Back in business

April finished with a flurry of activity. First up: get Rosaleen up and running again. The belt I ordered looked suspicious in the package . . .

. . . but it was labelled for her model . . .

. . . so I  suspended disbelief and told myself that it was probably easier for product storage if the belts are forced into rectangular shapes by the packaging.

That's my theory and I'm sticking with it, because the belt fits wonderfully,

and she was up and running immediately.

She spent the rest of the month surrounded by this mess:

I'd also done some mending. My mom's favorite jackets lose their zipper heads in the wash, and her facility didn't make the effort to secure them before washing, so finally they both were unable to zip closed. For an Alzheimers' victim, this is intolerable as she will try to zip that jacket closed every few minutes, and not understand why she can't.

It was a simple matter to rip out the old zippers and replace them with newer, sturdier separating zippers. Mom's happy with zip-able jackets, and I don't have to fret about every wash day. So silly that it took me over 3 years to figure this out!

May's walker banner took longer than it should have. I spent far too much time trying to create a foundation paper-pieced pattern of a muscular arm, on which I'd considered drawing or embroidering a "MOM" tattoo. I felt myself dreading the whole May banner, getting more tense about the project. I finally decided to just stick to my original plan of flowers ("April showers bring May flowers") and embroider the tat on the banner header, sans muscles.

This was my view yesterday morning.

I'd originally had "The lusty month of" above the word "May", but when I added the additional tat design, suddenly that phrase seemed inappropriate sandwiched between two 'tatoos' of MOM.

The finished May banner.

This is the first I've notice that below-the-line letters are raised slightly: p, g, y.

So as to avoid the carnage of last month,  I stitched along all the edges of the top section, and will be doing that from now on. Nobody will be ripping this apart!

I haven't pulled a machine for May yet, but Rosaleen is off the sewing table and waiting for a good cleaning and oiling. That had been my intention for today, but I'm back on the Management Team for the chorus and I spent the day closing the books on our last Fiscal Year and preparing for our newly-started one. Perhaps tomorrow morning?