Plain and Practical

A Little Sunshine, Some Banjo, The Couch all Day . . .

How do you make a really neat flat fell seam?  My Great-grandmother Kizzie taught me.  The problem is that you have all these sharp little pins to compete with, and one of your hands is inside the sleeve holding it, and you can't see where you're going, and if you move too suddenly--there's those pins again!

So you get a little help from a Good Egg!  You can slide this easily into the sleeve, and control it on the outside as you work, and with the pins on the outside, one hand holding the fabric over the egg, and the other making the tiny stitches, you will soon have that seam all done!

My Good Husband fixed a friend's laptop computer for him, and then we saw a broken one for only $50 and he went and picked it up and fixed that one, too.  So if any of our friends is interested in a buying a used laptop, or having theirs repaired, he is even able to get your data back off of it and return that important information to you.  What a handy guy.  When he leaves town for three days all the appliances break down, waiting and pining for his return.  Sometimes I just call or email that something is broken, he says "it's probably . . ." and when I go back to investigate, it's working.  No kidding.

What is it, with engineers who pair up with creative old-fashioned girls?  Is it really our cooking?

Clothes for Myself and Others

Here's some of the blouses I cut out and set aside in folded sets with their thread and scraps.  These are all cotton or linen blends, and I'll show them on hangers when I get them done (there are ten all together).  These are one piece tops.  You fold the fabric so that the fold is at the shoulders, then fold again at the center, and then cut one line from sleeve cuff to hip hem.  Two short seams on the sewing machine, or by hand, and then hand sewing all the seams with flat-fell seams, smooth and non-fraying for years to come.  The neck opening is cut and created by rolling a tiny hand-finished edge to the inside of the garment.  Tah-Dah, a couple of hours each and you have a classic, simple, Plain garment good under aprons or jumpers, good over turtlenecks in the winter, modest and frugal yet appealing in its clean simple lines.

 And almost all the rick rack and other trims have arrived, for the tea cozies, slippers, hats all in wool, and for some pincushion projects I've got gathering up in a basket on the projects-to-come table.  Still looking for my fids for folding and pressing your own bias tape, they haven't been used in a few years so they have drifted to the bottom of my collected world goods, hmm. 

and I finished another penny rug for Etsy to post in a few minutes, wow, I've been meeting the neatest people, crafters and home-schooling moms and retired ladies finally able to spend their time taking classes in art, all kinds of women from our wonderful community of crafters and artists.  Thank you, Etsy, for making such interactions possible for all of us!

And a special thank-you to Took, my friend, who listened very patiently yesterday while I complained about life in the city and not having a garden and no birdies to feed and and and . . . I hope you each have a friend as kind as Took.  If you don't, you should get one soon.  She's GREAT!

Don't Waste Your Money Looking For History Here, It's just a Theme Park for Entertainment

So I looked over the web site for Greenfield Village, the weather report was to be wonderful, and I needed a day to walk and enjoy myself and feel a little "out of the city."  I was completely and totally disappointed in Greenfield Village.

First off, they asked at the window (after a 30+ minute wait in line with some of the worst behaving children I've ever seen, and a loudmouth rude man who bitched when the guy in front of me hesitated a second to make sure the window was actually asking him to step forward), "Did you drive here?" and I said "Yes."  That means $5. for parking.  But the web site doesn't say that, it says $5 for parking will be charged to purchased tickets, with a link to order them.  It does not say ALL VISITORS WILL HAVE TO PAY $5 FOR PARKING.  So $25 for my little walk.

Besides watching children tear branches off trees and plants and pull on every structure around without their parents intervening, and one young lad screaming at the horse with no parent in sight, there was trash on the ground and when I picked up someone's tissue, noticed no trash cans, so I put it back down.  Stopped in at eight different buildings and only one had a demonstration going on.  One had a sign up that there would be a demo at 12:05 for the carding, something as a spinner I really wanted to see, but I wear no watch and there was a stopped clock below the sign.  I knew it was at least two hours wait, and I was not willing.  Almost everyone in the village was at the glassblower's, I couldn't even get in.

They paved the place over with pink dyed sidewalks and all the roads are paved.  I saw one horse and buggy and at least twenty model A's giving lazy or old visitors rides from stop to stop, they stink, are noisy, and I saw a child run out in front of one and he never hit his brakes at all (no accident, thank God).  Many presenters were there to entertain, especially for children in the village green who were playing with hoops and stilts, and a barbershop quartet.

I wanted to step back in time.  They obviously want to pretend they are a superficial hollywood set, putting their players (wearing modern underwear, by the way) as entertainers.  No one was making anything, no one had their back to the labor.  If the "old days" were run like this they would have all starved to death in freezing cabins.  The store shelves are nearly empty, and what's there is dusty and unappealing.  Except the official tourist crap store, where dozens and dozens of sunbonnets marked "Made in China" hang for sale, and bins of China-made toys for your children are stacked about the sales floor.

