Lazy, or smartpants?

Even before I got the new sewing machine I was falling in love with tutorials I kept seeing for ironing board covers.  People are using fabulous vintage fabrics for their boards - sheets, tablecloths - and then getting to look at the prints every time they push the creases out of things.  What's not to be crazy about?  Even leaving out the fact that the edge of my ironing board cover somehow managed to get mildewed.

I was so all over the idea of making one myself.  And then the other day I was out shopping for a magazine organizer and...

Oh.

$10, favourite colours, print I love, padding included...

Sold.

A bouncing baby Bernina

For the last five or so years, I've been pining for a new sewing machine.  New-To-Me would have been fine.  Just new enough to have incorporated any of the technological advances in the industry over the past 70 years, you know?

Good heavens, my old sewing machine is old enough to be my mother.

And really, it's awesome.  You can sew anything on it if the wires are hooked up right to the foot pedal - even organza, if you put some tissue over the feed dogs to keep them from catching.  And it still winds bobbins (though it's no longer possible for me to find new ones that fit it, and if your speed is off with the foot pedal, say because the wiring shifts, you get disastrous tension issues) and stitches frontwards and backwards with a flick of a lever.  You can even adjust the stitch length a little.

Still... I've been wanting something that would do More.  And it didn't take long to fall in love with Bernina and want one of their machines.  I actually saved up and everything.  And now a beautiful one with quilting features - the 550 QE - is resident in my house:

(that's a sample of one of the buttonhole stitches lying in front of it, by the way.  It's such a thing of beauty I had to keep it in the picture.)

A training session comes with the cost of purchase, but I have to say I don't think it's necessary.  The shipping box comes with a very interesting and exhaustive manual, the company website comes with instructional videos, and the machine itself has arrows everywhere telling you where to draw the thread next when you're aiming for the needle.

I was a bit freaked out by the bobbin-filling experience though.  I got about halfway through the steps involved in filling one on the Singer, and when I snapped a lever in preparation for the other half I was amazed to find the machine doing all the rest of the work for me.  I didn't even have to cut the thread when it was done, as such.  Just drew the thread past a cutter.

There are some crazy number of stitches you can make on this machine, and having used the most basic one of them for more than twenty years already I've been branching out to take advantage of them.  But this is my favourite so far:

I anticipate rather a lot of sewing to show up here in the next few months.  Can you stand it?

Ice-covered trees

Just after Christmas we had snow, followed by a melt and some rain and then some more cold, which gave us this:

Even my car's reindeer antlers looked prettier.

Happy New Year!

Some things I'd like to be doing

I'm getting totally burnt out on the crazy of this year, and I'm ready for Christmas.  Not because I'm done with all the prep, but because I'm done.  You know?

The other day I found myself thinking longingly of the evenings I spent browsing through creative ideas and tagging them from my Pinterest account.  That's how much I need a vacation.  (not to put down Pinterest, which I find immensely valuable.)

Some things I would do if it were up to me:

Sit down
Cook Chicken Stew with Dumplings for supper
Bake bread just for the aroma
Watch a marathon of Foyle's War
Stare at a grey sky as long as I want from a warm cosy room
Curl up in front of a fireplace with friends and hot chocolate
Read a book, cover to cover and not just a page a day

I'd add 'nap in a sunbeam' and 'enjoy a really good cup of tea' except that I'm able to make time for those things.  They are called Survival Tactics.

And now: back to work!

I missed my window

My cutoff for getting all the leaves raked up and out to the curb is the first snow.

Guess I blew that...

At least I got some into bags first!

Some pretty things

It's definitely autumn here, with either bright blue skies behind starkly orange tree canopies or grey days that could stand in for murky movie scenes in a graveyard.

The local church has had its big fall rummage sale, and I got some vintage linens, one of which makes a nice background for the white bowls I bought recently:

The excitement about those is, they match my current dishes.  White dishes are pretty boring in their way, but they look very peaceful in the cupboard with strong clear glasses that all match each other from size to size.  My dish cupboard is one of my favourite things about my kitchen: even in the most chaotic moment, I can open that door and take a deep breath knowing that some things get to stay orderly no matter what.

I found a mug in the same shop - Anthropologie, if you're shopping - with an M on it.

It's not a great mug, or rather, it's a great big huge mug with a terrible handle.  The position is wrong for balance and the size is wrong for fingers and you can't really carry the mug at all without burning your knuckles.  On the other hand, it's got an M on it!  And pretty scrolly flowery things.  And you can fill it once and then sit down for a really long time.

Also: I discovered that the local posh grocer makes a cranberry-orange loaf every bit as good as the one mum taught me to make, which means I can have it without having to make it.  Not that I don't like making it.  But if I did make it, it would use up all the time I might otherwise spend eating it.  You can see my difficulty.

Since August I've been thinking a lot about writing, by which I mean writing has been happening in my head, but my hands are busy knitting.  I don't know why that is.  I used to think all those other interests are me putting a barrier between myself and my writing and feel quite annoyed with myself for not being more responsible and focused.  Now, at least some of the time, I wonder whether the other interests are feeding future writing, like random plants do a fallow field. 

It's a pretty thought, isn't it?  And it leaves me free to do what I like, which at the moment is to drink another cup of tea.

Murky Grey Mornings (how I love them)

I'm sure this is a product of having read Wuthering Heights so many times as a kid

(seriously, is that any kind of example a 12-year old should be getting for adult relationships?  apparently yes, since I've always been better off than Catherine.  read it lately?  whoa)

but I do love a murky grey morning in fall.  There are so many possibilities for the day, all of them layered - from rain clothes and boots to the many ingredients in the cookies you'll probably bake or the pages of the book you'll read since it's too crummy to go out gallivanting through the heather. 

No sun to make you squinty or too warm.

Leaves standing out but softly against the sky if they are still on their trees; the ones on the ground bright against the darkened pavements.

Air wet and chilly enough for a good strong sweater

A hot drink that much more comforting

A nap that much more enticing

and anything you actually accomplish so much more rewarding.

Also, I get to go out and hear music while knitting later, and then have supper in a restaurant with friends.  And I tracked down my favourite weird skirt to wear. So even if it was gorgeous and sunny and warm it'd still be a pretty fab day.  Yay!