A Stocking Variation

If you haven’t listened yet, this week’s podcast is an interview with Whitney Luckenbill of TomKat Stitchery. We got to meet in person at Sew Expo and made arrangements for an interview in mid-April. She is so darn much fun and I am excited to see where her business goes this year. She has plans!

We’ve had some good soaking rain here. I’m expecting the potatoes to pop up soon if they haven’t already. I’ll have to mow the grass as soon as things dry out. The piglets have plenty of straw to burrow in. The chicks spend most of their time in a clump, although I think that’s a defensive maneuver against the phalanx of big chickens staring at them through the wire walls more than it is due to cold; the clump is not under the heat lamp, which it would be if they needed warmth. The big chickens have nothing else to occupy their time, apparently, than to stare at the chicks, because every time I go out to the coop, that is what they are doing.

I finished the third Christmas stocking, although clearly I missed a step. I must not have measured or trimmed properly, because the center section of this third stocking is longer than it is on the other two stockings. You wouldn’t know that I had already made two of these. 🫤

Oh, well. I’m not re-doing it. We’ll call it a design element. I was watching tornado coverage while I was sewing, so perhaps I was distracted.

I did a pleated cuff on this version, just for something different. I think I like it better than a gathered cuff.

[Just an aside here to say that although I love Starlink, it has an annoying tendency to lose its connection a couple of times a week, usually around 4 am when I am trying to get some work done. It also happens occasionally at night, according to the husband, and interrupts his YouTube viewing. Sometimes it is out for 45 minutes. As I am writing this, I am waiting for it to come back online. I can see Starlink’s status through the app on my phone.]

Gail Yellen’s patterns are pretty good, although I suspect she is one of those people who thinks globally rather than at the detail level. There are times when I scratch my head and have to read the instructions again to make sense of what she’s saying. I am one of those people who prefers bulleted or numbered instructions rather than narrative-style instructions.

Good tech editors are worth their weight in gold, let me tell you.

We are drowning in eggs, so I made two pumpkin pies and a large sausage-and-egg bake yesterday. I am planting more pumpkins plants this year than I did last year, because we’re almost out of canned pumpkin. Those of you who have never seen the husband eat a meal have no idea how many calories he requires. He’ll eat half a pumpkin pie in one evening. And he still wears the same size clothing he wore in college.

The check engine light came on in the Diva as I was leaving the dentist Monday. Whatever is throwing the code doesn’t seem to have affected its performance. I think I’ve put more miles on that car with the light on than off.