The Ghost Of Stretch & Sew

Yesterday was a sloppy mess, weather-wise. I had an appointment in town at 9 am and planned to run errands afterward. The snow had started overnight. This is Montana. We get snow. (News flash.) If I weren’t willing to drive in the snow, I’d never go anywhere, so I deal with it. What makes winter driving annoying, though, are the people who a) don’t know how to drive in snow; b) think that four-wheel drive makes them invincible; c) don’t have the proper tires on their car; or d) some combination of the above. The errands that should have taken me an hour or two took almost four hours. Stupid drivers were doing stupid things. The only plow I saw was on the state highway. I have no idea what our county road department does. I don’t think they know, either.

I cancelled my serger class for last night. I had zero desire to drive back into town after dark in that mess. I had only one student signed up, so she and I rescheduled for Saturday afternoon.

I thought that was going to be my last class for 2022, but the owner of the Quilt Gallery asked if I would be willing to teach the Bernina “Serge of Creativity” special event scheduled for Friday, December 30. This is what Bernina calls a “pop-up event,” and it’s a three-hour class intended to give people an opportunity to try the L860/890 sergers by making a small project. I have the kit and need to make up the sample. The project is a tea towel and I think this will be a fun class to teach. In yesterday’s Facebook Live video, the store owner bestowed upon me the title of “in-house serger specialist.” LOL. I would say that 2022 definitely turned out to be the year of the serger. I learned more about serging this year than I ever expected to, and made a new wardrobe for myself in the process. Who knew.

[I still do love quilting—oh, who am I kidding, I love anything having to do with textiles—but quilting is a highly saturated market. Serger specialists are much rarer.]

I came home from town, put away the groceries, and started cooking down the next batch of tomatoes. While I worked, I listened to call after call after call on the scanner for MVAs, slide-offs, and rollovers. The rural fire departments and Highway Patrol had a busy afternoon. One would think that by the middle of December, people would have brushed up on their winter driving skills. We have a long way to go before spring gets here.

Speaking of snow, Seattle is supposed to get some next week, which is unusual. DD#2 rescheduled her flight home for a day earlier because she doesn’t want to get stuck there for Christmas. If I have to, I will drive over and get her. I’ve done it before.

I am going to try to do two canner loads of salsa today, which would put me at 42 quarts. I’m down to one freezer with tomatoes. I could wait until January to make the tomato sauce. I also need to keep a couple of bags of tomatoes on hand to throw in when I make stock.

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Facebook is so obliging these days. I get all sorts of clothing ads in my feed, which provide plenty of inspiration for things I want to make. This Coldwater Creek tunic is especially pretty:

Whitney at TomKat Stitchery does occasional “sew the look” videos where she pairs up RTW clothing ideas with patterns to make them. Lo and behold!—Stretch and Sew 640 is a saddle shoulder raglan sweater pattern, now on its way to me.

Ah, Stretch & Sew. The universe has a bizarre sense of humor. My mother took Stretch and Sew classes in the 1970s. I’ll start here and see if I can frankenpattern this into something resembling the Coldwater Creek tunic. I think I just need to lengthen it and add princess seams. I’ll probably leave off the kangaroo pocket, though. I haven’t done much color blocking, but I have chunks of yardage left over from previous projects and it would be nice to use them up.

I still make myself laugh when I think that I’ve gone from knitting sweaters to sewing them. I should have done this 20 years ago.