There May be Hope Yet . . .

. . . for Joann Fabrics. Ours, at least, has started to get in some new fabrics, and I am seeing brighter colors and fewer muddy earth tones and sad pastels. They’ve also inked some kind of deal with Eddie Bauer to carry fabrics with that label. Wonder of wonders, I found blue thermal knit Eddie Bauer microfleece in the fleece section. I’m not normally a fan of fleece, but I need some for a serger class this fall and the EB fabric is perfect. I also bought two yards of a brushed sweater knit in a bright sage green—bright enough that I can get away with wearing it, I think. (It isn’t quite as yellow as it appears in the photo, although I do like acid green.)

I’ll be able to make a better assessment once I see what the larger Joann stores in Spokane and Seattle have on their shelves, but this is promising.

I also picked up this pattern for $1.99:

It’s dead simple. I might try mashing it up with the top of the Toaster Sweater. Butterick just released a whole slew of vintage designs, too, under a “Retro” label. I have hope that perhaps some of these companies are listening to customer feedback instead of just shoving products at us.

I think I am done with canvas grocery bags for a while. I did a few with some printed canvas, including this herb-themed one:

Although most of these are destined for the co-op sale, I may put some up for sale in my online store.

The husband asked the employees if they wanted to work today or have the day off, and they elected to work. I’ll be spending a quiet day at home by myself. I plan to make a batch of class samples for an upcoming serger class. He bolted my rivet press to the workbench in the old garage for me, too, so I will practice setting rivets.

I am getting a ton of work done now that I have time to focus on my own stuff. We had scheduled a fundraiser for the homestead foundation for the beginning of August, but the other organizer and I decided to cancel it because the ticket sales were not what we had hoped. The idea is sound, but the execution needs some retooling for next year. We’ve been subjected to a fair bit of Monday morning quarterbacking regarding that decision. My response to some of that criticism has been less than charitable, no doubt, but the work I’ve been doing on behalf of that organization was starting to resemble a part-time unpaid job. Boundaries are important, and I am not willing to continue to shove my own projects aside. The word of the year is “No,” after all.

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We were running low on shotgun shells because of all of these rodents. I bought a case of shells when I was in town yesterday. We may have stemmed the tide for a while, but ground squirrels have a nasty habit of reproducing.

I am getting such a kick out of the crows/ravens. (I know there is a difference, but I am too lazy to look it up.) I think they have learned to listen for gunshots—everyone in the neighborhood is shooting these stupid ground squirrels—and then go in that direction in search of free meals. Two of them were circling overhead yesterday afternoon, cawing to each other, and I said to the husband that it looked like they wanted to know what time the all-you-can-eat dinner buffet opened for business.