Freelance Accompanist

The benefit concert for the local nonprofit has been postponed until next year, but as an indirect result of that, I was put in touch with a music teacher who needed an accompanist. I stopped at her studio Tuesday afternoon and picked up the music. Yesterday was my first rehearsal with the ensemble. The teacher is a delightful young woman named Clara. She has about two dozen students learning to play various string instruments. Roughly half are homeschooled and half are in public school, so she put together two string ensembles and chose four pieces of Christmas music for them to perform.

We met for rehearsal at a local church in Kalispell. Clara directed one piece, but she asked another friend of hers—a retired public school music teacher—to direct the others. (The music teacher is playing the flute on the piece that Clara is directing.) This is the first time Clara has organized any kind of ensemble like this and she admitted it was a bit more involved than she thought it would be. Despite that, it was obvious to me that she is an excellent string teacher. A group of middle school violins, violas, and cellos has the potential to sound like a group of cats stuck in traps, but her kids have their techniques down. I thought both ensembles sounded quite good.

I am not a music teacher, but I have a fair bit of experience with kids learning to play music, having subbed for the music teacher at my kids’ elementary school for many years. I am also not a piano soloist; my strengths lie in accompaniment and playing in ensembles. Those are two completely different skill sets, by the way. It is not that common to find piano soloists who are also willing to be church pianists. When we were in Ohio, DD#1—who plays the piano and has a darling little baby grand of her own—mentioned that she had been asked to play piano at her church. The first words out of my mouth were, “Don’t do it,” but I realize that she needs to find out for herself if that is something she might find enjoyment in.

[I find enjoyment in it most of the time, so I shouldn’t project my cynicism onto her. It’s just that I know it also can be a thankless job on occasion.]

I had a good time yesterday. There were a few hiccups along the way, but the three adults tried to keep things lighthearted and fun for the kids. Clara had chosen “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” as one of the pieces, which is a bit beyond the capabilities of this group of musicians, including the pianist. My music for that piece looks like this:

This is the result of trying to transcribe an orchestral piece for the piano. I might be able to work this up in a month or two, but the concert is December 1 and I don’t have five hours a day to practice. For yesterday’s rehearsal, we settled on me playing the right hand of the piano part. Anna, the public school music teacher, said that if all we did was play the first page of the piece, the parents would still be impressed. With kids, you punt.

I was able to read through the other pieces of music without difficulty. They will require only a bit of practice time to polish them up.

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My travel reading on my trip was the Heying/Weinstein book, The Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century. I enjoyed it very much, although I was a bit surprised by the feeling of relief I felt when I started reading it. I said to the husband that it was akin to wandering around in a society where all you hear around you is gibberish, then suddenly stumbling upon a couple of people speaking a language you understand.

My degree is in biology, and while I haven’t practiced in that field beyond horticulture and animal husbandry (also known as farming), I did spend time in some pretty rarified air. I did an internship at NIH—specifically, at NIAID, which is the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease—when I was in college. The head of our lab, who was a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine and thus no stranger to the rigors of scientific inquiry, had nothing flattering to say about Anthony Fauci. This was in 1986, near the start of the AIDS epidemic, even before Fauci had thirty-five years to become an entrenched government bureaucrat. It sets my teeth on edge to hear people talk about The Science™ as if it is some monolith of unassailable truth. I even threatened to start handing out copies of Thomas Kuhn’s excellent book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to people who said to me, “The Science™ is settled.” Science is never settled, and statements like that fly in the very face of what scientific inquiry is supposed to be. We’ve got a whole country full of people who think The Science™ is what they are told it is by the media.

So to hear people speaking about and discussing science as scientists—not as politicians, journalists, or pundits—was a welcome relief. I got the same feeling listening to a recent Peak Prosperity interview with Chris Martenson and Dave Collum on the way back from Spokane. Chris Martenson has a PhD in neurotoxicology from Duke, and Dave Collum is the Betty R Miller Professor of Chemistry at Cornell University. These two guys are not lightweights. While listening to them converse for almost two hours, I was struck by how many times each of them said, “I don’t know,” or “I thought this, but after seeing this data, now I need to revise my theory about what is going on.” That kind of humility isn’t a weakness; it’s a core component of being a scientist.

Here endeth today’s sermon. At some point, I hope to do some actual sewing—I have an apron order to complete and send out this week—but for the moment, I’m immersed in other tasks.

I Went Back to Ohio

My mother turns 80 at the end of this month. Back in August, my cousin Aimee contacted my sister and me about having a birthday party for her. Aimee’s mother—my Aunt Elaine—is my mother’s older sister. With Aimee’s generous help, we planned a party for my mother for the afternoon of November 6th.

My trips all have a lot of moving parts. Lots of moving parts means lots of opportunities for things to go sideways. I had planned that the girls and I would fly from Seattle to Ohio for the party. I would drive to Spokane on Monday, spend the night, then drive to Seattle Tuesday morning to meet DD#1 from her flight from Ketchikan. The girls and I would spend Tuesday night at a motel near the airport and fly out bright and early (6 am) bound for Cleveland.

