A Breezy Top for Hot Days

I don’t often teach evening classes—that is not my best time of day and I prefer not to drive in the dark in the winter if I can help it—but evenings are best for some students. I try to schedule at least a couple of evening classes in the summer. After seeing my Déclic top, the store owner particularly requested an evening class so she could take it, too.

I promised the students that they would be able to complete their tops in a three-hour class (5-8 pm) and they did! We used sewing machines:

And sergers:

And each of them finished a top:

The fabrics were mostly rayon batiks. Only one of the students had sewn any clothing before this class. Having them start with rayon was a bit like tossing them into the deep end and asking them to swim, but I passed along my favorite tips and tricks for bossing around the fabric and they all did fine.

Tomorrow is my thread class in Missoula. Robin is going with me so she can take her mastery class on her new sewing machine. I’m glad I decided to take a week off from the podcast because I don’t know when I would have shoehorned that into the schedule.

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Only two more days of this heat. We’re supposed to be back down to a high of 82F on Thursday. I was able to get the grass mowed around the garden yesterday morning while it was still cool. The garden is looking great, as it always does around the middle of the summer. The herb garden is starting to fill in, too.

Today’s to-do includes prepping for tomorrow’s class. I’ve also got to go to town to see if I can find pickling cukes for my class on Saturday. I scheduled it thinking we’d have cucumbers coming out our ears like we did last year, but they aren’t quite ready yet. If the Hutterites don’t have any cukes at their food stand, I may have to adjust the class to can something else. We could make raspberry jam or zucchini pickles.

My friend Sunnie is offering an oil painting class at the community center next month, so I signed up. It’s been a while since I’ve tried anything like that. I think it will be good to stretch myself.