Seedlings and wardrobe emergency
5 April 2020 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeMy pansies are being eaten by small soil-living slugs (despite being out on a roof balcony with a great expanse of hot tiles between them and the nearest patch of earth); almost daily when I lift the pots I find another batch nestled up in the drainage holes, and their tell-tale tracks are visible up above. I suspect the eggs may have been imported in the soil when I bought the plants -- fortunately it appears to be limited to the pansies and the slugs are small enough for them to survive, albeit with annoying tatters in the flowers.
I dispose of the slugs by tossing them out onto the tiles, which during sunny hours is rapidly fatal.
The basil incubating in the bathroom isn't doing much -- probably still not 'Mediterranean' enough -- and neither is the one on the kitchen windowsill (save for hatching out compost flies); on the other hand at least one of the marigold seeds I tucked into the barren compartment has germinated, as have several more in the big pot outside, so the fourth generation of marigolds should be secure. I wonder if the rocket seedling I thought had been damaged by slugs is actually yet another poppy! The largest of the rockets is finally beginning to show its true leaves, and the cornfield mix that was sowed earliest is now starting to show several sets and look like little plants of different kinds, though I still can't remember which is which. (There was supposed to be poppy seed in that mix too, and we did get a couple of plants last year, but I don't see any poppy seedlings there; it probably all ended up at the bottom of the packet, being so fine...)
Another shirt has ripped in the wash -- not just the armhole seam, but a tear from it leading down the front where the cloth is soft and obviously worn out. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't even attempt to mend it, as it would require an enormous patch of awkward shape, and would in addition be very hard to find sufficient sound cloth to anchor it. But I'm running out of every-day shirts.
Of the ones that remain in my bulging wardrobe, two are silk (and one of those already patched with tiny, immaculate stitches and a piece of silk from an old dressing-gown lining), one was purchased for period 'working costume' purposes and is so much oversize that I can only wear it belted Russian-peasant-fashion, one I am husbanding carefully because it played a significant part in my life when I was nineteen and is now almost worn out, another also carries memories from the same era and is even more shabby, one is brushed cotton and hard to keep soft when you wash it (and hence constantly collects greasy marks round the neck), one is a home-made tailored shirt that requires cuff-links and can't have any kind of jumper on top of it (and is slightly too short in the waist to be worn tucked in -- I didn't get the alterations for size quite right when adapting the pattern), one is a lightweight artificial fibre shirt that doesn't have much warmth to it but manages to develop large and obvious sweat-rings under the armpits every time I wear it and smell accordingly, which the cotton ones don't, the one I was wearing yesterday is linen and went decidedly funny in its last wash, and the final one, currently reposing in the ironing pile, is out at the cuffs... as are many of the rest.
Basically, most of my clothes are either weird, worn out, or need special washing. Often more than one of the above. And if you don't live your life in jeans and T-shirts it's quite hard to find decent second-hand clothes -- the majority of shirts don't have long enough tails to tuck in, and come loose when you bend over (which is why I tend to end up buying them one or two sizes too big for me).
To find two or three plain and respectable cotton shirts that fit reasonably well usually entails visiting a long string of charity shops and undressing in each one, which is why I've been putting off the unpleasant task as long as possible; I think that orange linen shirt was the last one I bought, and that was years ago. And now it looks as if I've put it off too long, and the charity shops are going to be closed for months. I can't even get cloth to sew my own (I do have a couple of patterns, but sewing your own shirts is far from easy, as witness the unsatisfactory result of my one and only attempt).
When it gets hot enough to move on to short-sleeved shirts, I'll have a new set of clothes -- but as far as I recall, most of those are worn out too.
Even so, my instinct is just to rip this one up for rag (which I also need, my deceased pyjama jacket having been largely consumed by bicycle- and shoe-cleaning) and be grateful that I didn't waste time mending the cuffs earlier, which I'd seriously been considering. Putting a patch in to fix this hole would be a truly beastly job, and I very much doubt that the shirt's lifespan would be greatly lengthened thereby. The cloth under the other armpit does look reasonably sound, though the stitch-holes are somewhat enlarged, but there's a small hole already where the breast pocket is sewn to the front, and I'm sure the whole thing is on the way out :-(
I dispose of the slugs by tossing them out onto the tiles, which during sunny hours is rapidly fatal.
