Flypaper thoughts: still homebody edition

• Life is where we left it
• Still physical distancing
• So against the grain for a Canadian personality
• Folks cross the street to avoid being too close
• I am so sorry we say
• Don't want to be rude
• I am sorry they reply
• We are sorry enough for the whole world
• Just in case
• Daisy is on the mend
• Two more weeks in her upgraded cage rest to a blocked off living room
• She is OK if she can see me
• Can you cover me?
• I ask my husband
• Just a minute to go get something
• I'll be quick
• I notice that people are getting a bit touchy
• We are all like Daisy not so good when our people aren't around
• Little things not big things
• I watch my husband sew the masks 
• And I want to tell him
• Clip your threads, clip your threads
• Almost nothing upsets me as much as people who don't clip the threads
• I once taught a woman who sewed jackets for her children who were all in the navy
• She never cut one thread
• In fact her garments were coated with random loose threads
• They can but those off themselves she said
• I used to have visions of sailors on the decks in the North Atlantic
• Trying not to fall overboard while they trimmed threads from the ends of seams with nail scissors
• My husband wants to know what kind of person 
• Puts a pellet of soap in the dishwasher without taking the plastic wrap off it
• And then wondering why the dishes aren't clean
• I know exactly what kind of person
• Someone who cuts her threads
• I miss the kids the most
• I am craving little people
• The littlest one in California Facetimes
• Dog she says and I show her the dog
• The other guys a few streets away call me on the phone
• They call to talk to me in funny voices
• To ask me to bring over my board games and leave them at the end of the driveway
• They know I have board games from when we play them here
• They know I don't play cards
• I am terrible at cards
• Just an interruption in the conversation
• What kind of grandmother can't remember how to do 
• Go fish they want to know
• This kind of grandmother I say
• The one who lets you each bake something different in the kitchen at the same time
• And cleans up
• Maybe I should use this time to learn a card game
• That would really surprise them
• How's your hair?
• I cut mine and with my sister's encouragement by text
• Am trying the Curly Girl method
• This involves using lots of conditioner and brushing your hair with your fingers
• Why are you wearing one of my T shirts on your head
• My husband wants to know
• I am doing the Curly Girl method I tell him
• Absolutely nothing surprises him
• Maybe I should consider that fact
• Not sure my technique is down though
• I look in the mirror and remember something my dad used to say
• Hair looks like a cat sucked it 
• Maybe it's the wrong kind of T shirt
• I am experimenting with low sugar baking
• Made a bunch of oatcakes they could use in the NHL
• An excellent Swedish apple pie with no crust
• A carrot cake that was mostly carrots
• The thing is we don't have much sugar
• Next thing will be war cake
• The one without sugar, butter, or eggs
• I am sure there is a diet that belongs to somewhere
• Vegan Keto?
• I am going to be sewing for the young women in my family
• I have a question for you
• How come when we had babies we went up a size
• Women used to say " well before I had kids..."
• When describing their figures
• It was assumed that your belly would settle in
• Like it was supposed to, like your own mom's did
• Why does your stomach feel like a pillow Babsie
• My grandson once asked
• Because I had babies I said
• My mom had babies he said
• She doesn't feel like that
• So why do young women give birth these days and end up by summer with a flat abdomen?
• What do they know that we didn't
• Do you think it is the oat hockey pucks?
• The pies and the cake on my counter?
• Should we be eating war cake?
• Life is full of so many mysteries
• And now I have time to solve them

Visual Islands

Things have been very busy around here. My husband and I have gone deep, deep into making masks for nursing homes and those hairbands with buttons for healthcare workers. 

I have been doing the cutting and my husband has done most of the stitching.

In addition I have been working on some of the new about-to- be-released spring Jalie patterns and will be showing those to you soon.

This whole pandemic experience has been, to say the least, kind of weird. There will be many stories of loss and lost when all this is done.

In the middle of that however there has been real opportunity to consider the value and beauty of those places where we are nesting in place right now, and of the people in our lives. This is such a good thing.

I want to share one of my own bright spots with you.

My son's girlfriend is in Texas. We are not quite sure when the border will be re-opened and we will see her again. She's a photographer, and a long way from us at the moment. But one of the wonderful things she has done during this time is to document some of the sights and sounds of every day life.

I have found the pictures and short videos she has posted nearly every day really cheerful. I thought I would share some of them today, in the hope that they will give you the little lift they give me.

Here's a sample to start courtesy of @kaleyazambuja

Enjoy.