So I'm looking for suggestions on where there are more realistic "historical villages," where people quilt, sew, spin, slaughter chickens, plow fields, hang out clothes to dry, and look like hardworking everyday folks actually living in that time.  And frankly, I think $25. was way too much.  I should have taken my own quilting to the riverfront with some iced tea and a sandwich, and given the $25. to the local homeless shelter to feed the lonely, toothless old men who gather there every day.

Now I can Cut Out the Mittens and Slippers!

Here's my loot from the Art and Scrap box today, without their support of this local artist, I could not afford to make the beautiful things that come from my studio, or help bring in a little "egg money" to our household!  Here are petitpoint wool spools, sock mending yarn, and someone's stash of needlepoint threads all organized and lovely and waiting to become tiny flowers, featherstitching, and other sweet designs on the wool mittens and slippers and hats planned for this fall.  All these bright colors will spruce up those brown, cream, yellow and blue wool pieces and give them that special little touch of individuality.

I also started a writing project.  I thought about the ten Bible quotes I use most often to focus on my simplicity and plainness, and how certain projects of sewing, caring for neighbors, etc., dovetail into those quotations.  So I started listing them and their related projects underneath them.  Then I discovered that I had a little story, a personal little parable, for each, and made notes for those to be expanded later.  So now I have over forty projects that need patterns drawn out, instructions written, recipes to be tested one last time for accuracy, and a lot of writing to do!  It's tentatively titled "A Little Plain Doing" for now.

One project that is too important to include in "A Little Plain Doing" is my BRA PROJECT.  Once again, my bra brand has been cancelled, and the replacement look-alikes are so cheaply constructed (and so overpriced, and so made in a sweatshop I'm sure) that I am developing a pattern for a homemade, simply constructed bodice that will lace up the front and contain no metals or elastic or velcro or snaps.  And I offered it to an established pattern company when I get it done, they will have work to do to adjust it for various sizes of boobs and waistlines, of course, but their prices are modest and I have heard nothing but good reports of their Christian ethics so if they are interested, they may have it when I am done.  Too many women need such a pattern to be more comfortable and save money.

Will keep you posted, and if you have any suggestions for "A Little Plain Doing," something that is too hard to find and you wish it was in a book somewhere, help me get it into my book so others can have the opportunity to read it.  We are such a tiny minority, let's stick together and help each other and spread the Good News!

Me, the Killer of Good Irons, is going back to work on my log cabin quilt from Kathy's kind gift of fabric, and then some time on the couch knitting with BooTheCat.  And enjoying the storms rollin' in.

Peace, Valerie Hibbard

Went To Visit Grandpa Max

Hey, went down to Albany Ohio and visited with my Grandpa Max, who raised me since I was two.  While there, I had this perfect setting for sanding, primer-paint, and truck-painting my 10-year old Toyota.  You can see my "city cart" in the back, good for bringing groceries up to the 19th floor, laundry down to the 6th, and generally getting used all the time for stick gathering, flea markets, and craft sales.  Across the field is a series of three lots for sale, and some cows back behind those (I call them the weather cows, you can tell what's happening by seeing what they are doing).

Here's grandpa's string beans, you are not supposed to be able to grow them out of pots but he has a whole row of them down the scooter ramp, and I picked a mess of healthy big beans off of them.  He opted for this method when the groundhogs kept ruining them, and because he can water and care for them in his scooter from the ramp above or the sidewalk below, where he has them situated.

 

And here I snuck a picture while he was playing with the hose, getting ready to do the tomatoes that are in pots by the back porch.  He complained that they were all stems and not tomatoes this year, but he and I and several visitors ate on them all weekend and he still had several laid out ripening on the porch rail when I left, I even made spaghetti sauce and homemade soup while there--so I think the tomatoes are doing all right!

Got some Etsy orders over the weekend and they are packaged and ready to send out this morning.  Also, the Doctor's Fish Quilt is done so will be delivering that too.  And while I was visiting down at Max's, we drove another 40 minutes over to Jackson, Ohio, to the best quilting fabric store I know--Guhl's.  I brought home $100 worth of fabric.  Would have bought more but I forgot that they only do cash, no debit/credit card, and that was how much I had in my wallet.  I think Husband was relieved.  I got plenty of free smaller stuff but this was all backs for quilts, and white cotton for underthings for me.

Had a crazy idea while driving that few hundred miles, I think maybe I will try out a couple of simple corset stays instead of bras.  Something sort of like an old fashioned corset, not as severe, so there's more fabric on my back instead of a strap digging in.  Seems it worked for hundreds of years and does not wear out like elastic, and could be homemade.  My bra brand is now $35 each and they seem to be using a cheaper (planned obsolescence?) elastic that doesn't even last six months.  I can sew.  It's in the realm of possibility.  So I got some proper cotton for making those, at Guhl's, and will keep you posted!