I moved a box and found the tweezers I dropped a few weeks ago, and in putting the substitute back into the spares arm of the futon, I found a better knife for my car-key chain. Also found a loose knife and put it into the spare-knives plastic bag.
Moving the box also revealed three large Milward sharps, but the part of the card that tells sizes, type, and number is missing. A coil-less safety pin suggested that it fell off one of the strips of wool hanging from a spare shelf bracket under the thread shelf.
I slept at Parkview Hospital that night, and every night since. Yesterday I finished darning the black socks. It was tiring because I had to hold the work up into the light from the window to see what I was doing. The light in my lap was equally bright, but somehow I couldn't see details.
It worked! I have access to both LETTERS and PAGESEW.
The pile of bedding fell off the treadle sewing machine (which I *must* get repaired now that it almost impossible to get away for outdoor exercise) and knocked all the day-of-the-week tags for my bras … not to the floor? One of the thread drawers was partly open, and had caught them. So I put the one that hadn't fallen in there too. Won't need them until I find time to make two more bras.
4:41 AM 7/28/2025
Middle-of-the-night insight: running backstitch can be worked as running combination stitch — and I'm not sure I haven't been working it that way.
I touched a needle!
I put bar tacks in the toes of five socks so that I wouldn't confuse them with Dave's socks. The resistor-code kit was in the pattern trunk exactly where I looked for it.
While the home helper is washing four of those socks tomorrow, I hope I find time to remember what I'm doing with the two bras. Sewing the darts is next, I think.
And when dressing the following day, I realized that the toe is the worst possible place to put a laundry mark on a stocking to be worn with sandals, and picked two of them out.
Still reading in waiting rooms. A book is so much easier to put down when I'm called.
At least I'm waiting to be called now, for a routine appointment, and not staying all night!
All false marks out — and I'll never wash those socks with Dave's socks anyhow. I put brown bar tacks inside the knee band of one of my three pairs of Sunday socks. I started to mark it at the back of the knee, as always, realized that the knee band was double, turned to the inside — and noticed for the first time that the shoe size is knitted into the band. Well, one pair is still in the package, so I haven't been wearing them all that much.
I had hopes of sewing the darts in my bras in the morning, so I could tuck the ends of the threads in while waiting for Dave at the dentist tomorrow, but we are getting a visit from a nurse at nine or ten. Though this job wouldn't take very many minutes, I need to be calm and unhurried to remember what I'm doing.
I intend to replace the folder I'm keeping the jersey parts in with one made from the box a wheelchair ramp came in.
Yesterday I flattened the ramp box and put it under the bed. Today Dave washed the sweat pants that he'd bought just before his ambulance ride, and I measured them to be re-hemmed.
Then I familiarized myself with what I'd been doing with the bra. And now it's time to print out a shopping list and the check-up list for tomorrow and take a nap.
Today, while waiting for a blood draw, I put orange bartacks in the unworn stockings. I think it was at the dentist that I put red marks in the other pair. I had to thread a needle for the orange one, which was much more work than actually making the mark. I slide the needle between layers for at least half an inch, come up at the top of the bar tack, pull just until the end is inside, put the needle in at the bottom of the bar tack and come up at the top, put it in at the bottom of the tack a second time, slide between layers to the edge of the band, snip the thread under tension.
I must have done the red one at the skin doctor on Thursday, as I was surprised that there were no scissors on my key chain today. (I cut the thread with nail clippers.) I had my bicycle key chain, which does have scissors, at the skin doctor, but carried my car-key chain today.
Ah, yes, I remember putting the socks with the insulation over my frozen food when I went to Aldi after the appointment.
I re-tied the elastic in the knee of my loose bike knickers today.
I had thought of using the stiffness of the elastic cord to sneak it toward a place where I could catch it with a crochet hook. I was much surprised that there was no opening in the seam — I had put tweezers and other tools through the opening in an effort to snag the end of the elastic on a previous occasion. The other seam is even more secure.
Eventually I pushed a #8 crochet hook in until the label tore the seam open. Much fishing later, I had the elastic out and set it aside to deal with later. I think that that was yesterday.
This afternoon I threaded it through a large blunt needle I keep for use as a bodkin, put the elastic in, discovered that the opening was one-way. Pushed the needle all the way past the opening, lost the elastic while trying to back it through eye first, pulled it out, started over.
Very, very careful not to lose the end of the elastic, I tried and tried to back the needle out of the opening, sometimes going back into the channel on the other side, sometimes catching on the seam allowance. I'd have given up, were it not for the question of how I'd get the needle out after losing the end.
Eventually the eye of the needle emerged into the open air and I tied the ends together.
