My Mom is still waiting for test results, so while we’re waiting I’m keeping busy.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but I set up a great trade with my friend Kelby.  He’s very tall and doesn’t sew, but he needs clothes for living history.  I sew, and I need both music lessons and wooden things.  Kelby makes wooden things and gives great, mind-blowing music lessons.  So, I sew for him, and he will either build stuff or give me lessons.  Recently, he made me a fantastic raised vegetable bed, using reclaimed oak from a barn that fell down in Central Virginia.

It’s fantastic.  It’s sunk about a half-foot below grade, so it should be deep enough for me to grow things like potatoes and carrots if I get the notion.  Kelby and some other friends dug and built and worked like mad over Memorial Day weekend to establish the bed.  I couldn’t keep a shovel in my hands for more than a few minutes–I kept getting shooed inside.  In most instances, that would bother me.   I dig in that soil more than anyone else, and I have an independent streak wider than a continent. That weekend, I went with it.  It was lovely to stay out of the sun and terribly hot weather.

Last weekend, we put several inches of gravel in the base and filled the rest of the bed with soil and compost.  The guys even stepped in for that.  Some folks came over for a sewing day, and once it got later in the day, three of the guys wandered outside and started moving and mixing leaf compost and soil.  The next thing I knew, the garden was full and raked and beautiful.

Now, I just need to get some sort of edging board so I can make pebble or mulch paths around it.  No mower is going to fit between the bed and the fence. I’ll show you someday.

While all of that was underway, I was teaching some friends some of my garment construction techniques.  And then I started cutting perfectly good fabric apart to sew it back together in a different fashion.

Our living history group uses pieced red and black checks in some pretty significant items.  Very few people make them, and they get worn out, so they’re in high demand. I made a couple of linen ones last fall, and we decided to make another version with smaller checks.  Maybe I’ll show you those too soon.
It all involved a lot of teaching, a lot of piecing, and a ridiculous amount of trouble with my serger. 

The thing is plaguing me.  I’m worried that it needs to be repaired, and I don’t have time for that.  Does anyone ever have time for machine repairs?  Seriously.  I just went through this with my fantastic sewing machine.  My demonic serger . . . I’m not feeling a lot of love for it right now.  And I keep convincing myself I’m just threading it wrong, though you think I’d know how to do that by now.  Right?  I haven’t had any head injuries recently.

It hates me.  Clearly.

Now, I need to prep yards and yards of fabric to sew clothes for way too many people.

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