Flypaper thoughts: well we are still here version

• Needless to say we are all still homebound
• On some level I am enjoying it
• There is a relief in limits
• Got to remember that when this is done
• I am working with what I can find in the house
• Turns out I can find a lot
• Turns out good thing I never kondo-ed my life
• Clutter, particularly in my sewing room
• Is what you live off of in hibernation
• These notions, this fabric, these patterns
• Are to me what nuts are to a squirrel
• Something to live off of until spring
• We are making masks
• Like crazy people
• For the nursing homes, for the food bank, and even for some of my daughter's patients
• My husband has gone into full obsessive mode
• Developing systems and timing his unit production
• Sometimes that guy is my hero
• Food comes slowly by delivery
• We are cooking what we have on hand
• Simple
• I am noticing that all the selfie shots in social media
• Are now replaced by pictures of people doing things with their households
• More pictures of kids not being rushed around
• Board games
• Cards
• Baked bread
• The dog and the cat
• Notice how much people are not missing
• Not the stuff but the people
• I try to not think about that part
• I have one family in California on the other side of a border I can't cross
• I can't get closer that a few meters to my grandchildren just a few streets away
• I have another son who is thankfully in this country for once but I can't go visit
• Will he be gone when I can?
• These are little hardships
• My big lesson from these weeks is that I already have every thing I need
• And everyone
• How much of our baggage have we laid down during this?
• How much do we not really need?
• How much do we really not need?
• How clear it is what is precious
• Like the FaceTime chats with a one-year-old
• Like the fact of living with a hero
• Like the kindness of my neighbours
• Of women on bikes dropping elastic off at my door
• Or the sight of a neighbour who carries an ancient dog outside for the fresh air
• Wrapped in blankets and immobile in a cart
• But with his nose lifted to the smells of the breeze
• How beautiful is that?

Flypaper thoughts: still in quarantine edition

• Well we still have a pandemic don't we?
• I only hope it doesn't get too bad too fast
• There will be many stories out of this
• Hardships that are invisible
• I am thinking of my friend whose marvellous husband 
• Just went into a memory care facility
• Because he has early onset
• Now she can't go and see him
• I wonder what he thinks
• My mom said to me
• We got through the war, we got through the flood (Winnipeg in the '50s)
• We can do this
• Of course we can
• My first father-in-law was in forced labour in Russia in the war
• He walked back to Hungary in the winter
• How did he do that?
• The secret he said
• Was that he made sure, even if it was with snow
• He washed every day
• Now that was a something
• We are at the end of week one of self-isolation
• Daisy has a ruptured disc in her neck
• So she is on bed rest for a month and a half at least
• She's in the dog stroller in the day and not liking it
• But that's the way it goes
• Ever tried to keep a dog from moving their neck?
• But we can do it
• Main crisis at the moment is the shortage of flour
• My husband is a stress baker
• And I am a stress eater 
• A very successful marriage
• I made a decision to dress every day like I was still going to the office
• I sorted my enormous button collection on Tuesday wearing my pearls
• I knew I had them for some reason
• I had a female boss early on who told me
• If I was going to have a decent career I needed pearls
• Never wore them
• Thought I was too young
• Too matronly for me
• But turns out they are perfect quarantine wear
• So this is what I was saving them for
• Tomorrow I think I am going to put on stockings
• Covid-19 what do you think of that?
• You will be hearing from me again

Flypaper thoughts: quarantine version

• Home now after an odd trip home
• Double time
• In the house for two weeks now
• All good except Daisy
• She has a very bad foot/shoulder
• Trying to do telemedicine with the vet
• If all else fails will have to leave her in the yard 
• And have someone take her in
• Strange times
• My DIL in Berkeley has a a cough
• They aren't tested but she's been told to behave as if she has the virus
• Two front line health care workers here
• And a son and his girlfriend now separated by a border
• Hard when they sail out of your own safe harbour
• Not entirely patient with those who are noncompliant
• We need to get this done
• However
• My neighbour left muffins at the end of the driveway
• My son put his hand to the front window
• My husband is cheerfully stress baking
• I discovered a pattern piece I lost
• I am getting that sock knitted
• I folded the laundry as soon as it came out of the dryer
• I am making sure I wear jewelry and my lipstick every day
• I am using up all those Christmas bath bombs
• And eating peppermint patties
• I had a group chat with four seven-year-olds
• I made a lesson plan for my virtual home schooling
• Bees, capitals of the provinces, and creative writing
• I am modifying my old 4th year writing syllabus
• Work with what you have
• I think later in the week we should do cover letters 
• And how to address an envelope
• 6,8 and10, seems to me to be about time
• I have an idea for fractions with coloured water and measuring cups
• It occurred to me that I am living the life of a '50s housewife without a car in the Canadian winter
• Pretty close to being that person anyway
• Unpacking so I can get sewing
• Need to see those stitches form in a line
• Just want my dog to get better
• Happy with our leaders here
• That matters
• Someone smart I worked with said to me once
• Never stand too close to insanity
• It is contagious
• So true, so true
• I think I will sew small things tomorrow
• Important to sew in different proportions to events
• I am thinking of you
• One day this will be past

