Sewing is Good for My Mental Health

Susan’s son-in-law and her younger grandson stopped by here on Wednesday to drop off some pallets for the husband. I gave them the hoodies. The little guy seemed happy with his. He said, “It has dump trucks on it!” and snuggled his head down into the fabric, so I think it was a hit. His father told me later that he was very taken with it.

I worked at our church’s fair trade gift festival yesterday morning and will be there again today. I expect it will be a bit busier today. Yesterday seemed slow, at least while I was there.

I finished quilting the baby quilt on Wednesday. I did some simple ruler quilting in the center and a ribbon candy border.

When I got home yesterday, I made the binding. I dove into my extensive stash and found the perfect shade of pink Kona (although I don’t know the specific color name). Hooray for deep stashes of Kona. Before I leave for church this morning, I’ll attach the binding. I should be able to get the binding sewn down this weekend, and I’ll send off this quilt and the I Spy quilt early next week.

[My mental health is so much better when I get to sew regularly. People should know that if I start to get cranky, someone should send me to my sewing room and not let me come out until I’ve made something.]

My birthday is in a week, so I took the opportunity to buy myself a birthday present. I ordered four yards of this wool tweed (designer deadstock) from Cali Fabrics:

Some women like to buy shoes or purses. I am obsessed with coats, and now I am obsessed with making them.

I want to make a jacket from that blue quilted fabric I bought at Hobby Lobby, but I haven’t been able to get a copy of the pattern. The jacket I want to make is Butterick 7008, from their new Fall collection, but our Joanns doesn’t yet have it. (They may have it in a box somewhere in the stockroom, but they are so horribly understaffed that it hasn’t made it to the pattern cabinet yet.) I saw that the Sewing Pattern Review website had Butterick patterns on sale for $3.99 this week, so I went ahead and ordered it from them. Maybe our Joanns will have the Fall Butterick collection out by the time the Winter collection is released. 😐

I thought this article on the Retail Dive website was interesting: How Retailers Are Making It Harder to Shop, Just in Time for the Holidays. I doubt it will make a difference to the management of some of these companies, however.