plodding through another heatwave

 "Martha and I might have settled over a book, or taken up our embroidery, or written letters ourselves to a numerous correspondence - but an unaccustomed restlessness had me in its grip."

                                           -  from Jane and the Ghosts of Netley, by Stephanie Barron

The air is hot; this morning early my brother went out. He never complains about the heat, but he said it was awful out. He went to the supermarket and when he came out, "my glasses fogged up." That was worth complaining about! 

I'm getting through the Brothers Karamazov and am also reading Watership Down - two rather rough stories - and was craving something less heavy, a story that draws you in. I like to reread old favorites, so I picked up one of the Jane Austen mysteries. To the hum of the air conditioners, and in between homework chores, I picked it up at every opportunity.

I'm ready to hem my burgundy dress. These sleeveless dresses are so cool, so welcome this summer! I'm not good at taking selfies and it's hard to photograph a whole length of dress. But last summer I bought fabric for three dresses on the Hancocks of Paducah website, buying only sale fabric. One of them is too short and I just got some eyelet for a ruffle to lengthen it. I wear the others regularly. So this year I bought three more and I'm on the third. But I love the batik version so much that I bought two more fabrics - these will be in heavy rotation, but it's satisfying to know that I paid between fifteen and twenty one dollars for each, since I bought only sale fabric. 

The tomatoes are turning red, and the beans are starting to flow in. I've got basil drying - I like it better than fresh, usually. I still have some basil leaves in the freezer, but I reach for the dried herb more often.

We've been feeding some neighborhood cats. They're not strays, but they come around and up to the door, so we give them food. This one is Benny. 

Note the tongue sticking out. I think he's cute. Then there's Leon, who has been coming through here for years, and now is finally comfortable with us. He has a certain look about him. I couldn't put my finger on it, but my brother said he looks mournful.

Leon of the Mournful Aspect

It's that longish, Norwegian Forest cat kind of face, and the way he has his head lowered but the eyes look up at you. 

*If you should feel curious about reading this, don't! It would be best to begin at the beginning with this series. You will thank me later.

fresh air and sunshine

 We've had such beautiful weather this week - so welcome, after the Previous Awful. And the nights are in the fifties lately! Very unusual for July. In this morning's prayers: from Psalm 65 - "the hills are girded with joy". I underlined it. This sort of poetic description just takes you away, doesn't it?

I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov - wish me luck. I expect it'll take me at least a month.

I sat on the front step this evening before sunset and saw two young rabbits frolicking across the street. After a while, they ran back across the road to our back area, I think. But then I noticed two more still across the street, so life continues. 

I bought a dress - new - and it came with a scent that I didn't want. It smelled like a fake fragrance you get from some detergents - not appealing. Why? A new dress! Anyway, I knew what to do. I hung it on the clothesline. This was last Saturday. Then we had heavy rain on and off. I left it out. A new dress. It wasn't on sale, by the way, but what are you going to do? I had washed it, but it has only happened once that a smell came out in the wash - not usually. Anyway, I was determined to give the fresh air a chance. 

soaking wet in the rain

I turned it over every day - I was concerned about fading, but the coloring has a faded effect anyway, so I hoped it wouldn't be anything obviously awful. On Thursday I sniffed it, and - it was ninety nine percent gone, and that was good enough for me. 

I wanted to share this, because I have washed stinky items over and over, I have soaked them with vinegar and water, with baking soda and water - these things don't work. Only the air, and the breeze. Maybe the sun? I don't know that. I once bought a used handbag on Etsy which smelled of fragrance and I couldn't wash the lining of a leather bag so I hung it out in desperation. For a month! It took a month of hanging it out every non-rainy day, and I didn't give up. That's when I learned this method. So I wore the dress to work and a friend came in, admiring the print and fabric, and it turned out she is also familiar with this method. So, if you have bought clothing or a blanket or other linens that smells and you're afraid you're going to have to get rid of it - DON'T. Try this! 

In late spring, somebody left two daisy plants at the library's plant swap table, and I took them. Now there are more daisies at our house than before. 

