Saving Seeds. Pink Banana Squash. 12.17.21

Today I cut up the Pink Banana Squash that I had hand-pollinated so I'm confident the seed is true to type. The flesh is still pretty good, noce fragrance but a little dry now. I washed some of the seeds and laid them on newspaper to dry for a few days.

Nematocidal Mustard Winter Ground Cover. 12.17.21

I think it's very, very late to be planting a ground cover. However, if the ground is turned over, weeds will sprout and grow thickly before I need thw garden bed in May or June. I think mustard might be as hardy as any weeds, and might either germinate soon and survive fhe winfer, or ferminate afte the coldest weather before I can work the soil again. So I took a chance. This mustard variety is used by potato farmers as a green manure cover crop, because it kills nematodes better than nematocide chemicals.

I used a garden claw to roughen up the soil a bit. It didn't need tilling or digging. this area has been sweet corn for two growing seasons, so I will grow squash here next year. The leaf covered area needed more enrichment, so it has a thick blanket of leaves that will be turned in next Spring.

It was nice to get out into the garden today. This chore was a bonus - I didn't plan on doing it, and I'm curious to see if/how well the mustard seeds grow.

A Doggie Raincoat For Rufus. 12.17.21

The last rain coat kept slipping sideways. The inside of the vinyl is quite slippery. I keep meaning to make one with a much less slippery lining and now I did. The raincoat vinyl was a large human raincoat that I bought two or three years ago at BiMart for $4. If necessary, it has enough remaining for a third rain coat, maybe more. That contrasts to Joann's which had the actual fabric for something like $17 a yard. I forget how much but it surprised me. Might have been more. The corduroy shirt was at thrift shirt for half price, so $3.50. Again, to buy the fabric itself would cost many times that. My goal was less than $10 for the rain coat and we much more than met that. I priced them in the past at the pet store at $35 and more, and they never fit him. He has a big chest for his stubby legs, skinny belly and short body. This one fits him perfectly. Before making.

After, inside.

After, outside.

The black rectangles are Velcro. It works great except when wet, then is comes open. It's a raincoat so it gets wet. I will replace it with snaps. I hope those do better. I already had the yellow polyester bias tape edging and the velcro, somdid not include that in the cost. Also, I used a washable spray adhesive to hold it together without pins. I already had that too. I rough cut it, sprayed, bonded together, trimmed for nice edges before sewing on the bias tape fabric.

Rufus doesn't mind wearing it at all. It does the required function of keeping most of him dry. I doubt he would allow a hood, but I may try later. My initial thought was to use flannel, which I think would have worked fine but I could not find any that met my cost constraints. I was actually leaving the store when I saw the corduroy shirt that someone had cast aside in the wrong aisle. I think that probably works even better than flannel. There was a lot left over, and I'm sure it will go into other projects.

A Flannel Doggie Jacket For Rufus. 12.13.2021

This jacket started as a small, heavy, flannel shirt. Several years ago, I re-sized it and cut it back to make a jacket for my dog Charlie. He is no longer wit us, and Rufus is much shorter stature but as big a body. I decided to modify the jacket to suit Rufus. Then he can stay more dry on long walks in drizzle.

The pockets don't serve a purpose and the sleeves hang too low and too awkward for Rufus to walk comfortably. The coat is too long for him. I made a pattern.

I removed the sleeves, cut the sides below the sleeves and extended them to the front.

Then I cut the shirt to fit the pattern. Instead of hemming the flannel, I sewed on bias tape. I used extra fabric to make a belt. I used velcro to fasten the belt, and fasten the collar. All pretty easy. He didn't like the shirt tail touching his tail, so I re-sized it a little more so he wouldn't mind wearing it.

I thought this came out pretty good. It would probably be easier to just use a flat piece of flannel, maybe a double layer. The placket looks a bit awkward but that doesn't seem to doesn't affect him.

Batik Disappearing Nine Patch Quilt. 12.12.21

Yesterday I sat down at the sewing machine and put together all of the quilt blocks for this batik fabric quilt. I arranged, rearranged, re-rearranged the blocks over the last few days. It's nothing like what I thought two weeks ago. I think it's actually coming together and nicer than I initially thought. I started this quilt in Jan but was sidetracked by medical issues which are now better.

This is a situation where having the Iphone and Ipad helped a lot. I kept taking photos so I would know how it looked and how to put together. The i-phone camera over-emphasizes the contrast, so dark patterns all look darker, and light patterns look almost shocking white. That does help in a way, because it identifies unwanted and unintended patterns when the quilt blocks play with the eye. I used post-its to mark how I liked it, but used the I-pad more to guide based on how I finally arranged the blocks. This is how they looked before sewing together.

Before doing all that, I put together the Morse sewing machine and got it running. I took a while to get used to it but it is a lot of fun. The stitching is quite different from modern machines. I think I'll replace the inner light with an LED like I did the Kenmore. Then I took the Kenmore machine apart, blew out the lint using canned keyboard cleaner compressed air spray, oiled, and it ran like new. It's interesting how much nicer it sounds. I have a pdf of the manual which helps a lot.