July heat

Whew, July is over. It was hot here for the majority of the month. I think we were above 95 for a good two weeks or more starting on July 5. This month was filled with getting up and getting a walk in, tending to the garden right after that, and then closing up the house and hiding from the sun until evening.

We’ve been fairly lucky with wildfire smoke in our area so far, we’ve had a few spells, but nothing too horrible and I’m crossing all the things that continues in August. I’m also hopeful the heat won’t continue or at the very least we’ll have cooler evenings and overnights, but we’ll see.

Lots of making

I ended up doing a lot of making in July, mostly because I finished a lot of things but also because summer is when I want to sew more than any other time. It’s the perfect thing to do to avoid the afternoon sun. I started the month finishing off my Vellichor even though I have yet to wear it, I anticipate wearing it a lot once it cools down. Then I went on to the Bedrock Dress Hack which I absolutely love and have been wearing a lot.

After those two things I started on trying to figure out the Pietra Shorts, which I wrote aobut in more detail already, but I’ll just say it felt sooooo good to finally get a pair of these made that fit me well. Sewing is a learning process and I’ve gotten much better about embracing that, accepting the fact that not every project works out and giving myself time to come back to a pattern after I’ve had a difficult time, some times months or even a year later.

Finally I sewed up a quick belt bag, a free pattern from Core Fabrics. I wanted to have this project done in order to use the bag on our trip to LA and I did that easily. I used fabric from a bag I made a few years ago and never used, along with the strap from that same bag, so all I had to buy was a zipper for this project. Using up things I have is always satisfying and cannibalizing a bag I’d made to repurpose the fabric to make something I’ll use was even more so.

This bag turned out to be perfect for travel. It holds just enough and the bag lays well so as not to be a bother when walking around. I know I’ll be using it a lot both in every day life and for more trips.

A blue bag with a white zipper laying on the floor with the cream colored strap laying over the top.
A scrappy belt bag that I love.

LA

A wall of large paintings that are color fields, there are three with the one on the left being rectangeles of red, the one in the middle deep purple almost black in areas, and the one on the right deep to lighter purple shades. There is an empty bench in front of the paintings.
A room full of my favorite painter, Mark Rothko, at MOCA. Photo credit G.

We flew down to LA towards the end of the month to catch a Dodgers game and get our big city fix. We’ve never flown to a west coast city and it was wild to be in LA so quickly. We also stayed in downtown LA which where we’d never spent any time. It meant we didn’t have to rent a car because we could take a shuttle from the airport to Union Station and we could use the free shuttle from Union Station to Dodger Stadium.

Overall it was a great trip. The Dodgers won, our hotel was really great and we had an afteroon of lazy pool time at the roof top pool, and we hit up some museums on our last day. Highly reccommend both The Broad and MOCA if you are near downtown LA.

The sun is setting over the top of the stadium seating as baseball players on field play ball and the stands are full of people watching.
Setting sun as the game was getting under way.

First tomatoes

I came home from LA to find some ripe sun gold tomatoes and a lot more on the plants nearing that stage. I have that and another variety of cherry tomatoes planted, four plants total, and all of them are loaded with both fruit nearing ripening and flowers, so I expect I’ll have a lot to harvest soon. Always so satisying to go out and pick them and then make a salad of some kind for dinner, as I tell G, true “farm” to table.

Overall not a bad month, but I’ll admit that summer is no longer a favorite season. I’m already pining for the cooler temperatures of fall and we still have August to go. I am excited for tomato season, for more local produce from the CSA, and, hopefully, cooler evenings.