Serging Shoelaces

We had such fun in serger class yesterday. I had three students register ahead of time but one didn’t show. A fourth student registered just before class. The store had set up three sergers for me in the classroom. I wanted to do the class in a “round robin” format so that each machine could have a different stitch setting and decorative thread.

Each student owned a serger but had limited experience. I spent the first 30 minutes giving them a very condensed version of my serger mastery class. I have to remember to start out by defining what a looper is and what it does, because even people who own sergers aren’t necessarily familiar with the terminology.

After that, we made scrunchies, shoelaces, and socks. I provided all the material. The students worked well together and we had a lot of fun. I want people to laugh and enjoy themselves in my classes. All three left feeling more comfortable and confident about using their sergers.

I fielded the usual “Why don’t you have your classes on Saturday?” question. If I could have a month full of Saturdays for classes, I would, but I have to share Saturdays with other teachers and events.

******

I am going to be a grumpy old woman now. I suppose all generations do this. My first gripe has to do with the proper etiquette for requests. The husband works as a subcontratcor to many different general contractors in the county. The GCs are required to have a W-9 and a certificate of insurance on file for each of their subs. I can always tell when someone is getting audited by their insurance company because I will get a panicked e-mail asking for documentation.

I keep a scanned copy of the W-9 on the computer so I can send that whenever I get a request. The certificates of insurance have to come from our agent, and the agent requires that I provide a current mailing address for the company requesting the certificate. It’s very helpful if the company requesting the certificate puts that information in the signature line of their e-mail. If not, I sometimes can find it on the company website. Lately, however, the trend seems to be that websites only have a phone number and e-mail and no other contact info. I have had quite a few requests since the first of the year for certificates, but no contact info accompanies it. If you are going to request something from me—especially something that you need in a hurry to avoid getting dinged by your insurance company—don’t make extra work for me by making me hunt down your contact information. I am reminded of the Inigo Montoya Rule for Social Interaction (Princess Bride reference):

"I am Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!"

When communicating with real humans online it is an excellent best practice to do precisely what he does:

1. Introduce yourself without obfuscation or misdirection. (Hi, I am So-and-So General Contractor.)

2. Provide a relevant reason for the connection. (Tom does work for me and I need copies of his insurance documentation.)

3. State your business succinctly and allow them to respond. (Would you please send a certificate of insurance to this address?)

A lot of these guys text the husband to ask for this stuff, so he has been directed to get their contact information or have them e-mail it to me. I am an absolute pain in the ass of an administrative assistant, but our construction company runs like a well-oiled machine.

I run into something similar when asking people to be guests on the podcast. Trying to get some of these younger people to commit to a date and time is like pulling teeth. I’ll send three e-mails and if we haven’t scheduled a date by then, the request goes into the trash.

My other gripe is about the trend I am seeing for people who make one garment or quilt and decide to go into business as a designer. Literally, I saw one reference this morning to a new designer that started out with, “Designer X made a baby blanket last year and decided that sewing should be her full-time occupation!” I am all for people starting businesses from their hobbies because heaven knows I am guilty of that. However, it does everyone a disservice if you, Novice Designer, put out patterns that can’t be made from the instructions. Get yourself a competent pattern drafter and/or technical editor. Likewise, if you don’t understand proper garment construction techniques, don’t set yourself up to do alterations and repairs if you’re just going to make a hash of people’s clothing. I am still learning as I go, even at my age, but I also try to respect my limitations.

</rant over>

We need a photo for today’s post, so here you go. This is from January 2015. What a contrast to this year—we barely have enough snow to cover the grass.

Tune In On Tuesday

Next Tuesday’s podcast episode (January 13) will be a special one. You may remember that in October 2024, I took a trouser drafting class from Kenneth D. King at the Sewing and Design School in Tacoma, WA. The class was terrific. Kenneth is an amazing teacher and I would love to take another class from him.

[My Seattle peeps—because there seem to be so many of you listening to the podcast—Kenneth said he would come out and teach his raglan coat class at the Sewing and Design School if I could get enough people to commit to taking it. If you’re interested, let me know at Janet at JanetSzabo dot com.]

At the trouser class, Kenneth signed my copy of his book Doll Couture:

Doll Couture is the store of Lola, the showgirl in the Barry Manilow song “Copacabana.” The book picks up at the end of the song, when Lola is broken and grieving and in hiding from Rico, the man suspected of killing Lola’s boyfriend, Tony.

[Two items of note here:

1. I was a huge Barry Manilow fan as an adolescent. I had all the records and knew most of the songs by heart.

2. My sister and I had an extensive Barbie doll collection. One year for Christmas, my mother made clothes for them, including a turquoise blue pantsuit of polyester double-knit with gold baby rickrack trim. Our dolls were quite the thing. ]

Doll Couture is not a story book or novel; rather, it weaves in Lola’s story with the creation of 1/6 scale clothing for fashion dolls and introduces a number of additional characters to the story, including Crazy Bella, the Orlof-Volenski Triplets, and others.

Doll Couture: Red Carpet Edition, picks up where Doll Couture left off, with the introduction of even more characters to the story and the creation of some truly spectacular garments.

Kenneth was kind enough to spend some time with me last week talking about the books. I hope you will listen to the episode, and if you are so inclined, buy the books. (We want him to continue the series!) The stories are entertaining and you will marvel at the couture techniques used to make clothing on such a small scale.

******

I finished quilting the baby quilt yesterday. It needs to be trimmed and bound. I also fixed Anna’s skirt properly. I told her that next time, she should just bring her stuff to me.

Today, I am teaching a serger class called Shoelaces, Scrunchies, and Socks. This is going to be a fun class. Next Friday, I am teaching my thread class. That’s always a good one. February will be full of classes, including my Sew Expo classes in Puyallup, WA. Ticket sales go live on Tuesday, January 13.

Baby Stars

I’ve quilted about two-thirds of the baby quilt. I’ll finish it today and get it bound this weekend. I’m doing a combination of free motion meandering and rulerwork stars. Amanda Murphy has a set of star rulers and the smallest one makes a star about 1-1/2" across. I’ve wanted to do this combination on a baby quilt for a while and I love how it looks:

The thread is light yellow on both the front and back.

I had tea with my friend Anna yesterday afternoon and came home with a skirt of hers that she needs to wear to a funeral next week. She had taken it to someone in town to have the elastic replaced and whoever did it made an absolute hash of it. I took it all apart last evening and will replace the elastic properly today for her. I have no desire to get into mending and alterations as a business but I will do work for friends on occasion.