But the daisies outside are predictable in their behavior. Of course I had to re-wash this pot. 

the course of human events

 The pie came out well, I decorated the table with lots of red, white and blue, I made strawberry coconut milk ice cream and we stayed in with the air conditioning. Of course! One has to make the most of things. I wore my latest dress creation - the coolest thing I own.

I was hoping I'd hear some bells ringing if I stuck my head out, but I suppose city dwellers would be more likely - nobody near me was ringing any bells. I would have rung some, if we had any. I even had the idea to dig around for some little Christmas bell decorations, but I stored my ornaments differently this year and have no idea where they are! I would have rung anything if I could have just found it! 

We were talking a bit about the founders: what made them persist, what gave them their momentum to  shake off the British and start their own government. It's easy to give up, especially when the average person complains in the pub, but that's about all. I did read a book about Samuel Adams where the author gave him credit for never letting go of the idea to throw off British rule; he was constantly talking about it, planting the idea in people's minds. I need to find more books about that. 

And after a week of extreme heat, it was barely seventy today, and raining. Cold air was actually blowing in! I'm happy for the creatures - I couldn't tell if anybody was drinking from the little trays I set out with water. The rabbit above was out in the rain for a while today, and didn't mind the wet at all. Maybe the leaves he ate were jucier.

good ideas

I sat at my sewing table a few minutes ago and there before me was a beautiful sunset, all pink and gold. I have no idea how to photograph such a thing; I've tried. All I could do was watch. These sort of moments are like being in an Elizabeth Goudge story. 

I wore my daffodil dress yesterday in the heat. Since I like this simple style so much, I decided that maybe I should focus on making several, and perfecting the fit as I go. So I had ordered three lengths of quilting cottons on sale. This was the first. Quilting fabric isn't created equal - the daffodil one was classic, with that body that's good in an a-line dress. After I was finished with it, I realized that I didn't like the shoulders, so I took a tuck on either side to bring in the edge.

It did the trick. I have narrow shoulders, but sometimes I like the slightly oversized look at the top. Not this time, but the tucks made it better. The second fabric is a black and dark blue batik. Batik fabric tends to be thinner, and I wasn't sure it was suited for the same silhouette, so I angled the pattern pieces out, to make it more a-line, and fuller, and I also brought in the center of the bodice a half inch, so I wouldn't have to make any tucks, if you get what I mean; just a different way of bringing the shoulders in toward the center. I think this was a good idea; I've put it on and it's looking promising. So tonight I was sewing some binding around the neckline when the sunset appeared out my window. The third fabric is a burgundy red. I washed it today, and it still feels silky - I'm not sure I want to make it in this same a-line shape. I have to think. But with present temps in the seventies, I won't be needing these that soon.

After five or so days in the nineties, with increasing humidity, the seventies are so welcome! Of course, we'll have humid days, but for today, the winds are strong, the sun was warm, and tonight it's going to be fifty two. Let the cool air blow - we have quilts. Speaking of warming things, lately when I make a cup of tea, I don't finish it, so today I used a smaller cup and finished the whole thing. 

Not as small as a china teacup, but smaller than an average mug. Like Goldilocks.

I washed another window today; I can see that I need to give up the notion of spring or fall cleaning, and just do it as I can. But anyway, I found out that a small paintbrush is good for getting into the window tracks - and it is! What an idea! 

I'm thrilled.

suddenly warm

 

a woodland themed towel from Debra!

I figure that normal temperatures for this time of year should be in the mid-fifties. Not this week, though! It is going to be in the eighties for a few days, so here we go, trying to get some more variety in the closet.

I finished my skirt, which is just an a-line with elastic waist - very basic. Now I want to make a dress with some thrifted fabric.

the Mr. Kibble statue holding down the pattern piece

It's a soft brushed cotton, a very small pine green and beige check. I was able to mark it with a piece of soap, since the colors were dark enough to show it up. 

