Updates!!!

Well, it's been one week since my blogiversary post. Thank you to everyone who left a comment, whether you are regular readers, de-lurkers, or new visitors! I had 20 comments, which is a respectable following for me. I assigned everyone a number based on the order in which the comments were left. Then I hopped over to the Random Number Generator and came up with...ikkinlala! Congrats, ikkinlala! I will send you an email asking for your information. I checked out ikkinlala's Blogger profile, and although she doesn't have a blog listed there, I figured that any Canadian student (my husband is Canadian! and I like students!) who is also a Pisces (I'm a Pisces!) can't be all bad, right?

On to the sewing update. Last Monday in class we learned how to wind our own bobbins and thread the machines. I had trouble finding the last hooky thingy before threading the needle, but there are some very helpful students in my class and we finally sorted it out. I practiced doing some straight stitches on some scrap cloth, but...well...my "straight" stitches weren't really straight. At all. I'm going to have to do some more practicing. But hey, that's how we all learned to knit too, right?

The cloth shown here is what I chose to use for my tote bag. The grellow is going on the outside, and the brown flowered cloth is for the lining. I know they're not exactly perfect matches, but a) I don't care, b) it's just a first sewing project that I'm expecting to mess up anyway, and c) they make me happy. So there. :) I washed the...uh...shoot. What do you call pieces of fabric? Just "fabric"? OK. I washed the fabric and now I have to "square" it, which is really just a fancy way of saying that I have to rip a strip off the top and bottom of each piece (with my bare hands!) to make sure I have straight lines there. Then I have to iron it, pin the pattern to it, and cut the pieces out. Keeping in mind that the laminated class pattern I used wasn't perfectly straight, that I'm not sure I can cut the fabric around the pattern perfectly straight, and that we all know I can't sew perfectly straight...I'm looking forward to a very crooked first project...unless three crookeds make a straight? No, I don't think so either. :-P

And finally, here are a couple photos of my Hex Coat. I have the two sleeves done and most of the two fronts done. I just have to add arm shaping to the back piece and then I will be ready to sew all those pieces together. After that it's just a matter of knitting the hexagons around the edges of the front and it will be all finished! Just in time for the weather to heat up, of course.

Actually, speaking of weather, June Gloom is still going strong (and has been for...quite a while!). Last night The Brain and I went to a small gathering at the house of a fellow faculty member to watch a film projected onto a screen hung in their back yard. It was quite a nice setup, except that it was SO COLD! I don't know why I still haven't learned this despite living in California for two years now, but: IT GETS COLD AT NIGHT! VERY COLD! I was wearing my Cassidy hoodie and my Endpaper Mitts, but I was still shivering the whole time. See, back in Minnesota, when it's hot all day, it's hot at night too. It's hot and muggy and the humidity keeps building up until you have a thunderstorm and everything cools down. And then the cycle starts over again. Down here it's hot while the sun is out, and then once the sun goes down it gets cold. I understand it in theory, but I still find myself confused every time I go outside after dark and I'm cold. Every time. Don't they say that's one of the definitions of insanity: doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result? I don't think I'm insane, but man: it is very difficult to override a lifetime of weather expectations!