Labor Day Extended

This is Sunday, Labor Day was Monday.  Officially, today is still in the Labor Day week.

I knew I had been putting something off and it niggled in the back of the gray matter.  I can really get caught up into my hand stitching, sewing machine stitching and reading.

Today was the day to take the duvet cover off of my feather comforter.  It is cotton flannel polka dot with a white background.  For the same reason I rotate Dennis’ cotton white t-shirt the duvet covering needed washing.  White cotton will yellow if not used enough to launder often.  While I believe I wash my hands every time I turn around, right in the middle of the covering, where my head would be, the flannel had yellowed, not from non-use but from the oil of my hands.  I had realized this was happening and I had even turned it end to end.

Well, I had gone down the rabbit hole.  I decided to do it up right and wash the mattress pad along with the bottom sheet.  In addition to using two laundry pods per load, I even used a bit of bleach.  The house would have smelt wonderful if I had been able to use the clotheslines, but . . . the house really smells fresh.

Thus far, I have the mattress pad back on the bed.  Slow is the key doing gymnastics when my bed has three sides against walls.

In between keeping tabs on the laundry, I played with the magnifying lamp.  There are quite a few adjustment to be made to using it effectively.  My posture in the cherry red chair and the distance of the chair to the lamp lens and then the distance from my work surface was the starting point.  I tend to hold the stitching project at a slight angle to the right holding it in my left hand.  The center of the light of the lamp needs to be in the center of my stitching to avoid a distortion of what I am looking through.  The brightness of the light as well as the color of the light can be adjusted from time to time.  To keep my prescription lenses on or not is still to be determined which is best and how my eyes feel after stitching a bit.

I was on a roll until I realized I had been using the wrong size of needles.  YouTube suggested size 26 ball point needles.  The needles with too sharp of a tip tend to get caught on threads that are not warranted.  Hmm.  Down to the studio to do a hunt in the stashes for a ball point needle.  It took a while and of course I got side-tracked.  Lo and behold for the price of $.76 I found a package of four, size 26 ball point needles.  The package had a bit of yellowing to vouch for its age.  I went back up to my bedroom porch and did indeed stitch up several thread.  Tomorrow . . . just think of all the items that have been taken care of and I can sit and stitch with everything having been adjusted.  

I am going to keep my little lamp from neighbor Jan for reading.  Reading at magnification of five is not doable.  So I have a lot of toys . . . it takes a lot of tools to work smarter, not harder.  

Supper is going to be light.

With that I take my leave.  ♥