Property of the Gnomish Empire

Machine freehand embroidery of a cat’s face following the stencil provided with Burda 9326. (It’s not your vision—this is very low contrast yellow against white, black, & orange. Inconspicuous by design.)

I’m unduly pleased with how the embroidery came out. My machine has a stitch width dial & it brought back etch-a-sketch memories to fill in parts of the stencil with a single strip of zigzagging where possible.

Burda 9326 child’s pajamas, mostly obscured by a black jacket.

Burda 9326 child’s pajamas set done.

None of the bands worked out quite as envisioned, though I would guess most of that was user error as I cut this out in a busy McDonald’s playscape area. Still, a narrow neck opening, be careful. Good relaxed fit pajams true to size. Pockets!

#sewing #sewsky 🪡

I haven’t been this delighted by a poetical mashup since Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees” was rewritten in the style of John Masefield:

“& I must to the sea again, where the people look like ants,
& all I ask is a branch that’s smooth,
so I won’t tear my pants”

(An Almanac of Words at Play, William R. Espy)

Yellow cat face from Burda 9251 freehand embroidered over the upper front pattern piece tracing from Burda 9251.

The good news: the landscaping fabric makes good embroidery stabilizer!
The bad news: I didn’t place any on the wrong side: that’s the upper front pattern piece.

#sewing #sewsky

A gray and white kitten rearing back on its hind legs to stare at a gray kitten paw reaching out of a gap in a bike trailer’s cover

A gray and white kitten peering through the shaded window of a bike trailer to stare at a gray tabby kitten sitting on a galaxy dyed blanket

Burley bike trailers feature:

interchangeable, replaceable parts (so I swapped the sides on which the tow bar receivers are mounted, and some squeaks I hadn’t noticed are gone now that the bar is on fresher padding)

gaps near the replaceable parts for access to bolts or kitten siblings

#ebike

Do flame wars count?

Good gods but we all went collectively insane, the half-year before 9/11…

Yellow zigzag stitching over a penciled pattern on tracing paper.

Think I’ve got it…

#sewing #sewsky

Open appliqué foot being used to sew through the tracing paper.

I’m trying to get that kitty face from the tracing paper to the fabric. I went over it with a marker, which didn’t bleed through as hoped, but at least I can see the pattern now…

Cute ghost-cat flannel fabric with a nearly invisible overlay of tracing paper [landscaping fabric] with a penciled cat face drawing.

In my first “I miss JoAnn Fabrics” moment—how am I gonna transfer this? I can’t see it to stitch over the tracing paper (it’s actually landscaping fabric) as planned. I have powdered chalk & soap slivers, but no wax sheets. Burda 9326 cute cat pajams.

#sewing #sewsky #garmentsewing 🪡

A black bowl of red beans & rice (with salt) plus the pot in which more beans are still simmering (without salt).

Found some ‘Cajun seasoned pork bones’ in the supermarket discount section & took the gamble. Guess central Texas is close enough to Louisiana to receive authentic flavors. I couldn’t master cooking this when I was an immigrant elsewhere & homesick for eating something American.

Most of the toppings are on the pizza and not in the child?!?

That’s very well-done olive distribution. Our four-and-a-half year old is good with pepperoni also but struggles with the more clumpy toppings.

So much for all the current kerfluffle over securing the Panama Canal by the spurious ‘war on drug runners’, unless that southern route is still the one that aircraft carriers must take.

No pictures of our rain-soaked garden because an inch and a half of it disappeared into the dry earth leaving not a single puddle. The sugar snap pea seedlings grew four leaves in a day, that’s the only sign. Carrot & onion seeds sprouting in new pots made from cheap trash cans.

Harriet Bra Pattern Note: This pattern uses UK bra sizes. View the measuring guide (and here is a metric version) to find your size. (This is a digital sewing pattern.) Get ready for some oomph! Refinement meets support ...

The E-H cup range begins to push beyond what’s practical to sew. My F cup bras are even more sensitive to slight seam misalignment.

I use three hooks instead of two, personal preference. Churn them out in batiks & quilting cottons, wear daily with joy. 2/2

shop.clothhabit.com/products/har...

