Monthly Archives: July 2007

Domestic Blitz

The sewing adventures begin

… and promptly end.

I read through Sewing 101 and Bend-the-Rules Sewing on Saturday, and I spent a little while this weekend gathering supplies for Project Seamstress. By this evening I had everything I needed to start on my first project.

It took me a little while to figure out how to wind the bobbin, but I was very proud of myself when I finally made it work. Then I moved on to the next step: Putting the bobbin in its little home. I looked closely at the diagram and then at the sewing machine. And I looked again. And again. And the little latch I was supposed to pull never appeared.

Apparently whomever is in charge of bobbin-case installation over at the sewing machine factory took the day off the day my machine went through the assembly line. The bobbin case just isn’t there. Now, I will be the first to admit that I can be a flibberty-gibbet, so I called Rockford over to examine the diagram before I panicked. He confirmed it. My poor little bobbin is homeless.

So Project Seamstress is on hold for awhile, until my replacement bobbin case arrives.

Flotsam / Jetsam

Name that nemesis

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My winged nemesis returned yesterday afternoon and proceeded to traumatize Sophie. Keep in mind, Sophie’s roughly 4 feet tall, and the bug was buzzing about about a foot away from the apex of our 16-foot ceilings. She was convinced it was going to dive bomb her, though, and she had two solutions to the dilemma:

  • Solution One: Go outside, where the bugs apparently don’t have nefarious intent.
  • Solution Two: Throw Marsha at the bug. I doubt that my cat-throwing skills would prove accurate enough to allow her to grab a one-inch insect from midair. Also, I don’t think I could propel her 15 feet into the air. It might be fun to try, though.

    Anyway, one of the insects made the mistake of landing today, and Marsha quickly pounced on it and rendered it immobile. Before I disposed of the body, I rallied up all of my courage and opened the bundle of bug-carrying tissues to snap a picture.

    Can anyone tell me what this thing is? And most importantly, does it mean me harm?

    … update! …

    I posted the beasty photo in the Field Guide to Insects and Spiders group on Flickr to see if I could find someone who knew what it was. According to Flickrite Frasspile:

    That is a mud dauber wasp and it looks like the Black and Yellow Mud Dauber, Sceliphron caementarium. Look around the outside of your house/apartment building for mud tube-like nests often under the eaves of roofs. They wont aggressively sting people, but if you stepped on them, sat on one, or something like that you likely could get stung. They are good to have around though, as they hunt spiders to provision their nests.

    If they’re getting rid of spiders, I have little complaint with them. Thanks, Frasspile, for the info!

    • Family matters

    Happy to oblige

    The first thing Wilson asked when we got home yesterday was, “What can I vacuum?” Being a good hostess, I told him to vacuum whatever he wanted. So he vacuumed the living room rug and most of the upstairs.

    This morning when he asked if we could do something fun, I offered to let him wash the windows. He was thrilled.