Hoodies and Hot Pink

The husband returned home safely from his trip. I was working on the boys’ hoodies on Saturday afternoon when he arrived. I am making the Adventure Jacket from Peek-A-Boo patterns.

Their patterns are reasonably good, although the pattern pieces could have better size markings for tracing. I ordered two yards of this fabric and just barely got all the main pieces for both hoodies out of it. I do like the way the instructions are laid out, in two columns. The left-hand column has a numbered step with instructions, and the right-hand column has a corresponding photo. In “choose your own adventure” fashion, the instructions direct the sewist to skip steps as needed and go to the next applicable step. Very clear. Very concise.

As much as I loved and used that Janome 6600, it didn’t like to sew anything other than quilt cotton. I had all sorts of problems sewing knits on it. The Bernina sails right through. I’m doing as much assembly as I can on the serger, of course, but some things, like the pocket topstitching, have to be done on the sewing machine. I’d be the first one to tell you that the machinery matters less than the skill of the person using it, but sometimes, the machinery matters.

I am hoping to finish these today.

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I did not wear the pink corduroy skirt to church yesterday because I didn’t have a top to wear with it. I’ve ordered a couple of sweater knits with that color pink in the print so I can make a Toaster Sweater or something similar. I am still having trouble tying wardrobe pieces together. I was watching The Secret Life of a Seamstress YouTube channel yesterday and she does a masterful job of coordinating her wardrobe pieces, but everything she owns is some neutral color like beige or cream or brown. None of those colors looks good on me. I would die of boredom in them anyway.

I have a long hot pink Liz Claiborne coat that I’ve been wearing to church recently. I stopped at the grocery store after church and realized that hot pink may be a bit too loud for the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon but OH WELL. Parrots have to eat, too, even parrots in Montana.

Once these hoodies are done, I think I am going to pull some sweater knits out of the stash and make myself a few more Toaster Sweaters or Burda 6315 pullovers. The ones I’ve made are in constant rotation.

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I knit during the sermon time at church. I’ve been doing it for years. Sometimes Valeri and Elaine knit, too. I was working on a prayer shawl yesterday when my friend Twila’s youngest granddaughter—she’s six—stuck her head between me and Susan and whispered (very loudly), “Can you teach me to knit?” I motioned her to come sit on my lap and we got a few stitches in before the end of the sermon. By the time church was over, I had committed to teaching her how to knit during next week’s sermon time.

We went for so long without kids in church that it is a joy to have little ones again. No one bats an eyelash at the bit of extra noise. We all try to include them as much as possible. When my girls were in high school, I taught all the kids in the youth group—even the boys—how to knit, and there were a couple of Sundays when half a dozen of us had needles and yarn in motion during the sermon. Our pastor was unfazed.