.  I think.  Betwixt the many washings, and my failure to realize that I'd brought my magnifying glasses to the picnic table but forgotten to swap them for my regular glasses, I couldn't see the stitches, only the result.

Having been washed many times, this reinforcement is quite soft and perfect for sewing to flimsy cotton jersey.

Lamentation interrupted!  I paused to pick up the iron, which I had for some forgotten reason put on the floor instead of on the shelf after I last used it, and noticed something yellowish lying on a round-robin letter that I'd put on the floor to make space to mark the pocket on the ironing board.  It was my soft patch!  It is now pinned firmly to the square I drew with wash-out marker.  And there's enough sunlight left to sew it into place.

After I very carefully marked the center and the top of the pocket with air-erasable marker, I reached for the patch and realized that I had no idea where I'd put it.  I might have put it into the snack bag of tools that I'd used to pick it off, to prevent just such a catastrophe, but I hadn't.  Nor was it anywhere along the path from the picnic table to the sewing room, nor anywhere in the sewing room.

So I drew a square with wash-out marker and hung the jersey in the closet.

I sure hope I can make the yellow quilt fabric that I bought a few weeks ago into a summer jersey before next summer.  Somewhere in the county there's a skilled housewife who would love to earn money without neglecting her children, but I have no clue as to how to find out how to go about learning how to find out how the find her.

Best get on with choosing which of my two yellow threads to use, and get out to the picnic table. 7:19 PM 5/17/2022

All sewn.  Now to take a brush and some detergent to the dirt stain.

 

Thursday, 19 May 2022

Gone take a while to organize the above paste.  I wonder how the May 1 entry got into this file when the text file started on April 18?  I'll move it after removing the <pre> tags from the paste.

Picked the pocket off an embroidered New Salem Volunteer Fire Department polo shirt, with an eye to moving it up so I can wear the shirt.  I may well buy a third spool of yellow thread and sew the pocket on by hand.

Putting the bottom corners of the pocket where the top corners used to be is going to be just right, but the shirt was one of Dave's; it's long enough that pants are optional, and it hangs on me like a tent.  Still going to hand-sew the pocket, but I'm not going to buy special thread.

The hem of the pocket is interfaced, which makes it look a lot nicer.  I wonder how that would combine with my technique of sewing the ends of the hem, then turning it right-side out?  Bit lumpy, probably, but this pocket turned the appliqué allowances after the hem was sewn, then folded the upper corners of the allowances to keep them from peeking out, which makes a decided lump.  But this lump lies exactly where the strain comes on the top-stitching.  Which would be a greater benefit if the shirt proper also had extra fabric in this spot.

16:00

After hanging up the polo shirt, I selected a snap for the cell-phone pocket of my jersey jersey.  (It's rather annoying that a fabric and a garment have the same exact name!)

I extracted a coil-less safety pin — ah, yes the adventure of buying them was in the Banner entry that my computer ate.  I finally learned that coilless pins aren't found with the safety pins, but are in the crafty-wafty aisle with the jewelry findings.

As I should have expected, a safety pin from the crafty-wafty aisle is not intended to be pushed through cloth, so I hung the pin from the neck of the hanger the jersey is on.

And after my nap, I sewed the snap on the shirt.  I tried it on at once, and it looks pretty good, but when I put the cell phone back on the charger and hung the shirt up, I saw that the pocket looks a bit wonky when it's empty.

One more thing scratched off my to-do list!  (and I hadn't even put it on.)

9:45 PM 4/6/2022 Change elastic in white linen drawers

stop-run darn on silk tights === check other side === in arm of futon

I think the silk tights were discussed at length in the paste.

elastic in neck of cotton jersey jersey 11:31 AM 3/16/2022

 

Thursday, 26 May 2022

11:10 AM 5/26/2022

Finally took care of the hair elastics I bought some time back.  I took two chopsticks and four clothespins into the bedroom, threaded one chopstick through the elastics, put a clothespin on each end, cut the thread holding the elastics to the hang card, transferred the elastics to the other chopstick while dropping out the duller dark elastics.  Only four were black, but by accepting iffy colors I got eleven out of the package of forty.

Threading a piece of bonded-nylon thread through the elastics proved difficult, but my hemostat did the trick.  Then I tied the elastics back onto the card and put the card into my bag of stuff for Our Father's House.  I suspect the child who buys it will be pleased that there aren't any boring colors.

Found a pair of bike gloves in my mending bag, and I'm wrapping them and a ball of black crochet cotton up for my waiting-room bag.  Small job, so I'm going to dig in the mending bag some more.

Yesterday I sorted out four black hook-eyes and four silver hook-eyes, and attached them to my black jeans with coilless safety pins through the existing eyes.  Got to get at least the everyday pants done before I leave the house again; my pants stay up only when I've overeaten.

I have hope of needing to sew on more eyes in a few months.

1:30 PM 5/26/2022

Several days ago, I spilled broth on the carpet sample I feed the cat on.  This required that I scrub it with a brush and hang it out in the rain, and I'm far from sure I got out all the spilled food.  While that was going on, I used a warp-faced bath mat, which now needs a good shake and a trip through the washing machine.

So today I got the other warp-face bath mat down from the shelf of spares and cut it in half.  It was easy to cut between the fat weft threads even though I was using scissors, not the cutting mat I usually use when cutting along a thread.

While doing so, I noticed that the weft threads are much finer in the existing hems, making them not a lot thicker than the mat.  So I think I'll make a [link] dishtowel hem [/link].

5:02 PM 5/26/2022

There remained in the bag two pairs of hand-knit tights that I spent the whole of last winter wishing that I'd mended.  Too big for a waiting room.  But, jackpot!  Two pairs of black hand-knit wool socks that I had forgotten that I had, and they seem to be in excellent condition except for the heels — it's even possible that two socks have already been mended; I checked only two.  I can't see how to separate them into pairs; I don't remember knitting black socks.

I will be quite eager to get these mended and on my feet.

Also found some #5 DMC perle and a suitable needle in one of those bubbles that vending-machine toys come in.  Put the ball of crochet cotton into the denim bag; should dig it out and put it back into the crochet-cotton box, as that is where I would look for it.

 

Friday, 27 May 2022

8:52 PM 5/27/2022

Spent the morning in the garden, but found time in the afternoon to sew three of the four new eyes on my everyday pants.  

30 May 2022

I sat on the porch to sew the last hook on this evening, then walked all over the house putting tools away.  The kit containing scissors and thimble belongs in the arm of the futon in the living room, the 4.0 glasses belong in the kitchen with the cat's medicine, the thread and needle in the drawer of the treadle in the bedroom, and the coil-less safety pin in the sewing room.  I had to walk through the parlor to get to all those other rooms, so all I missed was Dave's room.

I must find another pair of 4.0's for the futon sewing kit, and admit that the pair I used to keep there are now the cat's.

The pants are now nice and snug, but I must re-hem the left pocket the way I did the right one, to make it easier to get into.  Not to mention that it's badly frayed.

I think I remember enough of what I did for the other pocket to make it easier this time.  I remember taking notes, but don't remember what year that was.

 

31 May 2022

1:11 PM 5/31/2022

write up hems to cat tablecloths [I no longer remember what I meant to say.]

 

3 June 2022

I tore off a yard of the roll of unbleached muslin, zig-zagged the raw edges together, and threw it into today's wash.  When it came out of the dryer, I threw it back into the laundry bin.  According to my pree-cise calculations, it will shrink up just right to tear into sixteen-and-a-half-inch squares to make bra rags.

To be sure the squares stay square, I plan to wash and machine-dry it at least three times.  I don't hope to soften it; modern air-spinning just doesn't, so they may be useless.

I've forgotten all the detail I meant to put into writing up the dishtowel hems on the warp-face bathmat.  I folded under four threads, then straight-stitched down the middle of the second thread from the fold.

 

Tuesday, 7 June 2022

6:13 PM 6/7/2022

Yesterday was my day to get back into sewing mode, but I printed and mailed a letter and retrieved my bike from the shop and bought a fifty-nine ounce half-gallon of milk at a tourist shop.

Today I began by putting up a card table in the parlor, laying the pieces of the yellow bras on it, clearing the ironing board, and ironing two shirts.

When I put the third shirt on the board, I realized that I was too tired to iron it, and went to bed.

It appears that I haven't ironed since before the Linux computer was moved to where the dead computer used to be — I was caught off-guard when all the outlets on the surge protector/power strip were occupied or blocked.

So I moved the drop cord to the outlet on the other side of the room.  I hope the socket on the ceiling can be rotated 180°.  It looks from here to be a simple matter of loosening two bolts and giving it a twist.

Then I've got to put a hook in the ceiling to make the cord drop straight down the wall.  Draping it over the broomstick holding the roll of pink cotton-linen got it sufficiently out of the way to iron two shirts, but I need something better for the long term.

The outlet on the south side is in the open and not otherwise occupied; it will be much more convenient than feeling for a black slot in a black box in a dark hole.  It might even be practicable to run the drop cord behind the shelves, but I don't think I'll try — the thought of a cord carrying heavy current behind a bunch of combustible stuff makes me nervous.

But the monopus didn't pan out.  It is very hard to plug the iron into it, even after I unplugged it from the ceiling outs so that I could push hard on both sides, I couldn't get the iron plug quite seated.

Perhaps contact cleaner will help.

 

7:07 PM 6/15/2022
A quote from the Banner:

Wednesday, 15 June 2022

Not a chore cascade, but a distraction cascade.  I started to do some mending, noticed that a faded inventory mark that has inconvenienced me on many wash days is now completely white and invisible, remembered that I've been meaning to sort a resistor code of embroidery floss into a snack bag and put it into the pattern trunk, opened the foot locker to get brown floss, noticed that I still have the hand drill I borrowed from Dave to wind spools and bobbins with.  I've been using the electric screwdriver in the kitchen drawer for many years, and Dave happened to be standing by, so I asked him whether he wanted it back.  Much discussion of where to put it:  "somewhere in the shop"; "it can stay where it is if you remember that you have it".

Then we remembered that David Gales collects such things, which reminded me that I'd never put Kathy's and David's numbers into my new phone, which made Dave look at his phone and see that he had David's but not Kathy's.

When I returned to the thread sorting, I found a mixed bag of stuff I'd bought at a garage sale, which reminded me that I'd bought the contents of a basket at a garage sale on the way home from the farmers' markets on Saturday, so I fetched that and sorted it, and bringing the latch hook in here and putting it into the pencil mug beside the computer made me think of writing all this.

I *will* get back to the mending!

End quote.

7:10 PM 6/15/2022

and I did.

I decided that since brown was all I needed today, and I had that, that was enough resistor-code hunting for the day.  But later I found a ball of black darning cotton (I *think* it's darning cotton; I didn't count the strands) that had been re-wound onto a card and put that into the snack bag too.  I think it was in the tray of the foot locker.  I think it was in the same bag with the pre-cut strands of green and orange floss; I put those into the embroidery-gig box.

