Liz Claiborne Knot Top Redux

I finished the new incarnation of the Liz Claiborne Knot Top. Overall, I am happy with it. Here it is sans sleeve and bottom hems.

I think it actually looks better on me than on the dress form, but it’s hard to get a good picture of me wearing it. You’ll have to take my word for it.

The Postives:

It fits, mostly, and requires only a few minor tweaks to the pattern. I need to add a smidge of width at the bust. (I am bustier than the dress form but my waist is narrower.) I may shorten the sleeves a bit. I’ll decide after I hem them. I may also change the top of the bodice and the sleeves to the same sleeve shape I am using for my T-shirts. This one has a much taller sleeve cap. It’s not bad, just different.

I will say that I don’t usually wear V-necks—even though DD#2 assures me that they are very flattering on me—because I have a couple of divots in my chest that are scars from my Hickman catheter placements when I was having chemo. (I had one, it got infected, so they took it out and put another one in on the other side.) I think I just need to get over myself. There is a reason this was one of my favorite tops.

The Negatives:

The negatives mostly have to do with the fabric. The Dreamstress has an excellent blog post about the differences in T-shirt knits in terms of weight/thickness, recovery, and stability. In short, this Hobby Lobby rayon/linen/spandex fabric lacks stability. For you handknitters out there, imagine a worsted weight yarn knit in stockinette stitch on size 11 needles. That kind of fabric is going to want to torque back and forth. This fabric behaves in much the same way. Less stable knits tend to be drapey, but they can be difficult to work with. I really had to finesse this one through the serger. Trust me when I say that you don’t want to have to take out any seams. I would like to make the next version in a more stable rayon/spandex or cotton/spandex knit.

The neckline finish is an issue. I decided to do a narrow hem on both the front and back pieces because I don’t want to take the time to go up the learning curve with the binding attachments right now. I will do that at some point, but it was easier to do the narrow hem on the Janome. The lack of stability in the fabric meant that the neckline stretched out of shape in the process, although I was able to steam it back into shape. (Mostly.) I need to go back and listen to a recent Sewing Out Loud podcast where Zede gave some tips and tricks for working with finicky knits. (I hope the coverstitch machine doesn’t decide to spit this one out.) The neckline finish also has to be done before the front piece is twisted on itself. I did the front finish and back finish on this top separately. Next time, I may sew one shoulder seam, finish the neckline, twist the front, and sew the other shoulder seam.

So there you have it. I’ve got another “tried and true” pattern to add to the collection. The Big Brown Truck of Happiness brought a delivery of more knit fabric this week—I gave the driver a loaf of zucchini bread—and I’ll be making even more tops to replace the too-short ones in my closet. I’ll provide a review of those fabrics in the next couple of blog posts.

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The husband has been spending his evenings getting the water line to the new shop in place:

The rocks. Oh, the rocks. This is what glacial till looks like, boys and girls. All of those rocks probably came down from Canada.

Plumbing the bathroom is on the list for this winter. The husband also put pumps in next to the new shop and next to the well casing, which will make hooking up hose and getting water to fruit trees much easier.

The construction company bought a piece of equipment:

The husband is 55, and despite the fact that he is in excellent physical shape and thinks he is still 21, he needs to be mindful of overdoing things. (I learned that lesson—I bought a tractor.) This is small enough that he can load it on our trailer and take it to jobsites to load and unload concrete forms with the fork attachments. I think it may get delivered this weekend. I have been promised a lesson on operating it, because I also have some plans. Heheheh.

Clothing for the Spatially Challenged

Some projects get finished right away and some projects evolve over time. I don’t stress too much about it as long as there is eventual forward progress. I did a couple of posts in June 2020 about a Burda knot top pattern—Burda 6911—fully intending to see that one through, but it stalled. I need to revisit that pattern and re-trace the dress version, which has more ease through the midriff, and cut it off at the appropriate length. I haven’t taken the time to do that.

When my favorite Liz Claiborne knot top gave up the ghost, though, I decided to take it apart and use it as a pattern, so I am back to thinking about knot tops again. This shirt’s construction is completely different than that of the Burda top. The Burda top has two separate front sections, one of which gets pulled through a hole formed by the bust dart in the other section. (Go read the linked post.)

The Liz top has one front and one back section. The front section looks like this:

(No doubt my mother and DD#2 are thinking that it is good this top got a hole in it because I have been wearing it past its expiration date.) The front is cut from a single piece of fabric. One side is rotated up and over itself and back down to create the knot. The two front pieces are then seamed down the center. The sides of that front opening are cut on the true bias, so in this herringbone fabric, the seam forms a chevron pattern.

This construction is infinitely easier than the Burda top, which is good because I prefer this top. The neckline doesn’t plunge down as far.

I have two issues to sort out. The neckline needs to be finished in some fashion before making the knot. The Liz top had a narrow bound edge. I need to look at the binding attachments I just got for my coverstitch machine to see if they can do something similar. Someone else who made the Burda 6911 top—which requires a similar finish—blogged about that process and said she used foldover elastic. That might work. The little keyhole at the top of the divide also needs some kind of finish. On the Liz top, a narrow 1/4” hem was folded back there and sewn down.

I am going to change the sleeves on my version of this top. The original top had tiny little cap sleeves, which I didn’t hate, but I’d prefer something with more coverage. I’ll frankenpattern something together.

This green fabric is a rayon/spandex knit. I think the rayon/linen/spandex knit I got at Hobby Lobby will be perfect for testing out my version of this top.

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We’re getting some monsoon moisture—not enough to be significant, but it is wonderful to get some rain. I prepped the area in the garden for another batch of peas and another couple of rows of lettuce. I am trying to think creatively about gardening going forward, because I have seen some information that indicates that this may be a climate shift that persists for years and possibly decades. If we’re going to have excessively hot, dry summers, then I need to change a few things. Peas, broccoli, and cauliflower may have to become fall crops.

And it’s raining hard enough now that I think I will spend the morning on pattern drafting.

More Fun With Knits

As a quick followup to yesterday’s post, let me just say that I have seen some pop psychology assessments that describe the current obsession with politics and social justice as a form of religious fervor. Many of those involved have eschewed organized religion or find it lacking in some way, so they fill that need for meaning and purpose with something else. While that’s a very simplified explanation, I think there is a grain of truth to it. I’ll just say that my feeling about any kind of evangelism—secular or otherwise—is the same: Practice whatever belief system you like, just don’t shove it down my throat. Extend to me the same courtesy. And just because I don’t share your same level of engagement or express it the same way, don’t assume that that means I don’t care.

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I had never heard of Liverpool knit, so I ordered a length of it. The Girl Charlee website defines it thusly:

A crepe or bullet textured stretch fabric for accessory and apparel garments constructed of two very lightweight fabrics fused together which gives it a lofty feel. Ample four-way stretch and a beautiful full-bodied drape, this medium weight stable knit fabric is ideal for dresses, jackets, skirts, pants, tops, and more.

The fabric I ordered is 100% polyester, richly textured, with narrow ribs that look like cables (how delightful!)

It has a fair bit of heft. I got enough to make a dress, and I think that’s what it is going to become. (It’s a darker red than the picture shows.)

I stopped in at Hobby Lobby yesterday while running errands and discovered a big bin of fabric on clearance. One of the bolts was a rayon/linen/spandex blend knit. The content is 91% rayon, 6% linen, and 3% spandex. That amount of linen is hardly enough to make a difference, but the fabric was only $5 a yard, so I bought a yard and a half to make a T-shirt. I am curious to see how it wears.

And then I found two one-yard chunks of knit fabric on the remnant rack at Joanns. I can get the body pieces out of one yard and the sleeve and neckband from the other piece, so I bought both remnants for a grand total of $8. Remnants are 50% off the current price of the fabric, so if the fabric is on sale, the remnant is 50% off the sale price.

One of my favorite Liz Claiborne knit tops—a knot-front top from several years ago, when they were still making things long enough to fit me—has a hole in it. The hole is such that I can’t easily repair it, so I am taking the top apart to use it as a pattern for a new version.

I’ll have plenty of new tops to wear soon, and as it looks like it may stay warm well into September, I am going to get a lot of use out of my me-made wardrobe.

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Another group of turkey mamas with babies in tow showed up behind the chicken coop yesterday. I can tell this is a different group because these are toddler babies. The other group has older babies. I tossed out a few handfuls of scratch grains for them. I’d rather they eat with the chickens than decimate my garden, although I wouldn’t mind if they ate a few zucchinis.

