Cannulas and challenges...

Current Mood : Ticked off

Tryin’ to figure out what to do with all these cannulas. The company that serviced my oxygen prescription said they couldn’t take them back, so they remain bagged up here. I have five 25-foot ones and seven 7-foot ones. The little leaflet inside the individual baggies says ‘RX Only’ – does that mean I can’t sell or give ‘em away ? It’s just plastic tubing with a nose-piece, but I have no idea how to use them for crafts. The one idea I have would use less than a foot of the stuff. The VA gets all they want from the air companies, too. Wonder if a school would take them, for crafts or something. Could always put ‘em in a ‘Free’ box at a yard sale. Last time I had one, this guy – who didn’t buy anything – hoisted the whole box onto his shoulder, loaded it into his car trunk, and drove away.

FIL wrote Beloved today, I’m so glad we wrote to BIL. He says he knows everything, there’s a bank error that’ll resolve today – too bad banks are closed – and there’s nothing to worry about. We checked again and didn’t see any errors on that statement, and the account’s been negative since 19 April. Even allowing for the glitch, didn’t MIL deserve to know, before she wrote any bad checks ? And that still doesn’t explain why the power, cable, and gas bills haven’t been paid since February. Twenny bucks we don’t have says we’ll still have to pay the backlogged power bill at month’s end, along with the water, too. But I hope I’m wrong. If it does turn out that way, I will post a public apology as soon as it happens, if I have to sling my computer into a tote bag and walk across town to publish it. But right now, I’m so sick of all this drama, it’s all I can do to not just go back to bed and hope it’s better tomorrow.

Can’t do that, so I sewed. Months ago, I downloaded some ‘Pattern Blocks’ from a DeviantArt website, and I found m’self wondering if or even how they’d work. They were just basic shapes, supposedly drafted from MH doll measurements, with no seam allowances or adjustments. Kind of a ‘use at your own risk’ pattern, but at least they were free, unlike other rotten companies who pull that crap for cash (coughLivingsofthack). I was rather spoiling for a challenge to take my mind off stuff, so I printed out the ‘Boy’ version. And cut out the shirt pieces.

Yikes. Much too small. It barely fit the girls. There it is, on my ‘dress form’, the long-ago-damaged DLaura. That’s the neat thing about fashion dolls – even a near-totally wrecked one can still be a good dress form over on the ole sewing Arena.  Added seam allowances – a quarter inch all around, except at center front – and a bit more for back closures and an extra quarter inch of length, and it worked up OK, it was just too big all around, and the ‘cap’ sleeves looked like something out of a bad 60s ‘space’ movie. Or a Joan Crawford film. You could get linebacker shoulder pads under that thing, and not see ‘em at all. And it was still shorter than I wanted. So I eliminated the side-seam allowance and added more length – then redrew the ‘sleeves’ into more of a wide-strap tank top. I hope to get that test sewn up tomorrow.