Hey, @sea_lemon! I was inspired by your Junior Mints notebook tutorial to make a cover from an old print-on-demand photo calendar I was saving. I didn’t know exactly what I’d do with my calendar photos, but it seemed a waste to pitch perfectly good prints. Now they have purpose!
I seem to have become one of those people: the ones who wake up with only a hungry cat as an alarm, who (after feeding said cat) will go outside to cut fresh flowers to enjoy indoors.
I finally figured out why I haven’t been blogging like I used to: I journal longhand instead, pasting photos of my garden into my gardening journal, creating pages for plants I’d like to research, noting which seeds germinated successfully and which didn’t (I’m looking at you, larkspur), etc.
However, I do like the convenience of being able to just search my blog and compare year to year for particular events or milestones, gardening or otherwise. So, here I am, back-blogging Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day for May 2021.
The highlights of this border are the dwarf Japanese maple and the tree peony, but it really shines in early spring, when all the bulbs come up and remind me that things will get warmer and greener.
After all these alliums finished blooming and their foliage browned, I dug them up (and LABELED THEM) in preparation for converting this border into something more minimalist that the chipmunks might not find as inviting.
This is the woodworking equivalent of that time I successfully sewed a pincushion.
I’m planning to make this into a platform bird feeder… but the chipmunks might assume it’s for them. We’ll see how this turns out.
After a few years of sewing garments, I decided it was finally time to participate in Me-Made May. To quote Zoe, the creator of the challenge:
Me-Made-May is a challenge designed to encourage people who make their own clothes to develop a better relationship with their handmade wardrobe. You set the specifics of your own challenge to make it suitable and useful for YOU. However, one very common pledge is for a participant to aim to wear one self-stitched or refashioned garment each day for the duration of May.
I’ve made a few garments for myself, but not nearly enough to last me through an entire month. So, my challenge for Me-Made May was to wear each of my me-made items at least once during the month of May, and to take notes on what I like most and what I would improve about each garment.
I chose not to photograph each garment, so I’m not planning to post a slideshow of my me-mades, but I will recap my notes and future plans.
Colorblock 3/4 sleeve knit tunic
Made in March 2020 from double-brushed polyester knit, with a pattern adapted from Simplicity 1199. Double-brushed poly knit has to be one of my favorite fabrics to wear, although the fact that it’s polyester (extruded microplastic, as I understand it) puts it lower on the “sustainable sewing” preferred fabric list. This shirt is one of only a few that I’m OK with wearing to the office.
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