Then the knot refused to go into the casing. Eventually I managed it by pushing with the eye of the bodkin needle while pulling on the elastic with the casing gathered up on it.
After all which, I noticed a hole worn through the thigh of one leg of the pants. I plan to wear them tomorrow anyway.
"Tomorrow" postponed. I put them on today, noticed that the waist and the other knee need to be tightened, put them away for the winter. Must make a note on next April's diary that they need work.
I cleared the ironing board yesterday, but didn't get at sewing until I was too stupid to iron.
Hasty sewing: the waist of my garish "early spring" tights was loose, I found the hole where I'd put the elastic in, used one of DH's hooks to pull a loop out, cut out an inch that included the splice, fastened it with a safety pin.
After wearing them, I decided it was still too loose, used the safety pin as a bodkin to get a loop out, took it in, couldn't get the tail to follow the safety pin back into the casing, cut it off.
The hole is a round hole in the lining of the casing.
&& asterism &&
My linen-cotton pants felt loose, the elastic was pinned, so I tried to tighten it without taking them off, lost one end of the elastic in the casing, discovered that my favorite bodkin wouldn't go through the grommet, did the job with a tapestry needle — after extricating a pointed needle I'd used by mistake. (Two queries: what is a pointed needle doing on my bodkin swatch, and what is the name of the pointy version of a tapestry needle? [Looked it up: chenille needle.]
And they are too tight. Dast I try to loosen them without taking them off? If I put a safety pin in the shorter end before removing the pin that holds it … .
Worked, but I had a scare or two.
I think it was Tuesday I decided that one of our last few pleasant days deserved some porch sitting and sewed one of the hems on the sweat pants. My light khaki was the best match for the gray pants, but it's not a good match. But you'd have to grovel at Dave's feet to notice.
Today I resume work on the bras. But it's already past noon. I did straighten up the coherent account of how to do it.
Internet is down yet again. May be a while before I can upload updates.
Awakened early by a false alarm. Sewed most of the other leg of the sweat pants in the emergency room. Got some stitching done on the bra after an early breakfast, then neatened up the coherent account some and ate lunch. Sleepy now.
Sat on the porch and finished the sweat pants. I believe he bought them just before the prolonged hospital stay. I had forgotten how wide I meant to make the hem and took a wild guess. Which is one reason for hemming by hand -- easier to take out if I guessed wrong. Also, the best match in thread color was none too close. I should have checked my embroidery-thread stash.
I can't figure out why the link in yesterday's entry doesn't go to the coherent account. An internal link in ROUGH066.HTM does go to the coherent account, with the same tag. Copied and pasted it.
Tried the link today and it worked. ???
Actually after midnight on Wednesday.
The sewing kit I used to keep in the arm of the futon has taken up permanent residence in my go bag, where it shares a sandwich bag with thread for the current project and a QuikSort.
Found time, after cuttng a strip of two-inch bias tape into two one-inch strips, to weave in the thread-ends of one one of the darts. Having the futon kit out of the go bag for repairing a couple of places where the third stitching of flat-felled seams had fallen off the fold, I looked in its SoftPik box of needles for one that could substitute for a #26 tapestry needle and found … a #26 tapestry needle. The other one is still missing; I'm pretty sure I remember dropping it and being unable to find it.
Note: the needles in that box are stuck in two snippets of yellow wool jacketing.
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begin untangled notes
10:52 AM 9/22/2025
The pattern for the back of "kameez" fell off the nail by tearing through the hole. The last time I heated up the iron, I pressed snippets of sleazy iron-on interfacing over the holes, and today I got around to putting the hole punch over the repaired hole and hitting it with a hammer. When I went to hang it up, I found that the front had also torn free and fallen to the floor, so there's still a pattern draped over the clutter on the ironing board.
Progress is being made on the bras. I expect to do some more hand work this afternoon.
8:46 AM 9/23/2025
I heated the iron yesterday, but forgot the pattern. Also didn't finish pressing the bias tape, but did press a bias facing and finish sewing it to the bra.
9:17 AM 9/25/2025
Woke up with the elastic of YD#2red untied and coming out. At least I don't have to hunt for a place to pull it out!
9:20 AM 10/12/2025
The snack-bag sewing kit that I used to keep in the arm of the futon (davenport/sofa/couch) has taken up permanent residence in my go bag, in a sandwich bag together with spools of thread and a Sortkwik finger sticky maker.
1:04 AM 10/13/2025
The shiny #26 tapestry needle in the aforementioned kit has vanished, replaced by a tarnished coarse needle. This worked when I tucked ends in in the Chevy waiting room, but just barely.