Here's my inspiration, stolen off the internet from here

I cut out a bodice piece from a dress pattern I have, and sleeves from another. I'd like mine a little longer, like below the elbow. I've been trying to figure if I want to interline the bodice to give it more structure, or just line it. I think I'll just line it. I hope it will be something useful! One doesn't always know how a thing will come out, or how well it will fit. It is a bit girlish, but I hope that won't be a problem. 

bears, skirts and dinner

"On this mountain [God] will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, The web that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces; The reproach of his people he will remove from the whole earth; for the Lord has spoken."

                                                              -   Isaiah 25:7-9

Meanwhile, tomorrow is the feast of St. Patrick; I'm working, so we had the dinner today. The crockpot did much of the work.

The cabbage was in another pan.

I've been reading "The Bears and I" by Robert Franklin Leslie. Published in 1968, the author is a young man in the north woods of Canada. Are there any of these type of men left? Can someone live like that in this day and age?  Anyway, he has to "adopt" three motherless cubs, and he tells the story so well; it's a page-turner!  I had brought the book home for my mother years ago and it was such a favorite with her, I'd gotten her a copy to keep. After she died I ended up letting it go, as I figured I'd never read it, but at work last week it came across the desk and I was suddenly interested. It's hard to put down! Bears are more like us than I'd realized. If you like animal stories, I very much recommend it.

"A wild bear grows to maturity and stays healthy for his twenty-five or thirty years on a vigorous program of physical exercise and diet unparalleled for any animal of his weight. I've watched both black and grizzly bears swim across the lake three miles wide, then climb over a mountain on the other side when easy alternative routes were available to them. I have seen black bears gallop down a mountainside and ascend a 200-foot fir without even breaking their speed - climbing by throwing their arms and legs around the trunk like a pole-climber - until they were near the top of the tree."

                                                -  The Bears and I

I saw this image on pinterest and saved it. I've got a sweater this very color, although not a turtleneck and not cropped. But that's all right. I have black suede maryjanes and I could copy the look well enough. So I poked around online and found some quilting cotton that is almost exactly this pattern.

I made a casing for an elastic waist, put in wide pleats, and it is machine basted. If i hadn't been so busy with the corned beef dinner, I could have made more progress. But it's an easy design to make and won't take much longer.

"To a bear, loss of face represents genuine calamity. Within his local society, withdrawal from any struggle most generally incurs loss of pecking rights - the established wilderness protocol of who has the right to clobber whom."

                                                  -  from The Bears and I

expect the unexpected

 I am almost finished with the navy shift with purple flowers. It is the second of three summery dresses I thought it would be good to have for the hot days. But I thought of it a little late and it got cold before I could make them. Still, I could wear this with a navy pullover, which I plan to do. I wore my sunflower dress for the last time yesterday with a rust pullover sweater over it. This dress looks rather gaudy to me, and without the sweater I wouldn't have worn it to church, but, wouldn't you know - I got too warm and had to take it off. So there I was in a sleeveless dress in October. Well, we had doughnuts and coffee afterward, and as I stood in line for a doughnut, a young woman nearby said she really like the dress! (At that point, I looked down and saw a long thread hanging!)

She said she didn't think it was gaudy, just pretty. Isn't life funny. I had cut the dress too short, and had to make a ruffle to lengthen it. It gapes at the neck, and I cinch it together with a little pewter rabbit pin from an Etsy shop in the UK. I didn't bother to hem it, just zigzagging there at the bottom, and the threads loosen from time to time. But this girl liked it. Nothing is ever what we expect.

realizations

 

We're back to dry, cooler days after two or three of warm and humid; there was plenty of rain, too, including a thunderstorm Saturday. We needed it.

It occurred to me that if I'm having a hard time getting a sweater going on the knitting needles because my cast-ons are a bit tight, I should just cast onto a larger needle - I believe I used to know that. I'm gearing myself up to knit the Ranunculus sweater: I've got yarn - which I've had for years and should really do something with - but can't seem to get going. We'll see. Sometimes at the beginning of a project, I feel I'm all thumbs.

