Competing with China

I hemmed the sunshade yesterday and hung it back up.

I also installed a grommet at each side, about halfway up, so we could tie the shade to the posts and keep it from billowing out in the breeze.

The rod system the husband rigged up works very well:

However, I noticed that the Coolaroo is starting to fray a bit around a couple of the grommets. I think that was due to it blowing around in the wind before we designed this hanging system. I’ll dab some Fray-Chek on there, but were I to do this again, I would probably put a square of heavy-duty interfacing under the grommets for added stability.

I stopped at Hobby Lobby yesterday, and as I was walking around the home and garden section, I rounded a corner and ran smack into an end-cap display of Coolaroo sunshades, 12’ x 12’, with mounting hardware, 50% off. When I got home, I e-mailed my friend Scott—who gifted me with the roll of Coolaroo after he finished making a shade for their pergola—and joked that he and I were competing with China. I didn’t look to see how much Hobby Lobby was charging for the shades. I don’t want to know and it doesn’t really matter. My custom-made shade works perfectly for this situation and that’s all that matters.

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I took a break from the GOOT bag and messed around with an apron design on Wednesday. I had this cute coffee-themed fabric in the stash:

It’s reversible:

Some day I will figure out the white balance adjustment on my iPhone. I need to get a replacement battery for my fancy digital camera and go back to using that one.

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All is well out in the chicken coop. The peeps will start working on their second (40-pound!) bag of chick grower soon. I see a significant difference between these chicks and the ones we usually get from the farm store. The ones from the farm store travel through the mail when they are literally just hours old, and they seem to take longer to recover from that stress than these chicks have. These chicks only had to travel from the kitchen to the chicken coop.

With all the rain, our yard is starting to look like a jungle. I cut the grass in the backyard yesterday afternoon and was hoping to do the front yard this morning, but it’s supposed to rain all day again. Tomorrow’s forecast is warm and sunny. However, I have a denominational board meeting via Zoom so I won’t get much done outside. (This is my last board meeting. My term ends in June.) I need to plant some lettuce seedlings on Sunday and get the zucchini plants out under another hoop. And weed. The weeds grow faster than anything else.

Rooster or Hen?

In my reading about how to determine if chicks are roosters or hens, I ran across this website with a good explanation of using the difference in wing feathers to sex chicks. We will have to wait until the chicks are older for verification of its accuracy, but I can see some differences. Apparently, rooster chicks have wing feathers that are the same length while hens have wing feathers that vary in length.

I am 99.99999% sure that the chick in the middle of this photo is a rooster:

His wing feathers are all the same length. He is also sporting some pretty nice tail feathers. This particular dude is the largest and most aggressive chick of the whole bunch, and tends to strut around like he owns the place. He may require an attitude adjustment from Big Daddy (that’s our rooster’s new name) when he is older. He is also the handsomest of the chicks, being an allover creamy white color with black striping on his wings. I’d be inclined to keep him if he doesn’t end up being too full of himself.

Sometimes the little suspected rooster chicks puff up their chests and go at each other in a miniature display of male dominance. Besides being entertaining, watching their behavior is a good way to get to know their personalities. I spend a lot of time in the chicken coop looking over the edge of the brooder box.

It’s hard to see because of the heat lamp—and I don’t want to handle the chicks more than necessary—but this one is likely a female:

Her wing feathers go from short to long.

Another way to determine if chicks are hens or roosters is to use sex-linked characteristics—specifically, down coloring patterns. I need to print out a cheat sheet and take it out to the coop with me and examine individual chicks. Sex-linked characteristics depend on the breed of the father, the breed of the mother, and whether the chick is male or female. Those spots on the heads of some of the chicks are sex-linked characteristics.

My initial assessment of the gender distribution in this batch of chicks is 4-5 likely roosters and the rest hens. I’lll be thrilled if we do indeed get 12 hens out of a group of 17. That is as many pullets as we were planning to get from the farm store and more than I was expecting. I would have been satisfied with half and half.

Time will tell, though.

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Work on the GOOT bag continues here and there—yesterday afternoon, I assembled the front zipper pocket and bound the top edges of the other pockets:

For once, I lucked out with the zipper. I like the way the designer has you assemble the zipper pocket, but it requires using a zipper a few inches longer than the opening. Once it is inserted, you cut the excess zipper tape from both ends. I went digging through my zipper collection and fished out a 10” length of zipper tape that must have been left over from another bag project as it had been cut on one end. A zipper pull was still attached. Yay! I had the correct zipper in the correct length and got to use up a leftover.

The rain continues and I do not have to go anywhere, making this a good day for sewing. I’ll work on the GOOT bag, but I’d also like to get some quilt tops basted together in anticipation of quilting them. The husband asks me periodically if I would like a longarm machine; I would, but we really have no place to put it. I do look at the smaller, sit-down longarm machines from time to time. Perhaps one of these days. For now, the Janome does a fine job.

The thread rack at Joanns is about half empty, and from what I understand, they are having trouble restocking other products. I have plenty of thread, but I’ve been picking up packages of rotary cutter blades as they go on sale because I wouldn’t be surprised if they become scarce, too. I’ve kept all my old blades and could sharpen them if I have to. Re-sharpened blades don’t work quite as well as new ones—I’ve tried all the tricks and I also have an electric sharpener—but in a pinch, they’ll do.

It Is a Small (Musical) World

Thank goodness the wind finally stopped. There was no wind in town yesterday, but up here, it blew until the sun went down. We are supposed to get rain for the next couple of days, which is perfectly fine with me. We need it.

I dropped off cowpea seedlings at Cathy’s yesterday and got to see the baby calves and chat with her for a bit. Cathy also sings and plays the piano and has a great interest in hymns and hymn history. She pulled out a hymnal I haven’t seen before. I have an extensive collection but I don’t have everything. Cathy grew up in the Baptist faith, although she often attends our Mennonite church here. The hymnal that the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship uses is this one:

I sat down at her lovely Chickering baby grand with this book and played a version of O Love That Will Not Let Me Go that I’ve never heard before. The traditional tune for that song is "St. Margaret,” and as a church pianist, I have to say that it ranks right up near the top of the list of songs I hate to play.

[Other songs on that list include Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy, and Dear Lord and Father of Mankind. In short, any songs with weird intervals and/or what I like to refer to as “gratuitous accidentals” get put on that list. Also on that list is just about anything by Marty Haugen, who is a well-known Lutheran composer—the Lutheran church I play for did his Holden Evening Prayer one year, which includes a song written in E-flat minor with six flats. Five flats is not hard, but remembering that C is also flat in the key of E-flat minor requires serious concentration.]

Anyway, this hymnal includes O Love That Will Not Let Me Go set to a different—and quite beautiful—tune called “Donna.” I would be sorely tempted to paste that version over the version in our hymnal.

Cathy showed me another song she really likes from that hymnal. She said, “This is a Lutheran one,” and I said, “Oh, I probably know it.” As it turns out, I didn’t. It’s a Christmas song called Where Shepherds Lately Knelt. I played through it once and then looked at the bottom of the page where the tune name and hymn text information appear, and was delighted to find out that the words were written by Jaroslav Vajda.