I have a VERY narrow bridge and the Harriet by Cloth Habit does also. It’s got very wide-set shoulder straps and so it has potential to gape at the upper cup of the breast is too pendulous (i.e. if the band is sitting too low). It was originally drafted in UL sizes up to E cup—works well. 1/

I was. Apologies for being unclear.

For what it’s worth, I’d forgotten I was wearing a pair today, so they’re workable. I’ll just be seeking a different pattern next time I want to try making undies. (Finding the best bra pattern on the first try spoiled me.)

A pair of purple panties (Jalie 2568) under a sewing machine (Kenmore 1701) with wonky picot edge lingerie elastic & smoothly applied braided elastic.

Let’s call these a learning experience.

Learned I don’t like the delicacy of lingerie elastic & prefer elastic with enough heft for handling:
Learned that Jalie 2568 is good enough as drafted but if I’m going to sew my own I want more shaping (back raised, front lowered).

#sewsky #garmentsewing

I thought balloon sleeves were never good for our height and I’m happy to be proven wrong. That top is so flattering!

*glances at blue spice basil which lodged and grew on the far side of the sidewalk in what I cannot with a straight face call ‘soil’*

If our kid hadn’t run over it with the bike & perfumed the air, I’d never have found it.

*holds up unnameable polygons*
Widgets!
I play wargames with minis!
I do not own enough of them to lay end-to-end to measure a person, but I have barely pattern making training enough to reuse them over distances without compounding measurement errors!

Purchased angel food cake adorned with whipped cream, streaks of purple icing, halved strawberries*, & dinosaur shaped cookies to be “Tokyo” Godzilla cake. *strawberries have been in short, mushy supply for a few weeks now in Texas** & we had to cut out a lot of bad parts to get usable berry halves **for many crops, the closest most practical truck farm sites are in Mexico. Texas is LARGE & the soil is not good

To add to today’s feed of minor victories in passing on silly lore to the younger set:

Preschooler began singing on our way into the donut shop, with me coming in to harmonize (poorly) on

🎶 oh no
there goes Tokyo
go go Godzilla! 🎵

with roaring afterward. Delighted at least one passerby.

Stovetop kettle and 110 volt tears.

Instructions unclear, mentally pictured miniature weedwhacker.

I like the idea of mechanizing the tedious chopping but haven’t got the hang of any sort of chopping gadget.

WELCOME Round Rock Pumpkin Festival Pumpkins $1/lb. Bounce House Train Rides Pumpkin Painting Corn Pit / Treats Face Paint

Went to the pumpkin festival. It’s for certain a preschooler themed experience, so we hit it at just the right year. School aged kids looked bored. Toddlers & kindergarteners were having a blast. The “corn pit” is a sandbox enclosure of feed corn & lots of happy creative play happened.

#rrtx

A brown-gray striped tabby cat celebrating the recent removal of his post-surgical cone by lolling upside-down in a human’s arms & lap.

Pinecone kitty is so comfortable without his cone.

He also just attacked my butt to pounce on my fart. Must’ve made my skirt ripple. How’s your morning going?

#cats #catsofbluesky #timetotrimthoseclaws

One dilute orange & brown tabby older kittens snuggled together on a gray duvet. One cat is yawning: the other two look half-awake.

Our silly foam eating cat has been medically cleared to no longer bear the Cone of Shame. He celebrated by stealing a similar sized lump of fresh baked bread. (Steakhouse copycat rolls.) Since he couldn’t play bite so hard, his siblings rearranged the pecking order & they all cuddle & groom more.

Your headline writer continues to be one of the finest wits in today’s media.

Greetings from Texas. 😑

I think you’re on to something, if a quick glance around the full ridership rapid-routes of my city versus the few riders of the neighborhood dawdlers is any confirmation.

And it added 10 minutes every time I turned it on today, then I used one power level boost higher than usual & that drained half an hour of ‘time’ over twenty minutes of pedaling, but rebounded by an hour on the way home with minimal boosts…I’m almost convinced it’s recharging as I pedal…

The preschooler had a day out at the arcade with papa & has been worshipping the ground he walks on ever since. Earlier this week wanted to know, over breakfast, what color shirt papa was wearing so they could dress alike, & was nonplussed that the accurate answer was ‘he’s asleep, so he’s naked’.