Now that it's cooler I'm letting myself use the oven more. And I suddenly remembered I can actually make the dough and bake one or two dozen, chill the rest and hardly heat up the kitchen at all! This is the kind of thing I've limited myself to all summer - not baking anything that takes more than half an hour. It's worked out well with fish or muffins, but why didn't I think of cookies? I tend to see them as a drawn-out business, having to bake tray after tray, find a place for them to cool away from cats, get something to store them in, etc. It's kind of the way I like to do everything - chipping away at it, a little at a time, here and there. And it's just a good idea to have some dessert-y thing around. 

soaking dry raisins

As Gretchen has mentioned, some Christians celebrated the birthday of the Virgin Mary today. 

Mary is the full flowering of the grace of Jesus Christ. To know her is to know what he has accomplished, what his victory has won. She shows in a singular manner what all of us are called to become...She is the realization of all that he has promised us.

                                                                                                    - Fr. Paul Scalia, from Magnificat

But she doesn't seem to age, according to all those she appears to around the world. ;-)

sweet breeze! thou only, if I guess aright, liftest the feathers of the robin's breast

 That was Coleridge. And oh, a day of cool air, breezing in my window, puffy clouds all over the sky! But I didn't move fast enough to record them before they drifted away. 

I heard some birds fussing in the distance. This always makes me feel bad; maybe there was a hawk around. Oh, for a world where there is none of that! Of course, the blue jays would have to find something else to occupy themselves. They are the ambulance-chasers of the bird world - well, everybody has their place. Poirot always was glad to talk to the busy-bodies of the neighborhood - they often proved helpful.

I grew nasturtium seeds, even though it's getting late. It's such a pretty plant.

I just heard a sound behind me, and there was Annie on my back window with a claw caught in the curtain. She was trying to get unhooked and couldn't, but did she say anything? How long would she have sat there, twisting slowly, slowly in the wind (so to speak)? Daisy is the same way. 

Strange. They do seem to understand the power of communication. Daisy often is telling us she wants food. Annie was really chatty the other day, telling me something. But they haven't made the connection entirely, I guess, especially when they could really use some help! Dolly would have called out, and she did, more than once. 

Well, September is at the door, and I'm looking over my fall clothes. This skirt needs reworking.

It's just not right. I cut off the waistband and picked out the zipper here. I'll sew up that seam where the zip was, turn over the top edge and make a casing for some lightweight elastic. Then I'll see how much I need to take it up - it's too long. 

I've been reading The Jungle Book - it's so charming! This is what the library copy looks like.

summer extremes

 It’s not quite seventy degrees today. And by that, what I really mean is, it’s thirty degrees cooler than it was yesterday. 

it was not this hot - the sun beats on it in the pm

I finished my firefly dress; I was going to wear it tomorrow to work - now I hesitate. Is seventy one degrees too cool for sleeveless? Probably, especially after such a cool, damp day.

it's a maxi

I had such a time getting the armhole binding to flatten out.

Wetting it, then pressing, over and over, to gently stretch the fabric. Patience and persistence were what I needed.

Last night's sunset -

I actually had to close my windows tonight - it's cool, and damp, which makes it feel colder.

Daisy in my window

days off

 We've had some people leave the library for various reasons, so I've worked a few double shifts - not exactly double, but I stayed till closing, eleven hour days. But now I have a week off! Sewing and gardening are the plan.

I'm making a dress with a firefly-printed cotton. A sleeveless maxi, a-line, a pattern I've used before. I'm almost done!

I've also got a dragonfly fabric in the wings. Black, with blue, purple and gold dragonflies. No plan yet.

pins and providence

"You 'flee' to the desert not to escape neighbors but to grasp more fully what the neighbor is - the way of life for you, to the degree that you put yourself at their disposal in connecting them with God."

                                      -  Rowan Williams, Silence and Honey Cakes

 I've been looking at the grass - it's brown everywhere. But when I stare at it, I notice that it is turning. It wants to turn green! Meanwhile, the month is half over and it hasn't been bad, just some wild wind now and again. There was a blizzard, but it wasn't here.