But when searching my needle collection for a coarse needle to shorten my purse strap, I found two fine needles that appear to have blunt points (they are fine enough that it is hard to tell) in the chenille-needle box. I shall move one of them to a fuzzy-toothpick box when I next foresee end tucking. And cut a wool scrap to fit the box.
The too-long strap on my crocheted Sunday purse has been annoying me for a long time. A few weeks ago, I pinned a fold in it, intending to wear it one Sunday and, if it fit, sew it before the following Sunday. This morning I woke up early, did the job, and still got to church before the service started.
6:37 PM 10/15/2025
Did some work on my new bras, and patched a pattern that had torn off its nail. I keep a square of baking parchment in my box of small important things to contain the glue when I patch something with a hole in it.
Broke off writing to punch holes in the now-cold patches, contemplated hitting my small cubical hole punch with a hammer (which is always necessary when cutting cloth patches) on both holes at once in the hope that two layers would cut more neatly than one, remembered that there is a pliers-type hole punch in DH's room, found that it cut easily and neatly.
Monday, 3 November 2025
9:12 AM 11/3/2025
Put my black pants with a hole in a pocket into my go bag for a long
stint at Parkview Regional today.
I may finish my new bras this year.
Put my hand-sewing kit into a fresh snack bag. Adding a magnet to the
kit necessitated moving the magnet and the fuzzy-
toothpick box of pins it was attached to to the
extras bag. (I'm carrying the kit in a sandwich
bag of spools of thread and other specific-job
tools.)
Thursday, 6 November 2025
Sort of made a warm hat for Dave to wear to bed. After many
simplifications while lying in bed, and a couple
more while sewing, I cut the very wide hem off the
bottom of my worn-out flannel nightgown, cut a
length measured around his head, basted it into a
tube, ran a gathering thread near the stitches of
the hem, and drew it up like a purse with the raw
seam allowance tucked inside. It's a very wide
allowance, and may make an acceptable lump, but
having just had a long session of physiotherapy,
he was asleep when I put it on his head and tipped
on out.
While working, I found a stiff plastic bag with no zipper, and
dedicated it to catching snips and trimmings.
Emptied it on the compost heap, then put it into
my go bag.
I need to mend the gap left for the elastic I didn't use, and re-stitch
the part of the hem that I opened. Don't think I
can do anything about my inability to press the
seam open before gathering. But the gathering
thread is tied with a bow knot.
10:40 PM 11/6/2025
None of that matters; both height and width needed to be taken in. I
pulled out the gathering thread and re-stitched
lower, leaving the huge tuft outside, and folded
on the seam and basted parallel to it, leaving the
seam allowance on the right side.
When I use this cap as a pattern -- if he can wear it in bed -- I'll
make french seams on the outside, to make it
smooth inside. I was thinking of stitching a
strip into a torus, but I think I'll make a wide
hem so that there is a strip of single fabric to
be gathered, and gather so near a shirt-tail hem
that there isn't a tuft on either side.
Friday, 7 November 2025
4:17 PM 11/7/2025
During my nap, while thinking about how to make french seams on the
outside, I realized that what I need to do is to
make a plain seam on the outside, then fold under
the edges and stitch it open.
Saturday, 8 November 2025
9:27 AM 11/8/2025
And, open, it can be on the inside.
Sewed hem on machine this morning. Hope I can remember details when I
have time to write.
Sunday, 9 November 2025
9:39 AM 11/9/2025
Nope.
Realized that I don't need to turn under the edges of the seam
allowances, better without the extra lump. And I
made them very wide in case fourteen repeats
weren't quite enough, so they can fringe away if
they want to. Neat that it was an integral number
of stripes. I put the seam through a wide yellow
stripe of the plaid so that the stitches don't
show from a short distance.
Was fretting on how to finish the edge of the top so it wouldn't make a
lump that would interfere with closing the hole,
decided to tear the excess off so the fringe could
fill in the gap of gathering. I was absent-
mindedly thinking of the way a drawstring in a hem
never quite closes.
Turns out that there is no gap, and I get a tuft no matter what, so I
made it ornamental. Fabric wouldn't tear -- first
pull showed that it would turn and tear along the
warp threads instead of following the weft
threads, so I cut along a stripe with the scissors
I carry in my go bag. Started the cut with the
SuperSnips from the snack-bag kit, because I'd
already sewn the seam.
Absent-mindedly gathered with the cap inside out, thought I'd have to
take the gathering thread out and put it back,
realized that all I had to do was loosen it enough
to turn the cap right-side out before I had
removed it.
It still needs to have the seam allowances stitched open. I'll do that
today, if he isn't wearing it when I go to see
him.
9:56 PM 11/10/2025
Sewed a snap on my black raw-silk shirt in the morning; in the
afternoon finished darning my black cotton mock
turtle and almost sewed all the undone hem in my
attaché case.
