Perfecting the Coverstitch Hem

I am going to get back to sewing knits soon. I finished quilting the black and white quilt yesterday and got the binding made and attached this morning, ready to be sewn down. The flying geese quilt is almost done. As soon as I get some of these quilt projects cleared out, I can concentrate on making T-shirts and other tops.

[I ran across this quilt pattern the other day and I am dying to make it—it’s perfect for Kona!—but I can’t start another quilt project. It’s on the list for next fall.]

One of our neighbors brings leftover produce for the chickens a couple of times a week. She stopped by last night and dropped off one of her daughter’s T-shirts along with the lettuce. The hem of the shirt had come out. Fixing it was a great opportunity to get more experience with the coverstitch machine. I now have a clear foot for it. That makes a huge difference in being able to coverstitch in the round. I basted up the hem with some Stitch Witchery iron-on adhesive and then ran it through the machine.

I didn’t have any matching thread, unfortunately. The gray goes well enough, though, and it’s a toddler T-shirt, so she won’t be wearing it forever. I am very pleased with how it came out. Sewing a coverstitch hem on an actual garment is much different than practicing on scraps of fabric. At some point, I would still like to get a hem guide. Basting up the hem with adhesive helps, but I think the hem guide would be helpful.

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It’s asparagus season at the grocery store. One of my favorite ways to eat it is in a quiche:

It was yummy. Getting a new asparagus bed put in over in the big vegetable garden is on my list of things to do this spring.

We had a short, impromptu farm meeting this morning. The husband tends to come up with his own schedule of activities which does not always match the schedule of activities that I’ve come up with, so we have to compare notes occasionally. He wanted to wait until after the fire department auction on April 6 to get chicks. However, I looked at the chick schedule from the farm store and the week after the auction is the last week for chick orders. I don’t want to take a chance that we won’t be able to get any. The farm store has a large order of Barred Rocks arriving next week, and that will be our best chance to get a couple dozen. I would rather not have to order directly from the hatchery and then have to go to the post office at 3 a.m. to retrieve them. He’s going to get the brooder box out and set up this weekend.

This is the time of year when everything happens all at once. Winter is trying to get in one last shot, though; it’s currently snowing and the forecast is for a couple more inches before it warms up this weekend.

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F+W Media, the conglomerate that bought up Interweave Press, Fons and Porter’s Love of Quilting, and other craft magazines, has filed for bankruptcy. This doesn’t affect me, but many of my knitting designer friends worked with Interweave both pre- and post-acquisition by F+W. If F+W goes under, and takes these companies with such stellar heritages with them, it will be a loss for all of us. I am hoping that at the least, my designer friends will have their intellectual property rights revert back to them.