I always feel discombobulated after going out in the middle of the day. Like I've lost my tempo, have to regroup. But I managed to change the sheets, do the laundry, wash dishes, iron, provide some supper - and do some reading. A minimum.

"'What does providence mean?' asked Meg.

'Good management,' said Lucilla. 'It's also a name we give to God when His management is not what ours would have been under the circumstances.'"

                             -  from The Heart of the Home, by Eliz. Goudge

I cut out the pieces for my next skirt, but realized I should iron it before anything else. It was beautiful out, and I am weeding wintery sweaters from my closet, one by one. Last month was very cold, and the library was especially chilly for some reason - I discovered that revived a few shawls which have languished for years in drawers and the closet. But I was needing a shawl pin, so I found a few on Amazon and wore one as a pin the other day.

A bird on a branch - nice and springy.

we have today

 I slept with my window open last night. It didn't get below fifty, although the wind was forceful and there was rain. It actually got up to sixty two today, for a while. Now the wind is blowing like crazy again, and colder air is coming back - this is normal for March. But the warm spells are so enticing.

I finished my skirt the other day, and got the waistband just right, thankfully. I used elastic, since this fabric is a knit - a zipper wasn't necessary. I am not going to hem it. Knits don't fray, and I'd rather not add bulk to the bottom by turning it under - I don't think anybody is going to notice. So today I took the leftover and walked around the house with it to see if the colors would look nice anywhere. The spare bedroom has a small pillow which needs a cover, and the velvet was pretty with the bedspread, so I haphazardly made a zippered cover. 

That background color was advertised as brown, but it's dark red to me - at least, a reddish brown. But at least I found a use for some of the leftover. 

I noticed this on the back cover of Plough's winter issue:

"Someday, all of us will spend our lives in our own school, the world. And education - in the sense of learning to love, to grow, to change - can become not the woeful preparation for some job that makes us less than we could be but the very essence, the joyful whole of existence itself."

                                -   Marshall McLuhan

I never look on back covers. 

It's Lent again.

"Faith is a strange thing. In our little church one feels it strong and firm among the farm people and the retired people and the city week-enders who have been able to stagger out for service. To lose faith in the ultimate good in life is to lose life, I thought, as I came down the steep ancient steps of the little white building. The world news may be especially grim, disaster strikes in a home, any one of the ills flesh is heir to may strike us, and it becomes easy to give up. And yet the gathering together of people to pray and worship God, according to their choice of church, whatever it be, is a strong bulwark against defeat and despair.

The very act of saying, 'I believe,' is a renewal of faith. As for the world, it has been in a parlous state so long that there is no sense in worrying about the future. It is better, I think, to go on believing in goodness and beauty and truth and in God, no matter how we define these terms each of us for ourselves.

And better to live a day at a time. This is a hard task, often, for we tend to keep going or the past and trying to live it over again or looking ahead and uselessly trying to forecast tomorrow and next week and next year. But somebody has said all the time we really have is the NOW. We have today. 

Try to use this day well, that is about the sum of it."

                                                                 -  Gladys Taber

repeats

 I cut out the front and back pieces for the skirt today; I have to think about the casing for the elastic - I'm not going to fold over the top, but make a separate piece for that. It's a very pretty polyester velvet with a large floral. I sewed the side seams and was walking by a print on my wall. I got it at Goodwill; it's a bowl of flowers, mostly shades of pale to deep rose pink. The background is rather neutral, even the leaves. I realized my fabric looked a lot like this painting.

sorry about the glare

It's not easy to photograph shiny things, I've noticed. Since this is poly, the sheen is almost like a panne velvet, but not quite. The actual color is warmer than this, a little. But very pretty, and would have been festive looking for the holidays, if I'd thought of it sooner. 

There will be no snowfall today - not a nor-easter, not even a dusting. I guess it's gone somewhere else. And since nothing's predicted for the weekend, I guess we can go to church on Sunday for a change! 