I was unable to find the men’s pants pattern yesterday in town. I stopped by the store on my way home and several of us were commenting on what a huge loss it is to the local sewing community not to have a Joann Fabrics anymore. One woman had made a pair of bib overalls and had to settle for the strap hardware that was at Hobby Lobby, which was the wrong color. Hobby Lobby is really missing out on a stellar opportunity to expand their sewing department. Of course, this is the same company that won’t use scannable bar codes, so their cashiers have to enter every single item by hand, which results in checkout lines 30 people deep during the holiday season. And now they are no longer carrying McCall’s patterns. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that they are unable (or unwilling) to step in and take up the slack now that Joanns is closed. We have a Michaels, but they have not yet expanded their fabric and yarn department and I have no idea if they will or not. It’s a small store. Walmart has some fabric supplies, but they don’t appear to be doing much restocking. Our store has been sold out of interfacing for months.

The quilt store has made a Herculean effort, especially with fabrics, but they can’t carry everything. Garment sewists seem to need more notions than quilters do. Online ordering (ugh) seems to be the only recourse.

I am doing better than most, having amassed the equivalent of a small Joanns store over the past decade, but even I am going to run out of supplies at some point.

Enough whining. I bought fabric for the men’s pants pattern yesterday at the store—Kona Crush, which is wonderful if you haven’t yet seen it—in a lovely deep caramel color. These pants aren’t for me, so I can use a color I normally wouldn’t choose.

******

I host my podcast with Buzzsprout, and every year, they provide a recap of the previous podcasting season. These are some of the stats from 2025:

• I recorded a total of 1586 minutes

• I recorded a total of 43 episodes

• The podcast is listened to in 116 countries (wow)

• The podcast is listened to in 5074 cities

• Seattle has the most listeners (hey people!), followed by Chicago and Sydney, Australia

• There were 69.3K downloads

I find all of that fascinating. I am excited to keep going in 2026. Next week’s podcast will be a great one, with a very special guest. More on that in the next couple of days.

The Men Want Pants, Too

I am really trying to get away from, “Oh look! A squirrel!” with my sewing, which has been difficult, especially when it comes to classes. Someone will see a pattern and say, “Janet should teach a class on this!” and then my schedule goes all to pieces. I tried to counter this by getting a slate of classes on the store calendar for the first half of 2026 so I could get all the class samples made and off my to-do list. We scheduled all of the machine mastery classes, too. I was congratulating myself on having mapped out a plan, and then the store in Missoula called. Would I do a serger mastery class for them? Sure. That’s on the schedule for next month.

I taught the sewing machine mastery class yesterday, which I do on the first Tuesday of every month. This is the class I can’t prepare for because I don’t know who is going to show up with what machine. I had seven students, including one guy. He had called me just after Thanksgiving to ask about the class. His mother passed away last year and he inherited her sewing machine—a Bernina 880 like mine—and her serger.

I said to the husband that having him in the class with that machine was like having a hyena in a class full of bunny rabbits. The 880 is completely different from the other Bernina sewing machines. That didn’t bother me because I also own (and love) one, but it did mean that I had to set the other students to their own tasks—they practiced free motion quilting—while I worked with this guy on the features unique to his machine.

During lunch, he asked what other classes I teach at the store. He’s taking the next serger mastery class. As the owner was telling him about the garment classes, I noted that I didn’t have any classes for men’s garments, an observation which led to, “Janet should teach a class on making men’s pants!” The owner’s son, who is the machine tech, was also eating lunch with us. He said he would take such a class and knew of a couple other guys who might be interested.

Someone catch that squirrel.

It appears that I will be teaching a class on making men’s pants. (Janet B, you and I will have to discuss this tomorrow.) We will be starting simply, with a pair of pull-on joggers. If that goes well, I might consider teaching a more complicated pattern with a fly front.

I am leaning toward either Simplicity 3110:

or McCall’s 8636.

I couldn’t find any indie patterns I liked. The McCall’s pattern is unisex, which might be a better choice, although I think both patterns could be considered unisex, for what that’s worth.

[Unisex only works for a subset of people; most women are going to need some kind of alteration to the pattern because their shapes are so different. When I took the trouser drafting class from Kenneth King last year, there was one young man in the class. He finished his muslin about halfway through the first day of class because he didn’t have to make any alterations to it. Life is not fair. 😑]

One of these pants patterns is now in the sewing queue after the Burnside Bibs. This is fine because I have been kicking around the idea of making some pants for DD#2’s boyfriend. He is a personal trainer and has been having trouble finding pants that don’t fall apart after a few washings. I said that if I could source the appropriate fabric, I would make him some.

The baby quilt top is basted with backing and batting and waiting to be quilted. I’d like to have it on its way by early next week.

No More Sloth Time

Sloth time is officially over. I am teaching two classes this week and have a podcast interview scheduled for tomorrow. I want to run up one more iteration of the Iguazu Top and start the Burnside Bibs. The baby quilt top needs to be quilted and bound and sent off. And I am trying to get myself back into the groove of embroidering in the evenings. I am working on one of Robert Mahar’s anatomical designs:

All of this fitting stuff is still percolating through my brain, too. If I can get my thoughts into some kind of order, this may end up as a class proposal for Sew Expo for next year.

I am probably going to insult someone with the following observation, even though that is not my intention. A few of my friends and I—friends with fitting issues similar to mine—have commented to each other that a lot of the indie pattern companies seem to be owned by petite women with few fitting issues. Their designs tend to reflect their fitting preferences, which only makes sense. If I had a pattern company, I would probably design clothing that fit me. That’s why I joined the Cashmerette Club. Jenny designs for busty and curvy women, so I will have to do a lot less work to get her patterns to fit me than I do patterns designed by someone who is 5'4" tall and wears a 34B bra size.

There can’t be a perfect pattern that fits everyone; the variation in body size and shape is simply too great. I think it’s worth it to try a lot of different pattern companies to find those—hopefully, more than one—that give you a head start on making clothes to fit you. The Love Notions designs are all wonderful, but I have to do way too much work to get them to fit me. I’m finding the same thing to be true with the Itch to Stitch patterns. I’ve actually had the best luck with some of the commercial patterns—Burda 6315 comes to mind.