After my nap, I gathered up tools and thread and two droopy pairs of briefs, put ice cubes, orange juice, and a can of tangerine seltzer into a large glass, and went to sit on the porch.  After a while, I put more ice cubes into the glass, and not much later added a can of grapefruit seltzer.

More distraction:  before I could take two or three ice cubes out of the bin, I had to empty the ice trays into it, and re-fill the trays.

I replaced the white inventory mark with a brown bar tack, and didn't bother to take out the white one — which makes the mark reads "19", but I don't think I'll get confused.  I know too well that there are exactly seven pairs of HCJ briefs.

It would appear that baby elastic doesn't hold up very well.  When — if — I get time to make some yellow cotton jersey briefs, I must make the spot where I put the elastic in conspicuous.  Today I used tan thread to close the gaps in the white briefs and dark brown to close the gaps in the black briefs.

Twice during the repairs, I tried to insert the new elastic without first removing the old elastic.  Another time I said this bodkin is moving too easily — have I pulled the end in?  I had pulled the end in.  So I had to keep on to the gap, pull it out, and start over.  With much trepidation lest I pull the elastic out of the tapestry needle, leaving it impossible to remove without cutting another hole in the hem.

I was using a tapestry needle  

Friday, 17 June 2022

5:13 PM 6/17/2022

I've forgotten how I meant to complete that sentence.  My bodkin for putting the elastic in was a tapestry needle, eye first.

The convenient outlet didn't pan out — the upper outlet isn't on the wall switch, which would make plugging and unplugging my only way to control the light.  So I'll mark a plug it would be harmless to unplug.

Not sure what I did in the morning; in the afternoon I sat on the porch and replaced the baby elastic in HCJ #2 red and #3 orange.  I used a larger tapestry needle point first.

At one point the wind blew my pill pouch of pins off the bench, leaving the pins on the concrete.  A magnet-with-a-handle that we keep on the soda fridge gathered them up again, but I suspect that the bag still contained some pins when it blew out of sight.

I came in and got the "handy carrying case" out of a recently-opened container of fuzzy toothpicks, put the pins in it, came in again, opened the box of wool scraps and cut a needle holder to fit the case.  I left the two needles I didn't use today in the old, untidy scrap, stuck the one I was using into the new one, and wrapped the basting thread in the needle around the scrap.

 

Monday, 20 June 2022

9:44 AM 6/20/2022

On Friday I put in two more elastics and thought "mend two, wear one, I'm going to keep ahead".

Then I took Saturday and Sunday off, and I'm wearing my other pair of bias-cut linen briefs.

I'm planning to re-do all four of the remaining briefs today.  There was enough baby elastic left to cut five legs.  I cut only four, because I want both sides to come from the same batch even though it's very likely that my previous ten yards came off the same spool.

10:54 AM 6/20/2022

The first time I used the larger tapestry needle, it was easier to fetch a fresh coil-less safety pin than to unpin the one that held the other needle.  I was thinking at the time that I'd neaten them up when the job was done, but giving the two needles individual pins works better.  Easier to get it off the bodkin swatch, and taking the pin along with the needle makes the needle harder to mislay, and gives me something convenient to stick into the other end of the elastic in case I try to pull it all the way in.

I have changed both elastics on HCJ#4, and came in to get the tan thread to mend the gaps with.  11:01 AM 6/20/2022

11:31 AM 6/20/2022 — Number four in the drawer.

12:17 PM 6/20/2022
aitch cee jay
number five
green's the mark
sakes alive

The trouble with spontaneous rhymes is that it's quite impossible to come up with a halfway sensible second line.  12:19 PM 6/20/2022

1:19 PM 6/20/2022

Four 19" elastics cut, lunch eaten, remainder of new elastic wound on a card and put into the elastics box, in the zip bag that two scraps of baby elastic remained in.

When packing my notions and tools into the bag the elastic came in, I put the wig hook into the futon sewing kit, and I think I'll let it stay there.  It's as easy to find it there as in the drawer of the treadle, and there have been times it would have come in handy if I'd had it.

I bought the ~#8 hook at Sally's Beauty Supply on a whim, because few stores sell decent steel hooks, and I've been very glad I had it ever since I mislaid my roll of crochet hooks.  I put the crochet hooks Someplace Safe when I neatened up the books on the high shelf where the wooden cigar box full of tatting tools used to serve as a bookend.

4:35 PM 6/20/2022

After my nap, I reflected that the last time I wore my taxicab jersey, it threatened to tear every time I straightened my hem line, and inspected the curry jersey, the very first one I made.  It's very ragged, but if I iron a patch under the keys-and-sunscreen pocket, I can wear it at least one more time.

4:54 PM 6/20/2022

I distinctly remember repairing a jersey by wrapping hand-sewn patches over the elastic casing that holds up the back pockets — in addition to the permanently-dirty marks that appear on the casing, this was my motivation for facing the casing with black linen when I made the yellow jersey.

But neither the curry nor the taxicab has had its casings repaired.  Could I have forgotten making one and wearing it out?

 

Wednesday, 22 June 2022

11:15 AM 6/22/2022

HCJ#6
Mark is blue
Has been fix

I deplore using "fix" to mean "repair", but I undeniably has-been many things I will never be again.  (And for some of those, I'm glad, glad, GLAD.)

According to my count-up timer, the repair took fifty-one minutes — starting *after* I'd set up on the porch.

11:20 AM 6/22/2022

6:15 PM 6/22/2022
HCJ#7
What rhymes with that knows only heaven

Took thirty-two minutes.  The old gap-closing stitches had already been removed.

I stopped the count-up timer a few times to go inside and check on the rolled steak on the rotisserie, and once to eat the steak.  It was overcooked, and dry despite about a half pound of bacon wrapped up with it.  And very little bacon grease was in the dripping pan.  Good all the same.  I put potatoes and other cooked vegetables in the dripping pan to keep warm and get dripped on; I'll do that again, but pre-cook the veggies longer.

 
    
Thursday, 23 June 2022 11:09 AM 6/23/2022 

Went to interfacing-and-iron-ons box to select a 
patch for the pocket of the curry jersey.  Found 
it a dreadful mess, but it straightened right up 
when I sorted out the patches I'd bought at garage 
sales.   I went through the swatch set I bought 
from www.FashionSewingSupply.com and found the 
perfect tricot interfacing for the hem of the 
pocket of a T-shirt.   (I sure hope I remember 
that if I ever get the "I was desperate for this 
two years ago" jobs off my plate.) 

And I hope that Fashion Sewing Supply is still in 
business, because I strongly recommend that swatch 
set to anyone who sews just for the family.   
Whatever you need, there's a swatch of it that's 
plenty big enough. 

Someone younger and more energetic would probably 
use up one of the swatches and need to buy a yard. 

Now to go through the patches, choose one, and put 
the remainder into a one-gallon zipper bag.  I 
must have been to a lot of garage sales. 


Friday, 24 June 2022
 
8:59 AM 6/24/2022 

There were three or so pre-cut patches just the 
right size, but they are stout twill.   Most of 
the packages were mending tape, but there were two 
pieces wide enough to patch the worn spot.  The 
green one was stapled to the card, so I chose the 
navy,  trimmed off a projecting tab, rounded the 
corners, and ironed it to the inside of the shirt. 

------------
 Wednesday, 5 January 2022 

Someday I'll try to remember what I was thinking 
when I took photographs, and put them in 
appropriate places. 
    
------------

Was reading the Web copy of this file, found a 
typo.  I was searching for my account of how I 
made the first bra.  It's much scattered, but I 
found the entry that covers what I plan to do 
next. 

Broke off to look through the linen scraps for a 
patch to sew over the elastic on the pocket I 
patched. 

1:10 PM 6/24/2022
    
It was a quick and dirty job, and it took the 
whole morning, but I can ride my bike tomorrow.  
There must be *some* way that I can find a 
dressmaker; there are thousands of skilled 
housewives in the county, and there must be dozens 
who would love to sell a few spare hours. 

I zig-zagged the fold into the vertical edges of 
the patch, then it turned out that I could sew 
down all of the vertical edges.  I basted the fold 
into the top of the patch, then pinned the bottom 
of the patch to the outside of the pocket  with 
the raw edge a quarter inch from the stitching of 
the casing.  I should have done this on the inside 
of the pocket, so the double stitching and flatter 
seam would be on the side that gets more wear. 

I basted the patch in place, then drew a wash-out 
line a quarter inch from the fold.  I should have 
drawn the stitching line before I started 
attaching the pocket. 

I figured that sewing the patch on would be a good 
chance to practice Combination Stitch.  An inch or 
so in, I realized that I was swatting a fly with 
an elephant gun and switched to running back 
stitch.  (Combination stitch did do a good job of 
securing my thread, and I used it to secure the 
ends when I'd finished.)  After my second 
backstitch, I realized that interrupting the 
running stitch with a bar tack instead of a 
backstitch wouldn't leave a long, wear-catching 
stitch on the back.  This would be a desirable 
addendum to the page on hand-sewing stitches, were 
it possible to edit it. 

There *is* a complicated and time-consuming way to 
edit *one* file from the Web page.  Perhaps I'll 
try it out if the surgeon sentences me to another 
month and a half of staying home and not bending 
over. 

Saturday, 25 2022 June 2022 
6:23 PM 6/25/2022 

I can see! 

    

Monday, 27 June 2022 8:09 PM 6/27/2022 Copied from the June Beeson Banner

27 June 2022

Light in the sewing room has been a problem from the beginning.  There just isn't any place where I can put a lamp.  Dave took care of that by installing a ceramic ceiling socket.

Then I had the problem that a bulb bright enough to sew by was eye-searing to type by.  I tried all sorts of tricks, including plugging night lights into the outlets and a rube goldberg with a socket splitter, a pull-chained socket in each socket of the splitter, and a hundred-watt bulb in one socket and a red bulb in the other.

That's even worse than it sounds.

So Dave swapped out the switch for a dimmer switch.  Perfect!  It also met my desire for less blue light when working after sunset.  Dim an incandescent, and it gets redder.  I could retrieve the socket splitter, install two bright bulbs, and have reasonably-bright reddish light.

This worked fine for years, then incandescent bulbs were gradually illegalized and a few weeks ago I burned out my next-to-the last incandescent, the remaining one being a low-power decorative bulb.  Oher types of bulbs don't redden when underpowered, and those not labeled "dimmable" — I don't *want* to find out what they do when dimmed.

So I began searching every bulb display I saw — I'd been doing that for years, but now I spent time on it.  Some bulbs looked like incandescents, but if a bulb isn't an LED (and, I strongly suspect, many that *are* LEDs) the label reads "You don't need to know what kind of bulb this is.  Nothing to see here, move right along."

Then yesterday on my way to a bunch of garage sales, I happened upon another bunch of garage sales, and found a box full of light bulbs priced "make offer".  I offered two dollars to pick out what I wanted and put the rest back, and she accepted and offered bubble wrap.  I declined with thanks and spent half an hour sorting light bulbs.

