And Now It's December

I have no idea where the last two months went. October and November flew by. I shall endeavor to keep December from moving so quickly. Wish me luck.

I left on Saturday the 23rd for Seattle, spending the night in Spokane and arriving at DD#2’s apartment on Sunday (my birthday!) in time for lunch. Later that afternoon, I took the ferry over to Bainbridge Island and settled in at the Airbnb in Poulsbo that we had rented for the week. My mother, sister, and my sister’s fiancé arrived Monday night. DD#2 came over on Tuesday, her boyfriend joined her on Wednesday, and on Thursday, the whole horde of us traveled to spend Thanksgiving Day with DD#1 at her in-laws’ house. Her MIL generously welcomed all of us with a huge meal and lots of visiting.

In between and around, we visited Port Townsend—the airplane museum was a spontaneous but wonderful stop—shopped in Poulsbo, went to the Christmas Market at Seattle Center, and saw the movie “Wicked.” That movie is now at the top of my all-time favorites list. It had an actual storyline rather than just a flimsy plot held together by loud and expolsive special effects.

I did do a bit of fabric shopping on the way to Seattle. I always stop at The Quilting Bee in Spokane, and I was delighted to find a new line of fabric from Tim Holtz. And it’s pink! I am a huge Tim Holtz fangirl and buy just about everything he puts out. Fat Quarter Shop also carries a fat quarter bundle and yardage:

This is destined to be a quilt for me.

I made my FIL a quilt some years ago using a Tim Holtz fabric. The pattern was simple subway tiles with straight-line quilting. The evening he received the quilt, he laid down in his recliner, fell asleep, and didn’t wake up again until the next morning. Homemade quilts have special sleep-inducing properties. 😉

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I found a new-to-me pattern company called Waffle Patterns. They offer some very intriguing designs and the patterns are currently on sale. I bought the Arare pullover pattern, the Bamboo coat pattern, and the Kanoko tote bag set. The Lemon Pie cape coat is also adorable, but where I would wear that?

I’m going to try to sneak the tote bag pattern into the queue, because I am going to need to replace my beloved travel tote bag at some point. I don’t want to have to recreate it from scratch. The large Kanoko bag looks very similar, so I think I can use that as a jumping-off point.

Speaking of waffles, I bought some cotton waffle fabric from Minerva to make my mother a Roseto robe. She’s had no luck finding a summer robe, and when I bought that pattern, we both had the same idea—I would make her one.

No matter where I go now, if I see something in a store, my first thought is, “I could make that.” It keeps me from buying items unless I absolutely need them immediately.

And finally—I ordered some ribbing from Pacific Trimming in New York City. I decided I want to make the bomber jacket collar version of Butterick 7008 because it looks a bit more upscale than the self-collared version. I ordered the ribbing before I left and it arrived while I was away. I think I have everything I need now and can start on that project.

Doing the Thing

A couple of my sewing friends commented yesterday—not unkindly—about the number of clothes I make. They wondered about the size of my closet or where I wear these items. Here’s the conundrum in a nutshell:

I can’t teach effectively, or wax poetic about a sewing topic for 30 minutes on a podcast episode, unless I have a thorough understanding of that topic. (Zippers, I am looking at you.) And in order to get that level of mastery, I have to do the thing. YouTube is full of content produced by people who don’t really understand what they are doing. The number of people posting tutorials using fabric that has never made the acquaintance of an iron is proof of that.

Consider, too, that most clothing patterns require the creation of at least one muslin to assess and correct any fit issues. If you’re lucky—or adept at making alterations to the pattern from the beginning—your muslin might be wearable. If you’re really lucky, it will become a favorite piece of clothing.

From that standpoint, sewing clothing is rather a wasteful process. I try to minimize that waste by finishing my muslins even if I don’t plan to keep them. I might pass along the garment to someone else or I might donate it to a thrift store.

I don’t know how to get around this. Theoretical knowledge is just that—theoretical. Issues become apparent when a pattern goes from two-dimensional paper to three-dimensional fabric on a body.

I will admit to a certain fondness for clothing (and fabric in general). I may not be a fashion plate, but I like colorful, well-fitting garments. And I enjoy the challenge of sewing those garments myself. Believe me, I understand the relationship between fast fashion—which, by extension, can become fast sewing—and the amount of junk ending up in our landfills. I’m attempting to bypass fast fashion by making quality clothing for myself that will last for years, but there are parts of that journey I cannot avoid.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. 🙂

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My birthday is on Sunday. I’ve been serenaded by some church friends at a meeting, received several lovely cards, and when I got home from town yesterday, there was a bag of goodies waiting for me from Robin, including a yard of this wonderful chicken fabric:

I am going to make something special with this. Robin is a good gifter. She knows what her friends like.

I am making some good headway on one of my English paper piecing projects. This was a kit from a class that Tera and I took at Garden of Quilts three (!) years ago.

I have a few more columns of big hexies to sew together before this becomes a wallhanging quilt, but it’s getting there.

I picked up this Simplicity pattern on sale at Joanns yesterday:

I have three lengths of stretch velour in the stash (hot pink, black, and a deep lavender) that want to become something cozy. Also, this dress/top has a zipper, and I am on a quest to master zippers. Stay tuned.

Two Sweaters in One Day

A benefit of having my class canceled was that I was able to devote all of yesterday to sewing. I made the most of the entire day. One of the patterns I traced Tuesday afternoon was View D (bottom) of Simplicity 9385:

This is a dead simple sweater. It’s also very similar to Burda 6315, or how the current iteration of Burda 6315 looks. I’ve messed with that pattern so much that I decided I needed a clean slate. This looked like a good candidate. I used my Burda 6315 pattern pieces to determine a size, because the ease and finished measurement chart on the Simplicity pattern envelope were way off and would have had me cutting two sizes larger than I really needed. Yes, sweater knits need more ease than a clingy rayon spandex knit, but I didn’t require six inches of ease at the bust.

I have four yards of a Walmart sweater knit in my stash. You’ll see from the photo that it looks almost black, but it’s actually a very dark green. Eh. Not really a jewel tone, but I knew it would be good for a muslin.

I sewed it up but decided I didn’t want a hem after all. I like the banded bottom of the Toaster Sweater. The only reason I didn’t just use the Toaster Sweater pattern is that it’s a raglan and sometimes I want a set-in sleeve. Rather than shorten the sweater and cut and attach a band, I employed a serging trick I’ve used to make cuffs on baby leggings. I folded the bottom of the sweater up to the inside by about 3" and then folded it out again by another 3". Think “blind hem” on a pair of pants and you’ll get the idea. The result is a fold of fabric with a third layer of fabric on top. The raw edge of the third layer is even with the fold. I serged along that fold/raw edge and voilà!—instant band on the bottom of the sweater.

I didn’t want a band that drew the bottom of the sweater in tightly, but this band really needs to be a smidge smaller. No matter, I got the information I was looking for, which is that I like the band and I like the overall sweater length. This is about as “cropped” a sweater as I can make and still have the proportions look reasonable on my body.

I made the changes to the existing pattern and made a separate pattern piece for the bottom band so I could make it a tad smaller than the body.

For version 2.0, I pulled out one of the sweater knits I ordered recently to coordinate with my hot pink corduroy skirt and/or pants (I have both). I really had to work to get the pattern pieces to fit, so the band is not as deep on this version. I also had to abandon the idea of a cowl neck instead of a turtleneck. I thought I had ordered two yards of fabric but I think it was meters (this was an Etsy seller). I had a literal handful of scraps left when I was done cutting.

I made it work, though, and I am very pleased with the outcome:

This pattern has a bit of teal in it, too, so I could wear this sweater with a pair of teal corduroys in my closet that have been begging for a coordinating top.

I have two more sweater knit fabrics with hot pink in them. Both likely will be sewn up with this pattern.

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I am ridiculously excited about the release of the movie “Wicked” tomorrow. If you are unfamiliar with the story, it is based on the novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. The story is set in the time before Dorothy lands in Oz and follows the friendship of Glinda (the Good Witch) and Elphaba, who eventually becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. The novel was adapted to a popular Broadway musical (Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth) and is coming out as a movie tomorrow. If the trailer is to be believed—watch it here—I think the movie is going to be fantastic.

I chaperoned band tour the year DD#1 was a junior in high school. We went to Seattle and Portland and saw “Wicked” in Portland because the kids were playing music from the soundtrack in their spring band concert. And if I remember correctly, the girls saw it in New York City on one of their trips with their grandparents.

Patterns, Fabric, and a Bomb Cyclone in Washington State

I spent most of yesterday organizing patterns and tracing a few new ones. The Butterick jacket pattern arrived in the mail. I would like to start on that one soon. I like the bomber jacket version, but that requires that I hunt down some ribbing for the collar in an appropriate color—I would have to order it—and I’d really like to be able to wear this jacket before next summer. I may just make the version with the self-fabric collar. 🫤

Sourcing supplies is such a PITA sometimes.

I traced Butterick 6858, which has been in my stash for a while.

I want to make the dress version eventually, but I am going to start with the top. The front of both the top and the dress consists of three pieces seamed together princess-style. I also like that scrunchy collar. This may end up being one of those sleeper patterns, like the Déclic top—unassuming, but such a staple—because the envelope also contains pieces for a skirt and a pair of pants.

The teal-and-black tweed wool fabric I ordered arrived yesterday as well. It is even prettier in person than it was on the screen.

I may work on these new patterns today because my quilting class was canceled. I’m a bit annoyed about that for a variety of reasons. I’ll just leave it at that.

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The new piano tech showed up just after lunch to work on my baby grand. Before tuning it, he took it apart and cleaned it thoroughly, which it desperately needed. I’ll be having him tune it again next time. He did a wonderful job and it sounds just the way I want it to sound. A person can tune a piano without knowing how to play, but I think that having a tuner who plays and understands harmonics beyond just tuning notes to specific frequencies makes a big difference.

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The chains for the Jeep also arrived yesterday—it was a big delivery day—so just before dinner, I went out with the husband to practice putting them on and taking them off. I am unlikely to drive over Snoqualmie Pass in the kind of road conditions that require chains, but the law in Washington state is that a person can drive over the pass in an AWD/4WD vehicle if the vehicle is also carrying chains. The chains don’t have to be on the vehicle, but they have to be inside it. Still, it’s good that I have them and know how to put them on. The husband observed that there are plenty of OTR truck drivers who don’t know how to put chains on their trucks.

Snoqualmie Pass is actually under a blizzard warning right now due to the bomb cyclone that hit the coast last night. “Bomb cyclone” sounds like a lot of hype, but it is a legitimate meteorological term. A storm becomes a bomb cyclone when the pressure drops at least 24 millibars in a 24-hour period, and this storm qualified. I looked at it on radar last night and it looked like a buzz saw heading for the Washington coast. The eastern Seattle suburbs were also getting some wicked easterly winds due to the pressure gradient that set up over the Cascades. That is the same kind of pressure gradient we get with back-door cold fronts that send the wind roaring down the mountains toward us from the east, but that phenomenon is much rarer there than it is here.

DD#2 checked in just after dinner. The area where she lives may have lost power overnight but I think she’ll be okay otherwise.

A New Necchi!

I’ve done three podcast interviews in the past week. Interviews seem to follow a feast-or-famine pattern; either I have several clustered together or I go months between them. These three will get me through the first week of December, though, without having to wax poetic about some sewing topic for 30 minutes.

I particularly enjoyed my interview yesterday because my guest and I were talking about sewing materials such as faux and thin leathers. She mentioned that she has been trying out domestic machines to see which ones can handle those substrates, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the Bernette B08 did very well, as did the Necchi C35. A Necchi! She had listened to one of my episodes where I talked about my Necchi industrial and thought I might be interested to know that the Necchi C35 did almost as well as the Bernette B08 in her sewing tests. It has a very attractive price point at just under $500.

Necchi dealers are a bit thin on the ground here in the US—the nearest dealer to me is in Boise, ID. I’m not likely to drive 12 hours to try one out, but I am intrigued.

I know that the modern Necchi machines are nothing like the vintage ones I love so much, but I am happy that the current Necchi company management seems to want to stay in the game. When we were in Florence, Italy, in 2017, I had a lovely conversation with our tour guide about Necchi sewing machines. (She had one.) There is a great deal of national pride in that brand.

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I quilted a bit on the Q20 yesterday afternoon. I like to make quilted pouches from large fabric remnants that I quilt together with leftover batting. I use a thin voile as the backing—the pouches will get a decorative lining, but the voile helps to stabilize the quilting and keeps the machine from getting gunked up with batting lint.

These pouches are also a good way for me to try out some new quilting patterns and ruler patterns. I did tiny clamshells—an Amanda Murphy ruler—on this sheep fabric that was a gift from Robin:

So cute!

I am working on one now that is getting quilted with mini hexagons. (Another Amanda Murphy ruler.)

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I know we recently had a full moon and that seems to bring out the worst in people, but I am dismayed by the kind of behavior I’ve been seeing lately. I can sum it up in one word: disrespect. Disrespect for other people’s time, effort, and beliefs. People are not treating each other as they would like to be treated. I am annoyed when that disrespect is directed at me, as it was yesterday, but I am also annoyed on behalf of my friends who have been on the receiving end of some of this nonsense. We should be better than that. We should do better than that.

As I’ve heard some wise people suggest, “Go outside and touch some grass.” Or snow.

Sewing More Sweaters

The instant gratification of sewing compared to knitting cannot be beat. I made myself a sweater yesterday:

This was a “two yards for $6” remnant from the Walmart rack. I don’t want to overload my closet with black and white again—it was all I could find in a retail world of muddy earth tones before I started sewing my own clothes—but I need practice sewing fine-gauge sweater knits and this was intended to be a wearable muslin. I measured the gauge at about 15 stitches per inch, much finer than anything I would ever knit by hand. I run too hot these days to wear sweaters heavier than this. Fiber content is polyester (?) with some rayon. That’s a guess, because the label says only “Fibers of undetermined content.”

The pattern is the much-hacked Burda 6315. The bottom front is curved, which helps the entire sweater to hang properly, but it does look a bit weird in this horizontal print. I need to press the hem. I ironed some knit stay tape to the bottom edge before hemming the sweater on the coverstitch machine, just to keep the edge from stretching out of shape, and that worked nicely.

[I need to spend a few hours at Macy’s or Nordstrom looking at construction details because I am not always sure that my methods are the best ones to use. The coverstitch hem looks fine, but I am curious to know how something like this is done in RTW.]

I feel more confident, now, cutting into my two new fine-gauge sweater knits. The second one arrived yesterday:

This fabric is another sweater knit with some magenta in the print:

I have one more sweater knit on its way from Cali Fabrics along with the teal-and-black wool tweed. All of these sweater knits will probably become some version of Burda 6315, although I might change the neckline to a cowl. Or I could use the Toaster Sweater pattern. We’ll see.

I also made up my class samples for my class this week. I learn so much from this process because I have to think through what I am doing and how best to explain it to my students.

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I have a new piano technician coming on Tuesday to tune the baby grand. Years ago, I had a local guy named Frank tune my piano. Frank played euphonium in the community band and he knew I played the trombone, so he would bring low brass recordings with him and after he finished tuning the piano, we would sit and drink tea and listen to them. Frank also had a gift for making my piano sound wonderfully rich. Sadly, he died of leukemia a few years ago. The tuner I have been using since then is adequate, but he doesn’t play music and I have not been happy with the sound of my piano. I have a Yamaha and I chose it specifically because it had a bright sound that I wanted, but “bright” is not the same as “tinny” and mine leans tinny, especially in the upper register.

If you think I am choosy about how my piano sounds, you should read the book Grand Obsession by Perri Knize. Whoa.

Pants 201

Thank you, Judith in Ottawa, for your blog comment a few weeks ago and your book recommendations. I ordered both books and they arrived yesterday.

The Palmer-Pletsch book is an unassuming (self-published) gem filled with all sorts of useful knowledge—the best kind of book!

The David Page Coffin book is a bit fancier, but also has a lot of great information.

These will make great bedtime reading over the next few weeks. Thank you!

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I sewed down the binding on the baby quilt last night after dinner. Those two projects are now done and crossed off the list. The husband laughs because I watch YouTube videos about mountaineering disasters while I sit and sew.

Today’s sewing time will be devoted to class prep. I’m teaching a ruler quilting class on Wednesday and I need to make up a few samples. I’ve also got some miscellaneous mending projects that need attention.

I’ve been watching YouTube videos about making buttonholes on the 880. I am going to do several (many) practice buttonholes first, but I think I can put buttonholes in my gray and blue plaid coat without too much difficulty, and then I’ll be able to wear it.

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One of the homesteaders I follow recommended this book, so I’ve ordered it:

The Amazon blurb states

Sarah Thrush—whose inspiring, informative, and frequently viral videos on TikTok @peeliesnpetals have been seen by tens of millions of people—shows you the best and tastiest ways to put up the traditional canning foods, from tomatoes and green beans to apples and peaches, just like mama and grandma did. But she also ranges widely in the more robust flavor profiles that come from the best cuisines from all over the planet—all of which earlier preserving books neglect.

I am all for trying out new canning recipes.

Sewing is Good for My Mental Health

Susan’s son-in-law and her younger grandson stopped by here on Wednesday to drop off some pallets for the husband. I gave them the hoodies. The little guy seemed happy with his. He said, “It has dump trucks on it!” and snuggled his head down into the fabric, so I think it was a hit. His father told me later that he was very taken with it.

I worked at our church’s fair trade gift festival yesterday morning and will be there again today. I expect it will be a bit busier today. Yesterday seemed slow, at least while I was there.

I finished quilting the baby quilt on Wednesday. I did some simple ruler quilting in the center and a ribbon candy border.

When I got home yesterday, I made the binding. I dove into my extensive stash and found the perfect shade of pink Kona (although I don’t know the specific color name). Hooray for deep stashes of Kona. Before I leave for church this morning, I’ll attach the binding. I should be able to get the binding sewn down this weekend, and I’ll send off this quilt and the I Spy quilt early next week.

[My mental health is so much better when I get to sew regularly. People should know that if I start to get cranky, someone should send me to my sewing room and not let me come out until I’ve made something.]

My birthday is in a week, so I took the opportunity to buy myself a birthday present. I ordered four yards of this wool tweed (designer deadstock) from Cali Fabrics:

Some women like to buy shoes or purses. I am obsessed with coats, and now I am obsessed with making them.