******

I am making what my mother-in-law used to call a “croak book.” It’s the master list of everything that is in my brain, so if something happens to me, the husband will at least know where to start. This is a good time of year to do it, because I am having to go through files and websites to gather end-of-year documentation for the accountant. I am writing down information as I do that. Also, if something happens to both of us, we want the kids to be able to find things easily.

I am moving an awful lot of paper around these days. 🫤

******

The seed catalogs are starting to arrive but I refuse to look at them. I will wait another month or so. I can’t do anything until the end of March, so why torture myself?

It is weird to be in January, though, with virtually no snow on the ground. We’ll have to see what the next couple of months bring us.

Bigger Does Not Always Mean Bigger

That’s not a typo; you read it correctly.

What pattern drafting knowledge I possess has come to me mostly from fitting myself and from grading knitting patterns. Neither of those methods has been perfect or comprehensive. I do know a few basic principles, though. One of them is that garments do not/should not get proportionally larger when a body gets larger. Certain sections may change at a faster or slower rate than others. (Calculus, anyone?) That variation makes pattern drafting more of an art and less of a science. It’s why you’ll often hear women complain that if they buy (or make) a top that fits their bust measurement, the shoulders are way too large. For sewists, that means choosing a pattern based on their smaller high bust measurement and doing a full bust adjustment (FBA) on the bodice.

And then there are situations where even that doesn’t help.

Yesterday’s task was to make a muslin of the Itch to Stitch Iguazu top. I went into the stash and pulled out a navy blue lightweight rayon French terry which came from the Walmart remnant rack. Even though it was a French terry, the weight was similar to that of a beefy rayon spandex. I read through the instructions, which specified to choose a size based on the full bust measurement and use either the regular bust or full bust pattern pieces, depending on the difference in measurement between the high bust and full bust. Nothing odd there—that is the standard method for determining if a full bust adjustment is necessary. In this case, the full bust adjustment had been provided in the form of an alternative pattern piece.

I traced my size, lengthened it appropriately, cut out the pieces, and ran up the muslin. This is an easy sew, with only half a dozen seams. I did most of it on the serger. And then I put it on.

The top fit well in the bust. However, the cowl style is almost that of a boat neck, and the upper bodice was swimming on me. My bra straps were showing, and if I leaned over, the whole world would get a good look at the rest of it.

Is this a drafting problem? Yes and no. I am trying to be gracious to the designer and to the pattern drafter, because two women could have the same full bust circumference but have very different body shapes, and this is a conundrum I don’t know how to solve. One might carry a lot of extra weight in her arms and shoulders whereas the other doesn’t (think Dolly Parton).

And the fact that this is a top with a self-facing complicates the issue. I took a good hard look at the way the top sat on my body while I contemplated how to fix it. In the end, I added about an inch to the length of the shoulder seam on both the front and the back pattern pieces to bring the neckline in closer to my neck. I made a second muslin:

(My dress form lists to one side. The husband has tried to fix that for me to no avail.)

I am much, much happier with this one. The upper bodice now fits my shoulders well. The front of the cowl doesn’t gape. The cowl drapes a bit differently, but that seems minor to me. It’s a cowl.

[It does beg the question of why most cowl neck patterns seem to be in the form of boat neck styles? The Easton Cowl Tee is very similar. What am I missing?]

This is a wearable muslin. I may make one more iteration, though. The pattern, as presented, has waist shaping. That is problematic for me. I have a defined waist, but I am so short-waisted and have such a high hip curve that my waist comes in and goes right back out again. Tops that follow that line look bizarre on me and also make my bust look even bigger than it is. (Think sausage tied in the middle. I don’t wear belts, either.) I do much better with a silhouette that flares out gently from below the bust, even though I run the risk of it looking like a maternity top. I may eliminate the waist shaping on this pattern and make another version to see what I think. I may also play around with the front facing and make it slightly less deep.

*******

This is a long post, sorry. I have lots to say about fitting today.

Back in October, I was shopping in the Liz Claiborne department at JC Penney. (God bless the Liz Claiborne label because their clothes almost always fit me well.) I pulled a dress off the rack and decided to try it on even though I have a lot of problems finding dresses that fit (see sausage comment, above).

I bought the dress because it looked so flattering on me. I haven’t worn it yet because it’s more of a spring/summer style. It basically looks like Simplicity 8875:

I usually avoid empire-style dresses because of the full bust issue—that empire line sits on top of my bust instead of underneath, where it is supposed to sit. I thought I could probably puzzle out how to do an FBA on the pattern, but now I don’t have to! Whitney, at TomKat Stitchery, did a video a few years ago showing exactly how to make an FBA on this pattern. So this one is getting added to the queue. I think 2026 may end up being the year of the dress.

*******

And lastly, for those of you who may be wondering (coughSarahcough), the barn spider is still living in the corner of my kitchen above the hall tree. I feel an obligation to this poor creature as it has been there for four months now. I am determined to keep it alive until the spring when it can go live outside again. Fortunately, a fly or two shows up every week to provide sustenance.

January Hits the Ground Running

I knocked out a major portion of my to-do list yesterday morning. I write down everything; otherwise, little stuff falls through the cracks, and it’s the little stuff that comes back to bite you. Death by a thousand paper cuts.

QuickBooks payroll appears to be ready to go, or at least that’s what it tells me. I’ll find out for sure when I run payroll for the first time in 2026. One of our employees gave notice the other day. I asked the husband what this guy’s plans were, and he said that he wants to become an independent contractor. I am all for people wanting to work for themselves—another of our (former) employees went out on his own last year—but I don’t think that people always have a good appreciation for what is involved in starting and running a business. The husband and I have a joke that these guys “need a Janet” to handle the administrative end of things, but the husband pointed out that Janets are rather thin on the ground.

[No, I don’t want to start my own business as Administrative-Janet-For-Hire. I have plenty of jobs as it is.]

It isn’t just payroll, which is a huge responsibility, but also contractor registration, insurance, DOT and OSHA compliance, and all the paperwork required by the general contractors we sub to.

