A Bunch of Beanies

The husband sent the employees off to work but stayed here yesterday. After breakfast, he went to his shop to spend the day cleaning and organizing tools and equipment. I headed upstairs to sew. I got everything on my list done and then some, which was great.

One of the projects for an upcoming serger class is beanies. These are quick and easy and make great gifts, and I thought that Eddie Bauer fabric from Joanns would work perfectly. I made three variations to use as class samples. The first is a single layer of fabric with a coverstitch hem:

This version is fairly light—definitely not for keeping one’s head warm in subzero temps, but sometimes a light covering is all that’s needed.

The second is two layers of the same fabric, or two beanies sewn together at the bottom edge with one tucked up inside the other:

This is a much beefier beanie.

The third one also had two layers, but I used a soft jersey knit for the lining:

I am scheduled to teach at Self-Reliance Festival in Camden, Tennessee, in October (spinning, knitting, sewing, quilting, etc—all the “girly” topics again), and I might add beanies to my list of demos. I did mine on the serger but there is no reason these couldn’t be made on a sewing machine.

I also knocked out a couple of zipper bags made entirely on the serger with double-sided quilted fabric.

The zipper is put in using the piping foot. Topstitching on the sewing machine is optional. I did that on the black bag but not the turquoise one.

I put away the canvas grocery bag supplies and looked through my stash of knits. I think it’s time to switch to sewing clothes again. I also located that T-shirt dress I was searching for a few weeks ago. I had put it in a closet where I don’t normally keep clothing. I might copy it into a pattern soon because I could use a few more. So far, summer hasn’t been oppressively hot, but I prefer skirts and dresses at this time of year.

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Dispatch and the rural fire departments were very busy last night. Our department did not get paged for any grass fires, but there were over half a dozen elsewhere in the valley. We were treated to almost-constant booming from fireworks until nearly midnight, when it started to rain (lightly). We just have to hope that nothing is out there still smoldering and waiting to re-ignite in August, because that has happened.