Things went faster when I realized that I could put everything on the grass, put the fluorescents and non-standard sockets back into the box, put the box back on the table, and get on with my packing.  I missed two undersized sockets; since they are still in the package, I put them into the Our Father's House bag.

I filled up the pannier and used up all my crumpled plastic bags.  I counted over a dozen bulbs in the top layer after I emptied the pannier into a box today.

That should hold me for a while.  

28 June 2022

8:38 AM 6/28/2022

I tore the muslin into six bra rags yesterday.  I was very careful to make them exactly square, but as I was folding them and stacking them up I noticed that two were a good half inch wider than the ones stacked up with them.

Today, I decided to waste some time embroidering inventory marks on the rags.  I finished assembling the resistor code bag, set up on the front porch, and set a count-up timer to measure exactly how munch time I was wasting.  It was fifty-one minutes and thirteen seconds, plus the time spent putting stuff away.

I took the opportunity of sitting in the sun with magnifiers on to identify the black thread.  There are more than four strands, but the strands look more like darning thread than like floss, and that's the flattened core of a ball that the thread is wound on.  There are very partial skeins of myrtle, Lt. Card-inal, and Colonial Brown.  I wound scraps of purple, golden yellow, red, orange, and blue onto a business card.  After some false starts, I made a small snip in the edge of the card, laid the thread over it, pulled the end to the back so that it snapped into the slit, wrapped, and secured the other end in the same slit.  Which left up to twice the width of the card flappng around, but it prevents unwinding.

I also put in a spare pair of SuperSnips and a #9 crewel needle stuck into a scrap of yellow wool.  

Wednesday, 29 June 2022

11:35 AM 6/29/2022

First sewing chore today — after hanging some straightening strips on the "rags to tie up plants with" wire.  When I made the sheets, I hung the straightening strips over the bracket where I hang wool strips holding needles, and forgot about them until I found a partial packet of needles on the ironing board this morning, and they got in the way of hanging it up.

First sewing chore was to fold an old towel in half and stitch around three sides to make a diaper for the cat.

When I went to the porch to pin it, I found two pins on the concrete, presumably dropped at some previous session, perhaps when the wind blew away a pill pouch of pins.

This reminded me that when I first heard that in the eighteenth century, a common gift for a man to give to a woman he was courting was a pincushion with a motto picked out in pins, it struck me as terribly impractical — one couldn't use the pins without spoiling the motto.

I wonder how many decades it took me to realize that the motto was a way to make sure that one had found every last precious pin before putting one's work away.

I think pins are expensive whenever I buy a box, but when I lose one, my primary concern is that someone might step on it barefoot.

9:51 PM 6/29/2022

Spent a lot of time fretting because I want the flat-felled side seam of the bras to end up right-side out, but I want to trim the darts on the wrong side.

Eventually realized that to have the outside of the seam pointing to the back, I need to turn a quarter inch of the *back* to the right side.  Then when the front and back are placed right sides together, the trimmed dart ends up inside the seam.  I'll have to look at the pictures in 2017 again.

 

Thursday, 30 June 2022

11:57 AM 6/30/2022

This morning I basted the four back edges.  I didn't set a count-up timer, but my breakfast cooked at least thirty minutes while I was doing the first three.  I set the timer for 11:11 before starting the fourth side, and it went off just before I finished gave up and quit.  I stupidly pulled the needle off the thread when I wanted to take two more stitches.  It felt like five minutes that I spent trying to re-thread it.  I tried making it short enough to be stiff, wetting the end, snipping the fuzz off the end, and folding it sharply over the needle after which it should have been easy to push a long-eyed needle over the tightly-held bight.

My notes on these bras are so scattered and useless that I decided to make all remarks about the jersey that at long last I'm going to be able to start making — right after the Fourth of July festivities die down — in a file of their own.  My first thought was to append it to linjersy.htm, then I realized that it would be better to make it a proper ROUGHnn.HTM file with its own file of photographs.

And I could make it on the Linux DOSBOX, making it quick and easy to add remarks.  A big crummy deal to make a back-up file and upload to the Web, but no inhibitions on taking notes.  (Followed by an itch until I get a copy sneakernetted to another disk.)

Perhaps I should call that "swivelchairnetted"; I don't have to put my weight on my feet to move a USB stick from Linux to JOYXP.

 

Friday, 1 July 2022

3:30 PM 7/1/2022

Backing up a bit:  photographs?  I *need* ed.dir to manage a batch of photographs.  Perhaps I can create a text file and manage it by hand.

7:24 PM 7/1/2022

Time to close out this file and start 2022SEW2.HTM.  I don't think I've closed out 2021SEW2.HTM yet.

Got to be lunchtime before I got the decks cleared, and when I woke up from my nap I was too hungry to concentrate, so I washed the dishes.  That has needed doing for some time.  Also got yesterday's hamburger grease off the stovetop.  Tomorrow through next Sunday is the Fourth of July.  I'm also scheduled for Mohs surgery on Thursday.  All I've got for portable sewing is fine darning black on black, and I might have a bandage over one eye.  I think I'd better take my larger go bag; there might be something too large for the attaché case in the mending bag, and they said to bring lunch.

 

5 July 2022

I sewed another tear in my dirt-kneeling pants, same leg, same technique.

Too groggy to sew — power failure at sunrise got us up early — so I'm cleaning up some of the text files I've pasted in.

 

Monday, 18 July 2022

10:12 AM 7/18/2022

I think it was Friday that I meant to sit down here and write:  "I had the whole day to sew, and trimmed the seams of all four darts and top-stitched one of them.".

I distract easily.  I'm starting the bras now, right after breakfast (and after hanging two rained-on carpet samples on the clothesline).

After several days of rain, the samples no longer stink, and it's to be dry and sunny for a few days.

Uh, I swear that I shall at least finish the topstitching.  10:17 AM 7/18/2022

10:34 AM 7/18/2022

The tighten-a-half-hitch-around-a-pin method of ending a seam in the middle of the fabric didn't work at all well on the first two topstitches.  I'm going to inelegantly tie a square knot for the remaining darts.

11:36 AM 7/18/2022

Breaking for lunch.  Top stitching done, pinning left side seams.  When you are sewing bias edges, lots of register marks help a bunch.

12:02 PM 7/18/2022

Lunch eaten, seams pinned.  I remembered to cheat and overlap the raw edges a tiny bit where the gap for putting in the elastic will be, to make the seam allowance wide enough to hem.

 

Wednesday, 20 July 2022

11:34 AM 7/20/2022

Resumed stitching the seams I left to to answer the door on Monday, found the absence of the half-century-old scissors in the leather sheath unbearable, lo and behold, there was a small, cheap pair of scissors in the spare-tools arm of the futon.  Not small enough, but tolerable.  And now, of course I'll find out that the Singer scissors were on the ironing board all of the times that I looked for them there.  I *am* planning to clear it today so I can press seams and iron shirts.

Answering the door reminded me that it was past time to dig up the multiplier onions and lay them on the picnic table to cure.

Spent Tuesday on the eye doctor, Kroger, a walk to the ATM, and Aldi.

 

Thursday, 21 July 2022

12:12 PM 7/21/2022

It's good that my first chore today is hand-sewing what I basted yesterday — multiple lengthy interruptions do not disturb the work.

My lunch is on the table, the wash is on the line, and I have threaded the needle.

6:53 PM 7/21/2022

Sat on the porch after supper.  First little hem took 14:08.

Second took 14:00.  I'd expected it to go faster on account of taking one running stitch after each back stitch.  I'd wanted to do running back stitch, but on thick fabric with short stitches, it's impossible for running back stitch to get a secure nip of the bottom layer.

Still haven't done the ironing.  It absolutely *must* be done tomorrow, because I want to take two of the shirts to Our Father's House on Saturday.

 

Friday, 22 July 2022

1:46 PM 7/22/2022

Sewed the side seam in the other bra so I could press it after pressing four shirts — and I remembered to lengthen the stitches that will have to come out.

Pressed a give-away shirt, pressed a villa-olive shirt, noticing that the corner of one pocket has torn away and that it's shabby all over.  Time to make it into a much-needed slopping-around shirt.  Pressed the other give-away shirt, pressed a sleezy-jersey scoop neck shirt.

I need to write "100% cotton" on two slips of quilt lining and baste them to the give-away shirts, but it's nap time:  1:53 PM 7/22/2022.

 

Saturday, 23 July 2022

2:05 PM 7/23/2022

Shirts safely delivered, together with a plush backrest, a couple of egg cartons, and a bag of small things.  He said that they can use standard-mouth pickle jars, so there's another box of stuff that can leave the garage Real Soon Now.

The two shirts were the three-quarter sleeve shirts I made from all-cotton upholstery fabric yea many years ago.  One has hook-and-eye tape down the front, the other closes with Velcro.

A few entries back I said "I've threaded the needle" to mean I'd done nothing much on the bras.  Yesterday evening, when I went to the porch to spend a few seconds basting the labels onto the shirts, threading the needle was a major operation.  I must have struggled with the eye that winks five or ten minutes before I gave up and came in for the threader that came with my "this is not a toy" sewing machine.  It still wasn't easy; the threader has a blunt loop that has to be put into the eye just so, then pushed hard.  And when I threaded again for the second label, I forgot that one must not use the handle on a threader to pull the thread back through the eye.  I didn't pull the wire out of the handle, but it isn't the same shape it was before.  Still works, I think, and the wobble will remind me not to use the handle as a handle.

I wonder how long that style of threader has been being made, with that same cameo embossed on the foil handle, and what they made the foil from before aluminum got cheap.

 

Thursday, 28 July 2022

12:44 PM 7/28/2022

I've figured out how to plug in the iron without unplugging the monitor of the computer that runs DOSBOX. /WEBLOG2.HTM

DH gave me a monopus to make the ceiling outlet a tad lower, but it didn't help because I had to use both hands and push really hard, which I don't care to do while balancing on a step stool.  Better to stretch another six inches and plug into a fixed outlet, which I can do with one hand while keeping my other fingertips on the ceiling for balance.

But I didn't give the monopus back, and while plugging in the iron, I realized that if I plugged the monitor into the monopus and plugged the monopus into the surge protector, the wall wart wouldn't cover the adjacent outlet.

So I plugged the monitor back in with the iron already plugged in!

Then I pressed the two-little-hems seam to one side, pressed the seam that I haven't hemmed yet as it lay, and dry-ironed a shirt that I'd washed on Monday.

Now it's lunch time, but at least I can say I've *touched* the work.

7:09 PM 7/28/2022

And between nap-time and supper, I sewed the shorter end of the hemmed-gap seam.

The light on the Necchi is fading; I left it on for hours a few days ago.

7:31 PM 7/28/2022

So I moved my chair and sewed the longer end of the seam.  With the practice on the shorter end (which will end up entirely inside the elastic casing), the idea of working entirely from the wrong side worked pretty well — but the pressing had been done badly, so it all had to be picked out.