What is the Message?

This blog post has been marinating for a few days. No doubt someone will take offense at it, as being offended seems to be an Olympic-level sport nowadays. Whatever. I pay for the ability to write in this space and I am going to use it.

Should business and politics mix? I’m not talking about corporate cronyism here—which definitely should not exist—but rather, should a business owner’s political beliefs be front and center as part of his or her daily operations? The short answer is that the owner is in charge of running the business and is responsible for making the business decisions. However, I am reminded of something that a friend of mine said after visiting the Flathead Valley. Many of the churches here have large, prominent signs of the Ten Commandments or other religious quotations on display on their properties. After driving around town for a couple of days, my friend noted that “Perhaps these churches aren’t sending the message they think they are sending.” How astute. When pressed to put a similar sign on our church property, our pastor responded that if we did put up a sign, it would say, “Love Thy Neighbor.”

I went to a small, independently-owned business the other day to pick up a specific product. This store had social justice-themed signs plastered all over the front window. Displays within the store called attention to minority suppliers. There was a sign on the bathroom door stating, “Gender Neutral.” (Not in icons, but in words.) I understand that the owner feels strongly about social issues and wants to make that concern known, but I came out of that store feeling like the product the store wanted to sell was not the product I went in there to get. In the words of my friend, “Perhaps this store wasn’t sending the message it thought it was sending.” I am sure that part of the intended message was that discrimination would not be tolerated, but would I have been welcomed in the store had I been wearing the “wrong” political attire? The knife of discrimination cuts both ways, coughRavelrycough.

I am going to be sexist here for a moment, too, and note that these kinds of things tend to happen in women-owned businesses (as this one was), and it is women who tend to care about this kind of virtue-signaling. I have never heard a man say, “I’m not going to shop at that hardware store because it hasn’t made its position on Issue XYZ clear.” Never. The husband isn’t interested in the voting record of the general contractor who hires him, nor is he going to grill homeowners on their political affiliations.

Actions are always going to be more important than words. A large majority of my mother’s employee workforce at her metal stamping plant is made up of minorities and always has been. A couple of them have worked at the plant for more than a decade. She draws from the area around her shop and those are the people who live there. She has never once felt the need to put up a sign proclaiming that Black Lives Matter.

Voting by pocketbook certainly is a way to effect change. I have the choice to spend my dollars at a business or not. I have had a few people tell me that they wouldn’t shop at a store like that. I understand that position, but product availability where I live is also a factor. I don’t have the choice of 15 stores in a major metropolitan area. If I want a store to be viable where I live and carry the products I want, I have to be willing to support it.

So those are my thoughts. You are welcome to weigh in on the comments. Be civil.

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The husband is putting in the water line to the new shop so that he can finish plumbing the bathroom.

We sited the shop to take advantage of the existing septic system in that part of the property. The 14’ x 70’ trailer where we lived for a few years while building our house was on that system. The husband has to run the water line from the well head to the shop, which is a distance of about 75 feet, and it has to be at least six feet deep. That backhoe certainly has paid for itself in the year that we’ve had it.

One of our friends has a shop and he told the husband that one of his favorite purchases was a heated bidet toilet seat for the bathroom. Every so often, I tease the husband and say I am going to order one for him.

Fowl

The husband spent some time yesterday morning re-installing the fencing we use to separate the chicks from the big chickens after they get transferred from the brooder to the coop. Baby and Dave now have separate spaces in the chicken yard, with separate entrances into the coop, although they can see each other. I put a few hens in with Baby. This isn’t a good long-term solution, but it will keep them apart until the fall.

I put black plastic down in another section of the garden. I am supposed to be part of a garden tour at the end of August and I feel bad because I don’t think there will be much to look at. However, the garden tour was scheduled after I decided that this year would be a “rebuilding” year for the garden. What is out there looks great—except for the corn—so I will just have to explain what I’m doing. The tour organizers said that people will want to see the pigs, too.

[I am not sure what is going on with the corn. I have a few theories, but I need more information.]

There are a few sections of the garden that are going to get infusions of chicken manure this fall, now that I have the tractor and wagon and have a good way to transport it over there.

I also watered the fruit trees in the front yard before it got hot—there are half a dozen young trees that we just put in this spring that need regular watering, but I watered the established trees, too, as they’re looking a bit stressed. The State Fair tree only has about a dozen apples on it after not producing any last year. I did prune it pretty heavily this spring, though. The two Honeycrisps have apples, the Lodi has apples (yay!), and the Red Wealthy is loaded. The Golden Delicious is taking a year off. We still have that one tree whose variety is unknown—and one of the tree maps shows it as an apricot—but it has fruit on it this year and they look like apples to me. WHO KNOWS.

We’re waiting for Amazon to deliver another fence energizer like the one that powers the electric fence on the chicken coop. The husband is going to put up a temporary fence around the fruit trees soon so that the bears and deer can’t get to the apples.

This group was wandering around while I was out working:

I counted 12 baby turkeys. They are going to be surprised to find out they can’t get to the grapes this fall. I have a plan to protect the bunches of grapes as they ripen.

At least I don’t have to shoot ground squirrels anymore. That problem has mostly disappeared.

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I cut out four more T-shirts yesterday afternoon. I will assembly-line them through the serger and coverstitch machines. A big purge of the closet is on the schedule soon, too.

The husband asked me over dinner what’s on the sewing schedule after I get all these T-shirts made. I just laughed. I told him that that is up to the universe. After all, I had no idea that I would be teaching serger classes this summer. I do want to get back to designing and making quilts, but it’s nice to be able to make myself good-fitting clothing, too.

I finished and bound off a prayer shawl while watching a meat-canning webinar yesterday afternoon. It just needs the fringe.

Has anyone else seen this yarn from Lion Brand?

I am tempted to pick up a skein and try it out (if I can find it locally). The last 100% hemp yarn I knitted with was some that I spun myself. Hemp is still one of my favorite spinning fibers.

[I made myself a vest with that yarn and some woman tried to buy it off of me at an art festival in downtown Kalispell.]

One skein would be enough for a knitted washcloth or two. I haven’t made any of those in a while.

Last Rooster Standing

As of yesterday morning, we had four roosters—Dave, Baby, and two juveniles that showed up in the batch of White Rock chicks that I got from the farm store in April.

As of last night, we have three roosters—Dave, Baby, and one juvenile. I went out to check on the chickens just before dinner, and as I opened the door to the chicken yard, I noticed a dead juvenile rooster surrounded by a bunch of white feathers.

I am pretty sure Dave took him out. He was standing next to the body. I looked at Dave. He looked back at me with one eye, then the other eye, then turned around and sauntered off.

This is a problem and I am not sure how to solve it. I thought I had a plan, but this latest homicide shifts the equation a bit. I was going to let Baby out of solitary, but it appears I am going to have to keep Baby and Dave separated indefinitely. Baby was pretty beaten up last time. After a week by himself, he looks better—bored, but better. I posted on the local poultry Facebook group to see if anyone would like a gentle rooster for their girls. Baby would do fine with just a couple of hens, and he’d love some place where he could be spoiled. Roosters are difficult to re-home, however.

We’ll probably butcher in the fall. I had already planned to include the two White Rock roosters. The one that is left may not make it until then if Dave decides he needs to get taken out. That leaves Dave and Baby. Some people would think this an easy decision: cull the problem rooster. I like Dave, though. He’s a bad boy, but I’ve never seen a rooster as devoted to the hens as he is. Maybe too devoted.

I go back and forth. I probably should cull Dave and keep Baby. My chickens don’t free range, so it’s not like Baby would have to fight off threats from predators.

I will try to figure out how to keep peace in the coop until the fall. I did say to the husband, however, that I think I am done with roosters. Men are a lot of work.

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I was going to spend yesterday morning weeding and cleaning up the garden, but I spent three hours re-doing the watering system, instead. We’ve been using oscillating sprinkler heads set on top of T-posts. They work, sort of, sometimes, but they malfunction more often than not. I started one the other morning and watched it for a bit to make sure it was working properly, but when I came back a few hours later, I discovered that it had gotten stuck in a position where it watered the top of the greenhouse and nothing else.