I roasted a chicken early in the day, but have no desire for any of it. I hope I'm not coming down with something - stuff has been going from one person to another at work, round and round, all winter. I just want to eat light.

There's a setting on my camera called silky monochrome, or something. It's pretty. 

Is it okay to post a thing on one's blog more than once? 

"It is a comforting thought that beautiful moments never die. One can collect them, store them away, and they are always at hand to bring forth again and appreciate. There are many of them, and all one needs is an awareness to have them."

                                               -    Gladys Taber

There! I don't mind repeating that!

snowing and sewing

"Candlemas [Feb. 2] is the last feast of winter and the first feast of spring" (from Winters in the World by Eleanor Parker) - I wonder if that means the weather was more temperate and predictable back then, or is it just that it's milder in the UK, anyway?

 It snowed Sunday night, but then the air was mild, so the snow didn't last. Today, we had a little bit more with some freezing rain - a very different matter. They closed the library and other town offices. But Sunday - we are supposed to have seven to ten inches through Sat. night and all day Sunday! That changed from this morning's prediction which was three to six inches. Wow. 

ice drips

"Icicles hang from the eaves in long silver needles, and around the unshoveled walks, the small prints of stay-at-home rabbits make fascinating patterns."  - Gladys Taber.  My brother saw a rabbit the other day, which was nice, because we are seeing hawks practically every day.

Do I want to make another regency dress? When I can't seem to complete anything for the present era?

moving along

 

I'd forgotten about this Star of Bethlehem book; it tries to figure out what it was that shone so brightly to guide the three magi to Bethlehem. I had found it on the sale table at the library, and then it got buried under a stack at home. Of course. The author has all sorts of ideas about it. The green cover of the Niall Williams has called to me for years, every time I came across it at work, so I finally took it home. It's the second in his memoirs of life in Ireland after moving from New York. I remember that many years ago his first one was serialized in the newspaper, and was very popular. It's about time I picked it up, I guess.

Plodding along with my dress, I am now ready for the sleeves. Except, like the skirt, the pattern piece is nowhere to be found. But that's okay, because I'm not that keen on the sleeves, anyway. And then I got a catalog from Poetry, and there is this dress in corduroy that's just like the one I'm making, but with sleeves I like a whole lot better. I don't know how long that link will last, so maybe I can take a photo from my catalog another day. Anyway, I went through my patterns and found this blouse one from years ago. I never made it, but it's similar - if I can take out some of the volume it might do. 

It'll be a starting point.

I bundled up and ran outside before it got dark, longing for some fresh air. 

The grass is in its dried-up winter state. I just ran around and breathed the cold air for a bit.

This is what winter looks like where I live. Unless there's snow to make it all pretty. Although I was trying to see the beauty. 

The warped ramp to the shed. 

"A supremely powerful man and a keen politician, Herod usually acted quickly and decisively. Outlaws who threatened his borders on the Syrian frontier were put to death. So were rivals suspected of conspiracy. And, after siding with Antony, who lost to Caesar int he dominant Roman politics of the era, Herod courted Caesar's favor so astutely, his own crown in hand, that he became the Roman emperor's trusted governor and friend."

                                                 - The Star of Bethlehem, Jeanne K. Hanson

I'm curious to see what her conclusion will be.

three good things

 It was supposed to snow lightly this morning, from five till ten. But it didn't stop, and it's been snowing all day. With no accumulation! Still, there is something about snow falling, even if it doesn't mount up. 

I made a wonderful discovery yesterday! I diligently use the little defuzzing machine on my sweaters, which works excellently, but I had the idea to try it on my opaque tights. They're made from recycled nylon and get pilly after a while, so that I have to toss them. I mostly wear longer skirts, so it doesn't show much, but eventually..........well, this worked like a charm!! My tights are like new - try it!

Rather exciting, to extend the life of your clothes.

The wrens are often found at the bird feeder, which is a new thing this year. It can't be that they suddenly have a taste for black sunflower seeds; they must be increasing in our area. I find them very cute.