Planning Future Projects and Finishing Old Ones

Sarah donated a whole collection of plants for my herb garden, including some thyme, dill, zinnias, and other flowers. I am excited to see those beds fill up.

My friend Janet (yes, there are two of us) came over on Tuesday with a waxed canvas bag project that had exceeded the capabilities of her sewing machine. The 1541 made short work of attaching the leather handles, sewing in the lining, and topstitching the top edge. I wish I had remembered to take a photo of it because it was lovely. She also brought a pair of jeans with her and I used the rivet press to put a new front button on them.

I took the row covers off all the plants yesterday. Some of the cukes and squash look a bit peaked, but everything seems to have survived. We are in for a stretch of warm weather now. The garden should bounce back. We looked at the raspberry patch last night—buzzing with bees and other pollinators—and I told the husband to be prepared for an absolute tsunami of berries in another couple of weeks.

I spent yesterday afternoon prepping the Haralson bag pattern and trying to move an old project along to completion. I had a leftover chunk of blue waxed canvas from Klum House, so I cut enough pieces for two Haralson bags:

One of the women in our sewing group makes the most beautiful Poppins bags, and she always does hers two at a time. It makes sense. I’ll either gift one of these or put it in the sale in September.

The other project is an English paper piecing kit that came with a class Tera and I took at Garden of Quilts three (!) years ago. Tera finished hers—she is much better about that than I am.

The class focused on glue basting EPP. I generally baste my pieces with thread, but glue basting works, too. Of course, after three years, the little glue stick that came with the kit had dried out, but I found another one and carried on. I need to make 20 of those hexagon units. They get sewn into five columns of four units, then trimmed to make either a pillow or a wall hanging. Above them, you can see a couple of hexie flowers. They will be appliquéd to some linen and quilted to make a couple of quilted zip pouches.

I’ve been trying to work on embroidery or EPP in the evenings. Sometimes I want to sit and read, but that’s hard to do when the husband is watching videos because I get distracted by the process of replacing a wheel bearing on a Toyota. If I do handwork instead, I can watch and sew at the same time.

This is like handspinning. As the old saying goes, spinning on a drop spindle is slower by the minute but faster by the month. It’s why I have to do something with those hexie flowers, because I’ve managed to accumulate over two dozen of them.

*********

The Bernina 990 was unveiled at Bernina University this week. It looks like a phenomenal machine but I am having trouble getting past the $23,000 price tag. I’m not judging anyone who buys one—how other people spend their money is none of my business. I just wonder how sustainable that is as a business model. After the initial rush of buyers, will they be able to continue to produce and sell a model at that price?

My Janome 6600P does everything I need it to, so I have no plans to upgrade.