It has been so dry, too, that even if we water early in the morning, a lot of the water just evaporates. The plant roots aren’t getting a good, deep soaking. I dug out all the old soaker hose to see if I could make that work. The reason it took so long was because there were three different kinds of hose, some had male fittings at both ends (why?), some had female fittings at both ends (also why?), and I needed hose in two different places in the garden. And soaker hose is harder to put down around plants that are already in the ground. After some monkeying around, I came up with a system of hoses and manifolds that will let me get the water to the places it is needed. It will work for the rest of this season. Next year, though, I need a plan. Someone on the homesteading chat group suggested a system of hoses with spike watering heads that can be placed in the ground next to each plant. That looks like it would work well for the tomatoes.

Hopefully, I can get the weeding done this morning. I think I’m also going to plant peas again today to see if I can get a fall crop.

The bee balm is blooming in the herb garden:

Fire Season, 2021 Edition

Stage 1 fire restrictions went into effect last weekend, and stage 2 restrictions are set to go into effect this coming Monday. You would think that the “no explosives” admonition would be obvious, but it’s not, because people are stupid.

I set up a group text for people in our community. I monitor the scanner, and our fire department dispatches get sent to my phone, so I am in a good position to let people know if something is happening. The group text is the modern version of a phone tree. I sent out the first notification yesterday afternoon with a note saying that I hoped it was the only one I needed to send.

A line of dry thunderstorms came through Wednesday afternoon and sparked a wildfire five miles west of Polebridge. Glacier Park was overrun by tourists last year, so the park instituted a ticketing system for 2021. Tickets sell out within five minutes every morning, leading many people to look for other places to visit that do not require tickets. One of those places is the North Fork, which is along the western edge of the park. (Another is the state and federal lands across from our house.) The Polebridge Mercantile is the last stop in civilization before heading into true wilderness. Unfortunately, many people go up there thinking it’s Disneyland.

[This is a long article but worth reading if you have the time: Off the Grid and Overrun. It sums up the current situation in the North Fork nicely.]

So now there is a forest fire burning five miles west of Polebridge—the Hay Creek Fire—and threatening an area frequented by tourists who are woefully unprepared for wilderness, let alone wilderness that’s on fire. I see that some of the roads and hiking trails have been closed, which will help.

Our neighbor Ali works for the Forest Service and with the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. She texted me yesterday afternoon that she’s been assigned to the Hay Creek Fire.

The Robert Fire that burned so much of the western side of Glacier Park in 2003 started on July 23, 2003 at 4:45 pm. I was in the kitchen cooking dinner when the first fire department dispatch went out.

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I stopped in at the quilt store yesterday morning to pick up this book that Tera recommended:

It has lots of great color photos and looks like a terrific resource for serging in general. While I was there, the woman who coordinates the classes and I chatted a bit about our coverstitch machines. I told her I had just gotten binding attachments for mine but hadn’t had a chance to try them yet. She then asked me if I would be willing to help her fine-tune a pattern for fit.

That request surprised me a bit, although I think I can help her out. I said to the husband last night that my spatial perception abilities have improved dramatically in the last couple of years. I can’t park a trailer 3” from a tree like the husband can, but I can draft a T-shirt pattern that fits me well. Sewing with knits almost feels like cheating to me, because I am not having to create the fabric AND fit it simultaneously like I did when designing sweaters.

Maybe I did the difficult thing first, LOL.

The Carousel, Fabric, and Some Street Food

Elysian, WS, and I went to Missoula yesterday. As a Navy veteran, she goes through the VA for some of her medical care. She needed to get some dental work done, but being the VA, and this being Montana, the nearest dentist that could/would do the work was in Missoula. They told her to bring someone in case she needed to be sedated. I don’t need much encouragement for a road trip. We left at 8 am for an 11 am appointment just in case we hit tourist traffic on the way down. We arrived in plenty of time. I had planned to drop her off and take WS over to the carousel, but when she checked in, they informed us that if they had to sedate her, I would have to remain on the premises. After a quick scan, though, the dentist said he could do the work under local anesthesia in about an hour.

We left her at the dental office. The carousel didn’t open until noon, and it was still only 11 am, so WS and I headed for Joann Fabrics. WS is used to this part of traveling with me. He likes to look at fabric, too, and we imagine all the things we could make with the different kinds we see. I bought a chunk of cotton/spandex for a T-shirt. We then went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to pick up a tablecloth that DD#1 had asked me to get for her. Just as we were finishing up there, I got a text from his mom that she was all done at the dental office, so we zipped back over and picked her up.

They hadn’t let her eat the night before and I knew she was starving, so we brainstormed possible lunch choices. We decided to go to the carousel, which is downtown, to see what was nearby. We were pleased to discover that on Wednesdays, there are food trucks and live music in the park next to the carousel. She got a cup of ice cream, WS had a taco, and I had a plate of some spectacular Thai chicken peanut curry. I like street food. While they finished eating, I walked up to The Confident Stitch, which is just a block from the carousel, and bought another piece of Kaufman Laguna Cotton, this time in a pretty green and white print.

[I am going to have about two dozen new T-shirts when this serger marathon is over.]

Elysian was starting to feel the effects of the novocaine wearing off, so I offered to take WS on the carousel. I have ridden this carousel many, many times over the past 25 years. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people and all of the outside horses were taken, so we couldn’t try to get the brass ring. We had two inside horses:

The carousel goes fast and they are generous with the length of the rides. By the time we got off the ride, it was after 2 o’clock. Elysian wanted to stop at the Amish store on the way home—she had never been there—so we left Missoula and headed north. WS and I each enjoyed a cup of ice cream while we tried out the Amish-made glider rockers on the porch of the store.

I may go back to Missoula with her in two weeks when she goes in for a followup visit. I can think of two or three other places she and WS would enjoy visiting.

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When I got home, I discovered that the fabric I ordered from Girl Charlee had arrived. This is what I have to add to the pile of T-shirt fabrics:

The top is another double brushed poly/spandex blend. Underneath that is a striped fabric that the Girl Charlee website only describes as a cotton/rayon/spandex blend. The percentages were not given. I like the feel of that one very much. The green vine-y print is the Laguna Cotton from The Confident Stitch. Elysian said it reminded her of peas in the garden. The bottom is the black and multicolor cotton/spandex fabric from Joanns.

I may need to take a break from the knits and make myself some more aprons. I have been hard on my aprons this summer. I almost need one for each day of the week.

The produce tsunami is in full swing. The cucumber plants are producing like crazy, as are the zucchini. I expect to be bringing in tomatoes before too long, which is unheard of. I don’t usually get ripe tomatoes until the end of August. I said to the husband that we may not need to cover them from frost in September to keep them going like we usually have to. It is still hot here, but only in the 80s instead of close to 100. After weeks of excessive heat, mid-80s are almost pleasant.

Five T-Shirts Later . . .

I have made five T-shirts for myself, all using the same self-drafted pattern but in different fabrics, and I’ve learned a few things in the process. This has been a useful exercise.

T-Shirt #1: Made from what I believe is a cotton/spandex print from Joanns from last year (probably 98% cotton/2% spandex).

This one fits me well, although the color makes me look like death warmed over. Oh well. I love the feel of the fabric.

T-Shirt #2: Made from pink 60/40 cotton/polyester interlock from Joanns.

I wore this one all day yesterday (can you tell?). This qualifies as a “beefy T” due to the interlock construction of the fabric, meaning both sides look like the knit-stitch side of a sweater with no purl side. Temps yesterday stayed relatively cool—80s instead of high 90s due to overcast skies—and I was quite comfortable. My only complaint about this kind of fabric is poor recovery. Once it stretches out, it tends to stay that way. I think it may also pill because of the polyester. I line-dry most of my clothing in my laundry room, but washing can also cause pilling. We’ll find out. One of the pieces of fabric I bought in Missoula last week is 100% cotton interlock. I’ll see if I can tell a difference when I make a shirt out of it.

T-Shirt #3: Green bamboo/rayon/spandex (?) from The Confident Stitch in Missoula.

This fabric is not listed on their website, but because they carry deadstock, once the fabric is gone, it’s gone. This T-shirt is tighter on me and is a good example of Zede Donohue’s admonition that “Knits should skim, not cling.” Note to self that any future shirts in a similar fabric need additional ease. I will wear it anyway. I adore the color.

T-Shirt #4: A double-brushed poly from Joanns (90% polyester/10% spandex).

