You need a scoby to make kombucha and if they are properly fed, those scobys grow new scobys. I had four jars going and, boy howdy, did I grow some scobies. Sadly, most of the kombucha went down the drain, being too tart to drink. I saved a few scobys so I can work my way back to four jars. The rest went in the worm bin.
“I was eating my breakfast, and reading your letter in the Viewpoint…” began the Facebook message from Sue.
“I have a letter in the Viewpoint?” I wrote back. Then immediately got out my as-yet unread copy of the Cottey College Alumni magazine and flipped through it.
And indeed, there was my letter. Which I didn’t really intend to BE in the Viewpoint when I wrote it, I was just sending a friendly email chat to Steve Reed. But there it is.
This is an edited version (which I’m fine with.) The original letter had another paragraph that talked about Viewpoint controversy my freshman year of college because it reported that an alumni and her female partner had adopted a baby and some of the PEOs (the organization that sponsors/is heavily involved with the college) didn’t really like that. Now we see in the Viewpoint all sorts of marriages and births of alumni who choose women as partners. And isn’t that a great change.
I took umbrage to this on several levels. One. I think of Baby Boomers as giving birth to Generation X. They would be too old by the time it came time to procreate the Millennials. But I did the math and it seems that it’s those younger baby boomers (the ones who were born nearly two decades after WWII ended) who seem to have sired the millennial generation. I never think of these people as Baby Boomers, having come so lately to the selfish party that is the Baby Boomer generation.
Two. Really? Is it one generation versus another?
Three. Um, is this how it’s gonna be? Generation X has to listen endlessly to how cool the Boomers are, and then pay for all the things they never got around to fully funding like social security? And then we don’t even get a mention? It’s like no one was born between 1964 and 1984.
Four. And now I’m annoyed by how much this whole thing annoys me. Do we really have to have distinct generations? Can’t we all just work together? Answer: no. Because the stupid Boomers need constant reinforcement as to how cool they are.
Five. In the relief category, I’m glad I’m in a generation designation that I know how to spell.
At the DoubleTree Hotel in Portland for a convention, my mind wanders to the utilitarian nature of the convention space. It’s kind of fascinating. The walls move, the color scheme is nice-bland and built to stand up to a lot of use. Everything about the decor says that they are just providing the backdrop, it’s up to whoever rents the room to provide the content to make it dazzle. Without what’s going on in the rooms themselves, everything is the same.
And then I noticed the flip flop.
What wild ruckus caused this to happen, destroying the uniformity and banal of the room? There’s a story here and it could be a good one.
It all started with Collette Patterns selling sashiko embroidery kits for Christmas one year. What was this sashiko stuff that looked so pretty? It turns out it is a Japanese quilting method, where layers of cloth would be held in place by really amazing geometric and beautiful embroidery. Some examples here and here. When I heard “layers of cloth” I thought of the t-shirts I’ve been saving since high school to make into a quilt. I bought a t-quilt pattern years ago, but never started it because the first step was fusing interfacing to all the t-shirts to keep them from stretching. I hate fusing interfacing, even to a collar, and there was no way I was going to do that to 40+ t-shirts. Plus, it would make them all stiff. But what if I could use sashiko embroidery to affix the stretchy shirts to a woven backing fabric?
This idea turned around in my head for a few years. The tidying this spring was what finally got this project in motion. I’ve got an entire drawer full of t-shirt fronts ready to turn into a quilt. I’d better start making a move toward turning them into a quilt sooner rather than later. So I finished all my other at-home-movie-watching projects which meant it was time to buy supplies.
However, I decided to learn sashiko techniques by making two pillows first. Julie and I traveled to Fabric Depot and I came back with this orange fabric, a blue fabric, needles, two kinds of thimbles, sashiko thread and a new color of Clover chaco marking pen.
If the pillows go well, I can begin sashiko on the t-shirts. If it doesn’t, I can use the technique I just discovered, which involves rotating a backing t-shirt to cross grain to provide more structure. This would would be much easier, but I’m hoping the Sashiko thing works out.
It has a great look while hanging.
I’m not a fan of the lion print inside, but there are inner pockets and it opens up very wide.
The straps are good sized and the pattern directions point out that you can double them up and put them over your shoulder make it a single strap to go across your chest.
Should I feel the urge to make a bag, this might be the one.
