No More Floppy Cuffs

I made three sweaters last spring from fine-gauge sweater-knit fabrics. I must have knocked them out in a batch because they all suffered from the same problem. The sleeves were a bit too long and the cuffs were loose and floppy. I can’t stand anything flopping around my wrists. As a result, those sweaters never went into the rotation even though they fit beautifully otherwise. I pulled them out yesterday. I removed the cuffs and narrowed them by 2", cut the sleeves a bit shorter, and re-attached the cuffs. Voilà! Two hours of work and three sweaters added to the rotation. I have a whole bin of lightweight sweater knits—they were all over the Walmart remnant rack for a while—and may make a few more of these. When I was finished with the alterations, I went back and adjusted the pattern accordingly.

I am trying to be open-minded about certain styles that I’ve always avoided; these sweaters could rightfully be called “cropped,” but “cropped” on my body still needs to be about 3" longer than what I would find in RTW. When I tried on one of them to figure out why they had been put at the back of the closet, I thought the fit was very flattering. The pattern had a note on it that indicated I had lengthened the body when I made them. I am finding that sometimes the issue isn’t that a particular style doesn’t look good on me. It’s more that the proportions of the clothing being sold in stores aren’t right for my body, and when I make clothing that fits my body, those styles actually look pretty decent.

I also spent some time the other day cutting pillowcase kits for my upcoming sewing classes. I have 13 students in the Beginning Sewing I class (split between Tuesday and Saturday) and six in the Beginning Sewing II class (Saturday afternoon).

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The maintenance department at DD#2’s apartment finally figured out that the water leak was coming from the sprinkler system one floor above. Why it took them three days to determine that is beyond me. They have promised to make the needed repairs, but it’s a huge hassle for her.

We have an Epson inkjet printer, and a few weeks ago, it threw a message that the waste ink pad needed to be replaced. I ordered one from Amazon. The other morning, I had some time before leaving to work at the gift festival, so I thought I would replace the pad. First, I had to figure out where inside the printer the pad lived. Then I had to get a screwdriver to remove the cover, then remove another screw to take out the tank that holds the pad. I replaced the pad, put everything back together, then had to reset the counter so the printer wouldn’t keep throwing the code. In order to reset the counter, I had to download a piece of software. Unfortunately, the software I downloaded wouldn’t run on the husband’s iMac. It wouldn’t run on my computer, either. (The issue had to do with the kind of processing chips in our iMacs.) After 20 minutes of research, I found a software package (for $6) that would run on my computer, with a warning that it might not work over WiFi. I tried it anyway—it worked—and I was able to reset the counter.

An hour of work for something that should have taken two minutes. And I am fairly tech savvy. What about the people who have no idea how to solve these problems? This kind of stuff is just maddening. I keep saying to the husband that this mess we’ve created is going to collapse under its own weight at some point. And that might not be a bad thing.

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Bunny has completed its seasonal wardrobe change:

We have no snow. I hope it doesn’t get picked off by some predator, although it stays pretty close to the porch for protection.