I might need my mother to pop in here with additional information or clarification, but Jaroslav Vajda was born in 1919 in Lorain, Ohio, where my family is from. His father was a Lutheran minister and may have been minister of the church I grew up in (?), but in any case, I remember hearing that Jaroslav Vajda was connected to our congregation. He was a prolific hymnist and wrote over 200 original and translated hymns. One of his most well-known hymns is Go, My Children, With My Blessing, which is set to the tune “Ar Hyd Y Nos” and appears in the Mennonite hymnal.

Who knew?

I came home and immediately ordered a copy of the Celebrating Grace hymnal and also found a lovely choir arrangement of Where Shepherds Lately Knelt, so we might be doing that at Christmas this year.

I have to say, the Baptists really do have church music dialed in. Catherine, who was our church pianist for many years, came from a Baptist background and taught me most of what I know about being a church pianist. I am eager to see what else is in this Baptist hymnal. The arrangements appear to be very singable and without the goofy chord substitutions found in the some of the Lutheran hymnals.

Maybe You Shouldn't Grow Cowpeas in Montana

Saturday was a beautiful day. I got out to the garden while it was still cool (50 degrees is shirtsleeve weather in Montana), carefully prepared a bed, built the frames for the hoop house over it—and took a hit to the chin when a piece of the flexible conduit we use for the frames slipped out of my hand and snapped back—planted the cowpea seedlings, and watered them in. Later in the day, the husband brought out the roll of row cover, we cut a piece to length, pulled it over the frame, and secured the bottom edges with long 2x4s and metal T-posts. I was satisfied that I had provided the most hospitable environment possible for these delicate little zone 8 plants. I extended the growing season by starting them in the greenhouse. I planned for cold temperatures. I gave them every advantage I could think of.

I did not anticipate hurricane force winds.

I hate the wind. And hate isn’t even a strong enough word for how I feel about it. It sets my teeth on edge and makes me cranky. When we woke up Sunday morning, the covers were off all the hoops. Thankfully, it had only dropped to the high 30s. The cowpeas seemed a little shocked, but not frozen.

And still the wind blew. All day. Huge, swirling gusts. It took the covers off all the hoops again and again and again. It is 5:09 a.m. as I write this and I fully expect that when I go out to the garden this morning to check, there will be no row cover on the hoops. The wind died down overnight, but is supposed to start up again this morning.

Sigh.

Perhaps this is a message from the universe that I should not try to grow cowpeas in Montana. As long as the plants are not frozen, however, I am going to hold out hope for a crop.

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Someone on one of the homesteading groups I belong to noted a few weeks ago that canning supplies were starting to sell out. Indeed, when I checked at our grocery store—which usually has a decent supply of lids and rings—there were only a few items available. I have plenty of jars thanks to Margaret, who gifted me hers when she moved. I also have plenty of rings. I try not to buy lids until I need them because I don’t want to risk the rubber seals drying out. However, it seems prudent to stock up now in case they aren’t available in August.

I went to the Lehman’s website. They sell bulk lids in sleeves of several hundred. (That’s not excessive; I do at least 75 jars of tomato sauce alone every season.) The lids were listed as unavailable, but I could still order them and Lehman’s would ship when available. I ordered a sleeve of each and got the shipping notice last week. Whew.

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The pieces for the GOOT bag body are quilted and cut:

The cutting part is always nervewracking, and it was made especially so with this project because I only had a 34” long remnant of that Alexander Henry butterfly print (“Chiara,” from 2014, by the way.) The pattern calls for a full yard, but the designer builds a certain amount of slop into the pattern and I was confident I could get all the pieces I needed from the length of fabric I had.

Of course, that was predicated on me not screwing up any of the subcuts. I somehow managed to cut one of the outside pockets width x height instead of height x width, which doesn’t sound like a problem except that the quilted lines were running horizontally instead of vertically. I always have a contingency plan—eliminate that pocket, make it from another fabric, etc.—but I managed to get everything I needed cut from the original fabric.

I know, “Measure twice, cut once.” Believe me, I hear that all the time, either in my head or from the husband.

The next step is to cut pieces from the contrasting fabric that make up the handles, pocket bindings, and other bits. I prefer to cut parts that way rather than cutting every piece from every fabric right at the beginning. My fear is that I am going to lose something if I am unable to work on the project continuously from start to finish, so I only cut parts as I need them. That makes more sense to my concrete sequential brain, too.

It’s supposed to rain mid-week, so I should have time to work on this again.

Weekend Miscellany

The Accuquilt Zoom presentation I attended yesterday morning was quite good. Truly, these are aimed at helping retailers sell product, but the presenter provided a lot of good design-related information, which is the content I love. And the quilt store here that hosted the presentation offered a 20% discount on items to all attendees. I took advantage of the opportunity to pick up another die and some cutting mats. I do not want our quilt stores to go out of business.

[The husband said this must be like when the Snap-On tool trailer comes to local hardware stores, although there is no accompanying scantily-clad “Mr. Accuquilt” needed to help sell items.]

I do prefer the in-person presentations in the stores. I wonder, though, if those are going to become less and less common.

I stitched down the binding on the Moda Love wallhanging while I watched the presentation. I swapped it out for another wallhanging I made that Margaret quilted for me that hangs over our kitchen table. I need to wash that other wallhanging, so the Moda Love wallhanging is in its place temporarily:

I adore quick and easy projects and this one certainly fits the bill.

Speaking of laundry, the husband is still trying to fix the dryer. This is the Amana dryer we bought when we built the house 24 years ago. Just after Christmas, the timer stopped working and the dryer wasn’t putting out any heat (it’s a gas dryer). He replaced the timer and got it to produce heat, but only on the delicate cycle. The heat stopped working altogether last week. I have a clothesline mounted on the ceiling in the laundry room, but I would prefer not to have to line-dry everything. He took the dryer apart again and ordered more parts for it. (I think they came in the mail yesterday.) Perhaps by the time he is done, the dryer will be completely rebuilt. I don’t care as long as it works.

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DD#1 and I had a video chat yesterday so she could see the chicks. She and her fiancé are still at his parents’ house while they figure out what the next couple of months hold. Her fiancé was in the middle of his final clinical dental rotation when the state of Washington closed down. He can’t take the second part of his board exams because the testing facilities are closed. Graduation was supposed to be the first weekend in June, and although it sounds like the class will still graduate on time, it won’t be an in-person ceremony, which we were all looking forward to attending. He has worked so hard for the last four years and it is frustrating to be so close and not be able to celebrate that accomplishment. DD#1 is still working as an OT, thankfully. I know this uncertainty is wearing on them, though.

The chicks are moving out to the brooder box in the chicken coop today. I decided that at least one of them must be a rooster because it was awake and peeping loudly at 4:30 a.m. this morning.

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A new store called “Got Me in Stitches” has opened in the shopping area north of Kalispell. I drove through the parking lot to take a look but have not yet gone inside. The sign says “Yarn and Embroidery,” which is promising. What a hard time for a new retailer to be opening, though, especially as the local news has been filled with stories of other small retailers going out of business.

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The sunshade project has gone through some modifications. We hung it from nails in the porch rafter but ran into two problems. First, we would prefer being able to move it out of the way when we don’t need it so we can watch the woods for bears. Second, the wind blew it down. I didn’t think the breeze was that strong, but the shade was rather like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge; when it got moving back and forth at just the right frequency, it popped off the nails.