From an article in People magazine about the Ben Affleck/Jennifer Garner breakup.
Weird. I don’t really understand what’s the driver behind magazines/media emphasizing how happily domestic famous women are, all while building their career and taking care of the children. There is no such emphasis or constant need to reassure people that the male half of the couple is also happily domestic while building his career and taking care of the children. Hands-on dad? So nice that men can have that as a goal, instead of what’s required of them.
*This is not to say that the reporting in this piece accurately reflects anything about the Affleck/Garner relationship. For all we really know, he could be the hands-on dad and she could be the person who builds her career and ignores her children. I think we’re all media savvy enough to realize that what we read in the magazines might not (and probably isn’t) actually what’s really going on.
And we are done! I really like the size of this and the colors turned out to be fun.
Having one side be flannel gives the blanket a nice weight to it.
Binding troubles (I brought on myself) aside, this is a quick and easy project that looks great. It may become my go-to baby gift.
Media consumed while making this:
Mikey & Nicky
A New Leaf
Sherlock Season 2
The Sessions
This American Life episode 443
Dear Hank & John 008
Filmspotting SVU #87
Please Give
Endless Love
This is Where I Leave You
Friend Heidi mentioned she had a pattern for a baby blanket and since I needed to make something for a soon-to-appear baby, she gave me a copy. Here are the instructions. Fabric in the City is no longer in existence, but it’s nice that their pattern lives on.
If you are going to use this pattern, I will add my notes right here:
1/3 yard was not enough for 2.5 inch binding. 1/2 yard would have been better.
My four strips did not reach all the way around my material, as you will see. I had to join pieces together.
For an excellent binding tutorial, including joining pieces, I used this link: https://youtu.be/2egganTi2us
After you sew you binding to the blanket, go around an make sure that you have actually attached the three layers together. I didn’t do that and discovered two places where the binding wasn’t attached.
Here I have placed my two fabrics together so I can cut them to be the same size.
Before I got to this point, I added a satin stitch monogram to the green material. I learned that satin stitch takes a very long time when you are doing it by hand.
At this point, I was disappointed to note that the ladybugs show right through the green material. Harrumph.
Using my awesome quilters ruler to mark out 2.5 inch binding strips.
I used my Clover Chaco Liner Pen–another excellent product–to mark my binding strips. At this point I thought, “It doesn’t look like this binding will be long enough to go all the way around. What would have been smart would have been to measure to find out the answer.
But what I did instead was cut out the binding to prove that it didn’t stretch all the way around. Feels so good to be right, doesn’t it? Then, unfortunately, that feeling dissipated because I was only left with the option to cut the binding strips in half. So I went from 2.5 inches to 1.25 inches. Trust me when I say that this makes a very narrow binding.
Other late-breaking conundrums. I realized that with my smaller binding, I would now have to cut off the selvages. I did this, and then had to re-trim the green material.
Here, I have pressed the binding in half and sewn it to the fabric layers. I followed the directions on the link above, though I used a 1/8 inch seam, rather than 1/4 because I didn’t have 1/4 inch to spare.
Then, because I didn’t have 1/8 inch to spare on the other side of the seam line, I did a lot of tiny, careful trimming. Trust me when I say I brought all this on myself by having to prove that the binding didn’t go all the way around. It would have been so much easier if I had just knocked my binding back to 2 inches.
Then it was time to hand-sew the other side of the binding to the blanket. We will pause and read a few more movie reviews while I do this.
When I finished my Hunger Games Sweater, (Properly known as the District 12 Cowl)I took it to school to show my colleague, who had been receiving updates throughout the knitting process. She loved it and expressed sentiments that she wished her mother would knit her one instead of something for the baby. (She’s due very soon.) Being the kind of girl who completely understands those sentiments, I opted to make her something, instead of something for the baby. Another colleauge funded the yarn purchase and I provided the knitting. And I hope she enjoys her new sweater. (I also hope it fits.)
Media consumed during the creation of this project:
Sherlock Season 2
A Place in the Sun
Now You See Me
Elysium
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints
The Sessions
Edward Scissorhands
PAE’s Macbeth
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Beverly Hills Cop
Walking and Talking
Tonight You’re Mine
Magic Mike
Celeste & Jessie Forever
Greenberg
Only Lovers Left Alive.
