I made playdough is six colors for Lulu this morning, and then we went to the Kohler showroom in the city to look at sinks… the combo we liked came to ~$4500 so yeah I think we’ll try Lowe’s instead!
Gorgeous clear warm day, sunny and 72°.
In the afternoon I traced all the clothing patterns for Lulu’s little ragdoll. Maybe tomorrow I can give her hair and a face.
I started making a doll for Lulu’s 5th birthday, which isn’t till the end of September but that means I have plenty if time to make lots of tiny clothes. Using the pattern for “Great Aunt Maude’s Little Cloth Girl” from The Sewing Academy.
Em’s 9th birthday is in just a couple of weeks so I need to come up with an idea for her asap!
I finished my zipper pouch! It was so much fun and I’m thrilled with how it turned out. My remodulin supplies fit in beautifully with room to spare. I added two exterior zipper pockets, one for the pump and spare batteries, and one for alcohol wipes.
Top down:
Next to my previous bag for contrast (note zipper running the short way lol)
For reference, I cut the pieces of this one at 16×12“, and boxed out the corners at 2“ (slightly less on the exterior, slightly more for the lining.
Dave and I spent a few hours watching great documentaries this afternoon. A couple episodes of the new Attenborough (Prehistoric Planet), the second ep of the new Jim Al-Kahlili (Secrets of Size) plus an ep of an older Al-Khalili doc, “The Beginning and End of the Universe”. I have a big collection of his docs — he’s one of my favorite BBC presenters. He is brisk and passionate, doesn’t dumb things down too much, and he’s obviously a brilliant physicist. If you can find ANY of his docs on YouTube I highly recommend!
Forgot to say — we finished season 42 of Survivor last night, and the person who I was rooting for the most won! WTG Mary Ann! What an excellent season it was. I hope they make a habit of casting Decent Humans from now on, too.
I did things today again! Made smoothies for breakfast, did a few days’ worth of washing up, decluttered the living room so the roomba could vacuum, and started sewing another zippered box pouch! I decided to piece this one together from leftover quilt fabric.
Here you see front and back attached to the zipper. I added a little zippered front pocket too. I’ll be using it for my remodulin supplies, so I decided it would be nice to have a pocket for the small stuff that tends to sink to the bottom, such as extra pump and batteries. Now I’m thinking of adding a second zippered pocket to the other side for alcohol wipes…
While I sewed I got almost caught up on the official Taskmaster podcast. Such fun!
Here’s Lulu in her little summer dress. The fabric has the rabbits from “Guess How Much I Love You” printed on it — a gift from Elli. <3
Lulu is much much better this morning, thank goodness, and Henry is only mildly ill. *whew* Got right up in the morning and went to the drugstore and the grocery store to buy supplies for them: tylenol in various forms, some all-natural cough syrup, various yummy fresh fruits, cheese, kefir, and ice cream. I delivered them carefully by leaving the bag on the doorstep, then waiting in my car till they popped out so we could wave. Lulu was running around in her undies and looking quite chipper. Henry told me later that her temperature is back to normal, yay!
Then on the way home I went to our AMAZING fabric store and bought some bag-making supplies because I’m tired of storing all my meds in a drawstring bag and a cardboard box,
When I got home I rested for a bit and then I made a zippered pouch for my Remodulin supplies. I followed this excellent tutorial: https://melaniekham.com/zippered-box-pouch-easy-sewing-project-no-raw-edges/. I followed the dimensions for the larger bag but made a goof! The instructions are for the medium bag, which is cut at 11×8, so when it says to attach the zipper to the 11” side, she means the long side. My bag was cut at 14×11, so of course my 11” was the short side! D’oh! So my zipper runs the short way around my bag. Well, it’s still cute and functional. It’s little too small to hold my supplies perfectly, so tomorrow I plan to make one that’s maybe 16×11 and use this one as a project bag or something.
I did a lot today!
Tired as hell. Did laundry, changed the bedding. Lying here enjoying the warm fresh air blowing through my bedroom window.