The basil incubating in the bathroom isn't doing much -- probably still not 'Mediterranean' enough -- and neither is the one on the kitchen windowsill (save for hatching out compost flies); on the other hand at least one of the marigold seeds I tucked into the barren compartment has germinated, as have several more in the big pot outside, so the fourth generation of marigolds should be secure. I wonder if the rocket seedling I thought had been damaged by slugs is actually yet another poppy! The largest of the rockets is finally beginning to show its true leaves, and the cornfield mix that was sowed earliest is now starting to show several sets and look like little plants of different kinds, though I still can't remember which is which. (There was supposed to be poppy seed in that mix too, and we did get a couple of plants last year, but I don't see any poppy seedlings there; it probably all ended up at the bottom of the packet, being so fine...)
Another shirt has ripped in the wash -- not just the armhole seam, but a tear from it leading down the front where the cloth is soft and obviously worn out. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't even attempt to mend it, as it would require an enormous patch of awkward shape, and would in addition be very hard to find sufficient sound cloth to anchor it. But I'm running out of every-day shirts.
Of the ones that remain in my bulging wardrobe, two are silk (and one of those already patched with tiny, immaculate stitches and a piece of silk from an old dressing-gown lining), one was purchased for period 'working costume' purposes and is so much oversize that I can only wear it belted Russian-peasant-fashion, one I am husbanding carefully because it played a significant part in my life when I was nineteen and is now almost worn out, another also carries memories from the same era and is even more shabby, one is brushed cotton and hard to keep soft when you wash it (and hence constantly collects greasy marks round the neck), one is a home-made tailored shirt that requires cuff-links and can't have any kind of jumper on top of it (and is slightly too short in the waist to be worn tucked in -- I didn't get the alterations for size quite right when adapting the pattern), one is a lightweight artificial fibre shirt that doesn't have much warmth to it but manages to develop large and obvious sweat-rings under the armpits every time I wear it and smell accordingly, which the cotton ones don't, the one I was wearing yesterday is linen and went decidedly funny in its last wash, and the final one, currently reposing in the ironing pile, is out at the cuffs... as are many of the rest.
Basically, most of my clothes are either weird, worn out, or need special washing. Often more than one of the above. And if you don't live your life in jeans and T-shirts it's quite hard to find decent second-hand clothes -- the majority of shirts don't have long enough tails to tuck in, and come loose when you bend over (which is why I tend to end up buying them one or two sizes too big for me).
To find two or three plain and respectable cotton shirts that fit reasonably well usually entails visiting a long string of charity shops and undressing in each one, which is why I've been putting off the unpleasant task as long as possible; I think that orange linen shirt was the last one I bought, and that was years ago. And now it looks as if I've put it off too long, and the charity shops are going to be closed for months. I can't even get cloth to sew my own (I do have a couple of patterns, but sewing your own shirts is far from easy, as witness the unsatisfactory result of my one and only attempt).
When it gets hot enough to move on to short-sleeved shirts, I'll have a new set of clothes -- but as far as I recall, most of those are worn out too.
Even so, my instinct is just to rip this one up for rag (which I also need, my deceased pyjama jacket having been largely consumed by bicycle- and shoe-cleaning) and be grateful that I didn't waste time mending the cuffs earlier, which I'd seriously been considering. Putting a patch in to fix this hole would be a truly beastly job, and I very much doubt that the shirt's lifespan would be greatly lengthened thereby. The cloth under the other armpit does look reasonably sound, though the stitch-holes are somewhat enlarged, but there's a small hole already where the breast pocket is sewn to the front, and I'm sure the whole thing is on the way out :-(
no subject
Date: 2020-04-06 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-07 02:10 pm (UTC)Of course, when I *am* dressed, it's very formal, because those are pretty much the only clothes I own. It's just that... a lot of the formal clothes are very shabby :-p