Necessary Skills

First of all, I realized after I was in bed supposed to be sleeping that my note accompanying the video below could have been construed as sarcastic.  It wasn't.  I just thought the video was funny.

Secondly, we put the garden in this weekend.  I'd post pictures, except that it's raining this morning and the garden is covered up with this white Hutterite crop cover.  We'd had it on the plot earlier to warm up the ground, and when we turned it back the garden was a waving jungle of ridiculously huge dandelions and volunteer spinach that had gleefully seeded itself everywhere after my spinach bolted last year.  It had rained, and somehow that made the weeds really easy to pull, so I spent a little time on my hands and knees filling 5-gallon buckets with weeds.  Once the garden was clean, we just turned over the dirt, plopped our seeds in, laid the drip hose down, and put the cover back on.

I haven't put out my tomatoes, peppers, or bok choi yet.  They look so very tender and it can still dip below freezing at night.  I'm going to give them another week or two on my windowsill.

Thirdly, look what I found:

Elizabethan seams.

Yes, I am a sewing geek.  I also found this:

The complete text of Dillmont's Encyclopedia of Needlework.  You have to understand that Dillmont's book was written in the nineteenth century, but is STILL the veritable Bible of handwork.  It's worth looking at just for the instructions on how to do "plain sewing".

You see, having looked at the flimsy quality of my hand seaming, it had occurred to me to wonder--what did they do in the olden days, when hand seaming was all there was?  How did they make work clothes?  Or underpants?  How did they make those spectacularly heavy skirts with layers and layers of flounces?

Answer: the Elizabethan seam for uniforms/work clothes, and Therese de Dillmont's "first make a running stitch, then backstitch the seam" for everything else.  That puppy would be strong.

Note: since I figured out I was supposed to use backstitch for "load-bearing seams", my handsewn seams have become much less flimsy.

And I think that's all my news.  I will take more pictures soon, preferably of the kids romping in the (dry) garden.  If it would only stop raining for a bit this afternoon...

Cheers,

Breanna

P.S. I am aware I want the rain if I've just planted my garden.  I am being inconsistent.