in which our plucky heroine is gradually recovering...
My eye is much better than it was a week ago, thanks to the use of multiple antibiotics and the assistance of the digital alarm on my phone. Still not sure what else the wakey wakey every three hours is doing to me other than keeping the level of medication as evenly distributed as possible, reckon that will be more obvious once it isn't necessary to get up and be functional quite that frequently.
Rather than drawing, cutting, and stencil-printing a new 3 part cave horse decoration for the pocket of the brown linen pinafore, my eye fell on this cloud motif from one of the 2023 stitchbook pages, and there will be a subtle bas-relief chain stitch embroidery instead. Eventually a new cave horse stencil as well (assuming that the old stencil remains mysteriously missing) to be used on a different pinafore, as the process of refurbishing the closet contents continues
Have been putting together "sewing kits" for garments - grey Chinese landscape shirt, teal floral
blouse, 1 pr teal long janes, 2 pr brown long janes, brown/black
pinafore overdyed waffle weave, teal pinafore overdyed herringbone, grey
chambray linen pinafore, taupe/black shirt overdyed pinstripe. Blue
black textured pinafore... This sounds like a lot, but almost all the current pinafores in my closet are wearing out, after anywhere from five to seven+ years of steady use. If I had more clothing, each individual garment would last longer as they wouldn't be worn as frequently. My goal is to have approximately 7 or 8 of my wardrobe basics: pinafores, knit tops, shirt/blouses, long janes, and summertime popover dresses; I don't usually meet that intention. There are also a few everyday dresses, a few popover tops and a nice assortment of handknit wool cardigans and pullovers.
Managed to talk myself out of this very desirable fabric from Blackbird -
brown black gingham linen!! (It is lovely but do not need to spend over $75 on shirt fabric, see above list of many potential new garments that are all using fabric currently on the resource shelves here in the "sewlarium")
※※※
The original plan to use Ariadne's handmade lampwork glass buttons on the Chinese mountain print shirt didn't look great in the light of day. The taupe/black buttons got lost in the fabric rather than being the interesting focal point they really deserve. Instead, they will be used on a shirt made from the micro-stripe linen, which will be overdyed to be taupe/black, and have black pick-stitching along the edges. Just enough remains of that stripey fabric to cut out the shirt.
As part of my planning, have been looking over the assorted yarns on hand and thinking about what knitted accessories get worn the most often. Am always happiest to have various handwork projects set up so can work on things "as the spirit moves". The Murano Squares Bandana is a frequent first choice in cool weather, the pointed cowl shape, and the feel and drape of the Noro Kiri yarn combine to make it so. In June of 2025 I
overdyed a skein of grey Noro Kiri to dark chocolate as contrast with vivid turquoise.
My current thought is that the remainder of
the chocolate brown yarn has good contrast with the grey; if knit counterchanged from the Cloud Mountain bandana (grey with dark brown spots instead of dark brown with turquoise spots) it will coordinate nicely with the grey/black/taupe section of my wardrobe. Note: was trying to figure out how much of each color was used the first time, so as to know if there was enough for a second go round... occurred to me to use my kitchen scale! If a whole skein weighs 4 ounces, and the finished scarf weighs less than that, and there are 2 ounces left of the already dyed dark brown, then it will all work out neatly. I am certain there is an algebraic equation that could be written to be more precise, but in the intervening decades, my algebra has all fled.
※※※
This just doesn't look as photogenic as the Smitten Kitchen recipe images, probably since I accidentally overcooked the cauliflower. Nonetheless, it is delicious. Even though I made a half-recipe of the "
Cauliflower Tomato Masala with Peas", the greater portion of it is now in freezer cubes after a dinner, a lunch, and even using the last bits in the dish for breakfast, topped with egg and a slice of Havarti; it is quite filling. I did substitute snap peas for the regular peas called for, in order to use what was already here. This is tasty enough that it will be added to my hardcopy recipes as a template.
※※※
this weeks whinges: Went all the way downtown to the Federal Building to the IRS office to pick up forms and instruction manuals for taxes this year... Bah! Despite all that time spent, and having to take off shoes/daypack/phone/charger/wallet/keys/jacket/wooly cardigan, and go through the x ray and wanding to get inside, when finally at the office, there were in fact
no tax forms or their specific instructional booklets AT ALL! The paperwork kiosk was empty, and the singular clerk said, nope... no backstock and not getting more.
And in the further enshittification of Walgreens saga: The prescription ordered a week ago (with 7 still left in the container) had still not arrived, and they couldn't say when it would show up. Maybe by the end of next week? They apparently only order things once a week nowadays. It sure would have been be good to know that, so as to request refill several weeks earlier. Am now trying to transfer that scrip to a different pharmacy, further away but still accessibly by bike, that is open 7 days a week instead of 5, and that has what I need in stock (I called and checked first)
※※※
March SMART goals (x=extra)
| # | THINGS MADE | THINGS FIXED | THINGS GONE |
| 1 | ruffle pillow shams | cardigan length | recycle bin |
| 2 | clothespin bag | cardigan button bands | recycle bin |
| 3 | brown linen pinafore | cardigan ribbon facings | - |
| 4 | - | planted rhubarb | - |
| 5 | - | - | - |
| 6 | x | x
| x |
| 7 | x | x | x |
| 8 | x | x | x |
| 9 | x | x | x |
today's gratitudes -
- line dried laundry, even in the city it still smells wonderful, plus yesterday was dry and breezy, so laundry chore is just about caught up, save for putting it away
- found two Talenti tubs of pecans stashed in the bottom of the freezer. Breakfast museli will be much nicer now.
- this is the children's book I really enjoyed this week:
"The Puppets of Spelhorst" by Kate DiCamillo
Time of Isolation - Day 2087
. 
. 