 

Friday, 29 July 2022

12:28 PM 7/29/2022

Once again, I've let the notes pile up until I need a couple of bright, clear hours to transfer them.  I should put the text file on the Web and put a link to it at the end of the hypertext file.

Re-pressed the seam of the bra, after washing jars to put into the Our Father's House box.  (And the backlog of dirty dishes.)  Hope to re-stitch before nap time.

Haste makes waste:  It would be more efficient to keep both bras at the same stage of development — it would economize on time spent waiting for the iron to heat, for example.  But I need a bra *now*, so I'm doing all my work on Bra C.

4:39 PM 7/29/2022 — began to open DOSBOX

16:58 notes transferred and paragraphs made

After my nap, I was determined to get on with making the bra, so I top-stitched the flat-fell seam, from the wrong side as discussed above.

Then I decided to remove the stitches from the gap and discovered that one of the little hems was wrong, wrongity, wrong wrong wrong.

Removed the short end of the topstitching and the turn-around of the long end.  Lots of tiny back stitches in the hem, and I'd done an *excellent* job of hiding them.  But I finished ripping before time to plan supper.  (Zap five minutes, stir, eat.  Very complicated recipe.)

17:05 back to editing.  Fifteen minutes before time to resume cooking.

16:51

Editing hit snag when I came to a bit I intended to paste into WEBLOG2.HTM:  no WEBLOG2.HTM.  (Probably moved instead of copying the last time I uploaded.)  Just had time to fix that before cooking.  Resumed editing after supper, hit snag again when I found that I'd copied WEBLOG.HTM instead of WEBLOG2.HTM.

Everything else seems ready to upload.

 

Tuesday, 2 August 2022

11:09 PM 8/2/2022

I noticed, while hanging the wash, that the two red-ramie bras are not likely to survive another trip through the washer.  This did not spur me to get on with the new bra, because I've made too many mistakes with that seam to cheerfully work on it when tired and sleepy.

Another reason to get on with it is that the seven shabby HCJ briefs are getting little holes, and underpants are next on my priority list.

One bright spot in being grounded for so long is that it saved wear on my disintegrating bike jerseys.

 

Wednesday, 3 August 2022

11:53 AM 8/3/2022

According to my count-up timer, it took me twenty-two minutes to baste two little hems.

I looked over bra C, which needs to be pressed to take out the old crease, and decided that it would be quicker to start over with bra A.  I'll take out the old crease when I press bra A to prepare for topstitching.

I sure hope that none of these stitches need to be taken out!

12:31 PM 8/3/2022

16:35 to sew the first little hem.  Just as I was finishing, I realized that this one would have been quite easy to get under the foot of the sewing machine.

The other one, alas, I put off to second because it is harder.

I used back whipstitch:  stick into the fold a little behind the place where I came up through the single layer.

1:51 PM 8/3/2022

Twelve minutes and twenty-one seconds to sew the more-difficult little hem.  I didn't have to fuss with the basting as much as with the other one.

 

4 August 2022

I pressed bra A ready to topstitch, laid it down to cool, pressed the bad crease out of bra C, found DH in my sewing chair trying to repair my dead computer, took bra C out to the porch and basted the hem I'd removed, came back in and found that he'd given up trying to work in workspace that fits me and carried the dead machine to his chair, pushed my chair to the sewing machine and sewed the hem I'd just basted, reflected that now bra A and Bra C were at the same stage of development again, top-stitched the seam (which made bra A pull ahead) took the long seam-stitching out of the gap where the elastic goes in (planning to baste the gap closed) ——

And discovered that I'd made the same exact mistake I'd made on bra C.  So I took out both the topstitching and the seam stitching on the short end, a good inch of both on the long end, picked out the bad hem, and basted in the crease where the seam stitching had been so I won't lose it when I press out the bad hem, and it's well past time for my nap.

I've lost everything on the dead computer, but I'm reasonably sure that most or all of it was backed up on this computer and my Web site.

Sleepy or not, I's agonna do some upbacking before I lie down.

 

Friday, 5 August 2022

10:58 AM 8/5/2022

The missing scissors were in the pencil mug!

I hope that my bicycle keys are also in a spot I'll look into.  My bike might be ready as soon as today.

[The bike keys were in the pocket of one of my disintegrating jerseys.  The bike was delayed by a misunderstanding.]  [I have made a list of the tools on the bike-key ring, so that I'll know what's missing when it happens again.  Alas, most of the items are things I lucked into and can't buy replacements for.  A one-blade pocket knife, for example, is almost impossible to find.]

6:16 PM 8/5/2022

Repair shop closed for the day and no phone call.  Probably Monday.  I plan to make my first trip to the new trailhead; I think (the publicity is none too clear on the exact location) that I can get there entirely on walkways, so I might do it on Sunday with the flatfoot.

Finally got the gap-seam on bra A finished, and pinned the right-side seam.  First pass was a tad too wide.  I left it in as basting and tried again.  This time I was sewing wa-hay too narrow, but I noticed while it wasn't much to remove.

So I resorted to using a six-inch stainless-steel pocket ruler to dot-dot-dot where the stitching goes.  Four minutes before time to resume cooking supper:  plenty of time to finish, but I blew it by unthreading the needle.  My fading battery lamp is still bright enough to sew by, but threading a needle is quite impossible.

 

Tuesday, 9 August 2022

1:50 PM 8/9/2022

Got up late, fed the cat, got dressed, ate seasoned-up corned beef hash (which included pulling two onions and re-filling the smoked-paprika bottle), threw cat turds out the door etc., threaded the sewing-machine needle, changed the batteries on the sewing machine — yes, in that order; I couldn't figure out how to open the battery compartment at first, and just held the fading light close to the needle.

And then it was time for lunch.  I had corn checks, sliced almonds, and half a banana in milk.

After lunch, I remembered that I sew a half-inch seam by setting the needle on the left and guiding on the edge of the needle plate.  Went straight down the row of dots.  The edge was a bit wavy, so I stretched the seam slightly, a thread broke and left a generous inch of draft.  I basted the gap with very short running stitches, leaving both end unsecured — these stitches bear no stress in the final seam.

Went to the porch to pick out the too-wide seam — went quickly:  pull the thread until the other thread stops popping through, cut a stitch half an inch from the hang-up, pull the thread out, repeat with the other thread.

I tossed the bits of thread to the wind.

Went back out to baste the little hem on bra C, but I have found it a bad idea to operate a sewing machine at nap time, so I'm calling it a morning.

6:48 PM 8/9/2022

After supper, I stitched the little hem on bra A, picked it out, put the needle on middle position and re-sewed it without wandering off the fold, and pinned and basted the lap seam that will replace the flat fells that I picked out.  Both bras need to have the iron heated and I want to read the funnies and some Usenet before nine o'clock, when I start getting ready for bed, so that's a disappointing it for today.

 

Thursday, 11 August 2022

10:03 AM 8/11/2022

Spent yesterday morning washing clothes.  After supper I pressed the seams, then ironed a villa-olive shirt that I plan to make into a house shirt, and my villa-olive dress.  I'd thought there was more ironing on the hook than that.

Later noticed my white linen do-rag, which could do with a pressing before I patch it.

12:33 PM 8/11/2022

Sewed the first topstitching of the flat-fell seam on bra C, wobbled all over the place, went to the porch to pick it out.  I was interrupted three times:  once to bring in a package I found on my sitting-and-picking chair, twice to check on the peanut-flour-and-blueberry pancake I was making for lunch.

Then I set up to sew again, this time remembering to put the end of the seam under the foot and pull back to the beginning, so that I won't find myself inside a ring when I've finished.

(That is, instead of starting outside the ring and ending up inside, I start on the inside and stitch to the outside.)

And then it was time to eat the pancake.

1:22 PM 8/11/2022

Top stitching sewn, decided that I want to press before topstitching the other side, sewed the short end of the lap seam repairing bra A, basted and marked the end of the longer end, time for a nap.

Didn't eat all of the pancake.

6:03 PM 8/11/2022

After my nap, I completed the lap seam repairing bra A, then walked downtown to check on my bike and buy a buffalo chicken melt for supper.

After supper, I sewed the flat-fell seam on the other side, so now C is only slightly ahead of A, but both need to be pressed as they lie before further stitching.

The seam was puckered again, but this time I stretched it more cautiously and did not break the thread.

 

Friday, 12 August 2022

12:26 PM 8/12/2022

This morning I pressed the seams, and ironed the white do-rag to make it easier to patch (Do I *have* any sheer linen?  Heavy linen would tear it.)

Then I sewed the first row of topstitching on bra C and the second on bra A.

*And*, at last, got down the yellow-lined scraps and started sorting out bias tape.  But I intend to finish the elastic casing before sewing the shoulder seams.

Wondered how I'd fold on lines that are on the inside of the bra.  Duh!  I have a tracing wheel and some dustpaper.

 

Monday, 15 August 2022

12:43 PM 8/15/2022

Duh, I *didn't* have dustpaper.  I took everything out of the tray, put the carbon paper into a flat clear-plastic bag that happened to be in there, neatly stacked the triangle, french curve, etc. — no dustpaper.

Eventually I noticed that there was a stack of stuff that belonged in the tray of the pattern trunk on the toolbox of the Necchi.  I must have put it on the nearest convenient flat surface while looking for something, then forgot to put it back.

I lifted the lid of the trunk a crack and shoved the other things into the tray willy-nilly.

So I put my smaller cutting mat and its plywood on the ironing board and traced the folding lines, then ironed creases on the folding lines.

Took me a while to remember that I guide on the foot with the needle in left position, to make a ruffle a little less than a quarter-inch wide.  Then I pressed the casing and edge-stitched along the other crease.

Now to divide the casing into three channels.  My favorite marking ruler is my shaku stick, but sun are too big and the number of bu isn't a multiple of three.  Millimeters gave me a prime number.  None of the inch rulers worked.  Finally I noticed an old word-processing ruler, and the casing measured precisely nine pica.  Which is an inch and a half, so why didn't any of my inch rulers work?  Whatever, I dotted around, connected the dots using the same ruler, stitched on the lines, and the casing of bra C is complete.  And I poked the handle of my tweezers into the gaps to make sure the elastic would go in.

When lining dots, it's a good idea to line up three dots, but mark between only two.  Or four dots and mark three.

Somewhere in there the flat-fell seam of bra A got completed.  I think that I'll mark and press the creases on bra A one at a time.

I think I'll fold and baste the first stage of a pre-graded flat-fell seam on the back straps of both bras before lying down.  If it falls prey to "one more seam" syndrome, it will be trivial to take out.

1:46 PM 8/15/2022

While basting the folds, I discovered that back C had been sewn to front A, and back A had been sewn to front C.

This doesn't matter (though it explains some confused moments in the past few weeks), but it concerns me a *lot* that it took this long to notice.

