Be Careful What You Wish For

Silly me. I wanted it to be summer and now it’s SUMMER with a vengeance! Over 31C outside (that’s nearly 90F) and 27C in the house on the main floor. I don’t know what it’s like upstairs because I’m afraid to go up there right now! The temps are at least 15 degrees Celcius hotter than they were a week ago and records are being broken in the opposite direction. Maybe that will teach me to complain about how cold I was in the beginning of July? Probably not.

I spent the morning watering the front garden and the dye garden. Not the back garden because I did that last evening but it needs it again now along with all the planters. Sigh. Shades of last summer’s scorching. I spend most of my spare time watering stuff so it doesn’t all croak on me. At least the heat-loving things are perking up finally. I swear the blueberries were ripening as I picked them!

I already pulled out the garlic and it’s drying on the deck.

It seems to be ok in spite of the rust, those red spots on the leaves:

Unfortunately I’d better throw those in the garbage instead of the compost or the city yard waste bin. Otherwise I’m just spreading the fungal disease. In spite of it all, the bulbs look to be alright. We’ll see how they store – though I’m not going to be able to braid them like usual because the tops need to go bye-bye. I’m also going to have to look for some disease-free garlic at the farmer’s market to plant again. Though how will I know if they didn’t have the same problems this year that I did?

What else? Oh yeah. I got more books in the post today. Yes, I know. Damselfly The Fanatical Book-Collector strikes again. Call it retail therapy. Or something. I can afford it now so I’m indulging myself. Anyway, I consider it education and sometimes text books are needed. Right? Anyhow, I’m really enjoying these because they fill in the gaps that the Connie Crawford book left in my brain. How to make the patterns fit if I don’t have a standard body shape? The Lee Hollahan book is good, but I’ve discovered it’s nowhere near detailed enough for me. OK if all you have to do is a few minor changes but mine are anything but minor or few.

So I got this book:

Sandra Betzina’s Fast Fit: Easy Pattern Alterations for Every Figure. And it seems really good so far. I like a lot of Sandra’s styles and the fact that she knows that everyone comes in their own special size. Her website is a little umm…hard sell. Not that I begrudge anyone from attempting to make a living but I likely won’t pay to get the webTV episodes. I personally don’t learn nearly as much from video – I keep wanting them to go faster and skip the stuff I already know. I can do that easier with a book. And books carry much more information in a way that’s easier to access at random. Videos are good though if you’re a more visual learner or for stuff that is hard to describe and you need to see performed to understand. But I digress.

The second book is this one:

Fit for Real People by Pati Palmer & Marta Alto. The ladies they are fitting in this book are definitely of all different shapes, sizes and ages. They step you through what needs to be done to a particular pattern to fit its intended body. I’ve only glanced through this one so far.

I have to say that the Palmer/Pletsch website is very helpful, particularly the free e-magazines you can download in PDF. Very professionally done with lots of helpful information.

The last book is back to Sandra Betzina again:

Since I need some more up-to-date sewing information, I looked at this book in the store before I ordered it. It seems to have lots of new methods (to me at least) which I need to peruse to see if they will come in handy to know. More reading! Yay!

I’ve now drafted my sleeve pattern and am working on the skirt sloper. Right now I have to remove this little laptop computer from my lap before I melt into a complete puddle.