I want to make a jacket from that blue quilted fabric I bought at Hobby Lobby, but I haven’t been able to get a copy of the pattern. The jacket I want to make is Butterick 7008, from their new Fall collection, but our Joanns doesn’t yet have it. (They may have it in a box somewhere in the stockroom, but they are so horribly understaffed that it hasn’t made it to the pattern cabinet yet.) I saw that the Sewing Pattern Review website had Butterick patterns on sale for $3.99 this week, so I went ahead and ordered it from them. Maybe our Joanns will have the Fall Butterick collection out by the time the Winter collection is released. 😐

I thought this article on the Retail Dive website was interesting: How Retailers Are Making It Harder to Shop, Just in Time for the Holidays. I doubt it will make a difference to the management of some of these companies, however.

Make Something

When I first learned how to knit, I was blown away by the concept that I could make something. (I was only about 8 at the time so it was a big concept.) That feeling never truly went away, although I was less impressed with myself as time went by and the process of making something became more commonplace. Every now and then, though—particularly when I successfully tackle some new challenge, like drafting trousers or making a coat—I feel like an eight year-old again.

I made two hoodies:

I am very pleased with these. Even if the boys never wear them (they will), I am so happy with the way they turned out. Except for the zippers—more on that in a moment—these were a pleasure to sew on both the serger and the sewing machine.

Now, about those zippers. The pattern instructions could use some improvement when it comes to the zippers. First, the materials list says only that the jacket requires a “separating zipper.” That makes sense; a separating zipper—as its name implies—separates into two pieces for use on jackets and other items where someone might need to get inside.

Do you know how many kinds of separating zippers there are? The Joanns website lists the following:

• Sport separating zipper

• Molded sport separating zipper

• Coil separating zipper

• Lightweight coil separating zipper

• Sport parka dual separating zipper

• Metal separating zipper

• Sleeping bag separating zipper

Obviously, I am not going to choose that last one for a hoodie, but the others are fair game. A short discussion within the pattern about the pros and cons of each kind would have been helpful. As far as I can tell from the pattern photos, all of the sample garments used metal zippers. Specify that in the pattern. Otherwise, someone might choose a nylon coil separating zipper and wonder why the instructions for removing the teeth don’t work very well.

I am not crazy about metal zippers in little kids’ clothing. If I make these again, I might opt for a sport separating zipper providing I can shorten it as needed. Again, if one type of zipper is preferable over another, that should be specified in the pattern.

The other place where the instructions could use some beefing up is in attaching the hood, because the top of the zipper gets finished as part of that assembly step. The illustrations were okay, but a more detailed illustration or even a photo would have been helpful. I had to follow the instructions as written and hope for the best. The finishing is quite nice in the end, but I like to know where I am going before I get there.

[I used 1/4" double-sided tape when attaching the zipper—a bagmaking trick—and the actual zipper insertion went very smoothly.]

This reminds me of my other pet peeve about sewing patterns. I get very frustrated by patterns that use clear vinyl, such as project bags, that don’t specify the weight of the vinyl required. Clear vinyl comes in 8-gauge, 12-gauge, 16-gauge, and 20-gauge, and the difference between 8-gauge and 20-gauge vinyl is huge. I finally figured out that 12- or 16-gauge vinyl is most suitable, but I shouldn’t have to work that hard.

Zippers are going to be a podcast episode in the near future.

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One of the sweater knits I ordered arrived yesterday:

I love this. This is exactly what I had in mind to wear with my hot pink corduroy pants and the hot pink corduroy skirt. I am not sure yet which pattern I am going to use, but I cut pieces for a sweater yesterday from a knit that is very similar to this one in terms of weight. I’ll make that sweater first, and see what I think.

Battling Zippers Again

I really should have been filming myself with all these zippers because it would have made for great entertainment. And I should have known that sewing them into these hoodies would not be straightforward and easy. It could have been, but it wasn’t.

The pattern calls for a different length of separating nylon zipper for each size. The issue is that zippers come in predetermined lengths—12", 16", 20", etc—but some of the hoodie sizes in this pattern require lengths of 13", 15", or 17". Nylon zippers are easy to cut to length; I do it all the time when making bags or zipper pouches. In fact, nylon zippers come as three-yard lengths of zipper tape for precisely those situations. Metal zippers are not quite as accommodating, but they also can be shortened by removing teeth with a pair of pliers.

For these hoodies, however, I couldn’t just cut the tape to length. I needed to remove teeth without shortening the length of the zipper tape because the excess tape gets folded over in a later step. The pattern suggested taking the teeth out with a pair of pliers, much as shortening a metal zipper. That was tedious and messy and resulted in a shredded zipper. After destroying one zipper, I went to YouTube to see if anyone had a better idea. I found a video where a guy suggested slicing the teeth off the zipper tape. He took his pocketknife and slid the blade between the teeth and the zipper tape and cut the stitching that holds the teeth onto the fabric. The teeth fell away cleanly without damaging the zipper tape.

We have a joke here that “I carry my Leatherman on the husband.” I do keep a Leatherman in the Jeep, but I didn’t want to go out to the garage to get it. Instead, I borrowed a razor blade from the husband’s shaving supplies. I carefully slid it between the teeth and the fabric and cut the stitches and voilà!—the teeth fell away cleanly. I cut off the extra teeth and tossed them, then crimped new zipper stops onto the top of the tape to keep the zipper pull from coming off.

[The husband said that demonstrating that technique could be my first YouTube video. We’ll see.]

I’ve got the zipper installed in one hoodie. Yay me.

I need to get another zipper to replace the one I destroyed, and then I can install the zipper in the other hoodie. I think I am going to buy myself some of those razor blades—the Harry’s brand from Walmart—to keep in my sewing room. I can think of a lot of uses for them.

Now that I’ve done this once and know what needs to happen, putting zippers into knit hoodies will be a breeze. Learn from my mistakes.

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The husband finished replacing the mouse-chewed wiring to the chicken coop when he got home from work yesterday. Rodents are such destructive little animals. I can’t think of any good use for mice and ground squirrels except as food for animals higher up on the food chain.

He also told me that the bunny that hangs out under our porch is now completely white. (I haven’t seen it for a few weeks.) Snow is coming.

Hoodies and Hot Pink

The husband returned home safely from his trip. I was working on the boys’ hoodies on Saturday afternoon when he arrived. I am making the Adventure Jacket from Peek-A-Boo patterns.