The husband’s first thought was to hang it from a narrow rod threaded through the grommets, much like a curtain. That would allow us to move it out of the way. The metal grommets are only 5/8”, though, which were the largest ones I could find. I suggested that we hang it from a rod using shower curtain hooks. The designer, in her infinite wisdom, put in 12 grommets, which is exactly how many shower curtain hooks come in a package. I got the hooks and he stopped at the hardware store and bought a metal rod. Hopefully, we can get that installed this weekend. I may have to make a tie-back for the post. I have some leftover Cordura that would work nicely.

Two brains are better than one.

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I have an eyebrow wax scheduled for Monday and a haircut on Tuesday. I can’t wait any longer. I know both salons have instituted safeguards and I feel comfortable going ahead. My hair hasn’t been cut since the beginning of February. It’s at a length now where I have to start putting it up or it drives me nuts.

At the End of a Week

How did it get to be Friday?

The peeps are doing very well. I would love to keep them inside for a few more weeks because it’s easy for me to check on them, but they will outgrow that makeshift brooder box before long. Also, I need to do laundry. It is nice to know, however, that 1) I can hatch chicks successfully in the incubator and 2) We have a good setup for young chicks if it’s too cold to put them out in the coop. Now we just wait and hope that we didn’t get 12 roosters.

[I told the husband that I would like to keep one rooster out of this batch. I like to keep the bloodlines of my good roosters going if I can. The big rooster that died a few months ago was sired by our original Buff Orpington rooster.]

The weather is supposed to improve this weekend and I think the chicks will get moved out to the coop where they can keep the big chickens awake with their constant peeping. That brooder box is also much bigger.

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I sent the pencil pouch off to DD#2. She saw the picture on my blog and was very happy with it. She told me yesterday that Nordstrom is planning to close 16 stores. Her store probably is not in any danger as Nordstrom just closed another store north of Seattle last year. If the store in Spokane closes, however, that is going to be a huge blow to their downtown retail sector. They lost the downtown Macy’s store a few years ago.

The husband commented that DD#2 probably snagged one of the last good retail jobs. That industry is going to undergo some seismic changes in the near future.

I was in town yesterday running errands, so I stopped at Joann Fabrics to peruse the remnant rack. I also found this book:

My sister has cats and I thought she might enjoy this. She said she’s been thinking about doing counted cross-stitch again but embroidery might be a nice change.

I am attending an Accuquilt Zoom presentation this morning put on by one of the quilt stores in town. I went to an in-person demo they hosted last year and enjoyed it very much. That Studio cutter is getting a lot of use. I have a huge stack of 5” squares for making comforters next fall.

And after a few fits and starts, I worked on the Get Out of Town bag.

My can of spray baste refused to behave properly because it’s almost empty, but I didn’t realize it until I went to use it or I could have picked up a new one at Joanns. Oh well, I got one piece quilted. When I quilt the second piece, I’ll just have to pin it. These bags are assembled by first quilting the exterior and lining together with a piece of foam between them. The smaller pieces are cut from the big quilted pieces. I used a black 40wt thread on the top and some Aurifil 50wt in the bobbin and quilted straight lines about 3/4” apart. The lining is a coral print and the exterior accents will be turquoise. I have no idea where I got this lovely Alexander Henry remnant, but I think it will make a nice bag.

My stash is so full of bright, retina-burning prints that it isn’t funny. I don’t usually buy large-scale prints because it’s hard to use them in quilts, but I must have liked the colors in this one.

The cowpeas are getting planted under hoops tomorrow. They are outgrowing their pots. And now we’ll find out how they do in Montana.

Ups and Downs

I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post that there had been two eggs that pipped but didn’t hatch. The second egg was the last one left in the incubator—I had already removed the other one and the eggs that weren’t fertile, and it had been more than 24 hours since the egg pipped. As I picked it up to take it out, though, so I could clean the incubator, the egg peeped at me. (Thankfully, in my surprise, I did not drop it.) The husband said to leave it in the incubator for a few more hours and see if anything happened.

I waited and watched. Little by little, the chick inside worked its way out and finally hatched. I was excited to have another chick—bringing the total to 18—but something didn’t seem right. This chick was smaller than the others, slow to rouse, and it seemed to have trouble getting around. By an hour after hatching, the other chicks had all been lurching around inside the incubator. This one was just lying still. I took it out and looked it over and discovered the problem. The chick had been born with its intestines outside its body.

There was nothing to do. Although I want to take care of them and give them good lives, I am not into heroic measures when it comes to farm animals. This chick wasn’t going to make it, so I let it die. I am sad about that, but we have 17 other healthy, beautiful chicks. One of those chicks obviously came from a Light Brahma mother and is a gorgeous silver color. I think it’s my favorite so far.

The brooder box is still in the laundry room. We haven’t moved the babies out to the coop yet because the weather is so crummy.

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I have to check on the peeps every couple of hours and make sure they have fresh water and food, but I’m not tied to the kitchen like I was when they were hatching. My pile of sewing projects needed some attention. I quilted the Moda Love wallhanging that I put together a few weeks ago. I did simple straight line quilting 1/4” on either side of each seamline in a grid pattern. I probably could have been more creative with the quilting, but at this point, finished is better than perfect. Straight lines don’t take long.

Once the quilting was done, I cut and made about 10 yards of red Kona binding. I only needed a couple of yards for the wallhanging, but if I am going to make binding, it’s just as easy to make 10 yards as two yards. The excess will get used on a future quilt. I like being able to go to my binding box and pull out a roll of ready-made binding.

I finished the canvas pencil pouch (free Noodlehead tutorial) for DD#2 so she has something to hold her reusable straws:

The fabric is some leftover Sevenberry canvas that I used for an apron for myself. Because I was working with scraps, I felt less bad about fussy cutting the pieces:

That is some next-level pattern matching right there.

This is a quick and easy project—by far, most of the time is spent on the prep work and only a little bit of it on the actual sewing. Good for gift-giving.

I decided to start a project for me. The Janome is still set up for quilting, so I am going to make myself one of these:

I pulled supplies from the stash and started cutting and labelling. I hope to get the body pieces quilted today. One of my friends asked me a few months ago why I make so many bags. I am rather a bag addict. Some people like shoes; I like bags. Also, from a sewing standpoint, bags—depending on the pattern—can be technically complex. I like to challenge myself.

I went over to my friend Marcie’s house last night to help her with her serger. I had found her a Bernette serger at a thrift store a few years ago for $22. That was a screaming deal. It’s a fine little serger and very similar to my Juki. She wanted to use it but needed help with the threading. In thanks, she gave me a gluten-free strawberry-rhubarb pie. Marcie is an excellent cook, so I have no doubt this pie will be delicious.

Hatch Report

Yesterday was exhausting, in a good way.

The first chick showed up Monday morning. By Monday night, we had five. Two more hatched overnight for a total of seven in the incubator when I woke up yesterday morning. The remainder of the eggs continued to hatch, in fits and spurts, until yesterday afternoon, and now we have a total of 17 chicks. They all have been moved to the brooder box in the laundry room where they are eating like there is no tomorrow.

Although I know better than to interfere with a natural process, I didn’t want to leave the kitchen while all of this was happening. I needed to keep an eye on the humidity and temperature levels in the incubator, and let’s be honest—watching chicks hatch is fascinating. I was even able to go over and alert our renter so she could bring their 3 year-old daughter to watch one just as it emerged from its shell.

Baby chicks have this habit of staggering around drunkenly, then flopping over and falling asleep instantly, and if you’re not familiar with the way that looks, you think the chick is dead. It also takes them a few hours to dry off and fluff up. Until then, they look sort of the like miniature versions of the monster in the movie Alien.

I did lose two chicks in the process; they started to pip and then stopped, and when it was clear the chicks inside were dead, I took the eggs out of the incubator so they wouldn’t contaminate anything. The causes for that, according to what I have read, are either too much humidity (the chick drowns from moisture condensing inside the shell) or too little humidity (the membrane dries out and basically shrink wraps the chick). The recommended humidity range is 60% to 80%. I was very careful not to let the humidity drop below 70% as I was removing older chicks to the brooder, but at one point, when three or four chicks had hatched in rapid succession, the humidity did get up to about 85%. The chicks are wet when they come out and that raises the humidity level in the incubator. I put a small cup of rice inside the incubator and that helped to absorb the excess water.

I am not sure how to avoid that problem of chicks not hatching other than to incubate fewer eggs next time. Some sources advise not to take any chicks out until every egg is finished hatching, but this hatch ran for over 36 hours. I couldn’t have left all the chicks in the incubator for that length of time. There simply wasn’t room.

For my first attempt, though, I am pretty pleased. That’s a hatch rate of 89% of fertile eggs. Even some hens don’t do that well.

I am also having fun trying to figure out what kinds of chickens these babies came from. Our rooster is a purebred Buff Orpington, but we have Black Australorp, White Orpington, Buff Orpington, New Hampshire Reds, Barred Rocks, and Light Brahma hens. Most of the chicks look like Orps of one kind or another, but at least one came from a Barred Rock mama and one from a Light Brahma. The Brahmas are big chickens, even bigger than the rooster, so I am not surprised he isn’t as successful with them as with the other hens. Now we wait to find out how many are males and how many are females.

The rooster got an extra helping of scratch grains and some praise yesterday for his part in this whole operation.

We’re going to keep the chicks inside the house for another day because we are supposed to get a storm with cold temperatures tonight. Our makeshift brooder box is sitting on top of the washing machine and is working surprisingly well, other than I can’t do laundry at the moment.

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I haven’t done much sewing this week, but I needed a break anyway. I’ve got my phone visit with the naturopath this morning. I was hoping to get the other two hoops up in the garden, but I think I am going to wait until after this storm. The cowpeas won’t like it if I put them out in the garden and it gets down to 25 degrees tonight, even if they are under cover.

The potatoes are coming up!

And the peas are up. The rhubarb looks good. The raspberries have leafed out and the grapes shouldn’t be far behind. Yay.

The Island of Misfit Chickens

Back when the husband and I first got chickens (and the first Buff Orpington rooster), I went out to the coop one October morning to let the chickens out. I was on my way back out the door when I heard a sound I couldn’t immediately identify. Then it dawned on me—it was a chick peeping. I followed the sound to a very protective mama hen sitting on the floor with a little red chick next to her. I ran back into the house and up the stairs to our bedroom and said to the husband, “We have a chick! How did that happen?”

I knew how it happened, but I didn’t know how we managed to overlook a broody hen for three weeks. We had several broody hens that year and got half a dozen chicks, but I haven’t been able to get any other hens to go broody since.

This year, when it was obvious we weren’t going to be able to get any chicks from the farm store, I bought an incubator. I put two dozen eggs in it and waited to see what would happen. The incubator has a timer on it that shows how many days until hatching. Yesterday, we were at day 2, so I was expecting chicks Tuesday or Wednesday.

I checked the incubator last night to make sure the temperature and humidity levels were adequate. This morning, I came down around 5:30 a.m., let Lila out, flipped on the coffeemaker, and then I heard a strange sound. At first, I wondered if we had caught a mouse somewhere. I went to check on the incubator and saw this:

I ran up the stairs and woke up the husband and said, “We have a chick!”

[He says that he always knows when I have some important news to tell him because he can hear me come running up the stairs.]

Soon after, a second chick hatched. I am supposed to leave them in there until they dry out and fluff up. I think a third one may be ready to hatch, too. Chick gestation is supposed to take 21 days, so I am a bit surprised by these early overachievers, but they are peeping and staggering around the incubator—with short stretches of naptime—and appear to be healthy.

These are not going to be purebred chickens. The rooster is a purebred Buff Orpington, but we have four other breeds of hens out there. One of the chicks is white and the other one light brown. The husband is calling this Janet’s Island of Misfit Chickens. I don’t care—I am just happy to have chicks this year.

I commented that in the midst of all this ridiculousness that has been 2020, there are still bright spots. He said, “Did you have any doubt?” and I said “No, but some days it’s harder to see them than others.” And some days, you can’t miss them at all.

Date Night, Adjusted, and Soap

Besides missing being able to hop in the car and drive to see my kids, date night has been the other casualty of this lockdown that I am mourning. I’m not missing the togetherness—we spend plenty of time with each other—as much as I am missing having a break from cooking. Date night was always my opportunity to have someone else prepare the food. My rough calculation is that the husband requires something like 5000 calories every day. I rejoice when we have actual leftovers from a meal because that means I don’t have to make something. And cooking is my least favorite domestic duty. If we were in that income bracket where we could have staff, the first person I would hire would be a chef.

I cook, and I try not to complain about it because I am not outside working in the rain, but I appreciate the break every once in a while. The husband reminded me yesterday out that one of our favorite date night locations, Backslope Brewery, is doing take-out. Their website has online ordering which includes growler refills. He is particularly fond of their Foreman Stout. I placed our order, got in the car and drove to the restaurant—which was a treat in itself as it was an absolutely gorgeous day—and picked up the food and the growler full of beer. Easy-peasy. Part of me hopes that they continue to do take-out even after the lockdown lifts, because this is a popular restaurant near Glacier Park. During tourist season, it’s next to impossible to get a table for dinner.

We didn’t get to go tool shopping, but the husband hung the shade up on the porch after dinner. I want to let it hang for a day or two to allow some wrinkles to fall out before I hem it. So far, it is working well.

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The husband got more PVC pipe and rebar so I could put up two more hoops this week. I need to get the cowpeas out into the garden, but the nights are still cool and the plants need some protection. The corn is doing well under its hoops. I am trying to stay ahead of the weeds; I dug out a bunch of quackgrass and dandelions yesterday and put cardboard down on top of the soil.

And I made a batch of hand soap as we are almost out. I recall someone asking me to take pictures of the process the last time I made it. Here is your quick-and-dirty recap. I am using the basic recipe found on the Wellness Mama website with a few modifications that DD#1 came up with, because she used to make this for us when she was home. I quadrupled the recipe and used an entire bar of soap to start:

This is our favorite soap. I have to buy a case of the lavender version for the husband because he loves it so much. (I tease him about smelling like a flower, but I like the smell, too.) I am not picky about what I use to make the liquid hand soap. As I was cleaning bathrooms yesterday, I also collected all the small leftover bits and added them to the pot. The soap first has to be grated. A coarse grating is fine:

I added a gallon of water and put the pot on the stove to simmer gently. The instructions say to use distilled or filtered water. We have extremely hard water here—the calcium and magnesium levels are off the charts—but I use water straight from the tap for making soap and it doesn’t seem to matter.

Once all the soap has dissolved, remove the pot from the heat, cover, and let sit for 24 hours or overnight. As it cools, the soap will start to gel:

At this point, DD#1 would get out the immersion blender and mix the soap thoroughly before pouring it into the gallon jug. The finished product looks just like what comes from the store. This is probably a six-months’ supply for the kitchen and bathroom.

It’s raining this morning—yay!—so I’m not sure what I’ll be able to get done outside today. I might just need to stay in and sew.

May Day

I am a day late and a dollar short, but I think it is important to note that yesterday was May Day.

The husband and I graduated from Washington College, in Chestertown, Maryland, which has the distinction of being the only college in the United States with George Washington’s permission to use his name. Washington donated 50 guineas toward the establishment of the college and agreed to serve on the Board of Visitors and Governors. Washington College is also well known for a slightly less noble tradition: May Day—a day students celebrate by taking off their clothing.

Yep, people go around naked. I did not participate, but I was there for four years and saw plenty of my friends in their birthday suits. And to this day, when the first of May rolls around, we alums note the fact, although I think fewer people are inclined to take their clothes off now to celebrate.

If you’d care to study up on some of the history, this video interview with the late Bennett Lamond, professor of English, is instructive:

My parents probably were not aware of this tradition when they sent me off to Maryland. I also lived on the college’s first co-ed floor when I was a sophomore. My friend Scott and his roommate, JP, lived right next door to us.

I wonder sometimes what George would think, but truly, those were some of the best years of my life.

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The peas are up!

The raspberries are leafing out:

I brought my mother-in-law’s gardening hat back from Maryland with me and have been wearing it when I am outside:

I have never been much of a hat person—too much hair, I think, which keeps me plenty warm—but I am trying to be better about sun exposure these days. And this hat is not too heavy. My mother-in-law was a Master Gardener. Perhaps I’ll absorb some of that knowledge from this hat by osmosis.

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I finished a batch of masks yesterday morning, then weeded for a few hours. As a reward for my hard work, I thought I might start a new bag project. I recently purchased some waxed canvas from Klum House, but as I think I mentioned, it has a much different hand to it than the waxed canvas I’ve been getting from AL Frances on Etsy. Rather than jump right in to a new bag project, I decided to make something small, first, to see how I liked the fabric. I made a zippered pouch that ended up being a mashup of a couple of different patterns: the Waxed Canvas Travel Bag from the Bernina website (sans embroidered monogram), and the Open Wide Zippered Pouch pattern from Noodlehead. Both patterns result in similar bags, differing only in the route they take to get there.

Once again, I was frustrated by the fact that I did not have the zipper length called for in the Bernina pattern, which was a 16”. I have 10”, 12”, 14”, 18”, 20”, and 22” metal zippers, but no 16” zippers. I used a 14” Tim Holtz zipper—which ended up being long enough—and two colors of the Klum House Waxed Canvas:

The interior is some of my precious Tim Holtz dictionary fabric from the stash:

I am glad I made a small bag, first, before jumping in and making a bigger bag. I am not sure I would use the Klum House canvas for a purse or tote. It just isn’t as substantial as the AL Frances canvas, even though both are listed as being 10 ounce canvas. Normally, if I were using a lighter fabric for a bag exterior, I would interface it to beef it up a bit, but waxed canvas doesn’t really lend itself to being interfaced. In that case, interfacing the lining can add some structure. This lining was interfaced with Woven Fuse (similar to Pellon SF101). That helps some. I need a bag that can take a beating, though.

I sewed the pouch on the Necchi industrial, but that was almost overkill. The Klum House canvas is light enough that I probably could have sewn most of the bag on my Janome. I wouldn’t try that with the other waxed canvas. The Klum House canvas is also “waxed” with a different formulation, a combination of petroleum jelly, mineral oil, and paraffin rather than beeswax. It feels a tad more oily to me.

Perhaps this sounds like I don’t like the Klum House canvas—I do, but I think it’s important to note that it behaves differently than the waxed canvas I am used to working with. I likely will stick to making small bags with it, although it occurred to me (at 3 o’clock in the morning) that it would also make nice bias binding for a bag like the Noodlehead Campfire Messenger Bag.

We rigged up the Coolaroo shade yesterday afternoon so we could sit on the porch, hanging it from a couple of hooks that hold my windchimes and the hummingbird feeders. The husband will hang it properly from the porch framing today, but I was happy to see that it did the job it was intended to do. Not only did it keep the porch cooler, but I appreciated the extra shade while I was cooking dinner in the kitchen.

Birdies, Part 2

The hummingbirds are back in full force. All of them. Our friend Smokey stopped by to get eggs yesterday. He and I were sitting on the porch, visiting, when one of the females flew over to the feeder. An hour or two later, when the husband got home, he and I were sitting out there and both males showed up. The hummers were busy zooming back and forth through the porch and I commented that I really should be careful what I wish for. I can’t wear pink or red shirts when I work in the garden because to them, I look too much like a flower.

I also watched a couple of woodpeckers for a few minutes on my way out to water seedlings. A female has been hanging out near the path to the greenhouse, but yesterday there were two. They had positioned themselves on either side of a tree and looked—and sounded—like they were having a conversation back and forth.

I miss the birds during the winter.

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The National Needlework Association—TNNA—announced this week that it is suspending operations as of today. That news came as rather a shock to me, but I’ve been out of the loop for a number of years now. The organization has had declining membership and poor attendance at its trade shows in recent years, and I think the coronavirus situation amplified those problems. I attended several TNNA shows when they were in Columbus, Ohio, because it was easy to coordinate them with visits to my mother in Cleveland. I have fond memories of seeing and visiting with fellow knitting designers there. (Hi Kate and Joy!)

I do wonder what will be left standing when all of this is over.

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I have an appointment scheduled with my naturopath next week. I see him twice a year, and the week before my appointment, I always go in for a blood test so he can make sure my thyroid levels are appropriate. When I got to the office yesterday, I found the door locked with a sign that instructed patients to call the office number. I did that. A nurse came out, took my temperature, asked me a series of questions, and then said I could come in. Everyone had masks on. (I was wearing mine, too.) They checked me in, took several tubes of blood, and sent me on my way. My visit with the doctor will be via telephone, which is fine. He has been my doctor for almost 15 years now and these visits are mostly to make sure everything is stable. I am down to a small dose of thyroid hormone 2-3 times a week.

Because I was already out and about, I went to Costco, after driving through the parking lot to see how busy they were (not very). Most people were wearing masks there, too. I did a quick resupply of everything we’ve gone through in the past two months and was in and out in less than 30 minutes.

And I stopped at the nearby quilt store to pick up some border fabric for the neutrals quilt—I don’t have enough of any one fabric in the stash—and more Aurifil thread. They also had a sign on the door requesting that customers wear masks. A large pump bottle of hand sanitizer was on the counter for customers to use. I really don’t want these stores to go out of business, so I am trying to do my part to keep them open.

I bought another byAnnie travel bag pattern:

I am dreaming of the day when I can take a road trip again.

Birdies

We are now seven days from chicks possibly hatching, so I went through and candled all the eggs. I put 25 eggs in the incubator two weeks ago, and I am pretty sure that all of them except four have chicks inside. I’ve never done this before, so I could be completely clueless, but the difference between the eggs that were clearly not fertilized and the ones that look like they are is rather stark. I could even see blood vessels inside some of them.

[I did major in biology in college, so I can’t be that clueless.]

I would be beyond thrilled with that many chicks. A percentage of them are going to be roosters; I do not know how to sex chicks and have no plans to learn because it isn’t going to make a bit of difference until they are older, by which time it will be obvious. We’ll get this first batch to the point where they can go into the separate area of the coop and reassess. I might incubate another couple dozen in a few months so we get enough layers. Too many chickens is not going to be a problem given the current predictions about the food supply.

The robins have begun staking their claims on prime porch rafter real estate (that sound you hear is me sighing at the thought of having to keep a dog away from fledging babies):

I am a bit concerned about the hummingbirds. I heard their telltale buzzing right on schedule at the end of March—I always hear them before I actually see them—but then we got a couple of spring storms with snow and cold temps, and I haven’t heard or seen any since. I hope nothing happened to them.

We had a hailstorm Monday night and it went down to 27 degrees overnight. I was afraid the hoops might have taken a beating, but they were fine and the corn seedlings still look good. Whew.

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I put a narrow dark brown print border on the neutrals quilt:

And there it has stalled. I auditioned half a dozen border layouts with the extra QSTs and squares and wasn’t happy with any of them so I abandoned that idea. I’ll add another, wider border in a lighter print and call this good. Those leftover QSTs can become a wallhanging or get used in another project.

I thoroughly decimated my supply of browns and neutrals with this quilt. I didn’t have a lot to start with—I tend to collect blues and hot pinks—so I will have to make a concerted effort to bulk up on those colors.

I knocked out another batch of masks yesterday and cleaned up my work area. It’s time to start on some bag projects, I think.

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I ran across a very interesting piece put out by the Strategic Sewing and Quilting Summit, which appears to be a new-ish non-profit dedicated to growing the quilting and sewing industry. From their website:

Our industry doesn’t work together to grow the end consumer. We want to change that. Retail, environmental, and digital challenges are the new normal. Together, we can develop an industry strategy to grow in a changing world. How do we work together to grow the end consumer?

The Strategic Sewing & Quilting Summit was founded as a non-profit dedicated to achieving consumer growth through collaboration of key leaders in the sewing and quilting industry. Through this initiative, we as an industry can, collectively, develop our strategic plan for growth.

The in-person Summit was canceled because of the lockdown; organizers are hoping to reschedule it at some point in the future. This group did a small, informal survey of contacts during the week of April 15, 2020, about how the virus has impacted the industry. It’s not comprehensive, certainly—only ninety-two respondents participated—but it does align with some of the same things I am seeing and hearing. Specifically:

• The report notes that this is a key moment for brick-and-mortar stores. Those that also have an online presence are able to pivot and adjust, although online sales do not necessarily make up for the loss of in-person sales. Both of our local quilt stores have significant social media presences and online shopping. The Quilting Bee, in Spokane, for all that it is a huge store, has a website but no e-commerce. I wonder how this shutdown has impacted them.

• Entry-level sewing machines, elastic, and basic fabric sales are strong, and in some cases have not kept up with demand. The report noted that “Retailers have faced a staggering number of requests for elastic, that often overshadows their ability to serve all customers. Many have reported they have or could spend more than 50% of their time on answering the question, “Do you have elastic?”

• Loss of in-store classes has been a huge hit to revenue streams. Again, I am thinking of The Quilting Bee in Spokane, which relied heavily on in-store classes.

• Designers and teachers have seen a decrease in income because of the cancellation of classes, conferences and retreats.

• “Retailers that sell and service sewing machines are reporting an overwhelming number of calls for service on old machines previously left in the closet.” How about that.

• Demand for new fabric collections is down. Spring Quilt Market—when many stores place orders for fall delivery of new lines—was canceled this year. Personally, I don’t think this is a bad thing only from the perspective that flooding the market with new fabric lines every quarter was a bit much, so if that gets scaled back a bit, I’m not sure that’s a negative.

As with any kind of industry shift—no matter what the driver happens to be—there will be new opportunities even as old paradigms fall apart. Lots of people are sewing now who weren’t before. Will they continue to do so?

Not Suitable for Masks

We are in for a string of nice days and periodic rain showers—perfect spring weather, as far as I am concerned. I planted the rest of the corn yesterday and have a few seedlings left over to share with friends. I’ve put in four 25’ rows of corn, so if we don’t get corn this year, it won’t be for lack of trying. The cowpeas need to go out soon. Cathy said she would take some, too, so we’ll see how they do in her garden versus mine.

The husband burned several of the slash piles we stacked from the windstorm in March, including two in the pig pasture. They had dried out enough that they burned hot and fast. The pile in the herb garden was still too wet to burn well, so that will have to wait a few days.

Most of the masks I’ve made have gone to my neighbor, Theresa, who lives across the road. Her daughter is a nurse in California. Theresa sends the masks to her daughter who shares them with the other nurses in her unit. They have been so appreciative. I worked on another batch of masks for them last night and then went stash diving to see what other fun prints I had. I found this:

I stared at it for a few seconds and then it dawned on me that this looks just like all the illustrations of the coronavirus that I’ve seen. I have no idea where it came from. The selvedge says only “An original screenprint by Richloom Designs.”

I am not going to use this for masks. This virus doesn’t need any more notoriety.

I also played around a bit with the large Drunkard’s Path die. I was pleased to find out that a fat quarter is perfect for cutting two layers with just a narrow strip left over. I have lots of fat quarters and I think this will be a good way to use them. Also, sewing the larger circles together is much easier than sewing the smaller version of this block.

I really need to get off this quilt-making kick. I need to make some bags. And T-shirts.

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Last fall, I splurged and bought a new down comforter and duvet cover for our bed from Nordstrom. The comforter we had on the bed was 25 years old and really needed to be replaced. The new one is so thick, though, that it’s too hot to sleep under now. I took it off and replaced it with a quilt—one I bought from Lands’ End many years ago—but the quilt slides off the bed every night.

Arrrggghh.

I ordered a lightweight down “blanket” and duvet cover and we’ll try that instead of the quilt.

When I was growing up, I slept on feather pillows every night. I am pretty sure the feathers came from my Grandma Gargus’s geese. I still have those pillows, and now I have two more that my mother found and sent to me when she was cleaning her house. I miss sleeping on feather pillows. I’ve never been able to find any that I liked as much as the ones I had when I was a kid. I’m kicking around the idea of cleaning the four pillows that I have and consolidating them into two pillows (I like very firm pillows).

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Montana is “open for business” again as of today. I plan to continue my social distancing, however, at least for a few more weeks. I only need to visit the feed store and the grocery store every so often. I could stand to make a Costco run, but I am trying to wait as long as possible to do that.

Quilt Layout Evolution

I spent some time this week playing around with the block layout from that Sugar Pine quilt I mentioned a few blog posts ago. That quilt featured alternating quarter-square triangles and squares. In the pattern, the designer mentioned that she also alternated the placement of “light” and “medium/dark” squares by row.

I started by making a bunch of blocks and laying them out in the same configuration. I kept things simpler by sticking with one color family.

All fabrics came from the stash and included everything from the light background prints in the quarter-square triangles to the black prints, some of which were made into QSTs and some into squares. However, I felt like the black squares were talking too loudly in the layout:

Sometimes a B&W photo is helpful:

I made two adjustments. First, I pulled all the black squares and set them aside. I left the black QSTs, because I felt they added a bit of flavor. Next, I pulled all the “light” QSTs in the alternating “light” rows and replaced them with medium/dark QSTs, and a “square in a square'“ pattern emerged.

I decided I liked this better. It isn’t the same layout as the original Sugar Pine design, but that layout seemed too amorphous to me. I liked this design enough to sew it together:

Scrappy but cohesive. I think it does need borders. I tend to avoid borders only because I think they require a separate quilting pattern from the center, and sometimes I don’t want to work that hard. However, I have a pile of QSTs left over. I’d like to incorporate them into some kind of border instead of putting them into the orphan blocks box.

I’ll play around with this a bit more, but I picked up my large Drunkard’s Path die on Friday and I am itching to experiment with some circles.

I also put grommets in the sunshade:

I spaced them roughly 12” on-center (can you tell I am married to a builder?), although I suggested to the husband that he not measure too carefully because I might have fudged a bit. This is a sunshade, not a quilt destined for a competition. He will get the hooks put up and then I can hang this and determine where to put the hem.

The Circle Series

My mother-in-law, Mala Burt, had many different careers in her life—jewelry-maker, family therapist, travel agent—but she spent much of her retirement time writing. Together with her writing partner, Laura Ambler, she created the play The Santa Diaries, which has been produced and put on by community theatre groups in Indiana, Minnesota, Maine, Tennessee, and Maryland. She also wrote a romance novel trilogy set on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, where she and my father-in-law had a vacation home for 15 years. She published the first two books (Circle of Secrets, Circle of Magic) several years ago and had just finished the third one, Circle of Spirits, at the time of her death in March.

Laura Ambler has honored Mala’s request to complete the publication of the third book. It is available as an e-book on Amazon for $0.99, along with the two original books in the series. All three are to be published in hard copy, as well. If you are longing for a tropical escape, this might be the series that takes you there! (The husband and I spent a week in St. Lucia and I went there again with the girls and my in-laws in 2005. It is a magical place.)

Here are the links to the books:

Book 3: Circle of Spirits 

Book 2: Circle of Magic 

Book 1: Circle of Secrets 

If you enjoy them, please leave a review at Amazon or Goodreads. Thanks!

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A couple of lines of storms came through yesterday bringing thunder, lightning, and rain. We may get a few more showers today, but then a high pressure system is supposed to move in. That will bring sunshine and warm temps, which is nice, but I’d almost rather have more rain at this point. May and June are typically our rainiest months. If we don’t get enough moisture then, we go into fire season with a severe deficit.

I am going to venture out today to pick up my Accuquilt die. The correct size finally came in at the quilt store. I paid for it when I ordered it, so they will have it waiting for me to pick up. I’m excited to try out some design ideas with this die. I’ve also got another quilt top close to being ready to assemble.

Archaeological Church Dig

Our pastor has been keeping himself busy at the church by cleaning out cabinets and organizing what he finds. A few days ago, he sent me an e-mail saying he had found some sewing stuff in the office and did I want to come look at it? (I am the current president of the Mennonite Women/sewing group so that falls under my job description.) I popped over to the church yesterday morning to see what he had unearthed. Margaret, no doubt you will recognize some of this stuff. If you—or anyone else from church—knows more about these items, let me know. For now, they are stored in the sewing room.

There were two winder-type thingies that I thought might be for reeling binding. This one has “Mennonite Central Committee” and an address on it:

Our pastor says he remembers, as a child, tearing up sheets and winding them into balls to be used as bandages. Maybe that was this object’s purpose?

The ubiquitous button tin, although this one originally held bandages and not cookies:

And quilt block templates:

I found these most intriguing as they appeared to be made from some very heavy, very coarse-grit sandpaper. Did that come from the sawmill that used to be in this area? The sandpaper would have helped keep the template from sliding around on the fabric. Nowadays, we use mostly rotary cutters, rulers, and mats to cut quilt blocks. This is old-school quilting, for sure.

Also in the box of items were two bags, one containing packages of bias tape—and some 1/4” elastic—and one containing short lengths of ribbon. Arlene Johnson, there was a book with your name on it with some designs I suspect may have been used for appliqué. If you would like it back, let me know, although after this long, you may not be missing it, LOL.

The pastor tells me there is another box with Mennonite Women records dating back to the 1950s in it. I will get that out one of these days and sort through it.

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It’s been raining steadily since last evening and that is a welcome sound on the metal roof. I can’t work outside today, so I am going to cook down a couple of chickens for stock and attack some paperwork. My supervisor from my medical transcription job e-mailed me yesterday with an update. Apparently, one of the doctors is leaving the clinic and another one is retiring at the end of the month. The two of them made up about 40% of the work in the queue. She wanted me to know that the clinic probably wouldn’t have enough work to bring me back on board, so it appears I am retired once more. I don’t need the work, but I enjoyed it and will miss it.

I guess it’s time to make long-term plans again so that the universe can screw them up for me. That has certainly been the theme for 2020 thus far. Do I sound bitter? I’m not, really—just getting weary of the constant upheaval. I’m not lacking for tasks to keep me busy around here, but I do better with some benchmarks to aim for.

Our governor, Steve Bullock, announced phased re-openings for Montana beginning this weekend. I have no plans to rush back out into public even though I’d really like to see my kids. I can wait a few more weeks—or even a month or two—for a road trip. This is such a difficult balancing act. Montana is so dependent upon tourism that for the state to stay closed for a season would be devastating, but I hope we are not invaded by people fleeing other areas.

Dismantling the Herb Garden

I decided to deal with the herb garden by burning it down. The bed in the center is an 8’ x 8’ square. I took the pavers out of it, stacked them outside the fence, and relocated a few of the plants that I wanted to keep. Nothing ever stayed where it was supposed to in that garden, so if I need anything else, I’m sure I’ll find seedlings in the other beds. I raked all of the dead plants into the center bed and piled what was left of the rotted bed edgings (logs) on top. We’ll burn it this weekend. Except for the pile of debris in the center, the whole area looks much cleaner now. 

I did have a chocolate mint plant in that garden that I’d like to find and keep, but I am still hunting for it. 

At least one egg in the incubator has an embryo inside. I am trying not to handle the eggs unnecessarily, but I did take one out and candle it yesterday at day 7 (with two weeks to go). The incubator has 25 eggs in it. We’ll see what I get. 

We are supposed to get some significant rain today and tomorrow, which is most welcome. Stuff is catching on fire here that shouldn’t be, at least not this early. An eight-acre wildfire broke out near one of the ski resorts yesterday. 

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My order of waxed canvas from Klum House arrived yesterday:

I ordered from them because the supplier I had been buying from—AL Frances Textiles on Etsy—has become so popular that they are constantly sold out. 

I was a bit surprised at what I found when I took these out of the box. Not unhappy, just surprised. This waxed canvas is quite different from the AL Frances waxed canvas. The product specs on the Klum House website indicate that this is 100% Better Cotton Initiative certified cotton canvas sourced from Scotland and the US and waxed with a blend of petroleum jelly, mineral oil, and paraffin. It is listed as being 10-12 oz—the same as the AL Frances waxed canvas—but this is a much tighter, finer weave and the fabric does not feel quite as substantial. It is, however, quite evenly saturated with the wax. That was one of my gripes with the AL Frances waxed canvas as I had gotten a couple of pieces that weren’t waxed very thoroughly. (They use Texas beeswax on theirs.)

I’ll report back after I make a bag or two with this. 

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I’m trying very hard to give myself permission to play and experiment with some quilt ideas without always having an end product in sight. I find it odd that I am having so much trouble with this considering that I was very much a process knitter, not a product knitter. Apparently, I am a product quilter, not a process one. 

However, this quilt pattern, from the book Fresh Family Traditions, by Sherri McConnell, has been driving me nuts ever since I bought the book a few years ago. 

I love the design, but I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what, exactly, it is that I love. Is it the block? Is it the layout? Is it the fabric/color combination? And once I figure out what “it” is, can I bring that forward into a quilt of my own?

What I don’t love are the instructions. Part of my frustration with deconstructing this design centers around the fact that it’s a sort of scrappy quilt made up, as the designer notes, with fabrics from several Moda fabric lines (Sew Mama Sew and various Urban Chiks fabrics) as well as some favorite vintage fabrics from her stash. The Sew Mama Sew line is one of the few lines, I think, that had more than one production run because it was so popular. I’m not sure why book publishers even specify fabric lines in patterns given that by the time the book is published, the line may no longer be available. And yes, I am well aware that knitting patterns suffer from the same problem.

The cutting instructions are vague, at best, and specify only total yardage—a useless metric, in my opinion, when using this many different fabrics—and only color values of light, medium, and dark. The designer gives one critical hint in the assembly instructions when she notes that she alternated the layout of medium/dark prints with light prints. Indeed, if you look at the quilt, you can see that rows 1, 3, 5, etc. have the “darker” shades. The problem is that value is relative. A medium value color can look dark when placed next to something lighter than itself and light when placed next to something darker than itself. I would argue that there are very few actual “dark” fabrics in this design. I think they are mostly medium and light prints, and it’s their placement next to something else that determines which category they fall into. 

The one saving grace of this design is that the layout is ridiculously simple: quarter-square triangles alternating with plain squares. I’ve already got a chunk of my own version laid out so I can get a better idea of what is going on, and I’ll talk more about it in a future blog post. 

The Garden Grows

We planted potatoes on Saturday. On Sunday, the husband raked up and burned debris around the garden and we assembled two hoops for the corn. I put the Painted Mountain and some of the Montana Cudu corn out under one of the hoops. It was 27 degrees when I woke up yesterday morning and the corn appeared to be nice and toasty inside the hoop:

The heavier row cover makes a big difference. Lows are only supposed to get down to the mid-30s (at most) for the next week. The corn should be okay under the row cover for the remainder of the spring. The husband reminded me that we can always put a concrete blanket over top of the row cover if it looks like we’ll get any really low temps.

I am waiting to plant the corn under the second hoop because I want to make sure that a ground squirrel does not come through and hoover up the seedlings. (I still have seed left and could replant if that happens, but at that point, it would be a full-out war on ground squirrels.) I don’t think corn seedlings are as tasty as cabbage seedlings, though.

Several of our neighbors have also seen the fox. Theresa, who lives across the street from us, opened her back door one night and it was standing on her porch. Perhaps it has a den with kits somewhere?

I planted peas yesterday morning. The husband built a sturdy permanent trellis for them last year. I grow a shelling variety called “Alaska" and they have always produced well. The currants have started leafing out and the raspberries are not far behind. I am very pleased with the progress of the big garden this year. It helps to make up for the destruction in the herb garden, which looks like a bomb went off in there. I need to get back to cleaning that up.

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The grommets arrived:

While looking for an online supplier that had grommets in stock in the size I needed with reasonable shipping times, I ran across this kit. It had everything I needed in one box. I discussed appropriate grommet spacing and hanging options with the husband last night during our daily debriefing. I’ll set the grommets and he’ll take care of hanging the shade, and we can cross that project off the list.

I’m still working on masks. DD#2 asked me to make her some black ones to coordinate fashionably with her wardrobe. I made those and sent them with some potholders yesterday. She also asked me to make her a pouch to hold her resuable straws. The Canvas Pencil Pouch, which is a free Noodlehead/Anna Graham pattern, should work nicely. Anna has also released a couple of bag patterns recently. I have more waxed canvas on order so I can make myself a bag for this summer.

And I started something new:

Neutrals are so not my colors, but this is coming together nicely and I want to see where it goes. The pattern is ridiculously simple, made up of quarter-square triangles alternating with 5” squares.

Spuds and Thread

I am chatty this week.

The back door cold front predicted for yesterday morning did not materialize beyond a few stiff breezes. The husband and I got all the potatoes planted. I took the hoops down off the lettuce—it can fend for itself now—and will move the hoops in anticipation of getting the corn seedlings out under some heavier row cover this week. This is a gamble, yes, but the seedlings are 8” tall now and they can’t stay in the greenhouse much longer.

Deciding when to plant inside based on when seedlings can go outside is still something I have trouble doing accurately. Then again, there are so many variables. I try to aim for Memorial Day as the outside planting date and work backward. If we luck out and get a warmish spring, though, it’s nice to be able to take advantage of the extra growing time.

The husband said he found a fresh ground squirrel tunnel in the garden. I need to get the .22 out and have it ready. I’m not doing all this work to feed rodents.

We had a fox in the yard yesterday morning. I was on my way out to the chicken coop when I saw something run out from behind the woodshed in the direction of the coop. At first, I thought it might be a coyote, but it wasn’t very big. A bit later, when I headed out to the greenhouse to check on seedlings, it ran out of the woods and across the path in front of me and I could see that it was a fox. I am sure it was hoping for a free chicken meal. I’d be happy to let it stay here if it would eat some ground squirrels.

The husband says that one of the Barred Rocks caught a mouse in the coop the other night. Perhaps we need a house chicken (both of us are allergic to cats). The spring invasion of mice has already started. I have to check the traps every day.

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The positive/negative quilt blocks went into time out. I’ll revisit that project again in the future. I was in a post-project slump after finishing that Candy Coated quilt—the recipient was very appreciative—and needed a quick, instant-gratification project. Donna Jordan, of Jordan Fabrics, did a YouTube video on the Moda Love Quilt. This is a free pattern and is written to be used with 10” squares, 5” squares, or 2-1/2” squares. The larger squares, obviously, make a quilt. The charm squares make a wall hanging. The little squares make a 12” block.

I went stash diving and pulled out an old, old charm square pack of a line called Heidi, from Laura Ashley. I’ve had this forever and it seemed like a good time to use it. The background is a remnant of Kona Bone from the stash. I ended up with a very nice 32” square wall hanging:

I haven’t decided yet if I will put a border on this. That would make it big enough to be a baby quilt. And now that I know how easily this goes together, I might use one of my layer cakes to make the quilt size.

My order of quilting thread arrived from the store in Spokane:

From left to right, front to back, I got Linen, Blush, Parchment, and Pearl. Those are all neutral enough to cover my needs. I’ve tried a couple of different threads, including some polyester ones, and I keep coming back to the Signature thread. I just like the way it quilts up.