Even though the polyester fabrics of today are a far cry from those used in the horrifying polyester leisure suits of the 1970s, I tend to avoid polyester in favor of natural fibers. This one isn’t bad. The double-brushed nature of this fabric makes it feel like peachskin to me. I wore this top to church Sunday because DBP looks dressier than cotton or interlock. I like clothing that I don’t have to tug at and adjust and this top fits the bill. I am still working on perfecting my neckbands, which are averaging a B+. I look at what I make and if it looks better than what is currently coming out of third-world sweatshops and being sold in stores, then I am happy. Admittedly, that is a low bar. My coverstitch hems, though, are on point.

T-Shirt #5: Made from 100% cotton jersey from Joanns. Eh.

The fabric was a disappointment. It was thinner than expected and gave me some fits. Despite being a knit, this fabric had very little stretch. Any future tops in a similar fabric need additional ease. The neckband either needs to be cut on the bias or made from ribbing because making it long enough to bind the neck opening means that it tends not to lie flat. This could be a good one to try binding instead of a neckband. I am tempted to buy another yard and re-make it to test all these theories because I really do like the fabric, which is from the juvenile apparel section of Joanns. Perhaps I should confine my purchases to the adult section.

For all my moaning and groaning about spandex, a small amount is helpful. T-shirts don’t fit nearly as closely as leggings do and thus it is tolerable to me. This project is ongoing. I still have a few more fabrics in the knits pile to make into shirts, as well as the blends I ordered because they weren’t available locally.

What I’ve learned:

• I don’t need as many dressy tops as I do utilitarian ones.

• I am a sucker for fun prints and bright colors

• Polyester is not evil, at least from the standpoint of the hand of the fabric, but comes with other issues depending on one’s personal philosophy about resource depletion.

• Spandex is useful in small amounts.

• The fabric content affects ease (something I knew on a basic level, but needed to see in action). Paradoxically, the most stretchy and least stretchy fabrics require additional ease.

Finally, even though spending this much time with my serger was not the plan I had for this summer, developing and teaching serger classes has been a positive because now I have both a basic T-shirt pattern and a good understanding about the differences in fabrics. Not all knits are created equal. And no matter how much I love the print, if I don’t like the resulting garment because of the way the fabric behaves, making it was a waste of time and money.

[Spoonflower is always an option. I have this niggling feeling that at some point, I am going to dip my toe into fabric design, and Spoonflower would be the way to start that process. Because I need another hobby.]

I like having clothing that fits me.

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We have a significant chance of thunderstorms this afternoon, but given the current humidity levels, they probably won’t come with much rain. Hopefully, they will not spark any new fires. One of the Seattle news stations tweeted a picture yesterday of a brush fire at the entrance to the Tacoma Mall, and I knew exactly where it was because I used to shop there when DD#1 was in college at Pacific Lutheran.

There were also three horrific vehicle accidents in the same part of Kalispell on Friday and Saturday that resulted in two fatalities. Getting through town is an ongoing exercise in defensive driving. People are in such an awful hurry.

Janet Versus the Turkeys

The currant bushes are producing abundantly, but it’s a race between me and two mama turkeys. They travel in a caravan with about a dozen poults between them and seem to believe that the garden is their own personal cafeteria. (Yesterday, I saw them head out of the garden and march across the pig pasture. The pigs did not care.) I harvested half the currants on one of the bushes earlier in the week, but when I went back to finish the job, the whole thing had been picked clean. I got most of what was left on the other bushes yesterday. Cathy suggested I prune out the bearing branches, which makes collecting the currants easier and also opens up the bottom of the bushes for better airflow. (And for better turkey access.)

I have about five gallons, which should be more than enough to try Cathy’s blackcurrant curd recipe. These were off the Belaruska bush.

I’m going to have to figure out how to keep the turkeys from hoovering the grapes this year.

I also brought in another half dozen zucchini and 22 cucumbers and made a huge batch of what my kids call “instant pickles,” or cucumbers in vinegar. The husband loves those. Processing all of this produce also means consolidating and moving things around the freezers. A couple of them desperately need to be defrosted soon. I am not going to make as much zucchini bread this year because we still have some left. And I need to count the number of jars of tomato sauce on the shelf. The tomatoes may be better used up making salsa this year than plain sauce, especially if we get the bumper crop I am expecting. Susan gave me half a dozen hot pepper plants, and those peppers would go nicely in the salsa, too.

The raspberries are delicious. The husband has been having a couple of handfuls every morning when he lets the pigs out. I beat back that raspberry patch in March but you’d never know it. The paradox of pruning.

The peas are done. The lavenders are in full bloom, although covered with fewer pollinators than I would like. It has been that way for the last couple of seasons. That’s troubling.

Even in a rebuilding year—when half the garden is covered with black plastic to kill stubborn weeds—we’re still getting quite a bit of food. I have lots of plans for next year’s garden.

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I am sure that Dave the rooster now thinks his name is Dave-Don’t-Be-An-Asshole, because that’s what I say to him every time I go out there. I moved the Buff rooster to the separate area of the coop for a few days because Dave would not stop hassling him. Dave is the one that really needs a few days of timeout, but I am not sure he would get the message. I might have to find a new home for the Buff rooster. We just can’t have this much toxic masculinity in one coop. It’s a fine line. The characteristics that make Dave such an excellent rooster—he does a stellar job taking care of the hens—also make him aggressive toward the other males. He steers clear of the husband, though.

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DD#1 sent a picture of another bear. The picture was taken from the safety of their living room:

I made some comment to the husband about how disconcerting it would be to walk outside and see a bear in the yard and he said, “Did you forget where you live?” LOL.

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I finished T-shirt #3 yesterday afternoon and #4 is waiting to be hemmed. I discovered that even though I am using the exact same pattern, the fit is slightly different depending on the fiber content of the fabric. T-shirt #3 was a bamboo/rayon/spandex blend (I think) that I got at The Confident Stitch in Missoula last summer. The fabric feels wonderful but it’s clingier than the cotton/spandex and the 100% cotton shirts. I’ve ordered a couple more lengths of fabric in fiber combos I can’t find locally just so I can see what I like the best. (Have you ever heard of Liverpool knit?)

I also looked at the Kensington skirt pattern. The construction is dead simple: a front, a back, and two yoke pieces. Interestingly, the pattern suggests using a sewing machine for construction rather than a serger. After reading it over, I can understand the designer’s rationale for that recommendation. The Janome should handle the ponte knit with no issues.

I Am the Queen

My sister bought me a T-shirt (mine is a burgundy color):

I’ve worn it a lot this summer and it always generates a lot of comments. This is also the T-shirt I used as the pattern for the ones I’ve been making, because it fits me nicely.

In case anyone had any doubts, yes, I am the queen. Of the coop, if nothing else.

I saw the cardiologist yesterday. He recommends a cardiac ablation, which is a (relatively) simple procedure to inactivate the part of the heart muscle that is causing the atrial flutters. He said, “Given your medical history, this will be the procedural equivalent of having a tooth filled.” And it should resolve the problem completely. I asked if it could be put off until the fall, when things are slightly less chaotic, and he said yes. I have an echocardiogram scheduled for the first week of September. We will re-evaluate after that. He himself has had this procedure, which was reassuring. I am wearing a heart monitor for a week and I have to stay on one of the medications which was prescribed in the ER. I am off the anti-platelet drug and taking a baby aspirin daily, instead.

[Doctors always comment on the fact that I speak the language, but it certainly cuts down on wasted time and misunderstandings. I was also reminded, while reciting my long and complicated family medical history, how much havoc has been wreaked by that one MTHFR mutation.]

DD#1 texted us this picture last night:

It’s a black bear. She said that it walked up over the rocks from the beach and into their yard (she took the picture from their living room window). Having grown up in Montana, she is no stranger to wildlife, but that’s pretty close.

DD#2 is moving to a new apartment, but not by choice; her landlady’s daughter needs a place to live, so the landlady told the four girls currently living in the house that she wasn’t going to renew their lease at the end of August. DD#2 and one of her roommates (also a Gonzaga grad) will be moving to an apartment. They’ll be paying more in rent, unfortunately, because the housing market in Seattle is as nuts as it is in other parts of the country. I am just happy that she has a safe place to live. Nordstrom plans to have them come into the (downtown) office three days a week every other week, but the rest of the time she will be working from home. And she has been given more responsibility at her job as a merchandise analyst, which is no surprise. She’s good at negotiating, though, so I expect she’ll point that out at her next review and suggest that she be compensated accordingly.

