Tracing Shapes

I took my thrifted bolt of weird, stiff, woven fabric to work with me yesterday along with the three 100 Acts of Sewing patterns I bought a couple weeks ago, Mom's good scissors, and a marking pen so I could put up one of the long tables in the back room and be able to trace off the pieces without having to crawl around on the floor.  It worked like a charm.  These are very simple shapes, nothing fancy about them, the fabric has the right amount of stiffness and translucence, and I was even smart enough to use some of the lead weights stacked in the back room as pattern weights.  *head, slap*  Why have I been pining to make some pattern weights when I have a heap of scuba weights in the garage?  (I'm such a disappointment to myself)  I've got a length of blue/gray and white stripe seersucker that I'm going to use to make the first pair of pants.  I bought the fabric years (and years) ago to make some lounging pants so it's sort of a muslin cop-out--fabric to experiment with that could possibly produce something wearable.

Once I was done with that I picked up the Helical Eenie Preemie Hat and got going with the stripes.  I am endlessly entertained and totally hooked on this striping technique.
(Just so you know I did have customers to wait on and sell things to and I spent a few hours learning a new function of the POS computer program so my day wasn't all spent doing stuff for myself and getting paid for it.  I do work at work--most days.)



The straw bale garden is going great guns.  Days of sunshine and some warmth have convinced most of the plants that growing is the thing to do.  One of the basils and the rosemary haven't decided yet whether they're going to make it but the rest of the herbs are looking good.

June 6--Currier and Ives, Ice Boat Race on the Hudson River.  Snow blew in shreds across the black lake ice.  The day had begun sunny and clear but cold.  Now the sky was buried under a blanket of grey clouds so heavy and low it looked like the pine trees on shore were all that kept them off the ice.  Four young men piloted ice boats, racing each other and a freight train heading south on the tracks that ran parallel to the shore.  Enoch was in the lead boat.  He glanced over to see the engineer and brakeman waving at him.  He grinned and waved back.  They weren't smiling, they pointed ahead and waved him to slow down.  If he slowed, one of the other boats might overtake him.  He was too low to see the wide pressure ridge before he was on it.  The last thing he saw was his boat's runners against the sky.

Today is D-Day, the day the Allied forces landed at Normandy in WWII.  Stop a moment and think about the hundreds of men, boys really, who never made it to the sand or off the beach......  Okay, now it's time to find some lunch and set about enjoying the rest of the day--as soon as the air conditioner tune-up tech has left.
--Barbara