Flannel cap seems to be a success.
Friday, 14 November 2025
2:50 PM 11/14/2025
sewed two eyes on pants coilless safety pin precious black bar time
for nap.
1:00 AM 11/15/2025
This morning, I noted that I had some time before my appointment and
sewed two eyes on my leaving-the-house pants to
allow me to adjust the waist half an inch shorter.
I'd thought I needed an entire inch, but didn't
have time to refit both openings. The pants are
much more comfortable now. I could have done this
weeks ago, but distracted by the need to remove
the useless extension of the waistband and the
need to enlarge the pocket openings, I had thought
that tightening the waist was a big project that
would require me to wear my old worn pants for
days.
And now it's past time to go back to bed; I'll expand the above notes
later.
10:56 PM 11/28/2025
Upon turning the feet of Spouse's compression socks right-side-out
inside the legs in preparation for putting them on
in the morning, I noticed that a thread of one
sock had broken, opening a quarter-inch gap
between the leg and the fuzzy reinforcement of the
heel and sole. The lighter khaki thread bag
contained a threaded needle stuck into a scrap of
red silk crepe. I thought that I could darn such
a small hole over my finger, but was obliged to
get a plastic egg out of the non-metal container
box.
It took a lot of baseball stitches because I put them very close
together. I concealed the beginning and end by
pushing the needle through the fuzz, and secured
the thread by beginning and ending in sound
fabric. When I peeked at the right side, I found
that the darn was even less visible on the right
side -- not that anyone would see it if it were
conspicuous.
1:05 PM 11/30/2025
Yesterday I washed my leaving-the-house pants -- they needed it after
being worn every day for more than a month -- and
when hanging them up to dry, noticed that it was
past time to shorten them a quarter inch. I wish
I'd noticed *before* washing them.
This morning I picked out the hems. Black-on-black, I couldn't see
whether I'd fore-sightedly used long stitches, but
once I succeeded in cutting a thread, they ripped
out an inch or more at a time. Leaving lots of
snippets of thread stuck in the fabric, of course.
I hadn't zig-zagged over the edge of the turn-under.
There was surprisingly little lint in the crease.
end of tangled notes
Yay! the Banner is in bed, and I can start untangling PAGESEW.
Somewhere in the tangled notes I mentioned discovering that my leaving-the-house jeans are overdue to be shortened a quarter inch, and picking out the hems. This morning I zig-zagged over the edge of the turn-under in the hope that I'll open the hem *before* washing next time. I used the white 100/6 that's on the machine for the bras.
After my nap, I plan to press out the crease of the old hems, iron a leaving-the-house shirt, and mark the casing of bra B.
I think I'll mark it with three red bar tacks arranged Z, with the slant bar only one thread to suggest two horizontal strokes without completely lifting the pen. I suspect that that is how "2" oringinated.
Yesterday I saw a shirt cluttering the hallwayy, and remembered that I wanted to press it the ncxt time I heated the iron. So I heated the iron, pressed it, now what was it that I wanted to heat the iron for?
It was hours before I remembered the pants I am shortening.
I did mark the fold lines on the bra "after my nap", but I don't remember how long after.
I use three old blankets as a mattress pad -- a one-piece king-size pad won't fit into a washing machine. It's possible that a queen-size will, but I've never checked -- after all, I *have* a mattress pad.
There were two king-size blankets and one double-bed size. For months, I've been intending to cut the two king-size blankets down to queen size. Today the home helper stripped the bed and went off to do other chores: now's my chance to see how much to cut off the rust-colored blanket, and where to cut it.
Sure enough, rotating it ninty degrees so that the selvages were at the top and bottom made it about the right length. One of the raw edges was reasonably straight. It was obvious that I should cut a strip off the other raw edge, which would save cutting twice and give me a piece of blanketing wide enough to do something with.
So I arranged it on the bed and snipped the selvage to mark where I should cut. I thought about how to make a gauge and mark it for cutting for a while, then thought of taking hold of each side of the snip and pulling. It tore! Not easily; I was out of breath when I finished, but it tore.
Encouraged, I repeated the process with the yellow one after a while. The warp threads of this one are stronger and slicker than the threads of the other. I had to cut a fan of threads after every pull. It tore up to six inches per pull in the middle where it was worn, but got down to not more than a quarter inch as I approached the selvage. Eventually I realized that I should put the point of my straight operating scisssors (I wish I could buy another pair, but Brookstone turned into a gimcrack store) in as far back as I could see to cut between warp thread, and things went better.
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Raw Notes: page down to the row of ampersandssewbird.htm is missing some links
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