I’m going to try to get ahead of the heat and get some work done in the garden this morning while it’s cool. We’re supposed to be close to 100 on Sunday. The binding attachments for my coverstitch machine came yesterday. I might play around with those this afternoon.

Hot and Cranky

Yesterday went sideways right out of the gate. The husband came downstairs and said, “Did you know we didn’t have any water pressure?” He had taken a shower Tuesday night, but by yesterday morning, the pressure in the tank was down to 10%.

He worked his way down the troubleshooting flow chart and discovered that the control box to the well pump wasn’t working. Being without water on a hot July day is not a good thing. He managed to get the control box rigged up so that it was working, but I was sparing with the water usage until he could get home with a replacement control box.

And the rest of the day never did quite get back on track. I couldn’t run the mister in the chicken yard to help cool the clucks because I didn’t want to risk the pump going out again. The chickens were hot and cranky and pecking at each other. I went into the coop mid-afternoon and discovered one of the black Jersey Giant pullets languishing on the floor. One of the big chickens was beating on her. (Chickens get very mean to each other when they are unhappy, and heat makes them unhappy.) I thought the pullet might be suffering from heat stress, so I brought her inside, put about an inch of cool water in the laundry tub, and stood her up in there while I splashed water over her. She revived nicely after a bit and spent the night in the laundry room in a crate.

Everybody is peckish, including the farmer. I have never hated a summer as much as I am beginning to hate this one. Yes, hate is a strong word, but it’s how I’m feeling. This heat wave has no end in sight, and it’s increasing the fire danger every day. I worry about the husband being out in the heat all day, although he seems to have a much higher tolerance for it than I do.

I brought in what was left of the peas and cut a whole bunch of lettuce because it’s getting ready to bolt. We’ll be eating a lot of salads this week. The raspberries are coming on and we’ll need to start picking those this weekend.

I knocked out another T-shirt yesterday afternoon to test out my finished pattern. I think I have nailed it. This was some 100% cotton jersey from some unknown source. I’m systematically going through my pile of T-shirt fabrics and making them up into actual garments. A T-shirt takes about two hours, start to finish. The sleeves in this version are much better. I also experimented with coverstitching around the neckband:

I am not sure how I feel about it. It adds a nice detail and helps to keep the neckline flat, but it puts more thread into that area. Eh. I’ll wear this for a while and see.

Hot July Garden

I got a good bit of work done in the garden yesterday morning. I quit when my string trimmer ran out of string. I have a replacement spool, but it was getting too hot to work out there. I’ve stopped looking at the forecast for the rest of the month because it’s exactly the same every day. Hot and dry. One of the currant bushes—a variety called Belaruska—yielded up about five cups of ripe currants. I’ll probably get that much again in a day or two. The other currant bushes should be ready by then, too.

The melons, cukes, and zucchini have taken off in this heat. The peas are about done, though, and the lettuce looks ready to bolt. The potatoes are starting to die back and fall over. The lavender hedge is stellar:

I have two other lavender hedges started in other parts of the garden. Those plants are big enough this year to be blooming, too.

It has occurred to me on more than one occasion that I could have a really nice commercial lavender patch out here if we didn’t need to grow vegetables. The conditions are perfect.

Moving on before I end up with something else to do . . .

I came in from the garden and got cleaned up and finished tweaking the T-shirt pattern. Generally, when I trace an existing garment, I add a fair bit of slop. Excess fabric can always be removed, but it can’t easily be replaced. I got the upper bodice fitted the way I wanted and then removed about an inch at either side of the body before deciding where I wanted the hem. As I altered the garment, I made the corresponding changes on the pattern pieces. The last step was to coverstitch the sleeve and bottom hems. The neckband still needs a line of coverstitching, but by then, it was time to leave for Ruler Club at the quilt store. I wore the T-shirt into town for some field testing. The only further change I plan to make is in the sleeves. While they are not uncomfortable, the current sleeves are a bit snugger than I would like, so I’ll redraft that sleeve pattern piece today. Otherwise, the fit is just about perfect. The T-shirt looks good, feels good, and—most importantly—I am not constantly tugging it down because it’s too short. The hem on my shirts looks best at a point considerably longer than what’s available in stores, which is why I am making my own tops.

I am not crazy about the fabric. It’s a lovely flower print, but it reads as a peachy-orange which is NOT a good color on me. I am sure it was a clearance fabric from Joanns that I bought specifically to use for making a muslin and thus served its intended purpose. We’ll see how this pattern looks made up in the hot pink Laguna Cotton. Hot pink is definitely my color.

We all had a good laugh when I got to the quilt store for Ruler Club. The owner does a Facebook Live video every Tuesday morning. She made a point of mentioning the upcoming serger class in yesterday’s video, but she stated that it was scheduled for the third Thursday of July—which is tomorrow—instead of August. I got a panicked call later in the morning from one of the employees who asked me to verify the date. I am glad there is interest in the class, but I am not ready to teach it this week!

Next month is the last month of Ruler Club. We talked about what to do next. We could do the next Handi-Quilter club, but Amanda Murphy and Angela Walters also have ruler club-type programs. We decided to do the Amanda Murphy one next because she not only teaches each ruler, she has a printed top for practicing with it.

And I suspect that at some point this fall or winter, I’ll be teaching a draft-your-own T-shirt and/or leggings class. Once people get comfortable with their sergers, they’ll want to move on from making napkins, receiving blankets and baby beanies.

Meet Foghorn

The little rooster that came with our batch of pullets has started crowing. He needs practice. The husband christened him Foghorn, which is appropriate as he looks like one:

We have started rooster training. He follows me around the coop like he knows that I am the person who dispenses scratch grains, but he’s not quite brave enough to eat out of my hand yet. Dave did the same thing, although Dave never would let me feed him. It doesn’t matter. My goal is to get the roosters to be comfortable around me and other humans.

I am not sure we’ll keep him. Three roosters is a handful, and Dave doesn’t like competition.

There is a garter snake out by the chicken yard. I have almost stepped on it twice because it likes to hide in the grass. It is not a small garter snake. I just hope it doesn’t accidentally slither into the chicken yard and get eaten. When I saw it yesterday, it was heading into the old herb garden, which is a good place for it.

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I stopped by one of the plant stores yesterday on my way out of town. They had tables and tables of foot-high basil plants for $1.00 apiece, so I bought six and will put them in between the tomatoes. I also got a few other herbs and flowers to stick out in the big garden. I need to spend a few hours working out there this morning before it heats up. I blanched some peas the other day and got those into the freezer. I see blackcurrants that need to be picked, too. Cathy gave me a recipe for blackcurrant curd that I want to try. I think it will be delicious mixed in with yogurt.

I really wish it weren’t so hot. I could be getting more done in the garden, especially infrastructure-wise, if I could stand to be out in this heat. And every time the tones go off for our fire department, I worry that it’s going to be a wildfire. Eastern Washington state is getting hammered by fire activity, and there have been brush fires in both Seattle and Spokane within the city limits. That’s just bizarre.

Have I mentioned that I am not a big fan of summer?

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The quilt store where I am teaching serger classes was awarded Bernina District Dealer of the Year for the Pacific Northwest. I think they beat out the big quilt store in Spokane, which is quite an achievement.

I traced one of my favorite T-shirts yesterday to make a pattern. The muslin needs a few tweaks—I made the shoulders a smidge too wide and the armscye needs to be scooped out a bit. I may also have to adjust the sleeve cap, but I’ll see. The fabric is a cotton/spandex I bought at Joanns last year. I’m using it as my test fabric, but once I get the fit right, I should be able to wear this top. I’ll trace a final copy of the pattern and then make myself a batch of shirts using the fabric I got in Missoula.

I also found a full yard of black ponte knit—it’s a heavier knit, almost as heavy as scuba knit—on the remnant rack at Joanns yesterday. It is just enough for me to make the Kensington skirt from Liesl & Co:

I plan to make view A, which is the plain pencil skirt. I haven’t sewn with ponte yet and I want to try it. What I’d really like to make myself are some nice ponte knit pants to wear during the winter. They wouldn’t be as fitted as leggings, and I should be able to tolerate the spandex.

I like pattern drafting, especially with knits. There is a lot of overlap with drafting knitted sweater patterns. Drafting also lets the technical half of my brain out to romp around.

Sunday Morning Philosophy Class

I went to Missoula yesterday. DD#2 asked me if I was bored; it isn’t so much boredom as the fact that I get twitchy without a change of scenery periodically. The husband once went a span of 10 years without leaving the state of Montana, and even within the state, he didn’t venture far.

That makes me twitchy just thinking about it.

I briefly considered a quick over-and-back day trip to Spokane, but it’s back up in the 90s again here, a wildfire is burning next to I-90 in north Idaho, and, of course, there are tourists everywhere. I am going to save my trip to Spokane for a long weekend or for the next time I go to Seattle.

The drive down to Missoula was lovely because it was early in the morning. The roads and the air were still clear. I know Missoula almost as well as I know Kalispell, so I mentally planned my route to hit the stores that were open first, starting with Kohls and then Joann Fabrics. Kohls had nothing—literally—just half-empty racks here and there. I can’t decide if that is because of supply shortages, the fact that Dillards is the only store left at the mall, or a combination of both.

Joann Fabrics was devoid of people, but I found some fabric I wanted. Even though Joann is a large chain and has the same products at all of its stores, not all of the stores have the same selection. Ours, for some reason, is very thin on apparel fabrics and heavy on outdoor fabrics, fleece, and flannel. The knits section consists of cotton/polyester blends, polyester/spandex, or rayon/spandex blends. I am not a big fan of cotton/poly knits, and I really only wear slinky rayon/spandex to church. If you venture into the juvenile fabric section, it is possible to find 100% cotton knit in bright colors (yay!) and cotton/spandex knits. However, the cotton/spandex knits are mostly juvenile prints. I don’t really want to wear a T-shirt with dinosaurs on it. The Disney section also has cotton/spandex prints (more on that in a moment).

[The husband asked why I was looking for cotton/spandex knits if I am allergic to spandex. I am, but I can tolerate a small amount. These knits only have about 4%. My bra has more spandex in it than that and I have to tolerate wearing a bra (and tolerate is the correct word, because it does make me itch). It’s usually leggings and other kinds of close-fitting garments that give me trouble.]

I therefore enjoy going to other Joann stores to see what their selection is like. This one had a much bigger selection of cotton/spandex knits than our store, and I came out with enough fabric to make two T-shirts for myself. One of them is this cute S’mores print, which I think I can pull off:

I left Joanns and headed to the Good Food Store, then stopped by Goodwill. I am still searching for another large dog crate for next year when we get piglets. I also popped in to Vicki’s Quilts Down Under. This is the store that is the fabric version of an archeological dig. If you need an out-of-print fabric line, she might very well have it. I headed for a back corner where I knew she kept the bolts of knit fabric. It was a dark corner, and I had to move some bolts to uncover other bolts, but I found what I was looking for. I left Vicki’s with two more pieces of cotton/spandex. One was a hot pink Laguna Cotton from Robert Kaufman—the lovely people who bring us Kona—and one was a periwinkle and white print from Cloud 9. I was going to order some Laguna Cotton anyway, but now that I know she carries it, I’ll buy from her.

I tried to visit The Confident Stitch, which is downtown, but there was some kind of big market/festival going on—the kind where it’s nearly impossible to drive through the area because pedestrians just walk out into the street without looking—and I knew I wasn’t going to find parking. I extricated myself from that mess, stopped at another thrift store, and then went to The Book Exchange to check out the quilting and sewing books. I found this gem:

The Ultimate Serger Answer Guide was published in 1996, but it’s chock full of all sorts of useful information. Each page is devoted to one serger problem with a list of possible solutions. (“Are your edges hairy?” This is how to fix that.”) This is the kind of book I would hand out in a beginning serging class. Unfortunately, it’s out of print.

I left Missoula early, around 1 pm, because there was nothing left for me to do there. I have some thoughts about this trip, which I will sum up by sharing what I told the husband:

Like most 22-year-olds, when I graduated from college, I thought I had some idea of what life would hold. I was wrong. I didn’t expect a lot of what has happened, but what I really didn’t expect was that we would be living through the decline of the American empire. That was never on my radar screen. The husband, having been born a fully-formed cynical adult human being, has always been far more realistic. None of this is a surprise to him.

The last time I was in Missoula was just after Christmas, and the feeling of demoralization I felt there was overwhelming. I chalked it up to a side effect of the pandemic, but I think it’s more than that. When we first moved to Montana, going to Missoula was an adventure. They had a Target! And a Staples! And a Macy’s downtown! And a huge Hancock Fabrics! And a mall with lots of stores!

Missoula still has a Target and a Staples—and now quite a few other big box stores—but the Macy’s is closed. The mall lost Herbergers, JC Penney, and Sears (which is why I think there was nothing left at Kohls). The landscape is peppered with marijuana dispensaries that have taken over former mom-and-pop stores. Some of our favorite restaurants have closed. A couple of thrift stores went out of business. The quilt store/Bernina dealer behind Joann Fabrics closed at the end of May. (The owner retired.) The sense of demoralization was less noticeable yesterday than when I was there in December, but I suspect that some of that is due to the current influx of tourists.

On the one hand, I do think the rampant consumerism that has been a hallmark of this period in history needs to be scaled back. That’s not a bad thing. On the other hand, watching it happen in real time is sobering. It’s going away and I am not sure it’s ever coming back. And yes, I know that some of this is due to e-commerce, but not all of it. This country is polarized and splintered and I am not sure that’s fixable, either. (And you’re not going to get me to play the blame game with one side or the other, so don’t try.) The only person I can control, though, is me. It is up to me to navigate what’s coming with grace and humor. I need to own my part and deal with it, including my (sometimes unrealistic) expectations that I can have whatever I want at my fingertips whenever I want it. I guess I am just trying to grieve the losses ahead of time so that they aren’t such a shock when they happen.

We’ll see what happens, but I think a lot of people are going to be blindsided.

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I want to end this blog post on a happy note. At Joann Fabrics on Thursday, I happened upon a one-yard remnant of cotton/spandex in a Disney Frozen print. Our renters have a 5 year-old who loves to sing. Sometimes she stands on their porch and belts out songs from Frozen. When I hear her singing, it makes me smile. I thought she needed something out of this Frozen fabric—and it would give me an opportunity to practice my serging skills—so I made her a nightgown:

The pattern is from Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom and it was easy to follow. Instead of a hem, I did a lettuce edging on the bottom ruffle. The neckline and armhole edges are bound with the same fabric. Her dad texted me a picture yesterday—she slept in it and then informed her parents that she planned to wear it all day.

I might talk about the differences in serging the various types of knit fabrics in a future post, because they can be significant.

Women of Talent

My mother has a milestone birthday coming up in November, but she still gets up every day to drive to downtown Cleveland to Peerless Metal Products, the company she owns with her business partner, Tom.

Today is the 25th anniversary of the company.

I can still picture the day she called to tell me that she and Tom were starting Peerless. I was sitting at the table in the kitchen of the mobile home we lived in before we built our house. “I’m taking your inheritance and starting a metal stamping plant,” she said. And I remember thinking, “Good, take it and make more.” She and Tom had met when both were working at a different metal stamping company in Avon Lake, Ohio. Tom was the plant manager and my mother was the bookkeeper. The owner was in absentia most of the time. She and Tom increased that company’s bottom line significantly. They recognized that they could do better running their own business, and Peerless Metal Products was born. The business started in one location in Cleveland, quickly outgrew the space, and moved to its current location.

My mother very much wanted to go to college, but things didn’t work out that way. She worked at Prudential Insurance while my father was in college getting his engineering degree. Once my sister and I were old enough to be in school, she went back to work as a waitress and bookkeeper at my grandparents’ restaurant. (For you Ohio folks, that was Mary’s Ice Cream Parlor on Rt 254 across from the Sheffield Center.) My grandmother closed the restaurant when I was a senior in high school. When I say that people in my family have a hard time sitting still, I’m not kidding. I think my father would have preferred for my mother to stay home. She tried, but she’s always been happier running a business. And she has been a great role model for her two granddaughters. Like most companies, Peerless Metal Products has had its share of ups and downs, but with my mother at the helm, it has weathered all of the challenges. Happy Anniversary!

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My friend, Sunnie LeBlanc, has an art show at a local gallery. Sunnie is part of our Mountain Brook community, although we have to share her with her friends and family in Texas during the winter. She lives next door to our pastor. I got to know her under less-than-happy circumstances, as I played for her husband’s funeral at our church. Sunnie is as cheerful as her name, though, and every year, I look forward to the day in spring when she returns to Mountain Brook.

Her show opened this week. She is doing “Easel Talks” every Thursday from 3-5 pm at the Bigfork Art and Cultural Center. I stopped in yesterday afternoon. Our pastor, Jeryl, came in shortly after I did, so the two of us were treated to a personal tour and discussion of both Sunnie’s paintings and those of her friend, Marnell Brown.

I find it fascinating to learn how other designers and artists approach their work. Sunnie says she gets most of her inspiration from the Montana landscape. Indeed, the work of both artists showcases the beauty around us, although they have very different styles. Sunnie described how she’ll go up to Glacier Park and make a small plein air painting on canvas to capture the essence of the landscape.

That small painting, along with a photograph, help to keep the image fresh in her mind while she paints the larger piece.

This one happens to be of Wild Goose Island, up in Glacier Park. Your piece of trivia today: Wild Goose Island is the second most photographed spot in the park. The first?—the “Welcome to Glacier Park” sign. Who knew?

I also chatted for a bit with Karen Straight, a fiber artist who has two large pieces hanging in the gallery, both done in needle felting. I wish you could see the one of the grizzly bear—the needle felting provides a realistic 3-D texture.

I am hoping to attend the artists’ reception this evening. Our Mountain Brook Ladies Club is providing the food “There will be shrimp! And wine!” Sunnie told us. LOL.

Gutter Lettuce

Our neighbor, Mike, was out in his yard yesterday morning so I popped through the woods to visit with him for a few minutes. He has a garden and started some of his plants in the greenhouse this spring. His garden is doing very nicely. I asked him if the patch of corn was where the bodies were buried because his corn is four feet tall already! He laughed and said that there was an old compost pile out there, so he just raked it into that spot before he planted the corn. Obviously, the corn likes it.

He also rigged up a very clever lettuce-growing system which I refer to as “gutter lettuce.”

The gutter is slanted and has a hole at one end for drainage. The red variety on the ends is Ruby—my very favorite—and the green is Green Ice (I think), which is new to all of us this year. (We shared seeds among our little group.) This view is looking south, and our pig pasture is on the other side of those trees.

We have some very prolific gardens in our little community!

I put down a lot of black plastic in my garden this year to kill weeds. I’m also in the process of consolidating and moving some things because we just don’t need to grow quite as much. That has come with a tradeoff, though. If I let my garden become feral, which it tends to do all on its own, I’ll get all sorts of wonderful surprises like a huge crop of cilantro. Or volunteer parsnips. I only have a little bit of cilantro this year, and no parsnips. The problem is that a feral garden produces a LOT of weeds. I need to figure out some kind of compromise.

I did buy a new tool. There is a long backstory to this, so buckle up.

The husband has a system for plowing and likes to put piles of snow in specific places in the yard. Our driveway is gravel. The result is that an awful lot of gravel ends up in the grass, and it’s an awful lot of work to rake it back into the driveway. This has been an ongoing problem for years. I don’t like mowing when there is gravel in the grass because the gravel gets thrown around.

At the end of last year, I ran across this:

It’s a Stihl Yard Boss and it comes as a small cultivator in its stock configuration. I don’t need a cultivator. We already have a Roto-Tiller—sized for the husband, naturally—although we try not to till too much. However, the Yard Boss has some optional attachments, one of which is rubber paddles designed for sweeping gravel out of lawns. Yay! Unfortunately, I decided to wait until this spring to buy one, and by the time I started looking, they were scarcer than hens’ teeth.

Our local Ace Hardware is a Stihl dealer. I asked them to order one for me at the beginning of May. And then never heard anything. I looked at all the Ace Hardware stores in Spokane. Nobody had any in stock. I assumed these were another victim of the supply chain disruptions.

The phone rang at lunchtime yesterday. It was an employee at our Ace Hardware store. He said that they had unearthed a box in their storage area that had my name on it and a note saying they tried to call me on May 23 but no one was home. Did I still want this Stihl Yard Boss that they had ordered for me?

[We have a device on our phone called a Sentry that will intercept an unknown number and play a message. The message says something to the effect of, “If you’re a telemarketer, hang up now. If you want to speak to someone, press 0.” If the caller presses 0, the number rings through and I know to pick it up (or it goes to the answering machine). Once it rings through, it gets added to the white list and all future calls from that number bypass the Sentry. Some people have no trouble figuring out that they need to press 0, but some people hear that message and just hang up.]

I said that yes, I very much wanted the Yard Boss and that I would be there in an hour to pick it up. This is a lovely, locally-owned hardware store, but it’s somewhat disorganized with a lot of people working at cross purposes. I am not surprised that they misplaced the box. This would have been more useful a month or two ago, before the grass grew up over the gravel, but at least we have it. I can use the cultivator to spot till the garden. The husband asked me to buy the broom attachment, too, so he can clean off concrete slabs. And next spring, we can sweep all the gravel out of the grass and back onto the driveway.

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Update on the laser printer: I once again have a functional printer, but it was a slog to get there. To be thorough, I ordered a new drum. However, the Brother Gen-u-ine Toner Cartridge still didn’t work, even with the new drum, so I went to the local toner place in town and bought a remanufactured toner cartridge. The guy there said that the printer reads a chip on the toner cartridge and that the chip likely was bad on that cartridge. (That right there was more useful information than I got out of talking to the person on the other end of the Brother customer service line.) He said that if the remanufactured cartridge didn’t work, I should bring it back, and that he would also be happy to look at the machine for me. I’ll be buying my cartridges there from now on. The remanufactured cartridge and new drum combo did the trick and now the printer prints again.

And lo and behold, I got a call yesterday afternoon from a Brother representative. I had filled out a survey after my attempts to get help from their support line failed. I gave them a “would not recommend” rating, which apparently kicked my complaint further up the chain. They said that if I sent them a copy of the receipt showing where and when I bought the cartridge that didn’t work, they would reimburse me for it. I had the Staples receipt on my computer, so that was a simple matter to take care of.

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That serger itch has been scratched thoroughly. I am going to meet with the class coordinator at the quilt store today and drop off my class samples for display. I was able to work all the bugs out of the rolled edge scarf project and now I want to do something else, not on the serger. It is probably time to finish the Slabtown backpack. I’d also like to make the Firefly Tote.

The Needle Makes the Difference

Apologies to my readers who aren’t fascinated by my serging experiments. This phase won’t last forever. It’s important to me to document some of this stuff, though, for my own future reference and in case it helps someone else avoid having to reinvent the wheel.

When I am looking for ideas for class projects, I see if there are similar tutorials on the internet. Seeing how other people communicate a technique helps me refine how I want to teach it. And I like to have resources for students to refer to after the class is over.

I went looking for a lettuce-edge scarf tutorial, because I thought that would be a good project to get students comfortable with that technique. Sure, we could make samples with plain old pieces of fabric, but sometimes, real-world projects come with problems that don’t show up in the samples. My index of suspicion went way up when I discovered that there were virtually no tutorials for lettuce edge scarf projects, and the one tutorial that seemed to be linked the most often had been taken off the sponsor’s website. Hmmmm. That indicates to me that there were possible issues that resulted in lots of questions or complaints.

{Or perhaps not. I’m speculating here, because content gets removed for lots of reasons. If the technique is easy, though, a Google search should bring up a couple dozen online tutorials for one project or another.]

Zede and Mallory Donohue, the mother-daughter duo behind the Sewing Out Loud podcast, made a YouTube video in 2012 where they discuss lettuce edge scarves. (The pertinent content is in the second half of the video.) They talk about an issue with these kinds of scarves, which is that the edge finish doesn’t always stay attached to the fabric. Instead, it lifts away and dangles out in mid-air, like this:

Zede and Mallory note that it’s important to make sure the fabric doesn’t pull away from the needle as it goes through the machine, but that was their only suggestion for avoiding this problem.

I made my first couple of samples of lettuce edging with a polyester/spandex blend knit. I had no issues. The lettuce edging was nice and substantial and didn’t pull away from the fabric. When I switched to this teal rayon/spandex blend, though, I started having all sorts of problems like the one you see in the photo above. It happened on the crosswise grain of the fabric and it happened even more on the bias. And even when the rolled edge stayed attached to the fabric, it lacked integrity. I don’t want to include a project like this in a class—it will do nothing but frustrate students.

I fiddled with the differential feed. I fiddled with the presser foot pressure. I serged with the knit side up. I serged with the purl side up. I even tried some wash-away stabilizer. Nothing helped. The stitches did not want to catch on the fabric. I changed to a different color of the same rayon/spandex blend. Same result.

I sat there and thought for a while. And then I heard a voice in my head.

Change the needle.

Not “change the needle” as in “the needle is worn out and you need a new one.” This was “change the needle” to a different type of needle. I was using an 80/12 jersey (ball point) needle. Theoretically, that should have worked.

We have a much wider variety of fabrics available these days, including a whole class of fabrics known as “performance fabrics.” These are the specialty fabrics for workout clothing, swimwear, and outdoor activities. With that has come an expanded selection of sewing needles. It used to be that you would go to the fabric store and have your choice of regular, ball point, denim, quilting, embroidery, and leather needles. Now there are Microtex, jersey, stretch, fleece, denim, leather, vinyl, embroidery, topstitching, metallic, quilting, and even cosplay needles. Some of those also come in chrome-plated or titanium-plated versions for high-speed sewing.

I use Schmetz needles almost exclusively. They are easy to find and work well. Schmetz has both a “jersey” needle and a “stretch” needle. What is the difference? From Schmetz’s website:

Jersey & Stretch needles have medium ball points. The eye & scarf differ. Use the Stretch needle when fabrics contain Lycra®, Spandex® or elastic. Use Jersey on knits & some stretch fabrics. Jersey & Stretch needles are sometimes interchangeable. Test needle, thread, and fabric combo for stitch quality.

The scarf is a scooped-out area on the back side of the needle, above the eye. Sailrite has an excellent photo on their website.) It helps the hook underneath the needle plate to loop the thread and make the stitch.

I found a 75/11 stretch needle in my stash and put it in the serger. And then I tried again—and this time, I got a beautiful lettuce edge with no unattached loops anywhere:

Changing the needle made the serging effortless. The stitches are firmly seated in the fabric and the wooly nylon spreads out evenly. Part of me is still baffled by such a simple fix, but I’m happy with the result. And I am confident now that this will make a good class project. I’ll include specifics in the supply list so students can get what they need ahead of time.

What Doesn't Work is Important, Too

“If you want to be a surfer, you’ll spend a lot of time paddling.
This tweet is not about surfing.”
—@Ryan Stephens, on Twitter

Sometimes it’s hard to see the value of paddling. When I reframed paddling as “research”—as in, “I am researching what works and what doesn’t”—I had a lot more patience for it, because the attempts that don’t work give me as much data as the attempts that do. It’s all about the data.

That’s as profound as I can be at 4:36 in the morning. (And Ryan Stephens is a good follow if you’re on Twitter.)

I am still wandering the rolled hem wilderness, although I think I’ve got rolled hems on woven fabrics dialed in. These are some of my class samples to take to the store.

I bought a yard of this textured woven because it reminded me of a knit-purl pattern. All of my textile interests have blurred together at this point. One yard of prewashed fabric yielded twelve 10” square napkins with a bit of fabric left over for testing. (I think a 10” square napkin is large enough for a meal unless you’re eating messy BBQ or something, in which case, you probably need a Wet Wipe. Or a hose.) I tried three different threads—one that coordinated, one that contrasted, and a variegated. I like the contrasting brown the best, but the choice is completely personal. The variegated would have looked better if the color changes had been planned out more carefully. The blue and yellow changes are obvious, but they are followed by a long section of what reads as a muddy dark color. Bleh.

I’ve moved on to rolled hem lettuce edges on knits with mixed success. They are easy to do on some kinds of knits but more challenging on others. I’m in the midst of trying to figure out why that is and how to compensate for the difficulties. I’ve got a few ideas to try out in the next research session.

I should note that this is not what I had planned for this summer, but I think we all know by now how that goes.

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The husband has lots of wonderful qualities, but one that I cherish most is his ability to make me laugh. Over dinner the other night, he said he had a funny story to tell me.

The husband was pouring concrete that day and two of the mixer drivers came down to stand in the hole with him while they waited for the concrete to start coming through the boom. The first mixer driver—we’ll call him Bob—said to the husband, “Hey, did you know that Rich” (the other mixer driver) “just got married?”

“Congratulations,” said the husband. “Did you choose the right woman?”

Rich looked confused by this question, so Bob helpfully chimed in with, “Schuster’s wife brings him a cold beer every day when he gets home from work.”

Rich (who seemed relieved that it was not a trick question), said, “Yes, my wife does that, too,” to which the husband responded, “Good, it sounds like she took my wife’s online course.”

—at which point I burst out laughing, because I have no idea where he comes up with this stuff. Also, I find it hilarious that I am some kind of paragon of womanly virtue among the mixer drivers. I do bring the husband a cold beer every day when he gets home from work, but if I were out working in the hot sun all day, I’d appreciate it if someone did that for me.

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The peas are about ready to pick. It won’t be a bumper crop this year, but I still have some frozen from last year. I am keeping a close eye on the raspberries; the canes look okay, but I am worried that the berries are going to shrivel up in this heat, so I’ve had the sprinkler on them every day. The zucchini tsunami is approaching and the gooseberry bush is just loaded.

If it works with the husband’s schedule and he’s home on Saturday, I might make a quick over-and-back day trip to Spokane. I need a road trip and a change of scenery. I am reluctant to leave with the wildfire danger growing, which is why I’d prefer to go on a day when he’s home.

Serger Summer

This is the state of my sewing area (one of them) at the moment:

I don’t usually make this big a mess. I tend to “clean as I sew”—much as I “clean as I go” when I’m cooking. I was in the throes of experimenting with decorative serger threads yesterday afternoon and this is what happened. (If you look closely, you can see the wine glass on the cutting table, LOL):

Every so often, Joann Fabrics has a BOGO sale on thread, and it was “buy three, get three free” this weekend. I usually load up on Maxi-Lock serger thread during these sales. This time, though, I bought some metallic and decorative embroidery threads. The quilt store where I have been teaching carries Wonderfil threads and recently got in the entire line of Wonderfil wooly nylon, so I got some of that when I was there on Thursday. I’ve been using Gutermann wooly nylon. (They call it “bulky nylon.”) I just can’t find the love for Gutermann threads. My Necchi doesn’t like them and much prefers Italian-made Aurifil. The Wonderfil wooly nylon is quite nice and the colors are deep and saturated. I believe that Wonderfil makes all of Sue Spargo’s embroidery threads, and she sets the bar pretty high.

[Threads are a whole subject unto themselves, and I appreciate having my store of spinning knowledge to guide me through choosing them. There are significant differences between brands. I got some Mettler thread with my Q20, and I’ve been using that for some piecing in order to use it up. The 50wt Mettler is considerably thicker than the 50wt Aurifil, however. Both are 100% cotton. I feel like the Mettler takes up too much space in the seams and makes pressing the units flat more difficult.]

I discovered that I really like the machine embroidery thread—it’s a polyester—for rolled hem edges on napkins. I used wooly nylon on the batch I made for DD#1 and it was fine for that fabric, but the machine embroidery thread takes it up a notch for more elegant napkins. I’ve got some rayon embroidery thread and I will try that, too.

I am not as big a fan of the metallic threads. I need to play around with them a bit more. I think they might be better in combination with an embroidery thread. They feel soft enough coming off the spool, but tend to be harsh and stiff in the fabric.

The most fun I had yesterday, though, was making lettuce edges:

Oh, the possibilities! I keep a big basket of scraps from past serger projects and use them for experimenting. I tried both the machine embroidery thread and the Wonderfil wooly nylon on this piece. The wooly nylon (on the right) makes a slightly more dramatic edge.

Not all of my experiments were successful. I tried edging one lightweight knit fabric and had all sorts of problems with both a rolled edge and a 3-thread narrow stitch. That fabric might require some wash-away stabilizer.

I’ve got a much better idea now of what will make good class projects, and I’ll have some class samples for display in the store later this week. Also, everyone on my gift list is getting napkins and scarves this year. You’ve been warned, LOL.