I always looked at the front when wanting to know which bra I was working on, which supplies some slight excuse — and a massive condemnation of my situational awareness.

 

Tuesday, 16 August 2022

1:35 PM 8/16/2022

Yep, one-more-seam syndrome.  I want the turn-to-the-right-side to be on the *front* strap, so that the fold of the back will be on top, and point down.  It doesn't really matter, but I'm going to pick it out and start over.

(Slept late, just finished breakfast and morning clean-up.)

6:48 PM 8/16/2022

Houston, we have a bra!  Well, I have to bind the neck and face the armholes, but it's a bra.

After supper, I completed the seams on the shoulder strap of bra C-in-the-front.  Since the seams are very short, I did it entirely with finger pressing.

Now to take the scraps out to the freezer — the only flat horizontal surface that doesn't collect clutter — and sort out some one-inch tape and inch-and-a-quarter tape.  I wonder whether one of the pattern pieces records how much I need of each?

7:02 PM 8/16/2022

I wild-guess less than twenty-four inches per armhole and the general neighborhood of twenty-eight for the neck.  One of the pattern pieces says less than 22" per armhole.

8:09 PM 8/16/2022

Marked some cutting lines on small scraps and cut along one while I remembered which line was the cutting line — that scrap had a lot of wash-out lines from cutting out the bras.

The facing tapes are cut an inch and an eighth to allow for irregularities.  The neck binding needs to be an inch and three quarters.

Then I folded up the bigger scraps and put them back into the box, because I was getting stupid.  Probably won't get any work done tomorrow because I want to go shopping, and the next day I have to go to Fort Wayne so a PA can look at my scar and tell me what I already know.

               
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& 
                                                  




Friday, 19 August 2022 5:07 PM 8/19/2022 

Found time between taking down the clothes and 
supper to select a scrap and mark it into tape. 



Saturday, 20 August 2022 7:16 PM 8/20/2022 

Some rotten potatoes that fouled a crisper tray 
and the refrigerator below it absconded with  
quite a bit more time than I'd meant to spend 
cutting the strips and piecing them together. 

But I do find time to do some arithmetic:    
there are four neck strips, the longest cutting 
line is 24", and the shortest is 15".    
Twice thirty-nine is more than sixty-six, and 
there is also a partial strip about fifteen inches 
long, and the scrap left from the first bra, so I 
have ample for necks. 

The rest of the scrap was much less regular than 
the corner I marked into neck strips, and I was 
rather surprised that I was able to mark all of it 
into armhole strips, continuing from where I'd 
left off the neck strips. 

There are twelve armhole strips, and the longest 
is sixteen inches.   A little offshoot has 
four ten-inch strips and one of five or six.   
The shortest of the remaining seven is about a 
foot.   So it's twelve feet or more.    
Four yards should be ample; I *think* that an 
armhole takes less than a yard. 

Monday, 22 August 2022 11:52 PM 8/22/2022 

Cut the neck strips apart, and cut along a thread 
on one to make it fit with the other end.   I 
think I shall alternate right side and wrong side, 
to turn every other trapezoid upside down. 

Spent most of day washing clothes. 



Tuesday, 23 August 2022 6:39 PM 8/23/2022 

No nap today.    I don't think I'll piece the 
bias strips together this evening. 



Wednesday, 24 August 2022 11:13 AM 8/24/2022 

I don't need to flop the strips, I can rotate them 
180°. 

This will alternate the nap instead of right and 
wrong, which is less confusing -- and I'm pretty 
sure this fabric doesn't have a nap. 

11:33 AM 8/24/2022 

Pinned end to end, the strips measure two yards 
and thirty-two inches. 

12:26 PM 8/24/2022 

Sewed the strips together. 

To save re-threading the Necchi with gathering 
thread -- which would divert me into putting on 
SubSilk thread and cutting up an old towel and a 
washrag -- I dug out the not-a-toy sewing machine. 

I do believe that if they replaced the motor with 
a crank, they'd have something!   Human-powered 
gadgets usually cost a lot more than electric 
gadgets, but I think that adding a folding or 
plug-in crank wouldn't cost much more than they 
would save on the motor, wall-wart, and foot 
pedal.    The only part that needs replacing 
is the totally-inadequate hand wheel.    
(It's more of a button than a wheel, which makes 
cranking the needle down like twisting off the lid 
of a jar.) 

I wonder whether the motor is so located that one 
could make its space into a storage 
compartment?    Putting a door in would 
require re-engineering, and I rather suspect that 
the motor is as tiny as the motors in solar garden 
toys. 

Next step:  dustpaper the fold lines on the other 
bra to the right side.   Then I can put away 
the smaller cutting mat -- until time to cut the 
armhole bias strips. 



Thursday, 25 August 2022 1:01 PM 8/25/2022 

Dustpapered the lines, folded on them, and pressed 
the creases. 

Then I pressed the seams in the neck-binding 
strips and triple-pressed the turn-under. 



Friday, 26 August 2022 4:41 PM 8/26/2022 

In the morning, I sewed the neck-binding strip to 
the bra and cut four pieces of bias to piece into 
two armholes. 


Monday, 29 August 2022 11:32 AM 8/29/2022 

bias strips measure 24" & 25" 

6:01 PM 8/29/2022 

Got the 24" strip pinned to an armhole, but not 
trimmed and pinned for joining.   It looks as 
though I'll have a very small piece to trim off. 

Having done the wash today, I have two clean bras, 
so I can postpone finishing until after tomorrow's 
ride. 

I could have finished on Friday, but I was getting 
into "one more seam" territory, so I wore a dirty 
bra on Saturday and Sunday. 

It's time to wrap up the August Banner and I 
haven't written it yet, so I doubt that I'll find 
time to clean this up and put it on the Web 
anytime soon. 


9:57 AM 8/30/2022 

eight minutes for quick-and-dirty darn 

6:57 PM 9/2/2022 -- blink blink.   I did that 
darn just before my ride on the thirty-first, to 
keep my reading glasses from escaping from my 
jersey pocket. 



Friday, 2 September 2022 5:57 PM 9/2/2022 Monday 
wash clothes, tuesday ride bike to Kohl Plaza to 
buy cat food, Wednesday spent all day and most of 
the evening getting out the August Banner, must 
have been Thursday that I discovered that I'd 
counted irregularities that have to be trimmed 
away when measuring the "twenty-five inch" strip, 
and it lacked a seam allowance of meeting. 

Must have managed to unpick and piece in a new one 
without too much waste of time, as this morning 
the bra lacked only a pressing and stitching of 
being finished.    I pressed a dress that I 
washed Monday before starting to sew, and sewed 
the casing and shoulder seams of the other bra 
before pinning the armhole facing on bra 
YL2red.   (YL:  yellow linen) 

Also had to retrieve my old manuscripts from a 
newly-discovered flood.   (Leaking pipe to 
outdoor faucet behind the wall I'd stacked them 
against.)  

I've spread them out to dry and pinned the facings 
and now (7:06 PM 9/2/2022) I'm finally about to 
stitch. 


10:43 PM 9/2/2022 

And I have a clean bra to wear tomorrow. 

 

6 September 2022

Mended the seam in my yellow underpants.

Copied a bunch of stuff from BLOGSEW.TXT to 2022SEW1.HTM.  Figured out how to copy it as <pre> in one step; saves a lot of time.

 

Thursday, 8 September 2022 2:30 PM 9/8/2022 

Devoted whole day to sewing.   Lunchtime 
before I was ready to start.    I marked the 
stitching for the elastic casings before lying 
down. 

Will sew casings and shoulder seams and cut bias 
for facings in the afternoon, knock wood.   
Plenty of neck-binding tape left over from second 
bra. 

8:01 PM 9/8/2022 

Slept whole afternoon; made instant soup for 
supper.   (Dump one can of tamales and one 
can of diced tomatoes into saucepan.   Heat 
to boiling and serve.) 

After supper, I sewed the casing dividers and 
finished the shoulder seams.    I figured I'd 
pin the neck binding next, because the tape is 
already cut and pieced, but I haven't pulled up 
the easing basting yet and that's beyond my 
current supply of thinkum, so I took the marked 
scraps and the smaller cutting mat out to the 
brilliant light over the chest freezer, cut up the 
scrap with the longer pieces, and put the other 
scraps into the yellow-linen box. 

Brought all back into the house, sorted out the 
four longest pieces and put the others into the 
yellow-linen box.    The two pieces that 
result from pinning the two shorter to the two 
longer measure twenty-seven inches, I calculate 
that twenty-five are enough, and I'm not going to 
lose a startling amount by trimming along threads. 

I should have a bra to wear on wash day. 

I've decided that the inventory mark for the 
second bra to be completed will be a tiny red bow 
made of two lazy-daisy stitches and two straight 
stitches, but have not yet done it.    An 
orange bar tack marks the spot. 




Friday, 9 September 2022 11:12 AM 9/9/2022 

Sewed and fingernail-pressed the bias.   One 
strip measure 27" and the other is a tad longer. 

12:04 PM 9/9/2022 

Grumblygripe.    I forgot to measure the neck 
binding before pinning it to the bra, and I'm not 
about to unpin it just to find out how long it is. 

Had quite a lot left. 




Tuesday, 13 September 2022 3:04 PM 9/13/2022 

After nap, I corrected a couple of errors in 
attaching the neck binding and now it's ready to 
press. 

The armhole facing I'm about to attach is 28 3/4" 
point to point, 27 1/2" obtuse to obtuse.   I 
think that a thread starting at the point of the 
untrimmed end would cross the cut edge at 27". 

3:28 PM 9/13/2022 

Scrap measures 4 7/8" point to point, 3 3/8" 
obtuse to obtuse. 

About to sew ends together, then change right-
angle pins to seamline pins. 

Will fingernail-press the joining seam. 

3:44 PM 9/13/2022 

Pins shifted, and inspected on both sides for 
wandering edges. 

I belatedly realized that since the facing is 
eased onto the bra, I should have pinned from the 
bra side. 

3:49 PM 9/13/2022 

Cat fed.   In ten minutes, I revert to chief 
cook and sideboard cleaner. 




Thursday, 14 September 2022 8:55 PM 9/15/2022 

Again, an emergency darn.    I'm carrying my 
rag, with full pockets, in a plastic bag in a 
pannier so I can change into it after my teeth are 
cleaned tomorrow.   (Debit card pinned into a 
smock pocket of the decent shirt I'm wearing on 
the bike, phone pinned into a decorative pocket on 
the leg of my knickers, notebook in a hip pocket.)    
While folding it, I noticed yet another worn-
through crease in a spot where it was sure to be 
torn while putting my wallet  in and out of my 
jersey pocket.    The correct stop-gap for 
this is to iron on a piece of very thin, loose-
woven interfacing, but I lacked the time and 
organization to do it the easy way, so I baseball-
stitched it, with running-stitch darns above and 
below, and the thread not secured in any way so 
that it can slip instead of tearing the rotten 
fabric. 

