Leafy

It was a nice day yesterday...rainy and cloudy, with sunshine toward the end of the day. It gave Mike a chance to get outside to work, and it gave me a chance to sew for most of the day. I was interspersing a little cooking and some light housework in between making the last of the stemmed leaves for the Blushing Aspens table runner.

When I left this on Saturday, I had taken it this far:

The first thing I did when I picked it up again was to make the tiny little leaf in the upper left of the image below.

After that, there were two more leaves to make in Section 2. When I had those finished, it was time to sew the whole section together.

If you read my post from last Wednesday, you know this was tricky business. Remember this diagram? Partial seams were clearly in order, but I wasn't sure where to start or which order to sew the leaves together.

There were several good suggestions and a lot of cheering. Eventually, I went with the method Gayle suggested, thus:

That made sense to me, and it worked perfectly! Thanks, Gayle! You guys are so smart. I knew someone would steer me in the right direction. So I've turned the image below in the same direction as the diagram so that you can see how it went together. No seam ripper required, thank goodness.

With that done, I was ready to sew Section 2 to Sections 3 and 4:

After that, there was one more leaf to make for Section 1.

Now all of the "veined" leaves are complete. I just have the little row of ten leaves along the right hand side as you see in the image below.

The smaller leaves go much faster than the veined leaves. Each veined leaf took about an hour to make. I'm thinking I can make several of the little ones in an hour's time. Then I'll just need to add the borders, and the top will be finished.

Today I need to head back to see my orthotist. You might recall that she's been working with me trying to get my custom orthotics right since I was fitted in a half size larger shoe recently. The shoe size was a good move, I think, but it threw off the fit of my custom orthotics. My right foot, especially, has been hurting ever since. 

Going into a larger shoe makes me think of a time Mike was up skiing on Mt. Bachelor and he was complaining to a fellow skier that his ski boots no longer fit his feet. The younger skier's reply was, "Gravity, Man." And thus, I'm in a larger shoe size now too. Gravity, Man. Did you ever stop to consider how many of aging's woes can be summed up in that one simple phrase? Wrinkling skin? Gravity, Man. Falling boobs? Gravity, Man. That's all you need to know most times. Fall down and break one of your aging brittle bones? Gravity, Man. See what I mean?

Anyway...that's going to take at least a couple of hours. Also, I'm heading to the post office to mail off my letter to the Salem Municipal Court, and that baby is going Certified Mail. Hopefully, I'll have time to work on my leaves when I get home this afternoon. 

It's the last day of August. Use it wisely. Fall is on the way.