Sewing, Moving, Reading

My sewing mojo is back.  And we are back in Baltimore.  But now I have to make the time to sew up the projects and ideas spinning in my head.  And I also want to sit down and luxuriate in a binge of international sewing television by watching the Youtube versions of "The Great British Sewing Bee."  That could get me started on a rant about cable television....the one where I say hey, I'm glad to pay for what I DO watch and get rid of the several hundred channels that I DON"T watch if you would only give me that choice!!!  Off that soapbox and onward to a quick update on the last month of life, some sewing, more moving, lots of reading, plenty of gardening and a beautiful springtime.
I'll start with the latest sewing project which was to stitch up three pairs of Style Arc Elle pants that I had cut out in early winter....two black knit ones and one dark olive green pair.  I'll just show you one and you can imagine the others.  

Elle pants, one of three pairs in April

What a fabric roundabout trip for this fabric.  It's a sport knit with tennis rackets woven into it for some tone on tone texture.  I bought it at Walmart the second year that we were in our Florida condo, nine years ago.  I originally made a pair of Burda bootcut pants that were comfy and attractive for sportswear.  Now the styles have changed, our living situation has changed and now here's more of that fabric in narrow legged sport pants.  No more of this fabric left so I guess no more moves, right?

That's all the sewing news at present so you can stop reading and move onto another sewing blog, won't hurt my feelings.  For those of you curious about our recent move north, here are more details

When you last saw us, Mr. Lucky and I had sold our condo to a delightful couple and had to find temporary housing for a few more weeks of Florida sunshine.  We started out at the very pet-friendly Red Roof Inn which has re-done its rooms and is an inexpensive way to travel the US with pets in tow.   

Red Roof Inn pet friendly-room

But even this nice room can get cramped after five days so one of our kind, generous dogpark friends invited us to stay at her home for the next five days.  We had a wonderful visit, caught up with several other local friends who we wanted to spend time with before heading north and eventually bid a sad farewell to our morning group of humans and animals.

Some of our morning compatriots, two-legged and four....

We're going to miss them....

We sold our condo furnished but did bring home our personal items, some replacement kitchenwares (I wanted the new food processor from FL to replace the inherited one in Baltimore) and all of my sewing books, patterns, fabric, notions, and machines.  We used a wonderful company, ABF, with "relocubes."  We did our own packing and then the company brings a forklift and moves the cubes onto a truck that headed north.  A few days after we arrived in Baltimore we called them to deliver them to our driveway.  

Two "relocubes"

The first one was stuffed to the ceiling with boxes but the second one had our bikes and unpacked items lashed amongst the packages.

Yes, that's a padded dressform on top of plastic boxes of fabric and patterns in cube #2

We put all the boxes from the two cubes into our basement and now we face the slow and tedious task of emptying them.  No major hurry so I am giving myself until Christmas to work through the perhaps 60 boxes.  I'll be deciding which of my machines and supplies to keep and then hold a sewing sell-off of the rest.  The hardest part is combining clothing from the two places.  I have lost about ten pounds this year so that's making it slightly easier to send too big clothing to charity.  We've already donated two cardboard wardrobes and about 20 empty boxes on freecycle so we are making progress although it's not easy to see when there's so much "stuff" downstairs.  

Since we were living as nomads for a few weeks, I did get a lot of reading done and thought I'd share my most recent finds.  

Loved, loved, loved this one.  I've not generally been a historical novel person but in the past year that's a genre I have enjoyed tremendously.  This one is a beautifully written story that gave me insights into some famous personages, Anne Morrow Lindbergh and her husband, Charles.  I enjoy reading others' reviews more than writing one so here's what many Amazon readers have to say about it  Amazon reviews

My Baltimore book group had selected this title for the April discussion so I checked it out of the Collier County library while we still in Florida and read it on the week long trip north.  Again, I absolutely loved it.  I found it funny, touching and wise and enjoyed it so much that I read it twice in preparation for our get together.  The story of a mild mannered, retired British man who walks for hundreds of miles to see a former colleague who is in hospice did not sound promising.  But I was so moved by this book and the beautiful writing.  Once again, here are the reviews, if you are interested:  Amazon reader reviews

Last one was just fun and enjoyable and reminder of the great bonds between humans and their dogs.  

Now it's time to get out into the yard and do some more weeding, perennial dividing, planting and mulching.  It's been terrific to be here in April when we can really make headway in our many flowerbeds. But wow, we are feeling it every evening when we gingerly lower ourselves onto the sofa to relax, watch tv....and fall asleep shortly thereafter.  So my sewing projects are currently only in my head....but are becoming closer to reality with each passing day.  Hope your sewing projects are more "real" and fulfilling for you.