Another school shooting. Our greedy, feckless politicians and corporations have the blood of murdered children on their hands. Again. i can’t bear it.
Did I mention that my pulmonologist is letting me increase my dose of remodulin again? I’m up to 68 ng/kg/min. I was at 40 this time last year. I felt really good today and I’m hoping it’s not a coincidence.
When I got up this morning I felt like doing something, so I went to a little nursery a few blocks away and bought seedlings. Two kinds of cherry tomatoes, pole beans, sweet white onions, marigolds, and strawberries. I took them home and then realized that I forgot to stop and get some garden tools and bamboo stakes, so I zipped back out to Ace for those. Then I rested a bit, and then I planted everything! The onions and marigolds are to keep away pests (I read that somewhere…) Pics soon.
Then rested for a while and chatted with Dave, and then I suddenly got the desire to play my uke! Tuned up and ran through some of my collection of uke-friendly tunes. I keep a collection in my dropbox. Dave says I have a lovely singing voice *heart eyes*
Dinner: crusty baguette with cold butter curls (use your veggie peeler) and some green olives.
It’s 9pm now and I’m… not exhausted. What is this magical miracle? Perhaps tomorrow I can SEW!
I got enough sleep and felt excellent! It was a beautiful Spring day, warm and sunny. I sewed a little summer suit for Freyja:
And I lay out in the sun for a lomg time in the afternoon when the UV index was only 3. The trampoline makes a comfy sun lounger.
My hair turned out great!
Last night I had the most horrible insomnia. I was SO TIRED and turned my light off at 10pm, hoping for ten hours of sleep, but lay there till at least 1am, feeling as if I’d drunk a bucket of coffee. And then I woke up at 7am. Ugh. I was blaming my newly-increased dose of Remodulin (insomnia is a rare side effect, but women over 50 who’ve been on it for more than 2 years are the ones who get it) but then I noticed that last night’s dose of mirtazapine was on the floor by my bed. It must have flown out of my hand when I took my bedtime handful of pills. So that explains it. *eyeroll*
Today I took a shower and re-dyed my teal-blue forelock. And I finished My Brother Rabbit. And… that’s it. Oh, I also sat out in the sun for a while. It was a lovely day, 70° and sunny. Perfect.
So flippin’ tired. Did nothing today except finish my Spider Socks. They’re a bit big on my skinny skinny feet so I gave them to Mom :)
Pattern is “The Gardener” by Leslie Comstock.
I drove Mom over to Henry’s house to spend a couple days with them. Beautiful day, lots of rain. Should be clear and warm over the weekend so I hope to plant some more seedlings. I think there’s a nursery or two right in my neighborhood. If I feel ok tomorrow I might go have a peep and see what they’ve got.
I’m absolutely itching to do some sewing but so tired today after waking up too early and doing that drive (and having Company for two days), so I spent a lot of time re-re-replaying My Brother Rabbit on the switch. It’s a sweetly surreal little indy puzzle game that Em and I like to play over and over. Hmm, need to write to Em tomorrow.
Mom brought some Stravinsky piano duets, so after the piano tuner was finished the morning we played through them several times. Super fun, and Dave was really impressed by my sight-reading skillz. I haven’t really played piano for him till now because I really don’t enjoy playing solo; give me an ensemble and I’m happy.
Btw the tuner was Britney, whose piano tuning and repair business is called Little Orchestra. She was fantastic! If you’re in the Portland Metro area, I recommend her highly.
Lovely Spring day! Mid-60s and mostly sunny. Mom came to visit and I picked her up at the airport and gave her the grand tour of our sweet house. So great to have a proper guest room for her. We watched a lot of Escape to the Country with her before bed. Fun!
I finished my March Dress!
The fabric is a beautifully soft and drapey cotton double gauze from Minerva.com. It was fun deciding whether to use the big checks or the little ones for different parts of the dress! I think I made a good choice. I lengthened the pattern by two inches because I’m tall and it was drafted for a 5’6” figure. Also I skipped the interfacing for a softer look.
