Numbered Chickens and Other Delights

This week has been get-groovy-stuff-in-the-mail week.  For my birthday, i ordered a couple of things.  (We don't spend money willy nilly around here, so it's kind of an event.)

I ordered a sewing machine case, which is screaming for a paint job.  It's just way too blank!

Then, so that the sewing machine case didn't feel like it was leading a pointless existence, i also ordered a sewing machine.  How handy.

This is another step toward homestead skill-learning and all that good stuff.  I haven't sewn anything substantial since i was about eight, when i made a night gown for 4H (with help).  But i seem to be picking it back up sufficiently.  The model i bought was a couple of steps up from the bottom of the barrel, very inexpensive, had great reviews, and i'm enjoying it.

It has lots of pictures on it to help me remember what to do.  Although, i still haven't figured out what that dial all the way to the left is for.  I guess i need to get the manual back out.

It also has a super easy bobbin mechanism, which was the bane of my sewing existence all those years ago.  I could very rarely deal with the bobbin business by myself.  Now i can.  If i hold my tongue right.

The first day i got it (yesterday), i went through the manual page by page, and then once the manual taught me how to load my bobbin and thread the machine, i started sewing up anything i could find.  I patched some pants and a laundry bag, and i made a case for a rice bag that will have to be finished once i buy some more rice.  (Do you know about rice bags?  They're wonderful!)

Yesterday, i was kind of scared to get to my curtain fabric.  I wanted to practice on things that didn't matter so much before getting too handy with the curtains.  But tonight, i gained courage and with help of Google, a plan, and i got to work cutting and ironing and pinning and sewing.

This is the unimpressive looking fruit of this evening's efforts.  Eight tabs for hanging my green curtains.

Those little things were a lot more time consuming than you might imagine.  But i'm pretty happy with them, and now i have courage to tackle the actual curtains sometime in the near future.

In addition to all the sewing joy, i got leg bands for my chickens.  And thus, today when i wasn't sewing, i was chasing chickens.  Chickens who are not particularly eager to be caught.  Oh well.  It's fun.  I'll get them all eventually.  I'm very excited about these bands and about putting jewelry on my chickens.  It helps to please the organizational part of my brain.  It actually makes me very happy to imagine finally having my chickens numbered and catalogued.  If you have that thing going on in your brain, then you know what i'm talking about.  Otherwise you might think i'm a little nuts.  I'm not, but i could see how it could sound that way.  This kind of organizational delight makes me really happy.

In addition to sewing tedious and small items and chasing chickens, i have been a little under the weather the past couple of days and couldn't think of anything entertaining to say.  Not that this was entertaining.  But anyway.