Gee I wish I could find a dressmaker to make me a 
new jersey!   At least (I just checked!) I 
remember where I put the quilting cotton I bought 
to make it out of.    *Somebody* makes 
suitable linen, but re-enactor shops don't carry 
yellow and I lack the duckduckfoo to find out who 
does. 


-------------------------------------------
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& 

Tuesday, 20 September 2022 
    
10:37 AM 9/20/2022 
    Bias strip measures 29" obtuse to point. 

11:12 AM 9/20/2022 
    Scrap measures 4" obtuse to point. 

Pity I didn't start a count-up timer before 
starting to right-angle pin.    I could have 
stopped it each time I was interrupted. 

11:25 AM 9/20/2022 
    Eight minutes and forty-one seconds to 
seamline pin.    About three minutes of that 
was used in marking, pinning, and sewing the 
splicing seam. 

11:36 AM 9/20/2022 
    six minutes and twenty-six seconds to actually 
sew the seam. 

Reminds me of the time I volunteered to help make 
curtains for a church.    I didn't attend 
that church; I don't recall how I came to be 
invited.   Perhaps my neighbor did go there. 

I sat down at my machine and several teams brought 
me seams and hems that were pinned and ready to 
run through it.    Afterward, someone 
remarked "Joy did all the work!" 

Now all the bits are attached, but when I clear 
off the ironing board, I have to iron a shirt and 
a dress, so I'm going to wash the vastly-overdue 
dishes, eat lunch, and take a nap. 
    11:53 AM 9/20/2022 




Wednesday, 21 September 
    2022 11:50 AM 9/21/2022 

Only the pockets and sleeve hems of the shirt 
needed to be pressed, and only the pockets of the 
long-sleeved dress.   Everything else had 
been smoothed by the heat of the dryer and the 
weight of the damp fabric when they were dried on 
hangers. 

Pressing the neck binding and armhole facings 
now.    I think it would have been worth my 
while to baste in the fold-under creases.    
Pressing them now will be a pain. 

12:05 PM 9/21/2022 

Armhole  facings pressed as they lie; neck binding 
pressed away from bra.   I've decided to pin 
and stitch that before doing more on the armhole 
facings. 

8:14 PM 9/21/2022 

Porch time after supper.   Fading light did 
fine until I had to re-thread the needle. 

I pinned the neck binding, then basted the fold-
under on the armhole facings. 





Thursday, 22 September 
    2022 10:55 AM 9/22/2022 

Eight minutes to stitch the neck binding, just shy 
of three to inspect it carefully and re-stitch 
half an inch. 

I'd stitched an inch of neck binding before I 
thought of setting a timer. 

Now to take the leg board (covered with chores to 
be done the month before last) off the ironing 
board and press the armhole facings. 

I checked:  the three elastics I cut under the 
impression that I'd finish the bra in a day or two 
are hanging on the needle swatch. 

What does one call a strip of wool pinned to a 
spare shelf bracket and dangling down to stick 
needles in?    I have three of those; the 
elastics are corsage-pinned to the one for coarse 
needles and bodkins. 

11:19 AM 9/22/2022 
    I pressed the facings as they lay by 
flattening sections on the ironing board, but used 
my larger ham to press the facings away from the 
bra. 

11:37 AM 9/22/2022 
    Five minutes to pin the first armhole, eight 
and a half total. 

I stopped the timer while I went back into the 
house for glycerin to rub on my fingertips. 

I pinned near the crease, with just a turn of the 
right side showing on the wrong side. 

11:49 AM 9/22/2022 Five and a half minutes to 
stitch the first armhole. 

11:52 AM 9/22/2022 
    Two minutes to pick out the basting. 

11:59 AM 9/22/2022 
    four minutes to stitch second facing 

12:02 PM 9/22/2022 
    oops, I forgot to set the timer.   
Probably about a minute to remove the pins and 
basting. 

Install elastic and I'm done!   But it's 
lunch time, and I also want to change the thread 
in the machine and  cut a bath towel into four 
dish towels. 

And I really, really want to copy all this stuff 
into 2022SEW1.HTM. 

And give the table of contents a vastly overdue 
updating.    Which will involve closing out 
last year's diary while I update the "spine 
indexes" 






Friday, 23 September 2022 
     1:08 PM 9/23/2022 

     Cut a washrag into two baby wipes and cut a 
bath towel into four dish towels. 

     Zig-zagged on each side of a wash-out line, 
then cut along the line and zig-zagged over the 
cut edge.   The first row of zig-zag kept it flat 
and smooth. 

6:09 PM 9/23/2022 

     After my nap, I carried the sleazy yellow 
jersey, the briefs pattern, and the box marked 
"briefs" out to the garage intending to cut one 
pair of yellow briefs to check the fit of the 
pattern, but I found that one of the scraps of  
hemp-cotton jersey in the briefs box was oversized 
for cutting out a back, but too small for cutting 
both a front and a back.  And the starch I'd used 
to keep the edges from curling had yellowed. 

     Down at the bottom of the briefs box was a 
black-jersey back I'd cut by  mistake years or 
decades ago, and it fit over the current back 
pattern.   It is about the same weight as the HCJ, 
and both are about the same weight as the yellow 
jersey that's too thin to make into a jersey. 

     "Hum", says I to me, "pied briefs will do for 
a beta", so I cut a front, a crotch, and a crotch 
liner from the HCJ. 

     Then I threw all the HCJ scraps into the 
hamper . . . 

     I'm using a hamper at the moment because the 
glue on one of the wheels of my double bin is 
curing.   I've been looking at web sites, but all 
of the double-bag laundry bins are side-by-side, 
and I need one above the other to save space in  
the laundry room.   Might as well continue putting 
all the stuff into one basket.  I always sort it 
on laundry day anyway.  (But this does mean that I 
have no clue as to whether I have enough hot 
whites to bother washing a load.)   (Except when I  
run low on underwear and take out everything 
else.) 

     I put the scraps into the hamper, lacking a 
special bin for hot with bleach, and mean to make 
them into skillet wipes.   I'll pick out a few 
pieces to put into the "pocket scraps" box. 

     The four new dish towels are also in the 
hamper. 

     The garage?  There is a brilliant light above 
the chest freezer, and the 27" x 60" lid is never 
cluttered.   And it's a good height to work at 
standing up. 

It says on the pattern that I made the HCJ briefs 
in 2018.   No wonder they are almost worn out. 

 

27 September 2022

I eyeballed the three lazy-daisy stitches that make an orange trefoil on the center front of the newest bra.

I'm definitely not going to post a picture of it.

Not that I'm photographing anything.  My crippled computer won't allow me to sort photographs and put them in their proper places, so why bother taking them?

L---P----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----T----R -->

Wednesday, 28 September 2022
     12:18 PM 9/28/2022 

I want to wear my worn-out yellow-linen jersey 
tomorrow, now that it's cool enough to wear thick 
tow passing itself off as expensive linen, so I 
baseball-stitched the collar back on.   I had 
intended to wait until it fell off entirely, then 
bind the neck edge the way I bound the necks of 
the bras.  Heaven knows I have plenty of yellow-
linen bias tape! 

But the black lining of the collar was made of 
good linen, and the iron-on interfacing will hold 
stitches through the frayed yellow side, so I 
darned it. 

Should have darned the hole in the notebook pocket 
while I was at it, but it is lunchtime and the 
notebook can't fall out through a small hole. 

Now I need to return the two elastics that I 
removed when I found that they made the jersey too 
hot. 

"Return" might be the correct word!   The two 
right-length elastics I found in my used-quarter-
inch-elastic bag might well be the elastics that I 
removed. 



Friday, 30 September 2022 
    11:18 AM 9/30/2022 

Wore jersey without second wrist elastics 
yesterday, went out to the porch to install them 
today, came back in and pulled rocking chair over 
to the glass doors in the living room. 

Fumbling around for a needle to sew the elastic to 
the bodkin, I suddenly realized that a 2" coil-
less  safety pin would work fine. 

Put elastic in the right sleeve, joined the ends 
with a tiny gold safety pin, tried it on -- 7" is 
*way* too short.   I think 8" would do,  but I'm 
going to install the 10" piece I found among the 
elastic scraps, twiddle until it's right, and 
*measure* what I cut off. 

Which measure I *could* use to cut a piece off the 
15" scrap, but I think I'll install it the same 
way.   11:21 AM 10/3/2022 8" was about right. 

 

Friday, 30 September 2022

8:02 PM 9/30/2022

At lengthy long last!!!

bra from scraps of yellow-linen jersey

1:14 PM 10/3/2022

I considered using a safety pin, but decided that the backing and forthing to get the elastic through a flat-felled seam required the sew-on bodkin.

11:05 AM 10/17/2022

And now that I finally have time to write up the completion of the third yellow bra, I have no idea what I wanted to say.

Meanwhile, I bought five bras at Aldi, three black spaghetti strap and two yukky-print racer backs.  The racer backs are much more comfortable; I may take the two unopend spaghetti straps to Our Father's House.  I moved all four linen bras to the back of the closet, to save them for warm weather.  The "finds" bras are, of course, 100% synthetic.

 

Monday, 3 October 2022 
    1:02 PM 10/3/2022 

As a preliminary to patching the torn knee in 
Dave's jeans, I baseball-stitched/running-stitched 
the tear.  Took twenty minutes.  I worked from the 
wrong side and tried to keep the long stitches on 
the right side, which will be covered by the 
patch.  It would have been much easier to take 
short nips from the right side than to take long 
nips from the wrong side, but I wanted to see that 
the loose threads were caught. 

I may yet put a smaller patch of thin soft muslin 
on the inside. 

I'm giving serious thought to putting a matching 
patch on the other knee. 

I found an old jean leg in the denim box, and he 
deemed it just right for "conspicuous, but not 
*too* conspicuous". 



Wednesday, 5 October 2022 
    6:26 PM 10/5/2022 

Fiddled around with the patch for Dave's knee, and 
tore off a piece of the jean leg the size and 
shape of two patches.  The straight-edged part of 
the leg was about twice as wide as the patches 
should be, so I measured it against the worn area, 
allowed a bit for turn-under, snipped, and tore. 

I had the "unbleached" box down to get a bit of 
mask muslin to make an inside patch over the torn 
edges, so I cut a strip to make a band off one 
edge, and I'm now in the process of cutting a 
thirteen by thirty-inch piece to make the veil.  I 
think I'll use twill tape for the hangers. 

I labeled the box "mask muslin" the last time I 
sorted through the unbleached cottons.   Most of 
the box is occupied by a very nice piece of 
unbleached all-cotton seersucker that I ought to 
get into the hands of someone who will make 
something of it. 

The "mask muslin" is something thin salvaged from 
something large, with notches that suggest that I 
cut the underlining for a shirt from it.  It is 
thin and loosely woven, and threads are easy to 
draw. 

I'm not quite done taking the hot whites off the 
line.  I used Oxy-Clean instead of bleach because 
DH spilled half a box on the lid of the washing 
machine, and some went in. 

