Robe reveal, arpilleras, Suits and hot enough

 Today this is where we are in weather terms

The red bit where you see Trenton, is where I'm typing from. One more day and we hope for better temps.

In good news, I've located and ordered the fridge I wanted, delivery expected early. August. This is from the other suppliers I've used. They'll take away the old fridge, and were happy to hear this is a ground floor delivery.

And the robe is almost ready to wear. I need to add the pockets and belt loops and inside ties, but here's where we are. It's so soft, very comfortable. 

And Tatters, wonderful textile teaching group, is offering a class on constructing Chilean arpilleras in October in New York, well worth your attention if you're local enough.

Arpillera means burlap or buckram, the sturdy base fabric on which this form of textile art is done.

This form follows on the ancient women's tradition of subversive communication via textiles under repressive regimes, in this case that of Pinochet. 

A lot of the early creators were survivors of the disappeared ,  spent much time in government offices trying desperately to trace their men, husbands and sons, who had been disappeared by the regime. It became a form of samizdat, underground messaging,  as well as a record of the daily life of the people under Pinochet.

And since I don't have Netflix, and I'm interested in seeing what's the excitement about the revival of Suits, I'm borrowing it in DVD from the library. It's old enough to be on DVD!

Happy day everyone, whatever the weather.

Misfits, the robe's progress and a new Haggard Hawks puzzle

Yesterday's misfits box was the smallest show on earth, partly because they couldn't supply the yogurt, but generally because I was already supplied.

The cannellini beans are rapidly becoming a staple, and some of these are for upcoming African doughnuts, if I can find the recipe again. I noted it safely somewhere.

The hot weather has put a crimp in my out of house activity, but the robe is coming along. One great thing about using a sheet is that you can organize it to make max use of the selvages and hems. 

Here the sleeves end in selvages, the hem is already hemmed. It saves a good amount of stitching and looks good too.

I cut out the belt, facings and pockets and still have remnants. 

Working this way is like cutting your own hair, you can do a bit at a time, no law other than commercial pattern commands, say you have to cut out all the pieces at once. 

I've been cutting my hair for decades, and it doesn't look any worse than when I was paying hairdressers, who mostly have no clue about cutting anything other than straight hair, and only know the latest style which you'll get no matter what you say! 

At the point at which they started cutting my hair into  ghastly old lady bridge player styles because I was old, I quit and started doing it myself. Handsome Partner said not only did it look fine, there was a lot less crying!

The thing is that they have to cut all your hair in one appointment. If you do it yourself, you can just tend to the bits that grow fastest. That works much better if your hair goes into shock after cutting,  which mine does, sticking out hopelessly for days, however skilled and expensive the hairdresser.

Anyway, same applies to cutting out fabric. I cut as needed, just in time style,whatever bit I fancy working on next.  It saves losing parts, too, if you cut and use as you go. 

So yesterday, I made the belt, in two parts, to make it easier to turn inside out. I turned each half right side out and I'll stitch the parts together. The ends are already hemmed, just need overcasting.

Then pressed it, with the seam down the middle, you do know that trick? Much better finish than seam down one side. 

Same applies to knitting when there's a seam, say on a scarf. Or making velvet painted scarves. You press then finish the ends to secure the seam in place.

Today I'll attach the facings, straight pieces down the front, more engineered ones round the curve of the back neck. After that just belt loops, ties for inside, and Bobby's your auntie.

And I roasted a little chicken yesterday, to have great cold food available in the heat.

 Slices off that,  with green salad and carrot sticks, sun tea and an apple, made a great supper.

And since it's Friday or some such excuse, here's a new Haggard Hawks for your annoyance, I mean pleasure.

Happy day, everyone, and please be in touch or  thought with dear blogger E, who has had to say goodbye to beloved kitty friend and companion Lukas.