Their patterns are reasonably good, although the pattern pieces could have better size markings for tracing. I ordered two yards of this fabric and just barely got all the main pieces for both hoodies out of it. I do like the way the instructions are laid out, in two columns. The left-hand column has a numbered step with instructions, and the right-hand column has a corresponding photo. In “choose your own adventure” fashion, the instructions direct the sewist to skip steps as needed and go to the next applicable step. Very clear. Very concise.

As much as I loved and used that Janome 6600, it didn’t like to sew anything other than quilt cotton. I had all sorts of problems sewing knits on it. The Bernina sails right through. I’m doing as much assembly as I can on the serger, of course, but some things, like the pocket topstitching, have to be done on the sewing machine. I’d be the first one to tell you that the machinery matters less than the skill of the person using it, but sometimes, the machinery matters.

I am hoping to finish these today.

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I did not wear the pink corduroy skirt to church yesterday because I didn’t have a top to wear with it. I’ve ordered a couple of sweater knits with that color pink in the print so I can make a Toaster Sweater or something similar. I am still having trouble tying wardrobe pieces together. I was watching The Secret Life of a Seamstress YouTube channel yesterday and she does a masterful job of coordinating her wardrobe pieces, but everything she owns is some neutral color like beige or cream or brown. None of those colors looks good on me. I would die of boredom in them anyway.

I have a long hot pink Liz Claiborne coat that I’ve been wearing to church recently. I stopped at the grocery store after church and realized that hot pink may be a bit too loud for the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon but OH WELL. Parrots have to eat, too, even parrots in Montana.

Once these hoodies are done, I think I am going to pull some sweater knits out of the stash and make myself a few more Toaster Sweaters or Burda 6315 pullovers. The ones I’ve made are in constant rotation.

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I knit during the sermon time at church. I’ve been doing it for years. Sometimes Valeri and Elaine knit, too. I was working on a prayer shawl yesterday when my friend Twila’s youngest granddaughter—she’s six—stuck her head between me and Susan and whispered (very loudly), “Can you teach me to knit?” I motioned her to come sit on my lap and we got a few stitches in before the end of the sermon. By the time church was over, I had committed to teaching her how to knit during next week’s sermon time.

We went for so long without kids in church that it is a joy to have little ones again. No one bats an eyelash at the bit of extra noise. We all try to include them as much as possible. When my girls were in high school, I taught all the kids in the youth group—even the boys—how to knit, and there were a couple of Sundays when half a dozen of us had needles and yarn in motion during the sermon. Our pastor was unfazed.

A Robe Pattern!

Itch to Stitch released a new pattern this week and I bought it immediately. Kennis comes up with the most beautiful and useful designs. This one is called the Roseto Robe:

I am rather choosy about my robes. I like them to be ankle length (especially in the winter) and I want a thick, plush fabric. I’ve had a difficult time finding robes I like. Having a pattern for making my own will be awesome. The one I have currently is serviceable and will be for a while, so I don’t need to put this pattern in the queue just yet.

Karina at Lifting Pins and Needles is a brand ambassador for Itch to Stitch and she made a lovely silk version for herself.

The husband returns today from a trip to Colorado. He went down to see his dad for a week and take care of some home improvement projects at his house. The rare weeks when I am here by myself are usually very productive. This one hasn’t been, mostly because my schedule got hijacked by a lot of meetings, some of which were unplanned. Still, I did get quite a few things crossed off the list. The first batch of pumpkin is done. I knocked out a second grocery bag; my mother liked the first one but asked for a slightly smaller one. I finished the pink corduroy skirt. I fringed three prayer shawls and took them to church. The pantry has been organized. I traced the patterns for the boys’ hoodies and I hope to cut those out today. Things are moving along. I’ll be glad to have the husband home, though. There is a short in the wiring of the chicken coop—he suspects mice chewed through something—and the breaker keeps tripping. Those kinds of problems are way beyond me, but he’ll be able to figure out what’s going on and fix it.

*******

Kalispell peeps, this is your reminder that the Windows to the World fair trade sale at the Mennonite Church is less than a week away! The sale starts next Thursday morning. Details, including hours, can be found on the sale website. I will be helping in the kitchen on Thursday and Friday mornings through the lunch hour, so stop by for a delicious meal of homemade soup and pie and say hello!

Many hands are required to make this a successful sale, so if you’d like to help, let me know and I’ll get you connected with the right people. It is a great event and we have a lot of fun.

Stocking the Pantry with Pumpkin

Yesterday was a pumpkin canning day. I started with the two largest Winter Luxury pumpkins, each weighing about eight pounds:

They yielded 11 quarts of canned pumpkin. One jar is enough for two pies, so that’s 22 pies. The husband does not think that’s enough. 😂

I was surprised at how much these cooked down and got mushy while processing. The processing time for pumpkin is 90 minutes at 15 pounds pressure, so they were in the canner for a while, but still.

I cut them into 1" cubes. I could cut larger cubes, but they don’t pack the jars as easily. It is verboten to can pureed pumpkin because the heat can’t penetrate to the middle of the jars.

I am going to can at least one of the Georgia Roasters, probably on Friday. Those are supposed to make excellent pies, as well, but I plan to keep the Winter Luxury pumpkins in the rotation from now on.

I still have plenty of Winter Luxury pumpkins left. If any of my Kalispell peeps want to try one, let me know. I’ll share.

*******

I made a Ramona skirt out of the pink corduroy. The zipper went in much more easily on this version, although I still need to make some adjustments. My invisible zipper foot sews too close to the zipper teeth—even after pressing them with an iron to uncurl them—and makes it somewhat difficult to close the zipper. I’ll adjust the needle position on the next version.

That skirt just needs to be hemmed and it will be ready to go.

What I need most right now is a book on trouser construction techniques. I want something that shows how to use my sloper for drafting different styles, the order of operations, etc. I don’t think that book exists. I can go through my vintage sewing books from Singer, Vogue, Reader’s Digest, etc., and glean what I need, but it’s going to take a bit of effort. I would rather work from a book than watch YouTube videos.

*******

Speaking of videos . . . the quilt store likes to have promotional videos for my classes to post on Facebook. I think they would like to have them for all the classes, eventually, but I seem to have been chosen as the teacher guinea pig. Ashlee (the owner’s daughter) asked me to make one for my thread class back in August, which I did. Last week, she asked me to make one for my upcoming rulerwork classes on the sit-down longarm machines. I stalled and said I really needed to get a tripod for my phone, which I picked up at Best Buy on Monday. I made a video yesterday and sent it to her. The tripod is actually pretty cool. It has a magnetic self-leveling/self-stabilizing clamp to hold the phone.