The husband and I have an excellent working partnership, which means I don’t tell him how to do concrete and he stays out of my office. 😉

******

It’s already January and I haven’t made any new cool-weather items to add to my wardrobe. At the rate I am going, it will be time to make stuff for spring and summer and I will have missed winter completely. I am still trying to plug holes in my wardrobe, and nothing reveals holes quicker than packing for a trip, which I have done several times recently. I need a few more Jalie Nathalie tops. I also traced this pattern yesterday:

This is the Iguazu Top from Itch to Stitch. I have made a few Easton Cowl-Neck Tees using the pattern from Liesl + Co but I’d like to see how this one compares. The Easton pattern is alphabet sizing with cup sizes whereas the Iguazu pattern is numerical sizing with a full bust pattern piece option.

I had to lengthen the pattern, of course. I am going to try making it in a jersey knit AND in a lightweight sweater knit, both of which were in the suggested fabrics list. If it fits and I like it, I could also see lengthening the pattern into a dress. The pattern comes with four sleeve lengths, which makes it very versatile.

Making dresses is one of my goals for 2026. Using fabrics from my stash is another goal. We shall see what happens.

Happy 2026!

I am starting to think I should open a PO box in Washington state because I spend so much time there. I made another trip over and back, and I managed to do it in between storm systems.

DD#1 and her husband bought a house and moved into it in November. It’s a wonderful house on five acres, but it’s a mile off the county road. That’s a feature, not a bug, for them. Their house in Ketchikan was beseiged by tourists throughout cruise ship season and they wanted privacy. However, privacy comes with a road full of potholes and ruts and DD#1’s 20 year-old Honda Civic wasn’t cutting it. My Jeep fairly glided over the uneven surface, so I decided to sell it to her and get a new one. I loved the BMW, but the Jeep has been a great replacement. Mine had 35,000 miles on it and has had no issues.

Knowing it would be easiest to swap vehicles over there, we called the guy who helped us purchase the husband’s two work trucks. I explained what I wanted and he found it. The new Jeep is basically the same model as the old one with a few more bells and whistles. It’s also red. I asked if they could install running boards and studded snow tires and he said that those would be done by the time I arrived.

I left Sunday after church, because I had to deliver the sermon that day. Also, during the winter, it’s easiest to break the trip up into two days. I spent Sunday night in Spokane, then drove to DD#1’s house on Monday. We went out to dinner that night with her in-laws. On Tuesday morning, she and I headed back to Seattle. When we arrived at the dealer, the new Jeep was ready and waiting for me. Our sales guy was amazing. Not only did he have the Jeep ready for me, but he went over the paperwork for the private sale and had everything appropriately notarized so that DD#1 could make the title transfer easily.

She headed home—with a stop at Ikea—and I headed for Pacific Fabrics. 😇 I bought two more yards of the Hugo Boss deadstock fabric because I have decided to make a longer, lined coat. The store was insanely busy. Usually, there are half a dozen people shopping. That day, there were probably four times that many. I would have liked to linger, but I had a few other errands to do.

DD#2’s boyfriend’s mother has been in Seattle since the middle of December. She is staying at the same Airbnb where I stay when I’m there. (She heads home tomorrow.) I met her and the kids for dinner. She is so much fun. I wish we had had more time to visit.

I left Seattle a bit later than I wanted to on Wednesday because the fog was so thick. I have a healthy respect for freezing fog—I saw one of our neighbors flip his truck in freezing fog—and I am familiar with how Washington drivers do not. I waited until the sun came up and the fog started to burn off. I arrived in Spokane around 1 pm, which gave me plenty of time to do some shopping. I had a list of supplies for my Sew Expo classes and knew I could get most of them there. I also picked up a backing for the baby quilt; my college roommate’s granddaughter arrived a few weeks early, just after Christmas, so I need to finish that project and get it on its way.

Speaking of fog, DD#2 and her boyfriend went to a friend’s apartment for New Year’s Eve so they could watch the fireworks from the Space Needle. The fog was so thick that this was their view:

I drove home yesterday morning. Traffic was virtually nonexistent, which was lovely. The roads were clear and dry. I really did luck out with the weather over the passes in both directions.

And now I need to play catch-up and deal with the end-of-2025 paperwork. I am also hoping that because it is the beginning of 2026, QuickBooks payroll will play nicely. Pray for me. I could continue to do payroll manually, but that is hard to do when I am traveling.

The husband is done slacking and plans to go to work today to prepare for a concrete pour next week.

Laid Back

The husband and I have been sloths this week. We have slept in every day—for him, that means 9 o’clock and for me, that means 6 o’clock 😇—and although we’re still working on projects, we’ve slowed our roll a bit and take lots of breaks. I doubt that either of us could stand a steady diet of this routine. For a few days, though, it’s a nice break.

I made a baby quilt this week using this fat quarter bundle of baby prints from The Quilting Bee in Spokane. This is Rainbow Dreams by Jenny Faw for Wilmington.

I had exactly enough fabric—I think I had one 2-1/2" strip left over when I was done piecing. I did a simple rail fence quilt because the prints were so cute that I didn’t want to cut them up too much. Also, the baby is due soon.

I’ll get a backing and batting and finish this one this week.

*****

I made a master list of priorities for January and February, broken down into the categories of Teaching, Construction Company, Church, Podcast, General Sewing, and Continuing Education (mine). I’ll refine those further in the coming days, but I wanted to make sure the time-sensitive ones were on my radar. I need to order supplies for my Sew Expo classes and that has to be done during the first week of 2026.

One of my friends showed me her bullet journal a few weeks ago and I think I might try keeping one of my own. It would be nice to have all of my lists in one central location.

One of the girls who works at the store wants to make another quilted jacket for Bernina University in June. She made one for BU this year from Tula Pink fabric with some custom embroidery and other fun touches. It was accepted into the fashion show in Salt Lake City. She received many compliments on it from other attendees. When I took my finished Tamarack into the store the other day, she tried it on to check the fit and sizing. The size I made fits her reasonably well, but it needs a few alterations specific to her shape. I am going to make those changes to the pattern and run up a muslin. The alterations I think she needs are ones I haven’t tried yet, so this will be a learning experience for both of us.

*****

I will leave you with something funny to watch. The husband found this video on YouTube the other day. Be aware that it is an AI-generated video with some obvious errors. However, the girls and I have been laughing about it because it’s like it was made about him. (Especially the part about it being a good day when no one talks to him and the part about pulling stranded vehicles out of ditches. We have never watched Yellowstone.) He even looks and dresses like the guy in the video. And his wife is familiar with jackets that have been mended many times . . .

