Twilight Zone

We have now entered that week between Christmas and New Year’s when no one knows what day it is and we’re all eating leftovers. Personally, I like this time. I do a lot of cleaning and organizing and preparing for the new year. My 2026 planner is on my desk and already filling up with color-coded highlighted dates. I have a stack of lists with items ready to be checked off.

The Tamarack Jacket has buttons. I spent several hours on Tuesday driving around Kalispell attempting to find suitable turquoise buttons, to no avail. Finally, I ended up back at Hobby Lobby where I purchased blanks to make covered button 7/8" buttons. I was able to scrounge enough scraps of the binding fabric to make five buttons to match:

And then I had to make buttonholes . . .

That took me the rest of Tuesday and half of Wednesday. I know why sewists will do just about anything to avoid buttonholes. I calibrated my buttonhole foot. I tested—several times—on scrap pieces of quilted fabric. The test buttonholes looked great. I measured. I re-measured. I tested again. The first jacket buttonhole turned out beautifully. Excited to finish, I tried to make the second buttonhole, and the machine decided to make it half the length of the original buttonhole. I took out the thread and tried again. Same result. I tested on the scrap piece of quilted fabric again. The buttonhole came out perfect. I tried again on the jacket. Same result. I put up the extension on the back of my sewing table to support the weight of the jacket. I tried embroidery stabilizer. No luck.

It went like that, over and over, until I was afraid that all that unpicking would destroy the integrity of the fabric, so I set everything aside until Wednesday morning. Finally, I was able to get five buttonholes that were within a few millimeters of the correct length and I called it good.

Really, it shouldn’t be that hard. I probably should have made manual buttonholes instead of relying on the machine’s automatic buttonholes, but I have had good success with the automatic ones in the past.

I have almost completed a Toaster Sweater shop sample. I wish I had remembered to take a photo of the end of the bolt so I knew the name of this fabric. It is an absolutely heavenly sweatshirt fleece.

I know the store has it in this burgundy and also in a taupe color. I have to sew on the bottom band and the turtleneck and it will be done. Both this and the Tamarack Jacket will go to the store today.

I want to get my errands done today because we are supposed to get a back door cold front overnight. We may get a few inches of snow and some wind. We may get nothing. Who knows anymore?

If I have time to play around in the sewing room today, I think I will work on a baby quilt.