More Classes on the Schedule

Between the holiday weekend and the kids being here, I have no idea what day it is. I have to keep looking at my calendar. Perhaps by next Monday I’ll be back on track.

We had such a good time with the four of them. They hiked to the top of a mountain with dad:

DD#2 told me that her dad could see his shop from the summit (with binoculars). I am not surprised.

On Sunday, we went up the side of another mountain to visit with Susan’s daughter and her husband who are building a straw bale house:

Half our church was there helping over the weekend.

DD#2 and her boyfriend left Monday morning to drive back to Seattle because each of them had to be at work yesterday. DD#1 and DSIL and I went up to Whitefish and walked around. Yesterday morning, I drove them down to Missoula. Flying in and out of Montana is ridiculously expensive, although it’s slightly less ridiculously expensive out of Missoula. We had lunch and I dropped them off at the airport for their flight back to Seattle and then Alaska.

I stopped in at A Clean Stitch and visited for an hour with one of the owners. This is the Bernina and Janome dealer in Missoula. They started out in a tiny store in a strip mall, which they quickly outgrew, and moved to their current location in the same mall this spring. The new store is much larger and has classroom space. When Robin and I were there last month, I asked about teaching and left my contact information, and last week, they e-mailed and said they’d love to have me do some classes.

The owner said they have lots of customers asking about clothing classes. We got four sessions on the calendar, starting with a Bernina serger mastery class at the end of October. I’m teaching the Lark Tee in November, the Harper Cardigan in December, and a decorative thread class in January. The store is a Wonderfil retailer and the owner was thrilled that I was a Wonderfil educator.

I anticipate being down there once or twice a month from now on. And I have a lot to do. Stores want class samples to display, and I would prefer not to use pieces from my closet that I want to wear myself. I visited the remnant rack at the Walmart in Missoula to get up some knits in colors I don’t like or wear. (The remnant rack has no shortage of muddy earth tone fabrics.) Those will become my class samples.

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The pigs went to the processor yesterday, so that is finally all sorted. The garden needs to dry out a bit from the rain we got over the weekend but I should be able to get everything harvested and cleaned up by the end of September. We also need to get chicken processing on the schedule in October.

I’ve already put standing commitments on the calendar through May of 2024. I think the word of the year for 2024 may be SCHEDULE or something similar, because I will need to keep a tight rein on my time.