resin drop spindle

For the past couple years I have been admiring the beautiful clear resin drop spindles on etsy and ravelry, and am now attempting to make my own. These are going to be my detailed notes, both in case I forget what I did between now and next time, and for anyone else who wants to replicate it.

Supplies:
amazing clear cast resin from Michaels
plastic soap molds from Michaels
petroleum jelly and paintbrush

Pour water into the soap mold to determine its volume (mine is 40-60 ml, depending on the thickness I want. I plan to do a couple layers with inclusions) then let it dry. Cover a large cutting board in newspaper and set it up on a worktable, making sure it is level. Measure 10 ml each part A and B of the epoxy, pour B into A and stir gently but thoroughly. (this does make 20 ml - I was confused when reading another tutorial to see that they used 6 drams of each to make 8 drams total. A dram is 1/16 of an ounce - I'm glad I'm not trying to measure such tiny amounts) Pour slowly into mold, and use stirring stick to nudge liquid resin out to the edges. Don't worry about bubbles, they'll rise and pop on their own.
After 1 hour, resin was thicker, but still not enough to support a silk pin.

raised bed 1

Marigolds in the middle, north side has lollo rosso lettuce and simpson lettuce. South side has rainbow carrots (2 rows), Nantes 6" carrots (2 rows), and thumbelina and bambino carrots (1 row each).

sheet shirt

Vogue 8414, printed in 1992. I made a size 14

.. forgot about wearing ease. And the shoulders need something different. But I got to try a new (old) pattern and reminded myself of how much I like the effect of understitching.

This photo shows me with the back zipper undone and gaping at least 4 inches. Much more comfortable! Still not looking right between the chest and shoulder though. Now I get to pick out the zipper to reuse it, and I can switch the thread color on my machine to add a phone pocket to my new jeans!

seedlings

Green zebra tomatoes and sweet basil. The Genovese basil is so far refusing to sprout

Blueberries!
The ones on the outside are 'top hat' and the middle two are 'sunshine blue.'

I should take off this year's flowers so that they put all their energy into getting established. I kind of want to leave a couple, to find out how they taste.

Salvation army fabric sale! With mom and aunt Laurie and cousin Corinne, show and tell afterward with grandma and grandpa and aunt Carol.

Figuring out how to upload photos from my phone. Here are the kids' patterns I bought (25 cents each)

sew velvet against the nap

at least when you're attaching piping.  It took me much ripping and at least 20 minutes to figure it out, but now I'll remember.  Especially so, because I'm writing it down.
I'm putting reflective piping into the sleeves of a velvet coat, and now that's it's worked out, I really like the look.  The left sleeve went together just fine, and then when I machine basted the piping onto the right sleeve, it kept coming out 3/4" shorter than it had been.  I tried different feet, I tried rubbing the piping with wax paper so it would slide, I was about to try tissue paper, when I realized that I had sewn the first one cuff-to-shoulder, and the second one shoulder-to-cuff.  So I flipped it around, found my little dot that marks 5/8" on the left side of my throat-plate, and it came out perfectly!