Flypaper thought pandemic edition

• I have been in the woods of Texas lately and offline
• Spent a lot of time with the wildlife and my own life
• Felt due after retiring from teaching this year
• In a few days we head home
• Early because of this Corona thing
• The Canadian government is calling us back to the mother ship
• A cooperative healthcare system means you cooperate
• We will be going back for two weeks of self isolation
• You know what in other times we called a sewcation
• Completely fine with being stuck in the house with food left at the end of the driveway
• Of course we have to get there first
• Only thing on my mind is my niece who nurses in long term care
• And my daughter with her own immune issues due to MS
• But of course she will be working because her patients are kids with cancer
• And they need her
• I am thinking of all I know about epidemics
• My mom nursed polio and TB patients
• She terrorized us all through our childhoods
• My dad used to say with pride "your mother could stop the bubonic plague in its tracks"
• When she used to come to visit she starting disinfecting the kids' toys before her coat was off
• Books people gave us when we were kids were baked in the oven before we could read them
• I only found out that all books didn't have warped pages once I was old enough to join a library
• Home sick
• Quarantine
• Isolation
• Used to be a thing
• Remember germs?
• Even those rounds of measles, mumps, and chickenpox we all had in grade two one after another
• Meant long stints in dark rooms and no one to play with
• Now there are commercials on TV for a pill you take so your flu vanishes and you go out the door to work
• Hard for that generation to get this lie low thing
• Time for thinking about the public good
• Which would do us all good
• So even though it broke my heart to tell the kids in California I wasn't coming to babysit
• And even though I had had patterns and fabric shipped there ahead
• That house didn't need someone flying in to see them
• Another time, a better time
• In the meantime on my way home
• Restored by the trees and the owls and the camping life
• To sit tight until this cloud passes
• And try to learn the lessons that this time offers
• While I sew myself some seams

Vintage sewing machine attachments : the binder

 The Binder

A binder, sometimes called a bias tape attachment in its modern version, can be used to attach pre-folded or unfolded strips of fabric to any raw edge. I find the older versions far more effective and precise than those sold today.

Concept:

Different generations of binder are available. The oldest, and simplest, have a scroll that feeds bias strips of fabric around a raw edge of fabric and while it turns the edges of the strips under before the fabric reaches the needle.

Binder for a 70-year-old Singer Featherweight

Later versions of the binder, called multi-slot binders, also have spaces along the scroll that will accept pre-folded binding or finished tape or ribbon of many sizes to bind or cover an edge. Here is the binder used with the first and largest slot to turn under a bias fabric strips:

Some of the multi-slot binders, particularly those made by Singer for slant needle machines, also have posts to help the binding feed into the attachment. Honestly aren't these beautiful pieces of engineering? These are my favourite of the binders because they are almost hands free.

Tricks for using it

If you are getting used to a binder it is probably easier to practice first with purchased pre-folded bias binding which has been stiffened. This just makes it so much easier to feed through the unit without a lot of attention. You can of course replicate this by spray starching your own custom made binding and pressing under a fold along each long edge. Once comfortable with how the attachment works you can make your own custom binding with the help of a bias tape maker.

At the machine it is important to adjust the binder so the needle will fall close to the edge to be bound. This is done by a screw in the older models, or in the slant machine post binder below, by pushing on a thumb lever to the left of the needle opening in the foot.

As with most attachments holding the binding up slightly, rather than flat to the bed of the machine, is also helpful.

The binder takes a bit of practice but is worth every minute of that. Early eras sewists used these attachments continually. Think of all those vintage patterns we see like aprons, now in the original or in replicate, with miles of bias bound edges. We copy the garment but we haven't imported the time saving tools that were used to make them. I sometimes think my grandmother would be amused see us laboriously stitching on bias tape, pressing, turning it under, and topstitching. Busy women with households to run didn't have time for that, not with a binder handy.

Note all binders can be used to make ties too. Simply feed in the folded tape and start stitching: