A Deep Sewing Stash

Yesterday began with a structure fire call around 6:30 am. The husband left to go to the fire and I headed to the grocery store to get some sandwiches and fruit for the firefighters. I was home again by 9 am. I got the apples off the State Fair and Lodi trees; the other trees have apples but they aren’t quite ripe yet. The Lodi tree had about two dozen apples, which is enough for a batch of apple pie filling, but I did not have apple juice on hand and didn’t want to run back into town to get some. (Bad planning.) I’ll stop at the store before church this morning and make the pie filling this afternoon. The State Fair tree only had about a dozen apples on it. I am not sure why apple production this year is so poor. My trees typically produce every other year. Two years ago, both trees had much more fruit.

I spent the rest of the day going through the house and cleaning up clutter and putting things away. Stuff comes in and stuff goes out and stuff just generally needs to be dealt with. I sorted through the boxes of sewing supplies I received from Kathyrn’s daughter, which included packages of blanket binding, rick-rack and other trims. Before long, I found myself in the midst of this:

I have so much bias binding and trim—my mother gave me all of hers, I got my mother-in-law’s sewing stash after she died, and I have my own collection, none of which has ever been sorted or organized. Now it is. I sorted all the packages and put them into their own zip bags and then into storage totes. If any of my Kalispell peeps need binding or rick-rack, call me. I probably have what you need. 🤪

I am not a hoarder, truly. I have a deep stash and it is reasonably well organized.

I went through my pattern library, too. It’s going to be time to start sewing cooler-weather clothing. I need to make some new long-sleeved Lark Tees. The Scout Tee expansion pack includes a pattern for long sleeves, but I think I am going to switch back to sewing knits for a while.

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I spent some time on Pinterest the other day, thinking that I would put together some Pinterest boards of sewing and fitting resources to share with my students. In theory, a good idea; in practice, I found that Pinterest has been flooded with all sorts of AI slop, some of it really awful and featuring obviously incorrect information. I am going to recommend books, instead, and I am going to suggest that students start accumulating a library of good vintage sewing books. My top three are the Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Sewing (any RD book, really), The Vogue Sewing Book, and The Singer Sewing Book.

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A dry front came through last night with wind but no rain. Watch Duty—an app for tracking wildfire activity—showed 12 new fire starts west of Kalispell. I don’t see anything on our side of the valley, thankfully. The long-term forecasts are hinting at some pattern changes which could bring cooler and wetter weather. Let’s hope that materializes. I am tired of hot, dry summer.