Coats and Tops — Janet Szabo

My tops have been hemmed and put into rotation. I haven’t decided what is up next, although I pulled a few fabrics from the stash for consideration. The zippers I ordered for the blue quilted jacket arrived last week, so that project is near the top of the pile. I’m going to look through my stash of new patterns, too, to see what I might like to try next.

This is the rayon spandex Laundry Day Tee:

Love the colors and the print in this one, too.

I picked up the green wool coating fabric from the dry cleaners yesterday. That is for my coat class with Ryliss Bod at the Sewing and Design School in Tacoma, which is the day before the trouser drafting workshop. I’m trying to decide if I want to take the 880 with me on that trip or use a school machine. I’m leaning toward taking the 880. It came with sturdy luggage, so it should be nice and secure on the trip over. And I would prefer to use a machine that is familiar to me.

This is the line art for Ryliss’ coat pattern:

I tried on several versions of the coat when I was there last year and loved the style.

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I’ve been watching the coverage of the flooding in North Carolina and Tennessee. My friends Bob and Deana, who came to visit two weeks ago, were supposed to fly from Denver into Asheville last Saturday. Obviously, that was an impossibility. They flew into Knoxville, instead, and made it to their home in eastern Tennessee on Sunday. Last I heard, two bridges in their town were closed due to structural issues. The homesteading group I belong to has a lot of members in that area and I know some of them personally. Nicole Sauce, host of the Living Free in Tennessee podcast and the absolute queen of community-building, put together a relief operation with 24 hours of the disaster. She set up a donation page, organized people in Tennessee to gather supplies, coordinated a distribution center, and got help to residents in the Roan Mountain area. She had to peel off yesterday to go to the other side of the state—the Self-Reliance Festival is this weekend in Camden, Tenneessee—but as far as I know, relief operations with that group are continuing.

And now there is a longshoremen strike. Canning season may be stressful, but we do what we do here for a reason. I understand that not everyone is able, or wants to, prep at the level that we do, but everyone should have some basic supplies and contingency plans in place. The government is not coming to save you. Connect with your community. I am thrilled that I had enough tomatoes and other produce in the garden to share with people this year. We’ve gotten corn, summer sausage, and other items in return. It’s all part of creating a strong network.

[You don’t have to live in a rural area to have a strong network. It may just look a bit different where you live. DD#2 has built her own community in Seattle—in the heart of the city—of friends who help each other out.]

Mennonite Disaster Service is also working in areas hit by the hurricane, so if you’re looking to make a monetary donation, please consider them. Our congregation has an active MDS unit and several of our members have traveled all over the world to help in places in need.