After putting the dish towels away, I set the 
laundry basket and the pocket scraps next to the 
pile of skillet wipes.  Then I fetched the kitchen 
scissors -- which are a very good pair that I 
bought at a restaurant-supply store -- and cut the 
small scraps into wipes, and trimmed the tails off 
the large scraps before putting them into the box. 



Saturday, 8 October 2022 
    10:19 AM 10/8/2022 
    
    While dressing, I found another tear in my 
yellow-linen jersey. Pity my crippled computer 
renders my to-do list almost useless. 



Monday, 10 October 2022 
    10:56 AM 10/10/2022 

I'm planning to ride today, but since I want to 
come back clothed, I had to iron sleazy fusible 
interfacing over several tears and holes. 

I don't think I can buy more loosely-woven 
interfacing, but this piece has lasted for years 
and is still fairly large.   Also I bought at a 
garage sale a package of non-woven interfacing 
that's labeled ultra light.  Haven't opened the 
package to see exactly how light. 

I was planning to eat lunch out, but it's 
beginning to appear that my breakfast *is* my 
lunch. 



Thursday, 13 October 2022 
    11:00 AM 10/13/2022 

Today, finishing the patch on the knees of Dave's 
jeans is Job #1. 

But I also have to wash my underwear, and I can't 
work in the kitchen for the dirty dishes. 

Before starting the washer, I had to darn a three-
cornered tear in my dirty-work pants.  No idea 
what I snagged them on.  I used 100/6 because that 
was already on the machine, but one of the weak 
basting threads would have been less likely to 
tear. 

Also machine-basted the sheddy sweat rags into my 
pillowcase.  I set the machine for the longest 
stitch and widest zig-zag, and reduced the top 
tension to 1.   Again, with high-quality thread 
because it was in the machine. 

Now to move my brief and veil parts off the 
ironing board and plug in the iron.   ??   Why did 
I feel the need to write "front" on the front?   
Ah, yes, I labeled all the parts to keep me from 
mistaking them for random scraps. 

Sigh.   Rough Sewing started out as a collection 
of text files, and little by little over the years 
I managed to convert them all to hypertext.   Now, 
thanks to two blown capacitors, I'm seriously 
thinking of keeping the diary for the jersey I 
desperately need before spring in a text file. 

I must, Real Soon Now, find time to update the 
Table of Contents page so people will know that 
the site isn't dead.   Sadly crippled and very 
sick, but not dead yet. 




Friday, 14 October 2022 
    10:19 PM 10/14/2022 

Started the day by sewing a double-ended dart in 
the front of the left thigh of my digging-in-the-
dirt pants, then zig-zagging it flat.  All three 
darted-out tears are in the left leg, and it's 
thinner than the right one.  I was planning to 
express puzzlement at that, but I notice that I'm 
leaning my left elbow on my leg while I type. 

Today I basted in creases that I pressed into the 
jeans patches yesterday.  Also pinned the inside 
patch (which will cover the loose threads, and was 
also pressed yesterday) but didn't baste it.   Too 
washed out from a heavy cough to do more.  
Luckily, we had delicious left-overs for supper. 


    

 

17 October 2022

Too sick to sew, hence the time spent fiddling with the file.  It's after 11; I'm going to eat lunch and go back to bed.

 

20 October 2022

Still coughing vigorously, but I washed underwear today, and put the pillowcase back on my pillow.  If I'm still loud and disgusting at bedtime, I won't be using *that* pillow; I'll sleep on the futon.

The pads I took out of the three bras that I'm keeping would make three pairs of knee pads.  Pity I didn't have such a thing when I was caving, back in the sixties.

And now it's time for a nap — on the pillowcase I just washed.  Strike first paragraph.

I washed the outer cases on the pillows on the futon in case I had snotted on them in the night.  The cases under the ornamental cases turned out to be both worn out — and very yellow from being long unused.  I'm sure I put sound cases there, for guests to use.  I washed them and will put them into the rag collection.

I was going to put scenery-muslin cases on the futon pillows, but I can't find any in the linen closet.  I made at least two, and there is only one on the bed.  After my nap I'll take all the pillowcases out of the cupboard and sort them.

 

23 October 2022

Turned out that the missing muslin pillowcase was on a spare pillow.

I think it was Friday that I sewed the mask-muslin patch inside the torn knee of Dave's pants.  When I got up from the machine for something or the other before swapping ends to sew the other half, I realized that I had to lie down for a bit before I could finish.  First I Wikipedia-ed and printed a list of tunes to ask Alexa to time my nap with, and ended up taking a full-size nap.

 

Thursday, 10 November 2022

I did some sewing today!

My yellow gloves need to be darned before I can wear them again, but I found three odd yellow gloves in my pile of gloves:  two right gloves and a very tattered left.  So I wore the two right gloves, the cleaner one with the red mark on the palm side.  At some point I got wary of continuing to remember which glove wasn't stained on the palm, brought the gloves into the sewing room, snipped off the mark — which was a loop, rather than the bar tack on all the other gloves, hunted out the spool of red thread, and for some reason stopped at that point.  This morning it was finally pleasant weather and no appointments — but where were my gloves?  Quickly remembered, came in, looked for a suitable needle, found that one of my beading needles was threaded with red cotton.  What did I sew with red thread in a *beading needle*?  But a few quick stitches and a snip of my old Singer pocket scissors, and I was off to the grocery store.

And the weather was so pleasant that I never wore the gloves.  Better get on with darning the warmer pair, because I want to take a ride on Saturday, and the prediction is cold.

 

Friday, 18 November 2022 7:11 PM 11/18/2022 

Back on the needle again.  Only thing on my to-do 
list today was to sew four eyes to my ragged jeans 
so that I could wear them tomorrow.  But Dave just 
noticed that tomorrow will be a good day to clean 
the freezer, and it's better to clean the freezer 
*before* shopping, so I won't need the jeans until 
Monday. 

Didn't get the tools assembled and clear a place 
to sit until after supper -- or maybe I started 
preparing a place to work while waiting for the 
pizza to cook.   That meant working by artificial 
light, which was bright enough but I couldn't 
quite get the work under it.   Managed to get two 
eyes sewn on the left side, tried the pants on and 
found that they were tight enough to stay up, 
attached the coil-less pin holding the two 
remaining eyes to one of the two pins I keep on my 
pocket, and put the tools away. 

Probably won't be tight enough when I haven't just 
eaten. 

I finally finished the patches on Dave's jeans 
yesterday. 



Snippets from the Banner:
     
  
Monday, 14 November 2022 

10:54 AM 11/14/2022 

[snip] 

In a sense, I'm not wasting this last sunny day. 
I've got a king-size sheet on the line. 

I didn't feel up to planning a ride Sunday night, 
and also I have a five-minute patching job that I 
started in August. Haven't touched it yet, but 
it's in sight from my computer chair. 

I think I'll put a clean sheet on the bed and get 
into it. /11:06 AM 11/14/2022 



Tuesday, 15 November 2022 

I did touch the mending job today: I positioned 
the patches, pinned them in place ready to baste 
and try on, selected a spool of thread, and 
threaded a needle. 

I drove to the dentist today. 

[snip] 

So I've got an appointment for two crowns and a 
filling. 

[snip] 

 
Wednesday, 16 November 2022 

Dragged the rocking chair over by the window so I 
could baste the pinned patches. The cat was using 
the table I usually set next to the rocking chair, 
so I dusted off another, using the rag I use to 
wipe the gaskets -- egad, I'm *way* overdue to 
wipe the gaskets and wash the doors of the fridges 
and freezer. 

Then I had to come in here to delete "clean 
gaskets" from my to-do list. I shall baste those 
patches before lunch, I swear!  (Usually in the 
%^&*$#@! sense.) 


Thursday, 17 November 2022 

Basted 'em, did it wrong, in the evening I pulled 
the basting out and did it right. Basting 
correctly didn't take anywhere near as much time 
as floundering around did. I expect to machine sew 
as soon as I stop playing with my computer. 

/Snippets from Banner. 



"Wrong" meant that they were too high.  I suspect 
that they are now too low. 



Saturday, 19 November 2022 1:09 AM 11/20/2022 

I think it was Friday that I cut the ends off the 
sleeves of one of my two "twinkle twinkle" 
slopping-around shirts.    Drew wash-out lines the 
width of a ruler from the ragged hem.   I don't 
have a cutting mat that fits inside sleeves, but 
my shears have nice sharp points to start a cut 
with. 

Today I washed it. 




Tuesday, 22 November 2022 10:02 AM 11/22/2022 

Wore my  my old jeans two days in a row.  I 
really, really need to sew on the remaining two 
hooks. 

First, I need to darn the gloves I want to wear 
tomorrow. 

10:30 PM 11/22/2022 

Darned the glove at the dinner table after supper. 



Wednesday, 23 November 2022 3:05 PM 11/23/2022 

And today's weather was so warm that I didn't wear 
my gloves. 

When undressing, I noticed a runner-starting hole 
in my silk undershirt.   I gave brief thought to 
darning it, then realized that it's in the part of 
the tail that I would cut off if I shortened the 
shirt enough to keep it from hanging out below my 
jerseys. 

Luckily, I have another silk undershirt to wear 
during the six months it takes me to do a five-
minute job. 

I must sew at least two eyes on the jeans I plan 
to wear to Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. 



Thursday, 24 November 2022 10:28 AM 11/24/2022 

Two eyes down, two to go -- and then another four 
on the other side. 

It's really, really hard to push a needle through 
that thick waistband. 



Friday, 25 November 2022 4:13 PM 11/25/2022 

Went to Thanksgiving dinner with the other side 
still pinned, but the two extra eyes on the 
service opening made the pants much better.  Now 
my only presentable pair of jeans are at the back 
of the closet awaiting another awk-scrickle moment 
to get the remaining eyes attached. 

This morning , I marked the silk undershirt just 
above the hole, cut along the line with a rotary 
cutter, I just finished basting a quarter inch to 
the wrong side, and now I'm pinning a half-inch 
hem. 

By the time I used up the short piece of basting 
thread that was already in the needle, I'd figured 
out that I needed to sew close to the cut edge and 
I'd gotten the hang of turning a uniform width, so 
when I got back to that piece, I pulled it out and 
did it over. 

I didn't think until after cutting it off that the 
scrap can't go into the silk-rags box until it's 
been washed.  I plan to sew a zigzag-over-the-cut- 
edge hem into it with basting thread to make sure 
I've got the right needle for silk. 

I hope Dharma still sells these T-shirts, because 
I need a size small now that I've lost weight. 

Also my mediums are starting to develop holes. 

8:00 PM 11/25/2022 

Scrap in laundry bin, shirt in closet ready to 
wear tomorrow. 

Hit a slight snag.  I have only one spool of white 
#50 sewing silk.  I thought that I'd have to get a 
new spool out of the box, but the boxes contain 
two #100 spools and one gray #50. 