Twilight Zone

We have now entered that week between Christmas and New Year’s when no one knows what day it is and we’re all eating leftovers. Personally, I like this time. I do a lot of cleaning and organizing and preparing for the new year. My 2026 planner is on my desk and already filling up with color-coded highlighted dates. I have a stack of lists with items ready to be checked off.

The Tamarack Jacket has buttons. I spent several hours on Tuesday driving around Kalispell attempting to find suitable turquoise buttons, to no avail. Finally, I ended up back at Hobby Lobby where I purchased blanks to make covered button 7/8" buttons. I was able to scrounge enough scraps of the binding fabric to make five buttons to match:

And then I had to make buttonholes . . .

That took me the rest of Tuesday and half of Wednesday. I know why sewists will do just about anything to avoid buttonholes. I calibrated my buttonhole foot. I tested—several times—on scrap pieces of quilted fabric. The test buttonholes looked great. I measured. I re-measured. I tested again. The first jacket buttonhole turned out beautifully. Excited to finish, I tried to make the second buttonhole, and the machine decided to make it half the length of the original buttonhole. I took out the thread and tried again. Same result. I tested on the scrap piece of quilted fabric again. The buttonhole came out perfect. I tried again on the jacket. Same result. I put up the extension on the back of my sewing table to support the weight of the jacket. I tried embroidery stabilizer. No luck.

It went like that, over and over, until I was afraid that all that unpicking would destroy the integrity of the fabric, so I set everything aside until Wednesday morning. Finally, I was able to get five buttonholes that were within a few millimeters of the correct length and I called it good.

Really, it shouldn’t be that hard. I probably should have made manual buttonholes instead of relying on the machine’s automatic buttonholes, but I have had good success with the automatic ones in the past.

I have almost completed a Toaster Sweater shop sample. I wish I had remembered to take a photo of the end of the bolt so I knew the name of this fabric. It is an absolutely heavenly sweatshirt fleece.

I know the store has it in this burgundy and also in a taupe color. I have to sew on the bottom band and the turtleneck and it will be done. Both this and the Tamarack Jacket will go to the store today.

I want to get my errands done today because we are supposed to get a back door cold front overnight. We may get a few inches of snow and some wind. We may get nothing. Who knows anymore?

If I have time to play around in the sewing room today, I think I will work on a baby quilt.

No More Quilted Jackets

It is time to move on to another project. I am a bit tired of making quilted jackets.

The Tamarack Jacket is done save for the closures. I have not yet decided on buttons or snaps. (I am leaning toward turquoise buttons.) You may be able to see the yellow thread tailor’s tacks in the photo marking their position:

This one fits me well; I did lengthen it by about 2-1/2". I also shaved a total of about 3" off the back at the sides below the armscye after comparing the back pattern piece to the back pattern piece of my BU jacket. The larger sizes of this pattern, especially, have more way ease at the hip than I want or need. (I used the D-cup range with the bust dart.)

I did patch pockets this time instead of the (very fussy) welt pockets and I like these better. The binding came from my stash. I had a hard time finding a binding fabric that would work with both the outer and lining fabrics. This binding fabric coordinated with both and I had just enough.

I stitched the binding down by hand on the inside.

That meant that I had to sit and sew for about an hour and a half yesterday afternoon, which I don’t usually do. I prefer to leave my hand sewing for after dinner, but I was motivated to finish this jacket.

Of all the quilted jackets I’ve made, I still like the fit and style of my BU jacket best. (That one used the McCall’s 8560 pattern.) The Tamarack is probably my second favorite, although I definitely need the extra length.

The Toaster Sweater and the Burnside Bibs are the last two class samples on my list. The Toaster Sweater can be made in an afternoon. The Burnside Bibs will take a bit longer. And I found out yesterday that my college roommate and her husband will welcome their first grandchild in 2026 (how exciting!) so I need to make a baby quilt.

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This has been a difficult week in the personnel department. I always told my kids that it was more important to watch what people do than listen to what they say. People will tell you whatever they think you want to hear. I try very hard to be straight in my dealings with others and I am often disappointed when I don’t get the same behavior in return. The husband teases me that I wake up every morning with my faith in humanity restored, only to have it destroyed in about five minutes. 😩 I’ve had a couple of encounters this week that just left me shaking my head.

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The weather forecasters in Washington state are currently beside themselves. The forecast models are showing a possible very strong windstorm on Christmas Eve, but those same models cannot seem to converge on a consistent forecast, even from model run to model run. The model solutions have ranged from “nothingburger” to “Armageddon.” I hope that the storm fizzles out before it gets there, because Washington certainly doesn’t need any further battering.

Tamarack Jacket in Progress

I was able to finish quilting the yardage for the Tamarack Jacket yesterday. All of the pieces have been cut:

I was hoping to make the bias binding and serge the edges of all the pieces, too, but I ran out of time before having to be at a Christmas caroling event. Those tasks will be on today’s to-do list. I cut my bias binding strips on my Accuquilt cutter and it doesn’t take long at all. Hopefully, I will be able to assemble the jacket this week. This version is getting the much simpler patch pockets, not the welt pockets.

I am happy to be moving projects through the pipeline. I’m at the point where I almost (almost) don’t care what I am making as long as I am creating something and learning in the process. Makers often sort themselves into one of two camps: process or product. Even as a knitter, I tended to lean toward process, although it is nice to have a finished object to show for all that work. I enjoyed the process of quilting the yardage for this jacket. Rather than being tedious, it was the quiet meditation time I needed after a week of wild weather.

Speaking of weather, I am not sure when I’ll be able to get over to Seattle to swap vehicles with DD#1. It looks like almost constant winter storms will be hammering the passes between now and the first of the year. I will have to keep an eye on the forecast to see if there are a few days when I can thread the needle—no pun intended.

I had to laugh at myself yesterday for being annoyed that it was sunny. (I know, I just complained about the wild weather.) For some reason, I associate sunshine with needing to be working outside in the garden—not sewing—and even though it was 30F and I can’t work in the garden even if I wanted to, I still preferred the gray and gloomy weather I’ve come to associate with sewing time.

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I joined the Cashmerette Club this year. Many indie pattern companies have similar subscription programs, but this is the one that made the most sense for me. I have enjoyed the extra content very much. One of the patterns on my wish list to make in 2026 is the Vernon Button-Up Shirt.

I want to make this for two reasons: 1) I’ve never made a button-up shirt and I need to learn these techniques, and 2) I know this will be a button-up shirt that actually fits over the real estate without gaping. And then there is the Marston Raincoat . . .

