Insert bobbin here.

K asked if I would write a little something about my past life, back when I was somebody. First, though, since I have been sewing again, I thought I would share some snaps of my equipment.

This is my incredibly wonderful and ancient Bernina zigzag, which has a high speed motor. Most of the machines that I am showing, I have had for at least twenty years. She is my "go-to" machine. I think I paid $250 for her.




And the industrial three-thread serger, or overcast machine. This baby zips along at about 3000 stitches a minute. Love love love her. She cost me $400.



I bought this Brother for $120 back in 1989, and yes, she looks a bit forlorn here, but it's just because I haven't cleaned her up yet. If any of you all are in the market for a sewing machine, I can't recommend this brand highly enough. She doesn't have any fancy stitches, and most people don't need eleventy zillion stitches. She is also mechanical, not computerized, and so is easy to fix. Not that she needs fixing hardly at all. The current price is about $100. I did an incredible amount of production sewing on this baby.



This little bitch is a walking foot zigzag, meaning that the machine grabs both the top layer and the bottom layer of fabric and moves them under the needle evenly. I traded a loom for her several years ago, and only recently did any real sewing on her. (Recently as in yesterday.) I found her motor too weak and her zigzag stitch not wide enough. Also, the flywheel release broke off in my hand - it's that black plastic bit in the lower right. My friend bought this machine new, and so I am very disappointed in the durability aspect as well as the performance aspect. However, she may be just the thing I need for some other project.



My favorite machine leapt to her death coming home from my bricks and mortar store. She was an industrial straight stitch; that's all she did, and I loved her. If I keep on with this sewing thing, I will have to replace her. Her table and motor are intact, although they've been in the barn for five years.

So. This is my equipment. Next post will be about what I have been making with it.

No bars held.

I am feeling so good! It's like some sort of election slogan, or mantra, because I must have said it 20 times today. I feel good!

My creative spark has returned and while it might not turn into a conflagration on every front, I am at least wanting to Do Things! Much different from how I felt a month ago.

The woozies are completely gone and I don't feel any more or less depressed than usual. I am swearing a lot more, in creative ways even. I have energy. I have been sewing. Photos to follow. I have ideas of things I'd like to sew. I have been knitting, but have nothing to show, as most has been ripped out once or twice, yet I am not discouraged. Just wait until the socks are photo worthy! They are beautiful, like stained glass.

The heat has broken; it was only 85º today. I left the air conditioning off and the low tonight is forecast to be 61º.

The thing is, though, that I have been doing things, thinking about projects that I would like to do, and even picking up that piece of trash off the floor instead of just looking at it. I am so glad to be off the medz, although it has been hard.

Princess, Zander, and Foxy are all well, and are getting better behaved. (Spending a couple of hours in my studio without canines underfoot has been a delight.) All of the chickens are okay, even the leftover Omelet, who I think is a hen. The sad news is that Smoky passed away on Sunday, along with one of Blue Jean's teenagers. Don't know from what, but it has been hellish hot here lately. These are outdoor bunnies who are not really pets, but just are part of our mise en scene. Smoky lived a great life, fighting and fucking and passing on his genes. Every male animal's desire, I think.

Yule at Midsummer

Seam allowances not included.

Hello and Good Morning! Guess who's feeling better? I have been actually doing things, and thinking about other things to do, and that is certainly different.

Yesterday, I created a pair of shorts for myself out of a worn and outgrown denim jumper. Took about twenty minutes, and this was after I finished putting back together the Betty Blanky, after taking it apart and washing the fleece covers (for maybe the first time ever? ewwww!) The Betty Blanky came to us four or five years ago from friend BettyBob, who made it using a sheep's wool batt made by Zeilwieger's using the fleece from Ewenice, Betty's sheep. (Her husband was, or became, allergic to it, so she gifted it to me. Really to Sweetie, though, the frozen chihuahua who is ever in search of a warm place.) The batt is encased in cheesecloth and in itself is not washable, but the fleece outer covers are. The whole sandwich, which is queen size, was then tie tacked together. In short, it is clean and sleep worthy again!







I also finished Little Autumn's Princess Socks last night. I used my Embellish-Knit I-cord maker to create the trim and ties. She'll be home from her dad's this evening, and I can't wait to see her in them.




Livestock is doing okay, even though our temps have been hot for June, and we are forecast to be in the 90ºs all this upcoming week. Omelet is making his solitary way, and seems fine. Henny Penny has another clutch to brood over. The new girls are also well, here are three of the six.




Oh! I ordered a George Foreman grill last Tuesday, the most recent 360 model, (which was on sale as they must be coming out with a new one,) and it arrived Thursday. I love it to pieces! It's red! It sports removable grill plates, and there is also a bake pan (for pizza, among many other things,) and plates for quesadillos. It makes great grilled onions, bell peppers, and tomatoes, to go with one's grilled brats. This morning, I made Sweetie's french toast on it, using no butter. I am so happy! I want to make grilled potatoes, pineapple slices, and carrots. Looks like I can remove some of the cast iron skillets from the stove top into pantry storage. (We don't have built in cabinets in our old-fashioned kitchen, so I store stuff wherever I can. Like the stove top.)

Now that the socks are done, I will most likely cast on another pair for me out of the new yarn shown in a previous post. I still have a hank of dyeable superwash, as well as a skein of alpaca sock weight, along with enough leftover bits from other pairs to make at least one other pair. I also ordered yarn from Webs to make the Wisteria Sweater.

