Goodbye, CenturyLink

I came downstairs this morning to find a very welcome e-mail in my inbox—our Starlink order is ready! I confirmed the invoice and ordered the additional hardware that the husband said we needed for the installation. Hopefully, we should be able to tell CenturyLink to go pound sand soon. After that debacle at Christmas when we were without internet for two weeks, I am ready to be done with them.

I’m also more than a bit annoyed with Intuit, which is forcing me into QuickBooks Online as of May, to the tune of $1000 a year. This whole “software as a service” business model is a greedy scam. I’m already paying $600 a year for Adobe Creative Suite. (Yes, I know there are open source models out there, but either they don’t work as well or they are not backward-compatible.) I’m also not thrilled about having my financial information in the cloud.

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The peeps are doing well. They are busy running around the brooder box and stuffing themselves full of food. The little deer shows up every afternoon for its ration of sweet feed, usually when I am out in the chicken coop. I wait to feed her until I see her so the turkeys don’t swoop in and hoover up the snacks.

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I made up another muslin yesterday. I still can’t figure out exactly what fitting issue I am having. The front of the muslin fits well. The darts are positioned properly, the sleeve seamlines sit where they should, I’ve got plenty of fabric over my chest, and there are no odd wrinkles, but something is off. I’m wondering, now, if the fit of the back is the issue. I looked at that fitting book, which was helpful, but I really need a comprehensive set of accurate measurements so I know exactly where mine deviate from average. The husband, for all that he knows how to lay out foundations and build houses, doesn’t know enough about clothing construction to know what measurements I need him to take or how to take them. Maybe Tera and I can get together some time for a fitting session. Or I’ll take my tape measure and book with me the next time I visit DD#1’s in-laws, because DSIL’s mom has a lot of sewing and fitting experience.

The easy way out would be to stick to sewing with knits. I’ve got half a dozen tried and true patterns that fit me well, but I’m too stubborn to let this go and I’m so close. I might adjust the back pattern piece for the muslin I made yesterday and run up another one this afternoon if I get time.

Raglans seem to be a trend this spring. I’m seeing lots of raglans with gathered necklines, Gathers at the neckline effectively do the same thing as bust darts—they provide extra room on the front of the garment. That old See & Sew raglan pattern fits me well for a similar reason, but instead of gathers, it has a pleat at the center front. Gathers at the shoulders work, too. The trick is finding styles that don’t end up looking like maternity tops. I really wish I had bought that too-short blouse at Kohls in Spokane. It fit me well. I could have reverse-engineered it and made it longer. (I checked the website and it’s no longer available.)

I bought this book at the quilt store yesterday:

I love books like this that have all the math done for lots of different blocks in a range of sizes. I’m not averse to doing math, but if someone has already done it for me, so much the better.