Blog Salad

 This post is being organized into more or less three topics.

Topic 1

Nature in the Neighborhood

 

The trees in Spare Change Plaza, the entry to our subway station, have lost their leaves but the roses are still blooming up a storm.

I took the photo below from the east side of Broadway.

Spare Change Plaza  is sometimes beautiful and sometimes overrun with vermin and street people. Often it is both at the same time. I guess par for the course for the neighborhood.

Across the street from the subway station is the old public bathroom which is now an art space. I think that this little building is most beloved by the local pigeons.

 I am now going to segue into topic 2.

The ugly orange building behind the art space/former public bathroom houses a thrift store. The thrift carries a mix of clothing and home goods. I satisfy my need to see STUFF by stopping in and looking around.

I often play a game with myself to see if I can identify objects of real quality among the drek.

You can purchase a stack of pretty Coalport  Harebell saucers--useful of you have a stack of Harebell teacups at home.

There were also some Limoge dinner plates for sale.  These are fancy things that are completely not my taste. These dishes remind me of all the time I spent with my parents and sisters in fancy china shops looking at pretty things that we didn't buy.
In a weird way those excursions helped to train my eyes.

The porcelain shell shaped sugar and creamer  live on the borderlands between lovely and ugly. 

We didn't own these Delft influenced canisters. But they are part of the visual landscape of my youth.

And finally the last topic of today's post---assorted sewing.

Earlier this summer my serger came back from the repair shop wheezing and stuttering as if it had a bad case of emphysema. Sewing with my serger was no longer pleasant. It was doable but the machine screeched and stuttered.  It was time to get a new serger. 

I bought the serger online and it arrived on Friday. I had to watch some YouTube videos to figure out how to thread the machine buut it is a revelation of speedy sewing and beautiful clean edges.

I re-seamed a dress that I had made years ago. My old serger hated the fabric and the seams looked badly chewed. My new serger just did a beautiful job.

My old serger also hated sewing this shrug made out of Missoni fabric. The new one was much more amenable to the task.

I also finally redid the neckline on this dress.

My sewing machine didn't like the puckered fabric and the topstitching along the neckline was truly ugly. No, it didn't stop me from wearing the dress. But each time I wore the dress I hoped that people wouldn't notice the wonky stitching. Yesterday I undid the ugly stitching and re-sewed the neckline by hand. 

I had had a text exchange with my one my kids about tackling unpleasant jobs. This repair job is part of my answer to my child. Sometimes you just have to go at it and fix what isn't right.

I also had another go at the embroidered tablecloth that I am repairing for a friend.

It is a task that I need to tackle in little chunks. Each of the holes presents its own set of problems and solutions.

Yes all of the loose threads need to be pulled through to the reverse of the cloth and tied off.

There is other work on my plate and I am trying to figure our Thanksgiving plans which are feeling more and more like solving one of these puzzles.

I will either be hosting or not. There is a complicated set of guests that are either showing up here or joining us at another table. I will keep you posted as I get this figured out. ( I guess this is a fourth topic.)