Rayen

What Things Don't Work Out in Reality the Way They Do In My Head Reason #999: the deconstructed canvas tote is too small for what I want to use of the curtain fabric. I'm usually a pretty good judge of size, but this time, nope. This is how long I want the tote, with plenty of space above the flowers for appliques. So I will make the bag entirely it out of the curtain fabric, which is linen and of which I have a lot. That means using a foundation fabric for the applique and embroidery I have planned, so I raided my fabric stash for some leftover muslin. The first of two panels for the tote, batted, backed and pinned. These are the embroidery threads I pulled for the tote. I'm waffling a bit about the dark red; I might switch that out or just go with the brown alone. Stay tuned to the blog to see my progress.

For my calendar project tote in March I'm set on a theme of green via repurposing. I'm going to try to use only vintage or thrifted fabrics for the patchwork that were originally something else. My first two candidates are this tablecloth and curtain, both of which I thrifted last year. The green fabric I thrifted doesn't quite go with either of the repurposing pieces, so I might save that for something else. The tablecloth is really interesting -- probably from the seventies -- and I don't think I have the heart to cut it up (it fits my kitchen table, so maybe I'll use it for that this summer.) I have no problem cutting up this pretty curtain, so this will be my primary fabric. I found an old Bath & Body Works tote in my stash that I can also repurpose as the foundation for the tote. The first step is to rip the seams so I can get it to lay flat and see how much fabric I'll need to cover it. It's not gigantic, but I can ma...

The Chinese movie Just for Meeting You (badly translated, my guess is it should have been Just to Meet You ) has a delightful little old-fashioned romance between two high school students. This is very G-rated, and there isn't so much as one kiss, so you really watch it for the characters. The premise: Yang Si Huo (Sonh Wei Long), a high school boy who longs for outer space but is otherwise a slacker and a goof-off, and new transfer student Xu Nian Nian (Liu Hao Cun), a lovely, smart but somewhat mysterious girl who becomes the object of his pranks. This evolves into a close friendship as they discover they're kindred spirits, but then college opportunities separate them. A few years later they reunite after Nian Nian finds a hidden letter Si Huo gave her before they graduated. I won't spoil the rest but the ending is particularly satisfying as it reveals the mystery of Nian Nian's character and why they used this title for the movie. This is a feel-good wa...

At the local farmer's market last weekend I bought this jar of raw honey and a bunch of organic carrots (not pictured; we ate them) with what cash I had in my wallet. They are what I hope to be my only buys in March. At the end of February I paid for my March medical insurance premium, which still has not gone up, and paid off my credit card bill as I do at the end of every month. I am currently at zero on my credit card and have no more cash, and hope to stay that way until April 1st. This is just a genuine effort on my part to see if I can go 31 days without spending any money. I wanted 2026 to be a no-spend year for me, but when my premium didn't skyrocket I thought "Why do it?" Still, I need to save up for some other things, particularly some dental work, so I'm going to back pedal and try one month. Since my guy is giving me a much-need financial break by buying our groceries every month, and I've paid all my bills, I should be fine. I have lear...

I did find a few more skeins of baby boucle yarn in my stash last week, so I packed them up with some other skeins I didn't want and headed over to our local church thrift. I want to do a blog post on rehabbing hat boxes, so while I was there I picked up two that need some TLC, as well as a length of interesting green fabric. March's tote for my calendar project is going to be in green. I also thrifted some cards I needed. I'm starting to look for cards at thrift stores because they often sell brand new for pennies. In total I spent $5.60 on my little haul, which made me very happy.

Last week I had a dream about being out and thrifting with another person (maybe a woman) and finding some cool bags of yarn and embroidery thread. It was very vague but happy, and I love shopping dreams that are that way. We left the store and were driving down a road very similar to one by my early childhood home when I looked up and saw a large passenger plane about 500 feet in the air deploy a colorful parachute out of the empennage (the tail end) ala space shuttles when landing. I turned to my companion and told her that plane was going to crash, and we needed to get out of there. She seemed paralyzed, and then the plane looped around and crashed just ahead of us. The world then exploded. I woke up with my heart hammering in my chest, like it had actually happened. I've had crash dreams before now, and they're unsettling. I don't think the FAA is going to start putting parachutes on passenger aircraft, or that I'm psychic and predicting something that...