I Taught Them Well

I heard from two of my students in Friday’s class that they have been shopping the remnant rack at Walmart and scored some goodies. I noticed that the rack at our store has been a bit on the thin side. This makes me happy, because it means that a) students learned something in my classes and b) they want to make clothes for themselves. I have had some requests for a T-shirt class, so the class coordinator and I are trying to get that on the schedule for some time in September.

On Sunday afternoon, I traced both views of this Burda pattern, 6146:

The blouse on the left looks very much like the one I tried on at Kohls last spring. I loved the blouse but—cue the chorus—it was too short. My version will be several inches longer. (It will not have those fussy cuffs.) Both views call for lightweight wovens, but I wonder if view B, on the right, couldn’t be made in a stable knit, instead. Not a ponte, necessarily, but something else. . . I’ll know the fabric when I see it.

I am aware that many sewists dislike Burda patterns because the instructions tend to be, um, brief. Or badly translated from German. I’ve liked the few that I’ve made, and Burda 6315 is one of my tried and true winter patterns. I picked up this pattern at Joanns yesterday:

I love the princess seam lines. I have a length of Robert Kaufman Brussels Linen in the stash that I’ve been wanting to turn into a dress and I think this will be a good pattern (view B).

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I mowed the yard Sunday morning before church. Hopefully, that will be the last time for this year. Our lawn—such as it is, because our yard features a lot of non-grass plants—goes dormant in July unless we water. We don’t.

I’ve seen some warnings on the internet to check the acidity of commercial vinegar this summer, because apparently some companies are now selling 4% vinegar instead of the standard 5% vinegar. Why does this matter? The USDA and Ball canning recipes are based on the use of 5% vinegar, so substituting a lesser strength may have negative repercussions on canned goods. Costco and our local grocery store had 5% white vinegar on their shelves, but I’ll be keeping an eye on those labels.

Some days it feels like we are in the midst of a constant war on our food supply. I’ve discovered that many of the products that contain corn—like tortilla chips—now come with a label stating, “Contains a bioengineered food ingredient.” I would assume that is GMO corn. Reading labels is exhausting.

We had a nice cooldown yesterday—temps were in the low 80s—but the wind! The wind was awful. A section of I-90 near Ritzville, WA, had to be shut down in both directions yesterday afternoon because of a couple of fast-moving wildfires.

I told the husband that the next item he’ll have to replace on the BMW is the horn, because I am going to wear it out driving around town. No fewer than three people—two with out-of-state plates—pulled out in front of me yesterday without looking. I do not understand this habit of driving as though you are the only person on the road.