Birthdays, Beans, and Blouses

Today is the husband’s birthday. He is five months younger than me, so from now until November, he and I will be the same age numerically. Today is also our neighbor Theresa’s birthday. And yesterday was Susan’s birthday.

Ryan, the Bernina tech, came out on Thursday to service the Q20. His mom owns the quilt store where I teach. We spent a fair bit of time gabbing about sewing machines while he worked. I think he enjoys talking to someone who knows enough about sewing machine mechanics to have an intelligent conversation about them. And I always learn something new from him.

I went to town early yesterday morning because I got letter in the mail that the Jeep title paperwork had arrived at the county MVD office. The last time I had to do this for a trailer—before the county farmed out LLC registrations to MVD Express—I arrived when the office opened at 8 am, took a number and got onto a text messaging list, then drove around town and ran errands until they texted me that they were close to my number.

I arrived at the office yesterday at 8:02 am. A line of people had already formed. I would have been #50 had I taken a number to wait, but I checked in with the lady at the information counter. She pulled my title paperwork, had me sign at the bottom, and said I could do the rest of the registration via their website and the county would mail me my plates.

Surely there is a more efficient way . . .

I did another batch of white beans this week. We were completely out.

We should have enough beans to get us through the summer.

I was going to prep a pattern yesterday afternoon, but after looking at it, I am having second thoughts:

I planned to make View B, which has a pleated front and keyhole opening (no tie). The issue is the sizing. This pattern comes in alphabet sizing, with huge jumps between sizes. I fall between the finished bust size for the Large of 42-1/2" and the finished bust size of the XL of 50-1/2". The Large would be slightly too small, but the XL is going to be enormous, even if I make it in a very drapey fabric.

I need to look more closely at how this is drafted to see if I can scale up or down. The design is not that complicated, so I wonder if I can frankenpattern this with Simplicity 9469, because I know that one fits.

I don’t know—maybe I should give up this quest for some nice woven blouses and just stick to knits. Those I know how to fit.