Summer Evenings

I'm house-sitting for one more week. I sew by day and drag myself out of the house at night.

Breeches, going out in the mail tomorrow. Eight hand-done buttonholes and it took me way too long.

This week I got invited to two Biblestudies. Monday was the charismatic Biblestudy, hallelujah, thank you Jesus! It was a small group of ladies, led by my Clothing Shed manager, reading through "The Bait of Satan." It was pretty basic, there was really nothing too shocking, and they all prayed for me that I would get a husband.

My current wholecloth quilt. It's pretty small.

Only once in a blue moon do I have a free Tuesday night, so this week with my free Tuesday night I went to a quilting group here in North Omaha. You know, when you take away the scary ethnically-diverse men with tattoos and chains, NorthO is really a lot of fun. The Golden Threads Quilting group meets at the Library every Tuesday evening, and they make quilts for people struggling with cancer. It was a fun bunch of older ladies(also ethnically diverse, but not scary) and some granddaughters.

Wednesday was the Young Adult Biblestudy. An older gentleman in my church has been telling me I should go for weeks now, so I figured I had to go at least once. I had preconceived notions of a group full of mid-twenties hipsters in skinny jeans and glasses. It turned out to be a more sportsy, tanned, and just out of college group. I hate to say it, but it was a little boring. When did my peers get so boring?

Yes, I'm a Woman

Last night(It was a dark and stormy night) I could hear the mice in the bedroom. Remember, there were no less than seven mouse-traps in that room, which I don't think I will ever be able to sleep in again. After I heard two traps go off I carefully went to look.

And there was a mouse sitting calmly there on the floor next to the trap.

 

Fort Atkinson SHP: This weekend is a Living History weekend, the first one I'll be able to make this year, and I'm looking forward to it.

I suppose the practical, level-headed thing to do would have been to grab something and smack the mouse. I do consider myself, generally, a calm, level-headed person; but one cannot be practical and level-headed ALL the time. I thought, well, they set off two traps; there's five left. Odds are against them. And sure enough, next morning's investigation showed two dead mice. Well, almost dead. One was in a sticky trap(no, I am not humane) and the other was just lying on the floor. Not sure what that's about since I didn't use poison; but as long as it's dead oh well.

It's all just so disgusting. Mice are creepy and dirty and gross and loud and NOCTURNAL and I certainly don't ever want to touch a live or a dead one! Am I being too dramatic? I don't think so. I'm still not sure what will happen to the bodies; I'm only here for another two weeks. How fast do they decompose, I wonder?

Of Mice and Women

I'm currently house-sitting for friends, just for two weeks this time. They've been fighting a resilient mouse population for some time, which battle I naively believed to be confined to the kitchen. Sunday night debunked that myth. The horde decided the bedroom was more interesting. The amount of scrabbling was enough to keep me awake until early morning when I gave up and moved to another room. Yes, I surrendered.

Picking Cherries in the rain last weekend. No, I did not climb the tree.

When the morning came around I(sleep-deprived and exhausted) went with vengeful thoughts and bought a hand-full of mousetraps. I set no less then seven traps in that bedroom, but didn't catch a thing. Now I'm wondering, where are they now?

Labor Day 2013

This week I'm wrapping up projects before I go home and the craziness starts. This past week I've finished a two skirts, started a blanket and a pelisse; made a waistcoat and trousers; painted the front deck; planted parsley;  had a friend to tea; nannyed three crazy boys; etc. Tomorrow I'll pack up, clean the house, and go home. The PHF and the S.E.W. are both mere weeks away and we're all starting to feel it.

My scrap blanket. All the strips are linen, cotton and wool leftover from my projects. The blanket is more than six feet long and about as half as wide as it will be eventually.

This past week I also had a lesson in welt pockets:

Don't ask why all the welt tabs are on the top, instead of the bottom of the pockets. Just call it artistic license. The vest is made from some old vintage wool and lining from my Grandma K. All it needs now is buttons!

I Cannot Get Out!

I dread locking mechanisms. I have little experience with them and they always seem to work against me. I've lived in the country all my life, in a old house with children where indoor locks were not allowed. Ask Mom how Josh locked himself into the bathroom as a toddler- it was, apparently, traumatic, and indoor locks were never allowed again, even in the bathroom. Which was sometimes awkward when we had guests, but anyway, even in our new house though we do finally have bathrooms that can be locked, using a key to lock the entryway doors is hardly necessary. One, there's always somebody home, two, we have nothing worth stealing, and three, we still kind of live in the country.

So yesterday here at the house(sitting) I was trying to lock the screen door, the key stuck, and I tried so hard to get it out that I bent the key. I didn't even know that could be done.

Some basic projects finished this week:

A shift out of natural linen; I had some long strips left from a paneled skirt, so this shift is made up of several skinny strips. Not historically correct, but linen.

A petticoat out of heavy cotton. What can I say, stripes are fun.

Also completed, two T-shirts and a denim skirt for my upcoming trip. I'm convinced that home made Tees are best. I generally dislike the standard neckline and sleeve length of store-bought Tees, so with home-made I alter mine to have elbow-length raglan sleeves and a high neck.

Sitting in a House

I'm house-sitting again all this month, which I suppose is no excuse for neglect of the blog, but as you can see it hasn't been my priority. The schedule of my first week alone went like this:

I got up; took care of emails. Then I went to sew. Around 2pm I would finally remember to eat lunch. Then I would sew. Then around 7pm I would think of dinner. Evenings are reserved for sewing by hand, and bedtime is strictly before 10:30pm.

A week of that was enough, and I've learned to sprinkle my work with other happenings.

The Liberty Bedcover

I'm almost done with my Liberty quilt. I've quilted my way through Northanger Abbey, Mansfield park, and the whole Spiderman trilogy, and I only have a few teeny bits left. Goodness, the girls scream like crazy in the Spiderman movies. I should hope that if I ever end up hanging from a skyscraper, that(besides the fact I cannot physically scream like them) I will conduct myself with a little more aplomb. 

 

Housesitting:  I truly hate gardening, but I do love tidiness! Trying to keep plants alive on my watch. Rain helps.

House-Sitting Again

I am watching someone's house again, and I'm already on day six. I was trying to figure out the other day how many weeks I've spent in this house over the past year, and I guessed that all told it came to ten weeks. The residents have had a busy travel year.


I'm glad to be here. September was a rather stressful month, with guests, the History Festival, and house-hunting(just thinking about moving is stressful). I'm enjoying the relaxing sensation of silence, my own bathroom(three bathrooms to myself!), and the freedom of my own basic schedule. Jen is always warning me how dangerous it is to live alone, because it's easy to succomb to independent living. But it's so relaxing.


And I do have chores. Today is domestic day: water the immaculate flower beds, laundry, dishes, and an afternoon trip to take Grandma to the Doctor. My goal while here is to get a great deal of sewing done. So far I've cut out three bonnets and three waistcoats, but what I really need to work on are military coats for my brothers. I'm just scared to start on them.