Another Windstorm?

I am awake and listening to the winds ramp up again, although the worst of this storm may track further south of us. We had a few inches of snow yesterday afternoon followed by warmer temps. The snow melted overnight and now it’s raining. Temps are supposed to fall again later today.

I can’t keep up.

Elaine and her brother and his wife—my traveling companions from last weekend—have been without power for about 48 hours, as has our church. The electric co-op is doing its best to repair the lines but it is slow going.

I didn’t get a lot of sewing done yesterday but I did finish quilting some of the yardage for another quilted jacket. This will be a Grainline Studio Tamarack Jacket. I made that pattern earlier this year. It is a popular pattern, although I’m quilting the yardage before cutting out the pieces. The pattern instructions have you cut the pattern pieces and THEN quilt them, which results in smaller pattern pieces because of shrinkage due to quilting. That makes it harder to get the sizing correct. There is a bit of waste using my method, but I can always make small zipper pouches out of the leftover quilted pieces.

This is the outside fabric (Glaze by Libs Elliot for Andover):

I did 60-degree diamond quilting using Fabulux, a variegated trilobal polyester thread from Wonderfil. This is such a simple quilting pattern but so effective.

The inside fabric is Besties by Tula Pink:

I have never been much of a Tula fan, but for some reason, I had to use this fabric. And it coordinates so well with the Glaze.

I have almost finished quilting enough yardage to cut out the back and both fronts. I’d like to quilt the last piece of yardage today—for the sleeves—so I can put the jacket together. Once I make the class sample for the Burnside Bibs, I’ll be done with my class samples for a while.

While we’re on the subject of quilted jackets, Anna Maria has designed the Rosebud Jacket Pattern:

I like shawl collars, but this one may be a bit too much of a statement for me. This a great pattern for color blocking/mixing and matching fabrics, though. I might be persuaded to break into some of my precious Tim Holtz fabric stash to make this one.

I have learned a lot about quilted jackets this year. I‘ve made roughly half a dozen versions—that includes muslins—and I think my BU jacket has been the most successful one to date. I’ve made patterns designed by garment sewists who weren’t quilters and patterns by quilters who weren’t garment sewists. I have moments when I think I should design a jacket myself because I am both a quilter and a garment sewist, but then I hit myself with a virtual 2x4 and come to my senses. The world does not need another quilted jacket pattern.

And the Wind Blew

Yesterday was one for the record books, I think. The storm that pummeled Seattle on Monday and Tuesday arrived around 9 am yesterday morning. Here at our house, we were spared the worst of it because the front was coming out of the west. The bad cold fronts for our location are the ones that drop down from Canada from east to west over the Continental Divide. Still, we got some significant wind gusts. We had another tree come down on our property (you can see we have almost no snow):

The Flathead Valley took the brunt of the storm. I was listening to scanner calls and there were trees and power lines down all over the county. Much of Kalispell was without power for most of the day. A semi blew over on Hwy 93 south of town. There was a 96 mph wind gust recorded at Mount Aeneas, which is the highest peak just above our house in the Swan Range.

The lights flickered occasionally but we did not lose power. I spent the morning finishing up class samples. I’m doing a class in January on three serger projects. The first are these shoelaces, which are adorable but surprisingly tricky to make:

We’ll also make scrunchies:

And a pair of socks. These are from swimsuit fabric. I’ve also made them from microfleece.

I chose Valentine-themed fabrics for this set.

After lunch, I began quilting yardage for another quilted jacket project. I needed to do something meditative for a while because the schedule has had a lot of wrenches lobbed at it lately. Once I get the yardage quilted, this particular project should go together quickly. Despite having a lot of sewing projects in the queue, I am trying not to rush through them. I don’t work in a factory and I think sewing should be a mindful activity.

Practice Makes Good Class Samples

I spent yesterday working on class samples. It was not a straightforward process. It rarely is. I can’t just wave a magic wand and create samples out of thin air. I made several iterations of each sample to make sure I understand the process and—more importantly—can teach it to others. I experimented with fabric and threads and made refinements to the techniques. All of that takes a surprising amount of time. It’s time well spent, because I am learning as I go, but that time doesn’t always get factored into “teaching.”

I don’t have any photos yet. I want to get all the samples made, first. I plan to drop them off at the store on Thursday.

On our travels this past weekend, we stopped at a travel plaza halfway between home and Coeur d’Alene. The gift store had a lot of this kind of loungewear made in very cushy fabrics:

I have no desire to make these—although the cardigan isn’t bad—but it’s fascinating to me to spot trends in the wild.

I skipped out on the sewing group Christmas party yesterday because I am a bit peopled-out from this past weekend and because I am trying to keep ahead of my to-do list. December sometimes attacks me when I am not looking. I have a meeting this morning and then I am heading to town to run errands before windy weather moves in tomorrow. The wind is supposed to come out of the south-southwest, which doesn’t hit us as badly as the wind from the back door cold fronts coming from the east, but we could still lose power or a few trees.

Washington State is a mess. Two lanes of I-90 eastbound on the way up to Snoqualmie Pass from the west side have been closed because the embankment is washing out underneath. Parts of Highway 2 are washed out. The Hood Canal bridge was closed to traffic for a few hours yesterday due to high winds. There have been two levee breaches southeast of Seattle. Residents are being evacuated and parts of state route 167 have been closed. That is a very busy highway. Weather equipment clocked a 92 mph gust at Snoqualmie Summit yesterday afternoon. The town of Concrete even had a 2.9 magnitude earrthquake yesterday morning. 😳

A Musical Trip

I went on a road trip but I got to be a passenger this time instead of the driver. That was a pleasant change. My friend Elaine’s niece is a senior at a private college in Moscow, Idaho. Elaine and I went to her niece’s Christmas concert last year and had a wonderful time. (Niece sings with the concert choir.) We planned to go again this year, as did Elaine’s brother, Steve, and his wife. The four of us left Friday morning for the five-hour journey. We rode in Steve’s truck, which has a crew cab, so Elaine and I were very comfortable in the back seat. We knitted and played word games and visited. I finished three more möbius cowls. Elaine made winter hats to donate to local organizations.

We met Steve and Elaine’s sister, Alice, and her family at the Airbnb around 2 pm. They live in Seattle and had driven over on Thursday. Alice made dinner for all of us and then we headed to a nearby church. The concert was amazing. This college has a small but high-caliber conservatory program and the director does not shy away from difficult pieces. Alice and her husband have a solid grounding in music—as does their entire extended family—so afterward, we had a good discussion about the pieces that were included in the program.

