Update on winter sowing

Hooray! yesterday I was doing some cleanup in the garden, and checked on my bottles. A recent high wind knocked about 10 of them onto the ground and those look a little beat up. I don't know if the seeds will be able to make it through the soil now, as they were knocked around and are not near the surface in all likelihood. However, one bottle had a little sprout! this was Bachelor's Buttons, planted on Feb 14. And today, I noticed a sprout in the lupins bottle sown on Jan 25, another sprout in a second bottle of Bachelor's buttons sown on Mar 8, and 2 sprouts in the bottle with wild flax sown on Feb. 28. This is exciting. We have a couple of chilly days until Saturday when the temps will warm up and all of next week looks warm, plus the nighttime temps are all above zero. I expect there will be more sprouts coming with the warmer temperatures.

Landscape quilt finished

Wallhanging finished and hung up

I have finished all the sewing on my second landscape quilt wall-hanging. I can see lots of things that need improving, such as using fusible web when applying large pieces of fabric. The bird house and the window would have been better if I had done that, less rippling would have occurred. But I figure it is all a learning curve and I am content to leave this one as is. Things that I see could be improved will be incorporated into my next and subsequent efforts. I already have another one in mind.

It is interesting that the part I found the hardest, the leaves, has turned out to be my favourite aspect of this. Perhaps it is the colour, but I just love the leaf section.

Winter sowing

Boy, I sure hope this method works! 55 bottles sown so far, with a variety of annuals and perennials. Most containers are duplicates, as I plan on giving half of these to granddaughter Hannah who is hoping to grow a cutting garden this summer. She will sell bouquets at the local farmers' market and at a cottage resort where she works in the summertime.

Dawn jeans finished

All except for the hems which I will leave until I am sure all the shrinkage is out of this fabric. Too often I have hemmed pants and found them too short after a few washes. So these will just be rolled up for a month or two until they have been washed a few times. As usual, I have trouble with the waistband. You struggle to make pants fit and everything is going fine, you finally get them fitting as you want and then you attach the waistband and it all goes wonky. This happens to me so often, that now I baste on the waistband and wear them around for a day before doing the final stitching. I also left the interfacing out of this band, as I just didn't want any more stiffness. The fabric is a heavy twill and I don't think jeans commercially made are interfaced in any area. So why should I interface my jeans? Besides I always wear my teeshirts and shirts out, not tucked in, so no one will ever see this band. My waist is not something I want to show off.

I had made a few pairs of jeans years ago when the Vogue Calvin Klein pattern was released. This must have been 35 years ago. And I seem to recall that it was the outseams that were double top-stitched. All of today's jean patterns do this double top-stitching on the inseams now, and the outseam is only single top-stitched down to the bottom of the pocket and then a bar-tack is done at that point. Not sure I like this, the top-stitching is not very visible this way, and why go to all that bother if it's not going to be seen? I think, the next pair I make, I will top-stitch the outseams instead. I remember doing this with difficulty as the legs were sewn up and you had to stitch down inside the tube. But it would be simple to leave the inseam to the end and then you could top-stitch the outseams while the legs can be laid out flat. All in all, I am pretty happy with this pattern. It fits me much better than the Ginger or the Morgan jeans and I do prefer non-stretch denim. Also, I obviously prefer a high waisted pant. Mid-rise or low-rise pants always feel as if they are falling down and I am constantly tugging at the waist to pull them up where I want them to be.

A challenge for 2021

I am going great guns on sewing a pair of Dawn jeans. Yesterday I put in the fly and am so pleased with the final result. The topstitching thread is Mara thread (recommended by Lladybird) and it is wonderful to work with, no more shredding of thread or getting stuck. Today I completed the back pockets and attached the yokes to the back. This means the major construction work is pretty much finished. Now what needs doing is to baste up the crotch, then the inseams and the side seams in order to have a fitting. If all is well, I can then proceed to finish those seams as called for in the pattern.

I have been really motivated to get moving on these jeans because I have a sewing challenge coming up and I want to be ready to dig into it as soon as I have all the necessary supplies. My daughter (who lives in Texas and took up sewing two years ago) and I were talking about sewing something challenging. She said she would love to try her hand at traditional tailoring. She has been smitten by the tailoring posts by www.juliabobbin.com - they are quite incredible. Julia has made a couple of jackets with traditional tailoring methods and her sewing is amazing. So I suggested that we do a project together, the Jasika blazer from Closet Core patterns. Well, we are going to do it! Not being ones to procrastinate, both Rebecca and I tend to jump right into things. So we have both ordered the pattern, she went and bought 3 yards of navy linen at Joanne's and is now searching for some Bemberg lining and hair canvas online. I recalled a linen suiting that was in my stash for years, I saved some for myself from my fabric sales days and I think I have about 3 yards of this.

The linen is obviously two threads woven together, a deep chocolate and an ivory, but it is the finish that is amazing. It feels like silk suiting. I don't want to change that finish in any way, so I will not pre-wash this fabric. And since I have no dry-cleaner anywhere close to where I live (they could steam the fabric to shrink it), I will soak this fabric in cool water, and then hang it to dry once we get a warmish day. Then a lot of pressing will be done before cutting out. This is going to be quite the challenge. I haven't hand tailored a jacket for 30 years. I was taught those couture methods at a school in Ottawa and have hand tailored three jackets for myself plus a coat for a customer when I was doing dress-making. But it has been a long time and it will be an exciting experience to go through again. For now, I am waiting for the pattern to arrive, then I will make a muslin to get the right fit, then there is all that hair canvas to catchstitch to the garment pieces. It will be a lot of work but I am looking forward to it. Not to mention that it is thrilling to find my daughter drawn to the same things that give me such pleasure. It only took 30 years, but it was worth the wait!