I made a Schoolgirl Error when attaching skirt to bodice and got the pockets flipped to the back, but a few minutes with a seam ripper and my pockets are now correctly oriented. :D
The pattern is from Helen’s Closet. You absolutely cannot go wrong with Helen’s patterns; they’re well-written, well-drafted, and so versatile! I will be living in this dress all summer. I can’t wait to make another one.
Oh, by the way — seven trips through the dryer on “air dry” and the Great Lint Disaster of 2022 is resolved! My clothes are completely lint-free. *whew*
I had the world‘s worst laundry disaster today. It was so bad, just BEYOND bad, that I was standing in the bathroom/laundry room howling with laughter! Turns out I somehow got one of those padded brown envelopes mixed up with my washing, one of those with a layer of gray fluff between two layers of thick brown paper.
When I opened the machine to take out my laundry, all these odd brown flakes fell out. I looked deeper and OH MY. I’m actually laughing again just thinking about it! Imagine sending a kleenex through. Now multiply that level of lint by about a hundred.
I usually hang everything to dry (saves energy and keeps your clothes nice for much longer) but I had to do something about the lint so I ran the whole load through the dryer on “air dry”. Cleaned the filter and ran it again. And again. And again… it’s on the sixth time through and I’m still scraping a big wad of fluff out of the filter every time.
Here’s a pic of my floor before I swept it. Note the great wads of wet brown paper in the basket.
Don’t be like Kayray! Check your laundry every time. Lololol!
A few days ago I asked Teacher Nick, who runs Lulu’s beloved Nature School (at which six preschoolers run around having adventures in a forest all morning) if he needed any supplies. He said — play dough! So I set about trying to find a recipe, because I’d rather make it myself than buy the little plastic cans. Ugh.
Found a likely recipe, sent Dave to the store to salt and cream of tartar, and set to work this morning. Great recipe! From
https://www.thebestideasforkids.com/playdough-recipe/
Mix dries in a bowl. Mix wets, including food coloring, in a pan. Stir dries into wets, cook over medium heat, stirring, till it thickens and stops being sticky. Turn out onto a big plate, let cool a few minutes, and knead for a few minutes. Done!
I made one batch each of five colors:
It was a lot of stirring so then I was done for the day :D
Drove over to visit Henry and all! Lulu has Nature Preschool on Tue-Wed-Thu mornings but is at a Loose End on Monday and Friday. It’s so nice to spend time with them in their new home! I took a backpack full of picture books to read to her, and we watched some YouTube amd hung out. Wonderful!
Came home around noon totally exhausted and did pleasant nothing for the rest of the day. Got into a conversation with a twitter friend about one of my favorite movies, Holiday (1938, Grant and Hepburn) and realized I only had a crappy VHS rip, so I dl‘d a nice blu-ray rip and began another viewing.
In the evening we got caught caught up on Taskmaster (13 is a great season!) and Survivor (42, also great!). The cast is so likable! Really good players, too. There are 6 left and we will be happy no matter who wins.
I finished the entire top half of my dress: bodice, sleeves, sleeve bands, neck band. All that’s left is pockets, skirt, join everything together, and hem. Tomorrow will be a bit busy but I’m sure I’ll be wearing my new dress next week.
We had the best time watching the Eurovision semi-finals! Absolutely bonkers. Highlight was the band whose singer wore a black lace bodysuit over a black Speedo and ended up ridings a bedazzled red velvet mechanical bull while the guitarist shot flames out of the neck of his guitar. As one does. I think it was North Macedonia. Anyway no act came anywhere near the quirky clever singable charm of Iceland’s entry into the (cancelled) 2020 show.
Woke up too early (Dave usually gets up before his alarm but it went off this morning and I nearly leapt out of bed. It‘s LOUD) and felt crappy but lazed in bed for a few hours and then felt good enough to do a little sewing! I finished the bodice of the March Dress. Sleeves tomorrow.
98.2 lbs this morning. Argh. Nibbled cannabis gummies until I had an appetite and managed to eat an entire serving of lasagna for dinner.
