COVID-19 madness.

Yes, that's me in a face mask I made from quilting fabric. It has a twist tie along the top edge for shaping and a pocket opening if I care to put in a filter.

I have a new respect for health care professionals who have to wear these things and actually breathe and work in them. They are freaking HOT. No wonder hospitals are kept so cold.

The first prototype was too small for my face. Or perhaps I put too much pleating in. Anyway, I plan on making a bunch of these for myself and others.

At this time there has been no local call for them, but several hospitals in other parts of the country are desperate enough to ask for donations of them and publish instructions.It's only a matter of time before people start scalping others for these too. Let's not talk about folks hoarding basics like hand sanitizer (understandable) or toilet paper (WTF?)

I'm going to be working from home for the next 2 weeks, then I'll be back at the library working in the mostly empty building.  Staff is divided in half and each is 2 weeks at work and 2 weeks at home.  The public is limited to phone in reference and curbside pickup of materials for the next few weeks or months.

Everyone, please do your part and stay back and safely away from others.

My grand pillow experiment.

I got some red and white "pillow ticking" at JoAnn's yesterday, as well as a small pillow form stuffed with down alternative. I also got a bag of shredded foam. What you see in this picture is the old pillow (yuck!!) on the bottom left, with the shredded foam pillow above it, and the down alternative pillow to the right of it.

The fourth pillow, upper right, is shorter and stuffed with buckwheat hulls. I ordered it in July of 2011, and I just today opened the bag.

First of all, I think either the down alternative or the shredded foam pillow will do nicely as a replacement for old yucko there. I'll put both on the bed and see which one I reach for every night. That's fair, isn't it?

The buckwheat pillow will make a nice gift. I made some for the family 11 years ago and recently discovered some of them are still in use. Yikes!  I don't use buckwheat pillows, they are just too noisy.

They were all a little messy to stuff, but the buckwheat hulls escaped the furthest and the shredded foam is the clingiest.  The down alternative was like working with regular fiberfill, only slipperier.

It's generations of things!

I love it. My daughter would prefer to sew on my mom's old Featherweight rather than my New Home (which I got in '95 or '96).

So in this picture, there is my mom's sewing machine, my sewing machine, and behind all that is my grandmother's china. Perfect! [Edited to say, the china is older than I thought. It was in the family before my great grandmother. No one I've talked to can remember who bought it to start with. A mystery!]

Let go of that UFO!

Sometimes you just have to let go of those unfinished projects. You know, like if you cut the outfit out on July 4, 2007, and you've lost 30 pounds since then, this project cannot end well.

As much as I love the fabric, and the style, this can't work, so throwing it in the trash, pattern and all, is the only solution.

Goodbye, little dream outfit!

20 or more packages of hand sewing needles

So, I'm in my sewing room, yay! And I am looking for a particular hook and eye style I know I have in that big box of notions.

I wasn't there to organize, only find what I wanted, but I kept running into these packages of hand sewing needles. So I started to pull them out so they could be put in a plastic bag. Containerized, if you will. I found over 20 packages of hand sewing needles. What?!?

Some of them are so old I remember using them in high school. I graduated 40 years ago, BTW. They've got some rust on them now so I'll dump them after I finish writing this. But they aren't the oldest needles there, oh no. There are needles in there that I inherited from Mimi, and one package I either got from Nanny or my original mother.

I have no idea why there are so many packages of needles. I spent most of the 90's trying to avoid hand sewing, LOL. And I sewed a lot in the 90's.

I found duplicates of many sewing notions that have me scratching my head. For example, I must have 5 seam gauges. OK, but why do I have 4 different rotary cutters? Several seam rippers, and enough Perfect Waist for at least 15 waistbands. Lot's of thread and elastic, but that didn't surprise me.

The biggest surprise was the Windows startup disk from my (former) laptop at work. Who put that there and why didn't I notice it until now? Did I mention it was a big box?

I'm sewing again! Yay!

So, after vacuuming and scrubbing the den I moved my sewing stuff back in there and I am loving it. Friday I sat down and sewed for 20 minutes before I stood up and said, "That chair has got to go".

I was actually using a metal folding chair and it hurt. So Friday night I went to 3 different Office Depots to find an armless task chair. Woo hoo, I am nearly finished with the pants I cut out in November 2008. Really, all I need to do is the hem and waist closure. Really.


Now, this is something I hate to see. I am sewing along and I look up to see I am almost out of thread. NO! NO! A thousand times NO! If I have to stop and make a trip to Jo-Anns for thread I won't get out of there in less than an hour and I am likely to purchase a new project, and when I get home I won't be sewing anymore today. I am easily distracted, I am.

Seriously, I need to finish these pants so I can then sew the skirt and shirt-jacket I cut out on July 4, 2007. After that I can pick a different UFO*. I have enough to keep me busy until Christmas 2013 or so.

*[Unfinished object]