Snow, Seeds, Sweaters, Sergers, and a Spider

Today’s blog post is brought to you by the letter S.

We got about 6" of snow yesterday. It started out light and fluffy, but by the end of the day, the temperature had risen enough that it was turning into a sloppy mess. We’re under another winter weather advisory today for snow and wind. Oh, joy.

February and March are just sloppy months, but we need the moisture.

I put in my seed orders yesterday. I am going to concentrate on squash and cukes and leave the tomatoes to Sarah because she does such a good job with them. We always sell out of the cucurbits. I bought seeds for the tomatoes I like, which are Oregon Star, Northern Paste, and Cherokee Green and Cherokee Chocolate.

The husband worked in the shop and plowed once the snow let up. I put the finishing touches on my class handouts and made myself a sweater:

I really need to do something about that leaning dress form. I’ll have to take it apart and look at it again. I can assure you that the sweater looks better on me than it does on the form. And the green is a bit brighter and less olive-y than it appears in the photo.

I am teaching a serger mastery class today at the quilt store in town. I know both students—one of them bought my L860 when I traded up to the L890—and I think we will have a fun time. After class today, I can begin packing for Sew Expo in earnest. I will have to make sure my supplies are well organized because I teach three classes on Thursday beginning at 8 am and I only have 30 minutes between classes. Fortunately, I am teaching in the building closest to the parking lot across the street. I should be able to run out to the car between classes and swap supplies. For the past two years, my classroom has been at the opposite end of the fairgrounds, which was more like a 10-minute walk from the parking lot. I’ll also have to remember to take something with me for lunch, because I won’t have time to get something from a food vendor.

Mood Fabrics is going to have a booth at Sew Expo this year. I keep telling myself I don’t need any fabric, but how can I resist? My MIL used to take a bus trip to New York City with some friends of hers once a year and she always went to the garment district. The closest I’ve ever been to Mood is the shopping bag she gave me from one of her trips. 🙃

I will limit myself to a few special purchases and that will be it.

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I’ve been watching the spider for the past two weeks and I really thought it was dead. I fed it a cricket at the end of January, after which it stopped spinning webs and stayed up near the ceiling. It was not tempted by any flies. I cleared away the old web and was thinking about vacuuming up the spider, which hadn’t moved for almost two weeks. Thank goodness I didn’t, because this morning, I saw that it had spun a new web and was sitting in the middle of it. (The spider is lucky that I am not an overly fastidious housekeeper.) I guess one cricket was enough to sustain it for a few weeks. I’ll have to stop by Petco today and get another one.

When the weather warms up, the spider is going to get evicted. I wouldn’t mind it staying and eating flies over the summer, but I don’t want to take the chance that it’s going to gift me with a hundred baby spiders.