Now that my French class is over I have my Monday and Wednesday evenings back. Or should I say "J'ai mes lundi et mes mercredi soirs." I hope that was correct - I've only had six months of French. So what to do with all that time? I wanted to keep my sewing momentum going and work on my next project but I had 4 lbs of strawberries that needed to be made into jam and canned or they'd soon be headed for the compost. My husband liked the strawberry jam I made a few weeks ago so much that he bought more strawberries for me to make more jam. Thanks honey. I am not pioneer-woman-Suzie-homemaker. I only did the canning to turn the apricots and plums from our overproducing fruit trees into preserves. We grow some strawberries, but the slugs eat more than we do, so there certainly aren't enough to make jam. But it's strawberry season here and the major growers for a lot of the country's supply are about 20 miles south of here in Watsonville. Hence, we can buy flats of strawberries (6 pints) for $6. It seemed like a good idea to make jam. It wasn't really hard, just time consuming.
Fortunately I didn't spend all evening making jam and had some time to play with fabric. My box from Emmaonesock showed up. Gorgeous fabrics. I'm a little dismayed though - some of my cuts are barely the yardage I purchased and one is actually under because part of it was cut for a sample. It's a sold-out fabric so I can't get more. I hope I can still get a shirt out of it. They were rather pricey fabrics, otherwise I would have bought some extra. I think I'm more dismayed because I sometimes read on the sewing boards that people consider her cuts to be generous. I wonder if I'm not in the "generous cut" club because I request my American Sewing Guild 10% discount. Actually that's probably not true because I didn't get the discount nor the generous cuts on my previous order. She offers the ASG discount so I'm entitled to it and getting 10% off really did influence my purchase of the pricey rayons. I can afford to buy them but it's psychological I guess to think that I'm not really paying the full price.
I petted and examined my new fabric and piled them up on the cutting table Good grief, I hope my new cutting table doesn't become perpetually buried under fabric now! I decided that my next project will be another Manhattan Skirt, so I washed and dried the citrus print I bought in Mesa. Maybe tonight I'll cut the fabric and get started.
Oh yeah, I also finally used my new sewing machine last weekend. My Pfaff 7570 and Babylock Evolve serger are certainly a wonderful combination and I'm sure many sewers would dream for such nice machines. So why did I buy another sewing machine? I guess because I could. I convinced myself that there were times when I needed a second machine. That I'd take the new machine to sewing classes, use it when the Pfaff was set up for embroidery, or set it up on the dining table when I needed to sew big things like curtains or quilts. So this weekend I had a sheet that needed mending (the hem had come undone) and my Pfaff was already threaded with thread for my skirt. Perfect time to use the new machine. I set it up on the cutting table, learned how to load a bobbin, threaded it, and sewed a new hem. Yipee - I spent $900 on a sewing machine so that I could fix an old sheet! No, really, I will use this machine. I have to because I told my husband I would and I have to keep justifying my sewing purchases so that I don't feel guilty buying more fabric or notions...or sewing machines.
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