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Author: CJ

All the Scout tees

All the Scout tees

 

Well, I finally finished the fourth of my Scout tees the other day. Motivation was sort of waning there at the end, making the same thing four times isn’t terribly exciting. But it’s pretty representative of my wardrobe: I find a fit/cut I like and buy one in every color. Currently taking a break from tracing my Carolyn pajamas to post this. 🙂 The pattern is nice and straightforward – a back, a front, a neckline, two sleeves – good for getting my groove back. Now I am ready for bigger things.

New Year, New Resolutions

New Year, New Resolutions

Well, I started this blog with the intent of blogging, and haven’t really kept up with it at all. Maybe I can revive this thing this year.

Let’s try some goals for 2018.

Sewing: a garment a month. I need to get better about keeping track of my plans. A lot of times I’ll find a pattern I like, order fabric for it, and by the time the fabric arrives, I’ve forgotten what I was going to do with it. So I have all this fabric that I know I bought for something specific, but I don’t remember what. Actually, on that note, I’ll talk about my most recent fabric purchase: five yards of cotton lawn for some Carolyn pajamas, and hopefully enough of a cute knit I stumbled upon to make both a long and short sleeved Lark tee.

Shooting: still gonna say move up a class. Didn’t happen in 2017 because I didn’t practice. My eleven year old gun bit the dust, I got a new one but didn’t test fire it so I found its problems during matches. Ah it was fun, kept me on my toes. 🙂 I am planning to get back into it this year. Area 1 will be at my home range this year, so I’m working it, which I’m looking forward to. I’ve worked a half-dozen or so Nationals, but never an Area match. It’s early enough in the season that I have zero performance expectations.

Needlecrafts: I wanted to crochet stuff because when I knit I am constantly afraid that everything is going to fall off the needles, but, all the patters I like are knitting patterns. So I’m knitting. I signed up for Julie Hoover‘s sweater club and I’m pretty excited about it.

Body: Bench press 92% bw, squat 1.3% bw, deadlift 1.7% bw. Get body fat down to 20%. Six years of stress eating has gotten me up to 25% and I am so uncomfortable. The source of my stress appears to be done with me so I think I can do this.

Fostering: 2017 was my first year fostering baby kittens and I love it! It is time consuming, but so worth it. I foster failed hard with my first litter, kept two of them, and am now at my absolute max for personal pets. It is hard to let them go, but it’s gratifying to know that you raised those teeny critters into happy, healthy, confident kittens that someone is going to absolutely love. All of the kittens I’ve fostered have gotten adopted the day they hit the adoption floor, so I think I do a good job.

This blog: I think I’d like to aim for a post a week. It seems like most blogs are focused on one subject – sewing blogs, shooting blogs, gardening blogs…. mine is all over the place. I have so many interests and I’m definitely not going to maintain a separate blog for each of them. Who knows, maybe I’ll find another sewist/weighlifting/catlady/gardener out there. 🙂

Seeds

Seeds


I finally got seeds started, later than I had intended, but I have zero garden beds yet, and my bird bath was frozen this morning….. so I’ve got some time.

The plants I ordered arrived yesterday, a few sweet potatoes, some strawberries, a couple of yacon…. I guess I’m going to have to pot them until I have a spot for them.

Making Cat Food

Making Cat Food

 

I started feeding my cats a commercial raw diet a couple of months ago, because the one I adopted in July kept puking and I couldn’t figure out why. The raw diet fixed whatever the problem was, so now I get to figure out how to make it work for my CKD kitty. On the recommendation of my vet, I did a consultation with Dr Pierson of catinfo.org and got a low-phosphorus recipe for him. My grinder arrived today, so I just made up the food. We’ll see tomorrow if he eats it. 🙂

Growl

Growl

I am getting ready to do a consultation with Lisa Pierson (and my inner nutrition nerd is SO EXCITED). She wants specific test result values separate and in a chart organized by date, to see trends over time, so I’m having to pick through his (extensive) medical record to find them. What is amusing me is how often the word “fractious” is in there. And every physical exam says “respiration: growl (normal 16-40).” Ah Blitzen, you’re my guy.

Grainline Linden the first 

Grainline Linden the first 

I have been so itching to get back into sewing. I wanted to make something relatively easy, to get my sea legs back. During the years I’ve not been sewing I have acquired a new sewing machine *and* a new serger, so I needed to figure that out. I have been wanting something simple and warm to wear for my volunteer work at the animal shelter, but I didn’t want a hood. Enter the Grainline Studios Linden pattern. Not a lot of pieces, straightforward construction. The fabric is some french terry I found at Joann’s and it was not the funnest thing to work with. The cut ends kept curling under, which made the neck binding really hard to sew on to the shirt. I actually gave up about 2/3 of the way through and pulled if off the serger, but then when I looked at it I decided I could just stitch the seam allowance down and it would look fine. And it does. But I will not be showing what the inside looks like. 😀

I don’t have a lot of experience with knits so I don’t know if that’s how they typically behave. I have a cute printed sweatshirt fleece on the way, especially for this pattern, so I’ll get to try again, and if the same thing happens I’ll have to cut longer neckline pieces because I really do want to make a bunch of these.

My sewing room still needs organization but I am doing it between sewing tasks now which is actually fun. I have all this fabric that I bought for specific things and I don’t remember anymore what they’re for, so I’m going to pick something random and make a Butterick 5526 out of it.

Garden planning 2017 

Garden planning 2017 

Veggie seeds/plants I have already acquired:

  • Scarlet-runner beans
  • Glass gem corn
  • True black brandywine tomatoes
  • Rapini
  • Brunswick cabbage
  • Cosmic purple carrots
  • Black vernissage tomato
  • Arikara sunflower
  • Dwarf gray sugar pea
  • Yacon (2 plants)
  • Jersey yellow sweet potato (3 plants)
  • Old North Sea strawberry (3 plants)
  • Sweet potato rare collection (4 plants)