We would have loved to have stayed for the entire weekend, but I am pianist and Steve is song leader and Elaine is the Zoom host, so all three of us had to be back for church this morning. We left Moscow at noon yesterday and were home by 7 pm. The weather and roads were clear in both directions. The four of us are the core of the worship planning team, so we also had an impromptu meeting about what we need to accomplish going forward.

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I am hoping for some dedicated sewing time through the end of the year. On Thursday, the other Janet and I put half a dozen classes on the calendar for early 2026. I need to make those class samples. I also need to start working on handouts and class samples for Sew Expo.

One of the classes we’re going to offer at the store is the Burnside Bibs from Sew House Seven:

These aren’t something I would wear, so I am going to make the sample to fit one of the girls that works at the store. She chose the fabric but I will make a muslin first to make sure they fit and to familiarize myself with the pattern.

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Another atmospheric river is heading into Seattle and will reach us around mid-week, but this time, we’re going to get snow instead of rain. Right now, it looks and feels more like March than December.

I am getting a new Jeep. I hatched this plan over Thanksgiving because DD#1 needs a better vehicle. The house they just purchased is about a mile off the county road and her current Honda Civic isn’t cutting it on the gravel road to their house. She had been thinking about getting another vehicle anyway and test drove a few last spring. I offered to sell her my current Jeep Grand Cherokee at a good price. It is a solid, safe vehicle and I have had zero problems with it. (A welcome change after owning The Diva for nine years.) I like it enough that I want another one. The husband contacted the fleet manager in the Seattle area who helped him with his work trucks and that guy found one for me. At some point, we’ll deliver my Jeep to her and pick up the new one.

A Tremont Jacket

I try not to get too invested in a project, especially one that is an impulse make. That way, I won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t work out. I’m making garments to learn techniques and to work with different fabrics. The Tremont Jacket, though, is one I will make again. I absolutely love the way this turned out:

It looks good on me, the fabric is soft and cozy, the fit is close to perfect (could be longer), and it went together easily even in this fussy fabric. My only quibble with the pattern is that it doesn’t specify a vertical or a horizontal buttonhole. Help a girl out! I split the difference and went with one at an angle. And I found the perfect fabric-covered button in my vintage button stash:

This goes to the store today. The pattern goes into the tried-and-true pile, although the next time I make it, I will make a couple of changes: I will lengthen it (of course), and I might make two long fronts instead of one long and one short front. A reviewer on the Sewing Pattern Review website did that to make a version that was more of a coat than a jacket.

[On Monday, the other Janet and I were looking around the store for fabric for her Tamarack Jacket. The other Janet makes many of her own clothes and is not afraid of bold prints, but not in retina-burning colors. I’ve decided that I am not the right person to help people choose fabric for their garments—unless they have the same coloring as me and aren’t afraid to dress like a parrot—because I was pulling some really riotous fabrics. 🤪 I like the combination she chose.]

I did not make the cuffed sleeves on this version because the sleeves would have ended near my elbow and I wanted longer ones. I’d have to lengthen the sleeves if I want to cuff them. I also thought the fabric was too soft to hold a cuff well.

The rest of yesterday was spent on paperwork. The husband has done residential work for most of the last 30 years. Working for commercial contractors is another ball of wax. Even if the job is less than $1000 (which many of the concrete cutting jobs are), they want a mountain of documentation—some of it notarized—and invoices have to be submitted in specific ways. One company wanted a specific kind of documentation from Montana State Fund, which administers our work comp policy, and even our insurance agent was unfamiliar with what they were requesting. I’ve learned a lot, but all this paper shuffling takes time.

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Western Washington is getting hammered by these atmospheric rivers. Some areas are experiencing 10,000-year flooding. A section of I-90 eastbound east of Seattle is closed because of a landslide that took out three vehicles yesterday. Traffic is being diverted around the closure. Our kids are not affected, but I can’t imagine what some residents are having to go through right now.

The arctic air dropping down into the northern plains will not make it to our side of the Continental Divide, so we’re still getting rain. I’ve been making lots of soups for dinner.

Parties and Presser Feet

It has been a busy couple of days. I was invited to the staff Christmas party at the quilt store on Monday, which was great fun. (The store is closed on Mondays.) We all brought projects to sew and spent the day eating and visiting. I worked on patterns. There is one pattern in particular that a few of us have been wrestling with. Marci, who works at the store, was trained as a professional patternmaker and brought her tools and knowledge with her to the party. She and I traced and measured and tried to come up with a solution. Ultimately, we concluded that this pattern needs more work than either of us wants to give it.

One of the other women who works at the store has this old Nancy Zieman coat pattern (princess seams!) and I am trying to decide if I want to add it to the queue. It’s out of print, but she would let me borrow it and trace it.

The pattern is designed for ponte and other stable knits. I’m not crazy about the collar, but I could change it.

The additional yard of the triple gauze fabric has been washed and dried and is waiting for me to finish the Tremont Jacket. I also took apart and altered both sleeve caps on the Chloe Coat and put the coat back together. That was easier than it sounds. I didn’t have to disassemble the coat; I just turned it inside out through the lining and worked on it. The fit and appearance is much better now.

Yesterday was my machine mastery class with five students. That class exhausts me. I never know who is going to show up, with what machine, or what they are going to want to learn. I have to be on my toes thinking of what to teach them next. We talked about presser feet for part of the class, because I am a bit of a presser foot junkie. Bernina has 107 different presser feet for its machines. I don’t have all of them, but I have quite a few. Yesterday, we all found out that we could use the #71 flat-fell foot for sewing on binding. My mind was blown. This video explains how:

I’m going to try this on the next set of potholders I make. I think it will neaten and simplify the binding process tremendously. I prefer to sew down my quilt bindings by hand, though.

[BTW, if you Bernina owners out there haven’t discovered the Bernina of Naperville channel, I highly recommend it. Gail does some top-notch videos on all things Bernina.]

We spent the afternoon session of class working on machine embroidery. That also exhausts me because there is still so much I don’t know, although the store owner is more than willing to come back to the classroom and help with tough questions. I am hoping to be able to devote some time over Christmas break to do some embroidery.