I do okay on video. I should probably put on some makeup (ugh) but being on video is not much different than speaking in person. I am beginning to accept the inevitable progression toward video. It’s time to think about setting up some kind of studio here in my office. With the new LED fixtures, the lighting is better here than anywhere else.

Pants That Fit and Pants That Don't

I got out a couple of commercial pants patterns on Saturday so I could compare them to my pants sloper. The first was Simplicity 9647:

I haven’t made these. The only pants pattern I’ve made is the Style Arc Linda pants, which I’ll get to in a moment. I bought this Simplicity pattern because I am drawn to this classic trouser style.

[This pattern even has a view with shorts. Many years ago, before children, when I was still working at my job in Baltimore, I bought a pair of hot pink wool shorts at a Bennetton store in downtown Seattle. I was there on a business trip, probably in 1991 (with no idea that one of my kids would be living there 30 years later). The shorts hit just above my knee and I wore the heck out of them. Don’t worry, I am not going to show up at church some Sunday in hot pink wool shorts. The days when I could wear something like that are long gone.]

I put the back pattern piece from the Simplicity pattern on the design wall and laid my pants sloper over it, aligning the patterns at the crotch, the waistline and at the grainline markings.

What does this tell me? It tells me that the rise on most pants patterns is too short, which I already knew. The crotch shaping is also slightly different. The biggest difference is the way that leg hangs along the hip and below the crotch. If I made up this pattern as is, I would have a huge amount of fabric bagging at the back of my legs. (These are a wider leg style than my muslin, but that would be an excessive amount of fabric.) If I attempt to use this pattern, I suspect I will have to make an adjustment similar to the one Kenneth made when we drafted my sloper, which was to slice the leg horizontally mid-thigh and scoot the bottom half over to balance the lower leg. I’m going to repeat this exercise with the front pattern piece and my front leg sloper to see what I think.

The Style Arc Linda pants pattern matches my sloper much more closely, which is probably why I’ve had good success with that pattern. I wore a pair of my Linda pants to church yesterday and I am still pleased with the fit.

As I recall, I did have to lengthen the rise about an inch. Also, the Linda pattern is designed for stretch wovens, so there is some slop built in.

Making pants will be an ongoing project for the next couple of months, I think. It’s a puzzle, and I like puzzles.

#FridaySews

The title of this post is a cryptic YouTube reference from the sewing world, in case you were wondering.

I did a bit of detective work regarding the Mimosa dress and it appears that horizontal seamline in the skirt is a design element; it unites two convex curves and makes the skirt bell out in the shape that it does. I suppose one could eliminate that seamline, but it would change the way the dress hangs. Food for thought.

Part of what I don’t like about that seamline is that many of the variations I’ve seen must have been made on a serger and that seam ripples unattractively. There is a way to avoid that: use the widest stitch setting (7 or 9 mm, depending on the model), adjust the differential feed, and lengthen the stitch. I use that trick when sewing bulky sweater knits and it does make a difference.

I made a grocery bag for my mother yesterday. I have enough fabric for a second one, but I’m going to send this one to her to see if the design needs any changes. I reverse engineered this version from a bag she has and uses. Her original bag was made of oly*fun, a kind of special poly-something material from Fairfield. (They are cagey about describing it, but it’s obviously something petroleum based.) A lot of grocery stores are selling resuable bags made from that material. It’s feels like a cross between paper and fabric.

She had purchased some outdoor canvas material—Joanns carries Solarium and Sunbrella—which is a bit thicker but still worked well. I beefed up the design by adding polyester webbing straps that completely encircle the bag and support the bottom. The inside seams were serged to keep the fabric from raveling. I was pleased with the end product. I’ll share a picture once the design is approved.

I had a Zoom conversation yesterday morning with a member of the marketing team for a publishing company that produces a lot of sewing books. I reached out to that publisher a couple of months ago about having some of their authors on the podcast. Most publishers now require the author to come up with a marketing plan, one that relies heavily on social media. I had one of this publishing company’s authors on the podcast a few months ago and she was trying to market her book at the same time she was delivering a baby. 🫤

In any case, I thought it would be a win-win for both sides. I’d get some guests for the podcast and they would get some free publicity. We’ll see what happens going forward.

I’m a bit frustrated with the podcast at the moment. I’ve hit a plateau with the number of listeners and I am not quite sure how to break through. I get e-mails from people who say that they began listening recently but then went back and binge listened to all the previous episodes, and people generally only do that when they really like something. I can’t get anyone to leave a review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, though, and finding interview guests is like pulling teeth. I’ve had people say yes and then ghost me. People don’t respond to e-mails asking to nail down an interview date.

I’m going to give it until the end of the year and reassess. No sense beating my head against the wall if I can’t attract enough listeners to make the effort worthwhile. I have had some suggestions about doing video on YouTube instead of an audio podcast, but I’m reluctant to go the video route for a variety of reasons. The podcast does have a YouTube channel so people can listen to it there if they choose.

UPS delivered my new Kenneth King book yesterday:

I started reading it last night. The concepts make a lot more sense now than they would have before I took the trouser class, but I am going to have to study them and (hopefully) practice on some of my students.

Snow is On the Way

Poof!—Just like that, October came and went. We had our first significant snowfall yesterday, enough to cover the grass. I should have taken a picture but I didn’t, so I looked back in the archives and found this one:

The timestamp says January 2015. Their father always was very accommodating about making large snow hills for sledding. We had some good ones over the years.

I finished the Ramona skirt. The waist is too large, so I checked the pattern against my pants sloper and adjusted it accordingly. Kenneth told us in class that once we have our pants sloper, we’ll never need to use a commercial pattern again, but sometimes I just want to sew and have most of the drafting work already done for me. I expect to use the pants sloper the same way I use my bodice sloper, by checking it against commercial and indie patterns to help decide on a size and to determine if anything needs to be altered at the beginning. I should have done that before starting the Ramona skirt, but the body measurements given in the pattern were so close to mine—both hips and waist—that I thought I’d be safe making the corresponding size. I think there may be a bit too much ease built into the waist; either that, or the pattern was drafted for the waist to be at a different point on the body.

