Little-Bitty Bits of Progress

No chair for the drafting table yet.

On my book of poetry project, I dropped the file and paper off at the printer I've worked with for Windycon and MuseCon in the last week of December, and Friday I got the news that the printing was done (I said it was not a rush job). I decided to just have them UPS them to me, and they were delivered today.

Now that I know how many copies I have (they ran a few extra for setup on their end and mine), I can order board for the covers. And Saturday I stopped at PaperSource and failed to resist various designs of decorative paper for the covers.

Last week I ordered some PVC connectors, 3-way elbows, which are essentially box corners, to make a light frame for around the light tent and snake jungle gyms. Saturday morning we picked up some LED strip lighting for the light frame project.

A week or two before Christmas I messed up my right wrist, and it has slowly been getting better, Saturday and Sunday I dug out doll clothing parts, and then found more parts when re-checking small storage bins I'd previously checked the day before, and finished a couple kosode. I've been careful not to do too much and throw the healing back, and seem to be succeeding.

I, um, also bought another sewing machine. Yes, the big industrial beast, serger, and two standard/home-scale machines were not enough. I started looking at small portable machines, thinking that something small and light and not a big deal to haul out and set up would be nice for doing the short straight seams I do by machine on doll clothes.

I ended up ordering a Janome Sew Mini, which is 1/2 or so of the size of a regular machine, and weights in at only 5 pounds (a couple/few standard machines I saw weights on while browsing were in the 25-lb range). It does several stitches, but I expect I'll only use it to straight-stitch, with maybe the occasional zig-zag to finish edges. Only one speed, but for what I want it for, I think that'll be ok. The bits I machine-sew are typically only 2 layers of lightweight cotton, occasionally 4, so I don't need lots of power. It got good reviews, and takes standard Janome bobbins and needles. Thanks to Amazon Prime, it'll be here tomorrow. I am awaiting it eagerly.

(No, I am not a big fan of Amazon for Reasons, and will probably continue to try very very hard not to buy books from Amazon. But Amazon hit the sweet spot on the price/seller-trustworthiness curve, using Amazon Smile benefits MuseCon, so there we are).