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We have to talk about the weather. Western Washington is getting slammed with precipitation from repeated atmospheric rivers—which are supposed to continue though the end of the month—and is experiencing flood emergencies. Some of that moisture is making it inland to us, but it’s falling as rain instead of snow because the cold air is stuck in Canada. We are also under a flood watch here. (Our elevation is such that we aren’t in danger, but locations in the valley are.) I really think that if it were cold enough to snow, the amount of precipitation we’re getting would result in another winter like 1996-97, when we got so much snow that our dogs were walking on the roof of the garage.

It feels more like March than December right now, but the husband reminded me that we have plenty of opportunities for snow—and a lot of it—yet this winter.

Fabric Distractions

I am proof that marketing works. Ashlee sent out an e-mail a few days ago about the new Anna Maria line of fabric that arrived at the store, so of course I had to go in and see it. Anna Maria Parry is a force of nature. She is an artist and fabric designer who has designed for Free Spirit and currently works as the Design Director for Anna Maria Textiles, a division of Northcott. Her daughter, Juliana Horner, has also designed fabric. I still have some of Juliana’s fabric line from Joanns, back when Joanns carried Tim Holtz, Susan Winget, and some other heavy hitters. If you’d like to learn more about Anna Maria, I recommend this interview on the Craft Industry Alliance podcast.

[Does anyone else remember where they were when listening to podcast episodes? Maybe it’s just me because I listen while driving. I was first introduced to Mimi G on a podcast while driving through Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in Idaho. I listened to the Anna Maria interview on the last leg of a trip home from Seattle.]

Did I also mention that Anna Maria is the mother of seven children? I wonder if she ever sleeps.

Her new line is called Narrative and includes a selection of nine woven triple gauze fabrics. Some of you may be familiar with double gauze. It is exactly what it sounds like—two layers of cotton gauze—and is often used for lightweight garments and baby items. Triple gauze is three layers, woven in such a way that the layers are anchored together and form a positive/negative pattern on the front and back of the fabric.

I was seduced by the colorway called “Licorice,” which is a plaid comprised of black, red, and hot pink. (It was the hot pink that did it.) I brought it home, washed it on delicate and tumbled it dry on low because I wanted any shrinkage to happen before I started working with it. Triple gauze also frays like nobody’s business. It starts to disintegrate the second you cut into it, so the edges of the yardage had to be serged before washing.

[Triple gauze looks almost like a polyester double knit, although it is much less stable.]

Because of the need for careful handling, triple gauze wants simple patterns. I chose the Tremont Jacket from the Sewing Workshop.

I am not a flowy, unstructured jacket type of person, but this is about the fabric, not about adding more clothing to my closet. This design is perfect for handwoven-type fabrics, and triple gauze falls into that category.

I laid out the fabric on the floor of my bedroom to cut the pattern pieces and realized that I needed another yard for the second sleeve. (Extra fabric may be required to match stripes or plaids.) The store is holding it for me.

The fronts are asymmetrical and have 1-5/8" deep double-fold hems. The sides have a 5/8" seam allowance/hem. The front band is a self-fabric facing. On about page 3 of the pattern, I began to wonder if I had bitten off more than I could chew. The body pieces have mitered corners—mitered corners on acute angles where one side of the miter is a double-fold hem and one side is a single-fold hem. I understood what needed to happen but couldn’t figure out how to do it using the pattern instructions, so I puzzled it out a different way. I am pretty happy with my mitered corners:

You’ll note that I serged ALL the edges before I did anything else.

Once I got past those mitered corners, everything else went together smoothly. As of last night, I had sewn the body together at the shoulders and stitched down the neckline facing.

All that is left now is to sew in the sleeves, sew the side seams, and make the single buttonhole at the center front. This likely will be another shop sample. I like this design and could be convinced to try it again using a much-less-fussy-and-not-plaid handwoven-type fabric. This was a detour I hadn’t intended to take but I am glad I did. I feel very accomplished having sewn successfully with such a tricky fabric.

I would show you the Chloe Coat but I have decided to undo the sleeve caps and shave them down by half an inch. Poufy sleeve caps look funny on my broad shoulders and decidedly funny in corduroy fabric. I was counting on the shoulder pads to fill them out and that didn’t happen. Oh, well. After all that work, I want something I can wear, and I love the jacket otherwise.

Close to a Coat

I am very glad that I decided to make a muslin of the Chloe Coat pattern before cutting into my good fabric even though the coat has been relatively easy to make. Putting in the lining—”bagging the lining”—was an exercise in spatial perception skills that left my brain feeling like it had been mugged in a back alley. I watched a lot of YouTube videos. All that is left is the hem and the closures. The pattern calls for snaps, or “poppers” as the Brits say, but I may do buttons. I haven’t yet decided.

Fortunately, this will be a wearable muslin, something I throw on over jeans in the spring and fall when it’s cool. I like the flannel lining. On the second iteration, I will shave down the sleeve cap so it isn’t so poufy and possibly grade out to a slightly larger size at the hips. I need just a scooch more room there.

I hope to have a reveal photo for you by the end of the weekend.

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On my way to Seattle before Thanksgiving, I stopped in Post Falls, Idaho, to see the new Shabby Fabrics showroom. Post Falls is between Coeur d’Alene and Spokane, and has been the headquarters of Shabby Fabrics for a number of years. If you’re not familiar, Shabby Fabrics is an online quilting store. Jennifer, the owner, also has a wonderful YouTube channel.

The showroom is in the front of the (enormous) warehouse, which is a short drive off of I-90 and easy to find.

The showroom isn’t really set up as a regular store. Rather, there are themed booths—by holiday, etc.—with carefully-arranged displays of finished items with numbers next to them. Shabby Fabrics sells a lot of kits. If you see a finished item for which a kit is available, you write down the number on a sheet and clipboard provided as you enter the store. When you’re ready to check out, someone takes your sheet to the warehouse and pulls the items you want. A small selection of non-kit items, such as tools and notions, are also on display and available for purchase. If you order anything from the website, you can ask to have the items held for pickup, which would be convenient for someone like me.

It was late on a Saturday afternoon and I was the only one in the store, so I had a nice visit with Jennifer and her family. If you are anywhere near the showroom, make an effort to stop in.

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Once this Chloe Coat is done, I’d like to run up another muslin of the princess seam dress pattern just to check a few things. I should probably figure out what I am wearing for Christmas Eve and whether that decision involves making something. 🧐