I can still wear the Ramona skirt I made, although it’s hanging from my hip bones (which are high) and not hanging from the waist. And I do like the skirt. It’s a great length to wear with boots in the winter.

Sinclair Patterns just released a new design:

This is not something that I would put on my “to sew” list based on the line art, but I’ve been seeing photos of the ones made by the pattern testers in the Facebook group and this design looks good on everyone. Who knew? I’m not crazy about that seamline halfway down the skirt portion—is that a design element or put there for shaping?—but the overall silhouette is flattering. Seeing the finished tester dresses was a good reminder to me that sometimes garments look better on the body than they do rendered as two-dimensional art and that I need to keep an open mind.

The quilt store wants more clothing classes. The owner’s daughter is working there now and she’s a marketing whiz. Carrying apparel fabric in a quilt store is a fine line to walk, but the owner has always been willing to bring in pontes, linens, and rayons. They would like to get more people into the store who sew but don’t quilt. (And our Joann Fabrics, at least, is lame when it comes to apparel fabrics.) I have a few ideas and will need to make class samples at some point.

*******

My friend Anna, who has the catering business, came and got some of the pumpkins and butternut squash while I was gone. She brought over a batch of cupcakes she made with the pumpkins. The variety is Winter Luxury and I think I’ll be growing those again. Believe me, real pumpkin is as different from canned pumpkin—which is actually a squash—as vine-ripened tomatoes are from the bland ones in the grocery store. The flavor was amazing. Susan used one for a batch of pumpkin bread and says she also wants to grow it next year.

Canning pumpkin for pie filling is on the schedule for next week. So is making more ham and chicken stock. And canning beans. A lot of that can cook and process while I am doing other things.

My First Invisible Zipper

I did battle with an invisible zipper yesterday. This was my first experience with one, in the Ramona skirt from Tilly and the Buttons. I prevailed, ultimately, but not before finding all the ways to turn a skirt and zipper into various kinds of möbius strips. The seam ripper and I had some quality time together. Now that I have found all the ways, I know how to avoid them. 🫤

[Equally entertaining was me trying to explain the process of an invisible zipper insertion to the husband at dinner. He likes to know what I am doing, in excruciating detail, and finding ways to communicate those ideas to someone who knows nothing about sewing is not easy.]

I never took a home ec class in high school. I never even took a formal sewing class until recently. What I know about sewing has been learned from books, YouTube, and trial-and-error. Truly, a home ec class would have been far more useful to me than calculus or molecular genetics. Having some decent spatial perception skills would be nice, too, but I don’t want to be greedy.

I need to finish the waistband this morning and hem the skirt. The fabric is a navy blue stretch twill from Joanns. The fit is actually very good without any alterations, although I am between sizes and wondering if I should go down a size when I make the “real” version. The corduroy I want to use is a stretch corduroy so I have a bit of wiggle room. I’ll see what I think once the skirt is finished.

In any case, this pattern will get added to the tried-and-true library. I like skirts and this pattern is a good one, if only because I didn’t have to alter it.

I signed up for the KnitFabric.com Tuesday e-mail, which was a mistake. They have some really great fabrics. I succumbed and bought a couple of yards of this French terry to make hoodies for two little boys:

The husband saw the fabric and asked me why he doesn’t get a hoodie. 😂

I think I am going to make the Adventure Jacket from Peek-A-Boo patterns:

It feels so good to be sewing again. Next up are some grocery bags for my mother.

My Coat Class with Ryliss

When I took my first class with Ryliss last November, she showed me several variations of a coat pattern she had designed. I loved the style and thought that making her pattern with her guidance would be a good introduction to a type of sewing I hadn’t done before. I was able to schedule a one-day coat class the day before my trouser class, so on Thursday morning, I met Ryliss at the Sewing and Design School at 9:30.

I had bought some coating fabric, but Ryliss suggested that the first iteration should be using something a bit less special. We looked through her collection of coat fabrics. Ryliss travels to New York’s garment district at least once a year and has amassed a stack of gorgeous wools and other coating fabrics. I chose a blue-and-gray plaid—which actually came from Pacific Fabrics in Seattle—because I liked the colors and because I have not yet worked with plaids. They require a bit of finesse in matching the pattern.

This is the line art for the coat:

You’ll notice that it has princess seams (the diagonal body seams). Princess seams and plaids don’t mix, so the first adjustment we made was to remove those seamlines and cut the fronts of the coat in one piece, which we did by sliding pattern pieces and taping them in place.

Ryliss demonstrated how she lays out the pattern pieces on plaid fabrics and cuts them. We cut each piece in a single layer so we could make sure the pattern matched at key points. The only length adjustment we made was to the sleeves. By far, the trickiest part of assembling the coat was the hood, which is cut in one piece with the body. Sewing it to the collar of the coat requires some wrestling as it is an inside curve being sewn to an outside curve. I finished all the seams on the serger.

By the end of class, I had a coat:

It hangs funny on the dress form because the dress form doesn’t fill it out as a human body would, but you get the idea. (It also needs a good steaming.) I still need to do the buttonholes. I haven’t decided if I will tackle those myself or send them out to be done. Apparently there are places that do nothing but make buttonholes on fancy computerized buttonhole machines. Who knew? I probably will add some bias-cut patch pockets to the fronts as well.

The cuffs look great cut on the bias:

For my first coat and my first experience working with wool, I am very happy. I want to try the pattern as originally designed, with princess seams, but probably not this winter. And I have some other plans for that green coating fabric.

*******

Yesterday was a catch-up day. I spent the morning on paperwork and laundry and tidying up the house. After lunch, I re-traced my pant sloper onto some Pellon Easy-Pattern, which is a bit sturdier than paper. Eventually, I’ll make a plastic or oaktag version.

I also traced the Ramona skirt pattern from Tilly and the Buttons. This is a simple pencil skirt with an invisible zipper. I’ve got some dark green stretch corduroy and pink stretch corduroy earmarked for this pattern once I run up a muslin to check the fit.

I put a border on the baby quilt; I just need to add the second border and that top will be ready to baste and quilt. And I finished binding the Christmas quilt/table topper. Moving right along.

Finally, Pants that FIT

My coat and trouser classes in Tacoma were AMAZING. I am lousy at documenting my experiences in the moment, so I only have one photo, but if you visit Ryliss Bod’s Instagram account—which you should follow anyway if you are a sewist—you can see a few more photos of the trouser class.

