Close to nature

Where do I begin? I suppose where I left off. Camp pickup two weekends ago was uneventful. I was one of the first parents there, and O was standing at the door of his cabin waiting for me. :) Hugs all around. He had a great time and really liked his counselors; his only complaint was "too much swimming." My boy is not fond of being in water, never has been. Most of his local friends were on vacation by the time he returned home, which actually worked out as it gave him some time to decompress from camp. Most of them are coming home this weekend, so this week Mom's Taxi Service will be at full gear until O leaves for Texas next week.

Summer has been pretty quiet, which I like. Lots of slow, hot days filled with nothing but time. O thinks it's going by too quickly, and now that I look at the calendar and realize that August is this weekend, I suppose he's right.

OK, so moving on to the exciting bits. This week I went to make muffins and when I pulled the tin out of stove drawer, I noticed mouse droppings. Ewwww. Before you think I'm a terrible housekeeper, please note that our house is older and has lots of nooks, crannies, and holes that critters just love. I'm not frightened of mice--they're kind of cute, actually--but I don't want them around my food, so I had to put out a trap. The next morning, I found the little guy behind the stove. No more have been caught so I'm hoping we had one errant mouse in the house. The rest of the week I spent decontaminating our stove and the areas around it.

Then late last night I was sitting on the sofa when I noticed a noise coming from the living room coat closet. The door was cracked, and boom -- out flew a BAT!!!! I feel much differently about bats than I do mice ... you should have seen me bolt upstairs, screaming for my husband who was already in bed. Poor guy was sound asleep, but he knows how freaked out I am around bats due to some unfortunate childhood bat experiences while living in an old house in Vermont. He and O did some research on the computers upstairs to figure out the best way to get the bat outside, then they ventured downstairs to find the unwanted guest lurking behind the living room drapes. When they tried to scoop the bat into a box, he flew across the room and landed at the top of a bookshelf. By then the bat (and the boys) was tired enough that the second scoop went more smoothly and the errant visitor was released into the night. Shudder. We've had a long-standing wildlife removal appointment scheduled for this Tuesday, and I cannot WAIT to have these bats gone from our attic. And while last night's bat visitation terrified me, I'm glad I saw from where it emerged because now we know where we have an exit hole into the house.

Yes, I'm a total wimp when it comes to certain species of wildlife in my house. I own my wimpiness. ;-)

Crafting

Lots of sewing going on this summer in my studio. I now feel very comfortable with my new sewing machine, the Baby Lock Melody. A couple of weeks ago I ordered a flat felling presser foot for it through my local dealer and just about keeled over when I got the bill for it, almost $25. Ouch! So I decided to order one of those 32-piece presser foot collections from Amazon, along with a ruffler attachment. I paid a little over what I paid for the one foot through my dealer, so I figured if a few of the presser feet worked, I'd be ahead of the game, esp. the ruffler, which is pricey.

We have Amazon Prime, so everything got here quickly. The ruffler was easy to install and worked beautifully. The 32 presser feet came in a sturdy cardboard box and every foot was labeled on the front so I knew what each one would do. The feet are all metal with a few understandable exceptions, such as the teflon foot for sewing leather and vinyl. Last night I used the piping/welting foot to install piping around a mixer stand cover I made for out kitchen:



 

I was very happy with how the piping came out especially as it was my first try. I used instructions from About.com to put this together, but ended up using my own measurements for the pattern. I added an outer pocket (which I tried to pattern match and you can see in the bottom photo) to hold the flat beater attachments, and created a lining with fabric from an old cotton Jacquard drape. All in all, I'm quite happy with it although I may make another just to improve on my design. :)

I finished the Pebble Beach shawl, which is blocked and ready to go. It has been so hot, though, that the thought of posing with a merino wool shawl draped over my shoulders ... ugh. I'll do a separate post on the shawl when it cools off.

What are you working on this summer?