Week 357:

July 5, 2025

More sea swimming, more salads, more sewing.
Last week I knocked out a M&M Saltmarsh skirt from the workbook with some fabric I had in my stash. It turned out to be a massive hit this week in the heat. I should have made it years ago!
This week I decided to make the M&M Curlew top, also from the workbook. I made a toile to check the fit using some old curtains and it was terrible. Too much fabric in a lot of places and not enough across the shoulders. I made three successive toils with square shoulder adjustment, small bust adjustment and then just randomly taking some excess fabric out of the neckline at the front and back. After three spins of the wheel I have something that fits quite well. I enjoy getting things perfect or as good as I can with knitting and sewing. I un-do and re-do so much knitting that lachie once asked if maybe I wasn’t very good at it and perhaps I should have a different hobby? But if you’re going to the trouble of knitting or sewing your own clothes, you might as well get it right.
Sewing the Culew has made me realise i’ve done the neck finishing wrong on all four of my Bantam vests. So now I’m making a 5th Bantam to get it right.
The peas are basically finished.
The broad beans did terribly and I’m going to pull them up. There is a flat patch in the middle where a cat or a fox has been hanging out, and this will destroy their little hiding place.
I am really enjoying the garden lettuce. I was not expecting to be so into the lettuce but a couple of lunchtimes a week I go down and pick some leaves and then add in some decorative nasturtium flowers, and it’s perfect.
I’ve stopped using Instagram (for now). The mix of commerce and friendship meant I was often interested in checking it to see what people I liked were doing but then sucked into very well targetted MHL adverts.
The new season of And Just Like That is so incredibly lifeless. I know none of you will be watching it, but I just need to go on record and say I am, and will continue to, even though it is wretched corpse of a show. Hard to imagine, at this point, how bad it would have to get for me to not watch.