I left last Wednesday and powered across Washington state, making great time until I got to North Bend, where I-90 meets 18S. That area has been a mess since DD#1 started college at Pacific Lutheran back in 2010. A four-lane highway coming up from Tacoma funnels down to two lanes at the I-90 interchange, and the bottleneck there has always been an issue. WADOT is widening that area, so the bottleneck is really spectacular now. (I took a different route coming back.) I made it to the AirBnB by dinner time and settled in. Tacoma is known as a rather rough area, but my accommodations were in a lovely neighborhood called Old Town.

On Thursday morning, I drove the ten minutes to the Sewing and Design School and met Ryliss for my coat class. I did an interview with Ryliss on the podcast (episode 41) if you want to know more about her and the School. Although I had my green coat fabric with me, Ryliss suggested we use something less precious for the first version. She has a collection of three-yard chunks of various coat fabrics that she has amassed over the years, so we looked through them together. In the end, I settled on a gray-and-turquoise plaid. The coat is still in the car, which I haven’t unloaded completely, so you’ll get a photo of it tomorrow. I chose the plaid because I liked the colors and because I haven’t worked with many plaids. Details about that class will accompany the photo of the coat.

Friday was the first day of our two-day class with Kenneth D. King. I have been hearing Kenneth’s name for years because he is a contributing editor to Threads magazine. When the opportunity to take a class with him presented itself, I leaped at it. It was worth every penny and more. Kenneth lives in NYC and teaches at the Fashion Institute of Technology. We began our trouser drafts by pairing up and taking measurements of each other. My table partner was a woman from California who teaches sewing at her local community college.

Once we had the numbers, Kenneth took us, step by step, through the process of drafting a basic pattern. This was the only photo I took, because I was so gobsmacked to see the numbers translated into a pattern that looked like it might actually fit my body, No low-rise pants here!

Kenneth is an amazing teacher. He did not move on to the next step of the process until he had assured himself that we were all following along.

By about 3 pm, each student had a customized pattern. We used the last hour of class to cut out our muslins, adding a generous seam allowance to facilitate fine-tuning.

I had lots of great plans to visit the Joann Fabrics at Tacoma Mall, which was only 10 minutes down the road, but I was so mentally exhausted Friday evening that all I did was drag myself back to the AirBnB to eat dinner and vegetate before bed.

Saturday morning—much refreshed—I sewed together my muslin and inserted a zipper. This was not heirloom sewing; Kenneth just wanted to see the pants on each of us so he could adjust them as needed. I put mine on and thought they fit reasonably well. He said, “Those look pretty damn good,” but he made a few adjustments anyway. I have a very flat butt, so he contoured the back of the pants to look a bit less baggy. He also moved the bottom half of the back of the pant leg over by half an inch to eliminate a diagonal drag line. Getting to see the fitting process on each person was very educational. I am reasonably sure I could diagnose most problems. The difficult part is transferring the adjustments on the fabric to the flat pattern. He has 40+ years of training and experience doing that. I don’t.

I cut out two new back legs and reassembled my pants. I tried on the second iteration and immediately felt like I had hit the jackpot. My test of a well-fitting garment is if it feels like I am not wearing it—no tugging, readjusting, nothing. These pants fit so well I might as well have been naked. Kenneth approved version 2.0, at which point I was pretty much done. I watched him fit some of the other students while I hemmed the bottom and sleeves of my coat.

The last hour of class was spent learning how to use our slopers to make various styles of pants. Kenneth is coming back next June to teach a trouser construction class—three days of making samples of various trouser details—and I think I am going to sign up for that one.

The trip home yesterday was uneventful as traffic was very light. I’ve got lots to do here, including making myself another test pair of pants from my sloper.

I Live in Several Places

My friend Elaine told me one time that I should open a post office box in Spokane because I spend so much time there. I am beginning to feel that way about Seattle. I’m about to take my third trip to Seattle in two months and I’ll be going back at Thanksgiving. After that, the weather likely will keep me home until the end of February when I teach at Sew Expo in Puyallup.

The drive is a pleasant one, unless it’s snowing over Snoqualmie Pass. I also have a child waiting for me at the other end. I won’t see her on this visit, though, because she’s traveling, too. I think itchy feet run in the family, at least on my side. The husband calls me a migratory bird.

I feel like I have packed up half my sewing studio. The 880 has a bigger suitcase than I do. (That machine came with its own rolling tote.) I’m also taking the Juki 654 serger, which fits into a rolling milk crate. The Bernina serger doesn’t leave the house and the Juki will work nicely for simple seam finishing. The wool/cashmere fabric and lining fabric for the coat are packed along with five yards of pant-weight muslin for the trouser class. I stopped in at the blueprint shop on Monday and had them print and bind a copy of Kenneth King’s trouser book. The hardest part of getting ready was collecting all of the little tools I use every day and don’t always think about because they are right at hand—pins, needles, clips, scissors, marking tools, measuring tape, tweezers (to thread the serger), thread, specialty presser feet, etc. I also packed my EPP project. I won’t make that mistake twice.

I am taking my portable recording equipment because I think I might record next week’s podcast episode from the road. I’ll have some time in the evenings and early mornings to do recaps of class time while they are fresh in my mind. The class is full, and I am eager to meet the other students.

Speaking of the podcast, I don’t get an overwhelming amount of feedback, but I get some. The listeners who comment almost always remark that my speaking voice is very calm and soothing. I think that people get tired of the screeching and yelling that characterizes a lot of social media—”LOOK AT ME!!!”—and appreciate calmer presentations with no distractions. I know that I won’t listen to a podcast for long if the host sounds like he or she just downed a couple of energy drinks. Some podcast hosts even set their playback speeds to 1.25 or 1.5 (deliberately), and listening to them is like drinking from a firehose. Not everything needs to be consumed at warp speed.

The I Spy quilt is all bound and ready to go. I just need to finish the baby quilt and then I can send both of them off to Ohio. I am now sewing down binding on a small Christmas quilt, which could also be used as a table topper. I wanted to try a new-to-me block, so I pulled some scraps and made nine blocks and added sashing and a border. The top has been sitting for over a year. I finally quilted it a few weeks ago. I was dithering about the binding when I happened upon a remnant at Joanns that worked perfectly.

I am trying very hard to move projects through the pipeline. I’m also being intentional about making items to sell at the craft co-op sale next year.