I'm pretty sure that the silk left on the spool 
would fit on a Necchi bobbin, but there was a 
partial White bobbin in the bag, so I wound that 
onto a Necchi bobbin and hemmed the shirt.  I used 
the widest zig-zag and the longest stitch, and 
pulled the basting thread out in short pieces as 
the needle approached. 

Didn't have to adjust the tensions for the slicker 
thread. 

8:50 AM 11/26/2022 



Monday, 28 November, 2022 2:18 AM 11/28/2022 

Dharma does still sell long-sleeved silk T-shirts.  
Whoosh, I'd forgotten that they were that 
expensive.   I should get two pairs of smaller 
tights while I'm at it.  Didn't determine whether 
I can still mail a check. 

Awk Scrickle!   Superior Threads no longer sells 
#50 sewing silk -- just #100 and variegated. 

On Saturday, I noticed more holes in the glove, 
one of them a broken darn. 

2:58 PM 11/28/2022 

I had to put a bar tack at the top of one of the 
pocket divisions of the tight wool jersey before 
Saturday's ride.  I used white Medici because 
there was a threaded needle in the "wool jersey" 
antacid tin.  (I have never in my life taken an 
antacid -- where did I get that tin?  I thought it 
was an Altoids tin until I looked) 

Now it's time 3:38 PM 11/28/2022 to get the tin 
out again and darn my glove. 

4:18 PM 11/28/2022 

Glove darned and in my helmet.   And my spare mask 
is dry, so I can close up my little bag of stuff 
and tie it to a pannier. 



Wednesday, 30 November 2022 12:51 PM 11/30/2022 

I decided to cut two old washrags in half to make 
four baby wipes before starting work.   It took 
the entire morning. 

Eventually, I figured out that the thread wasn't 
properly threaded at the tension disks. 
    

 

2 December 2022

Make new pocket wallet:  see 20 December 2019 No longer needed; instead of moving a coin purse from pocket to pocket, I leave a "pill pouch" of coins in each pocket.  The things that used to be in the pockets on the wallet are now in other places.

What was I thinking when I wrote "patch back pockets of yellow jersey"?  They are all yellow!

Afternoon:

I just reviewed my instructions for making briefs.  I should amend them to note that I always make elastic legs now.

Read a little farther down and noticed that I should add a note about binding necks to the bra discussion.

I'm saving my linen bras for hot weather and wearing two bras I bought at Aldi.  The spaghetti-strap third bra is reserved for emergencies; when I find some more RTW pull-over bras, I'll give it to Our Father's House.

 

Tuesday, 6 December 2022

 

11:09 PM 12/6/2022 

Sunday sick, Monday played with computer, Tuesday 
sewed on two hooks, Wednesday washed sheets & 
clothes. 



Monday, 12 December 2022   1:33 PM 12/12/2022 

Finally got around to assembling the black-and-
white briefs this morning.   Had leg hems 
pinned and was ready to stitch when it became 
naptime.    I was minded to do the little bit 
of stitching that remains, but then remembered 
"one more seam" syndrome. 



Tuesday, 13 December 2022 12:42 PM 12/13/2022 

Black-back white-front briefs complete and in the 
drawer, and I have remembered how to make briefs. 

I must remember to sew the side-seams open where 
they are inside the hems when I make yellow 
briefs. 



Thursday, 15 December 2022 11:07 PM 12/15/2022 

Wore the black-and-white briefs today.   Seem 
to fit well. 



Wednesday 21 December 2022 11:12 AM 12/21/2022 

Sorting the clothes I washed on Sunday, I found 
that the bar tacks on my only good pair of Fox 
River socks were insufficiently visible.   
After looking for needle and thread a bit, I 
remembered my resistor-code snack bag in the 
pattern trunk.   Not only floss and some 
black darning cotton, but supersnips and two 
needles stuck in a scrap of yellow wool 
jacketing.   One needle was threaded with 
orange and one with yellow.    I chose the 
yellow and the new bar tacks were done in a jiffy. 
    
12:49 PM 12/21/2022 

Well, lo and behold the yellow cotton jersey I 
plan to make into briefs was in the box marked 
"briefs"! 

Upon unfolding it, I found a piece too small for 
any part of briefs, but about the right size for a 
patch pocket.   This led to sticking four 
labels on the other end of the pocket-scraps box, 
because the accumulated labels on the end that was 
out were confusing. 

There is also a very irregular piece with the 
place where the tube was sliced open on one edge, 
which I should be able to get more than one set of 
crotch pieces out of. 

The remaining piece is a rectangle sixty-two 
inches wide and about three inches less than four 
yards long. 

Must have stretched it a bit.   Folded in 
half   and draped over the card tables, it's a 
yard and twenty-seven inches.   That makes it 
three yards and a half. 

I'd better press it, baste round the edges, dampen 
it, and let it dry relaxed before cutting. 

Meanwhile, it's nap time.    I had left piles 
of cardboard for recycling under weights where I 
wanted to set up the card tables and had to bundle 
those up, and there were some other chores. 

 

Wednesday, 21 December 2022

After my nap, I arranged the fabric on two card tables with enough to cut a back and a front lying flat, then sprayed it with water and left it to dry relaxed.

I was thinking that I would put the leg board under it and run a hot iron over the part I mean to cut, but it turns out that I won't need to.

So I sprayed the irregular scrap and laid it out on the floor under the card tables.  It will quite certainly be dry by the time I get back from my blood draw tomorrow.

 

23 December 2022

I looked into 2021SEW2.HTM before starting here, and saw a complaint about a line of lint left whenever I cut with my rolling knife.

Today, I discovered that I had two blades glued together in the rotary cutter.  Found a lot of washout-blue lint packed between them; I guess it finally pried them far enough apart to make me notice that it wasn't right.  It worked *much* better after I put one of the blades back into the package!

I've been sewing so little that I haven't been using the cutter all that much.

I cut out the briefs this morning to get the card tables out of the parlor.  Once I got the front and back separated from the main piece, I carried all out to the chest freezer, which has a brilliant light mounted over it.

I *will* need to iron the curled edges before going into wholesale briefs cutting.  I don't have a surface large enough to lay it out damp and relaxed all at once, but I suppose I can flatten a table width, cut some briefs, and flatten more.

Though I got the fabric out of the briefs box, it wouldn't go back in.  Must have folded it more neatly the first time.

I put a lot of scraps on the compost plate, including one that is large enough to cut a timer pocket.  I don't foresee wanting a yellow pocket, and I do foresee lots more scraps.

 

24 December 2022

All four pieces are attached now.  I left off just before doing the burrito thing to sew the other end of the crotch lining.

I'm planning to spend all of tomorrow cooking.  

26 December 2022

Did some sewing yesterday — Dave reminded me that I'd promised to sew up a split seam in the futon.  Since it has a zipper, we thought we could take the cover off, repair it from the inside, and wash it before putting it back on.

Turns out that it's a tick, not a cover.  The zipper is just to save paying a skilled worker to slip-stitch the sack of fluff closed.

I thought I had a zillion spools of brown Sub-silk; before learning that it was poor quality, I bought every shade of brown they had because I was making a monochrome embroidery.  But I don't have even one — oops, checked again and I do have a brown spool, and a spool of pale pink beige.  But one of my remaining spools of good Coats & Clark sewing cotton (29¢) is the exact shade of brown.  I used it double — cutting two pieces so the grain would run the same way on each; that seems to reduce tangling — and tied a knot in the end.

There's seldom a reason to knot a thread, but once in a great while I'm glad that one of my first sewing lessons was how to wrap thread around the tip of one's finger and roll it off to make a knot in the very end of the thread.

So I ran the needle well into the unbroken seam, came up through the fabric, and pulled until the knot stopped it.  I secured the end by working baseball stitch over unbroken seam until I got to the slit.  I aimed for stitches about an eighth of an inch apart.

I thought I'd unreeled a lot of thread, but there was just enough to finish.  After working over unbroken seam half an inch, I took a couple of spaced back stitches and ran the needle inside as far as I could before cutting off.

Today, after cleaning up from the feast, I sewed the other end of the crotch lining, the side seams, and the leg-hole hems.  The waist casing is pinned and ready to stitch, but it's nap time.

I zig-zagged down the edges of the seam allowances for a bit more than twice the width of the casing before pinning.

Pinning took every pin on the magnet; either I've lost a lot of pins, or there's a pinned hem in some to-do pile.

Dropped a pin while pinning the waist casing and couldn't find it.  I even took the register out of the heating duct and looked inside; to my surprise, it's perfectly clean down there.  Then I took the register out to the garage to blow off dust, cobwebs, and egg sacs with the air compressor.  Perhaps the cobwebs kept things from falling into the heating duct.

After I'd pinned the casing, I swept the empty magnet around and found two pins; I'm not sure that either is the pin that I dropped.

While pinning, I found out what center marks on the waist edge are for.  In the center, the cut edge is on grain.  Starting the pinning at center front and center back makes it much easier to keep the hem smooth.

Evening:

I sewed the waist casing after my nap, installed all three pieces of elastic, had repaired two of the gaps when it was time to turn into a cook.

I shall wear these briefs tomorrow.

 

30 December 2022

And I did, and washed them yesterday, will wear them again tomorrow, and then I'll be ready to start cutting the rest.

Also washed HCJ#1, and plan to throw it into the cleaning-rag bin of the laundry sorter when I take them off tonight.

All I did this morning was to sew the side seams on my new veil.  I hope to have it before my next bike ride — which, according to Weather Underground, won't be before this time next week.

I checked BLOGSEW.TXT for fragments before opening 22SEW1.HTM to say so, and noticed "gap in waist casing of black-and-white briefs" under "Add to to-do list", and thought "why not just do it?  The machine is already set up for that."

When I added the gap to the list, I assumed that I'd forgotten to close the gap from putting in the elastic even though I knew that it wasn't anywhere near that big — I leave just enough to admit a tapestry needle, and I had trouble persuading the knot to go through it.

When I sat at the machine to do it, I found that there were two gaps, and in each one the needle thread was intact and over an inch of the bobbin thread had vanished.  ??, and again ??

Some things man was not meant to know.

I think that adding two entries to LINK/BOOK/BOOKS.HTM counts as working on the veil, because I noticed one of the books while clearing off the ironing board, and decided to inventory another while I had the file open.

 

31 December 2022

Now another book is on the ironing board:  _The Shipwrecked Girl_.  I learned from this book that in 1870, the more impossible co-incidences you can shoehorn in, the better — like screwing scenes in contemporary literature.  Extra points if the co-incidence has no effect whatsoever.

I noticed HCJ#2 in the laundry bin, and decided that it, too, was due to be moved down to the cleaning-rag bin.

Like HCJ#1, even though the briefs were worn into holes all over and the waist casing was barely funtional, the crotch, its lining, and the casings around the legs were in perfect condition.

To get the elastics out of the casings, I felt around for the knot and stabbed a hole near it with my fid.