Photo AC 

Robe in progress, via reading, and future food

One of my knitting buds says she thinks about future knitting while doing current knitting. I find that reading a quiet work such as this

means that another part of my thinking is busy designing the Next Thing. So after a while I found I was drawing out the plan for my sheet robe, 

then laying it out on the spare bed, only available biggish surface. 

And cutting, and trying on.

This is a twin size flat sheet. And the sleeves end in selvage, the hem already hemmed. This saves a bit of stitching. 

Also there's a big chunk of fabric left for facings, belt and pockets.

It's pinned together wrong sides together, because I'm doing French seams. 

I used a favorite robe to figure out sleeve size and how to cut the front neckline. I'll cut the center front, then attach facings, after I've stitched the side and sleeve seams, easier to manage for hand work.

So I have  Celia's House to thank for this progress.

And yesterday Madhur Jaffrey  showed up,

for future great cooking ideas along with a lot of information about India and all the cultures there. 

In other news, I texted the appliance store to order another fridge like the one I got for the condo, to replace my own, 35 years old and showing its age.  I've been postponing this for years but it's time.

Happy day, everyone, I already, early this morning had Gary over asking for an id of insects, worried about Billy, would she be stung. 

I doubt it, they look related to dragonflies uninterested in biting people or animals anyway, but he's unconvinced. 

So let's worry about the sting when it gets here, hm?

The Ides of March, and other more cheerful thoughts

Today's the Ides of March, the day his wife, Calpurnia, warned Julius Caesar to not go to the club meeting with his buds, give it a miss, and he went anyway, despite her saying beware.  And when his best friend, Brutus, joined in the fatal attack, exclaimed "You rotten brute, you!"  Or something.  

Anyway, on this and a couple of other months, the Ides falls on the fifteenth.  Not every month though, for reasons I have forgotten, in the midst of studying how Julius Caesar was busy dividing Gaul into three parts, also for reasons I have forgotten.  The rewards of a classical education.

Onward.  Today's stitching was a bit tricky, very difficult getting the needle through several layers of fabric.  A needle with an eye big enough for three strands of floss is not easy to pierce with.   I did the ties on the Robe, two of them, anyway, so as to have them harmonize with the rest of the work. Then my hands needed a rest.

The sashiko stitching, that's the running stitch you see here, will be on one layer only in the next part, much easier to deal with.  I mixed the thread colors in the needle, too, so as to give a bit more subtlety to it.

Here's the threads in a very messy heap, waiting for action

And here's the sashiko done on two of the ties, so that they look like this

Now the ties look like part of the work, not an afterthought.  Next I have to mark the curves and shapes of the sashiko to be done on that side, seen here as the left, after I stitch down the peacock motif permanently in place.

Then there was lunch

Fast food again, this time a dish of frozen cooked leeks, potatoes and onions from the freezer, leftovers from some earlier pasty caper.  And the last little ball of dough from the tortilla recipe.  

I really recommend this fast food idea.  You make the flour tortilla recipe, I don't think the harina one would be sturdy enough, knead and divide into six bits, wrap separately in parchment paper and freeze.  Then an hour of thawing for one piece, roll it out on a floured countertop, fill, seal, bake at 400f for 20 minutes, spritz olive oil on top to keep it pliable.  You can make one big pasty like this one, or two smaller ones, from one ball of dough.

It's about 25 minutes from thinking of it to eating it, if you remember to get it out of the freezer, time to wipe the counters, do a few dishes, little bit of macarena around the kitchen.  I do like my little kitchen dances, who knows what the passersby think, since the window opens on the street.  Then your lunch is ready.  And, a nice misfits salad, fit for a queen. All the veggies in the pasty were misfits too.  The yellow potatoes make really great stuffing types of results.  And you've done a fitness exercise, too.  

I often do stretches and Eight Pieces of Silk exercises in the couple of minutes I'm waiting for something in the microwave.  Balancing exercises, all that. A couple of minutes is plenty, done fairly often.