Patterns MIA

Mornings are for paperwork and tasks that require mental acuity. I finished those mid-morning yesterday and went to my sewing room, intending to make up a muslin of my thoroughly frankenpatterned blouse pattern. The weather will warm up eventually and I will need some blouses to wear.

I could not find the pattern. A few weeks ago, I folded the pattern pieces carefully and put them into a plastic envelope with the original, and now I can’t find the envelope. I suspect it is with the fabric I set aside for the muslin. Now I just need to find the fabric.

I gave up searching and came back downstairs to my office to work on a quilt on the Q20. I quilted for about an hour, but an hour at a time is about all I can manage before I start getting sloppy.

I went back upstairs to my sewing room and decided that a zipper pouch would be a manageable project for the afternoon. I can make simple zipper pouches in my sleep; for this pouch, I chose a pleated zipper pouch pattern following this YouTube tutorial. I was halfway through the project when the Shiny Toy came home early from work and needed some foundation plans printed so he could prepare bids.

[Printing in our house has been an ongoing headache. I have a Brother laser printer hooked up to my computer. Theoretically, he should be able to print from his computer in the office to that printer. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. That printer doesn’t seem to like complicated foundation plans. A few months ago, I moved the Epson inkjet printer to his office. He couldn’t print to that one over WiFi, either, so I bought a cable and hard-wired it to his computer. His computer still can’t find it. (Yes, I have updated all the drivers.) To avoid having a frustrated husband who cannot print foundation plans, I have him e-mail the files to my computer and I print them.]

At that point, it was almost time to start working on dinner, so I just gave up on the zipper pouch. I need to do some topstitching, then assemble it.

It’s a weird color combination, but that green fabric was a fat quarter sitting on my cutting table so I used it.

I made this project the other day:

I’m going to make at least one more because I had to work out quite a few bugs in the process of assembling this one. That’s a purchased onesie, cut in half, with a skirt inserted into the middle. Cute, yes. A PITA?—also yes. Serging a woven fabric to a knit fabric is not without issues. I have some ideas for making the process easier. Fortunately, Old Navy onesies are not expensive, and they are better quality than the packaged ones.

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Seedlings are popping up all over the greenhouse. I am weeks behind other people in starting plants, but my schedule is based on several years of experience growing plants in the greenhouse. I don’t think leggy tomatoes or rootbound plants make for an attractive plant sale. We all end up with the same size plants at the end of the summer. According to the long-term forecast, April is supposed to be warm. I expect plants to grow like gangbusters between now and the third weekend in May.

A group of us got together last night at the church to prep onions and potatoes for the brat booth at the auction this weekend. This started a few decades ago as a way for our church’s youth group to make some money. The auction paid the kids to cook and serve brats—a locally-made product from a company owned by a member of our congregation—but our youth grew up and moved away. We have another generation of kids in church, but they are all under the age of 10, so adults staff the brat booth. The husband finds this hilarious, because the adults working the booth wear aprons that say Mennonite Youth Group on them.

I still smell like onions this morning.

I have to make a roaster full of chili for our homestead foundation pie social at the beginning of May. Susan sent me a text yesterday that one of the grocery stores is having a 12-hour sale today and ground beef is $2.98 a pound. It has been running $5.98 a pound. I need 15 pounds for one batch. I’ll get that today and make the chili tomorrow. It will go into the freezer until we need it.