Think I will spend a little more time sewing today, maybe another pair of shorts.




Oh, caught Zander and Princess in this pose last week, exhausted after tearing up the couch.

Thing One and Thing Two

I may have said once or twice that I hate Cat Bordhi. Not everyone does, so therefore, the first person that PayPals me $3 to cover postage, I will send that person her New Pathways for Sock Knitters. (I would sell it to Cash4Books, like I did her second New Pathways sock book, but somewhere along the way I spilled a drink on it, and part of a dozen pages are water damaged, but readable.)

(The book is spoken for! Lady Euphoria loves Cat and can't believe her good luck. I am sending the book out today.)

Seriously. I have spent the better part of three days trying to figure this particular pattern out, and just when I thought I had it? I came up two stitches short on one sock and I just said fuck it. Ripped out the socks and most likely, I'll have a pretty pair knit for a four-year-old by tomorrow morning. Using some other pattern.

Sort of apropos to this, I investigated the side effects of Wellbutrin, as my wooziness is ongoing, as is the ringing in my ears, my stomach has been upset and all of these things are known side effects. Also, one can experience feelings of aggression and anger, and tremors. I call it a slam dunk. I am going off of this med immediately, because I am miserable and I am tired of feeling sick like this.

The stupid ass socks haven't helped.

However, I can't really hate Cat B, although I want to. I think she may have the sort of mind that can easily see how to knit a particular shape. She thinks in knitting. I imagine that she can run through the steps in her mind's eye, and then just do it, as they say. The problem, for me, comes when she tries to communicate that process to others, to write it down in a clear and easily understood manner. It may be her editor's fault, because the book is laid out in an incredibly chaotic manner, in my opinion. I had three pages of notes written out, and at times, five different places bookmarked, and I had to flip to and fro and check my notes, screw up, rip, swear, reknit and so on. I think I could have done a better job of organizing all of the information. In fact, a brain-damaged monkey could have done a better job. That being said, other people seem to have no problem whatever with her techniques. All I can say, is that I really, really tried to understand, and I just couldn't.

(Part of my problem is her use of letters as reference points, where a letter stood in for various stitch counts or measurements which one had to figure out beforehand, or locate some other place in the book. Her diagrams and instructions began to look like algebraic equations, where letters stand for numbers, and I just never got algebra, as it did not make any sense to me. At all. I learned much much later that algebra is, what?, concerned with the theoretical, and I have always been about the practical. I think I would have loved geometry and trig, but since I failed algebra, I wasn't allowed to take the higher courses in high school.)

Also? I get the "seeing the whole" in one's mind's eye. I can do that with costume construction. Show me a picture, a sketch, and in short order I can process tons of information and see how to make it so, as Capt. Picard would say. But if I had to write down coherent instructions for another person, it would be difficult to do. I know, I've tried.

Anyway. Time to move on.

Are you for reals?

Happy Hen Treats.

Only in America, folks.

May rupture under pressure.

I went to Luna's yarn shop in Elizabethtown, Kentucky almost a month ago, and brought home an expensive yet small bag of yarn. Not a difficult thing to do at all.







Luna's store is small, just two rooms, but it was tidy and a sensual delight. I went with a few ideas in mind, and found something for all of them. The fuchsia at the top is Cascade's 220 Superwash, and that ball will morph into a pair of socks for my little four-year-old princess who lives next door.
Out of the Regia and the Mountain Colors I plan to make socks for me, using both together for some sort of slip stitch pattern. The blue-green is Misti Alpaca laceweight; future shawl.

The mossy green is Classic Elite Portland Tweed. The unfinished hat thing is my gauge swatch, which I need to reknit as my tension is too slack in both directions. I do, however, really like the hand of the knit fabric and once I get more yarn, it will grow up to be Wisteria by Kate Gilbert. I haven't knit a sweater for myself in ages, and from an honest to goodness pattern for even longer.

This is enough to keep my needles going for the rest of the year or longer. Also? It will be so nice not to knit with angora for a change.

As for the other thing, yep, it's gonna just take time to get over my hurt feelings, and that is what it is all about, in the end. It's all about me. I am remarkably thin skinned. I have tried to grow a thicker hide for a long time, but it hasn't happened yet. I was apparently born a sensitive, since I have always been overly emotional and easily hurt.

One other thing, too, I realized last night, is that I am jealous of my niece. Not an attractive feeling, but there it is. She is so pretty and popular, she lives in a nice house, has her driver's license and use of a vehicle, she has super parents that love her dearly, and she's going to college. At age seventeen, she still has her mom around. And really? I am so glad for her. But, those things that I just enumerated? I didn't have at her age. I wasn't as pretty, and I certainly wasn't popular, I lived in rental houses, my parents didn't want to bother getting me my learner's permit, my father was hateful and intimidating, and my mother killed herself, after years of depression, a few weeks after I turned seventeen. College? Fugettaboutit.

I can't change any of my childhood or teenage years, and maybe it isn't jealousy that I feel so much, but sorrow over my own what-might-have-beens.

I am still fitting a little uncomfortably in my own skin, what with withdrawing from the anti-repressent. I'm a still a bit woozy of a morning, not wanting to move too fast since it feels that my head is following about a half beat behind the rest of me. I am trying to drink a lot of fluids that are not alcoholic. Just one more thing that will take time. Also? I am seriously limiting my time on fb these days and I am keeping my mouth shut and not writing comments.