All was going as planned until I got to Coeur d’Alene on Monday. I stopped at the Joann Fabrics store there to peruse the remnant rack, and when I got back in my car and started it up, a big warning light came up on the dash: “Drivetrain malfunction! Drive moderately.”

Some warning lights can be ignored until the husband can look at the car. Warning lights about the drivetrain—rather necessary to making the car move—cannot. I motored over to the BMW dealer in Spokane to say hello to Kevin. Again. Fortunately, they weren’t terribly busy, so he was able to get my car in and get it looked at. After running the diagnostics on it, they determined it needed a new emissions sensor. That would be a five-minute fix, if they had the part. They did not, and Kevin said it would take two days to get there. Could I have driven the car to Seattle? Probably, but I was risking a breakdown in the middle of Washington state where there is limited cell phone service. Also, I had a plane to catch. Kevin said that if I left it there, they would have the car ready to go when I got back the following Monday.

I decided the better approach was to spend that Monday night in Spokane as planned, then catch a flight to Seattle Tuesday morning. The BMW dealer got me a ride to the hotel and I Ubered to the airport Tuesday morning, arriving in Seattle just a few minutes before DD#1’s plane landed. DD#2 came and picked us up. From there, the rest of the trip went smoothly and we got to Ohio Wednesday afternoon.

I was able to get together with some dear friends from high school and college and saw lots of relatives. I had dinner with my friend Joyce Wednesday night at a favorite local restaurant. One of the entrees was pierogis with chicken paprikas. How could I not? I don’t get either of those in Montana unless I make them myself:

We did some shopping on Thursday and Friday with my mother and sister. I will provide a Joann Fabrics/Hobby Lobby report in a post later this week.

I think my mother enjoyed her party. We set up a “photo booth” area and took lots of pictures. Here she is with my girls:

No, she doesn’t look 80. She doesn’t act 80, either. She is still working and bowls in a league every week. That’s why she looks so good at 80.

The return trip was mostly uneventful, although between the time change and flying through three different time zones, I had about 36 hours where I wasn’t sure what day it was or what city I was in. We got back to Seattle Sunday evening. DD#2 dropped us off at the hotel and went home. DD#1’s flight back to Ketchikan left at 7 am Monday morning, so we went to the airport together. I saw her off, then sat and waited for my noon flight back to Spokane. I arrived at the dealer mid-afternoon and retrieved the car.

I had a bit of a dilemma—I could have driven back to Kalispell that afternoon, but with the change back to standard time coupled with the fact that Montana is in Mountain time and Spokane in Pacific time, I would have hit full darkness halfway through the trip in an area with no cell service. However, a storm system was marching across Washington state and expected to arrive in Spokane Tuesday morning. That meant snow across the passes. I decided I would rather take my chances with snow during the day than with a car breaking down again at night (or hitting a deer), so I spent Monday night in Spokane again. I did run into some significant snowfall over Lookout Pass on the way home, but I have excellent snow tires, and my winter driving skills came back quickly.

I arrived home at noon, unloaded the car, then turned around and went into Kalispell. Our first Ruler Club meeting was yesterday afternoon at the quilt store, and I also had to make a Costco run and pick up some music. I’m supposed to accompany a couple of school groups in an upcoming concert, but we’ll have to see how it goes as I don’t have a lot of time to prepare.

I think Ruler Club is going to be a lot of fun. This one is more structured than the last one. We’re using Amanda Murphy’s Lollipop rulers:

These come with a book and a panel for us to practice on. The class has 10 students, which is almost twice what we had in the other one.

The next two weeks are jammed full of some obligations that need to be met, so I’ll be busy.

A Quilted Rooster

No, not Dave, LOL.

I need to get the muscle memory back for working on the Q20 as it’s been five months since the last time I used it. I had a few hours yesterday afternoon, so I oiled the machine, put in a brand new needle, threaded it, and quilted this:

The center was quilted in loops—of course—to help me get back in the free motion rhythm. I used a cream/yellow/mocha variegated 40wt thread. I did the side borders in a piano key pattern with red thread for some basic ruler work, and the corners are done in a royal blue thread in a sunburst pattern. The bobbin thread was red Aurifil 50wt to match the red chicken wire fabric on the back.

This piece is all trimmed and ready for binding. I have to decide what color. I am leaning toward the same blue that is in the corners.

And now I am ready to move on to some bigger quilts. The tumbler quilt probably will be next.

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I am about to start reading this book:

When I told the husband, he said, “That sounds like it’s right up your alley.” Heying is an evolutionary biologist. I follow her on Twitter. I expect this book will give me much to think about and I am looking forward to digging in to it. For all that I spend much of my time in creative pursuits, I do like to get back to my biology-degree roots every now and then.

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All is calm in the chicken coop. The little chick that hatched a few months ago finally got big enough that it can no longer escape from the chicken yard. The fencing had holes in a few spots, and she figured out how to get out. I would find her wandering around the yard. Thankfully, nothing got her, nor did she wander off with a flock of turkeys. Dave is happy with his harem of hens. I am happy that Dave is happy.

The pigs are bulking up nicely, and even though it is extra work for the husband to manage the water line, he says keeping them until December was the right decision. Cathy sent me an article from a local paper about the family—three brothers—that bought the processing business we used to use. The new owners aren’t ready to do pigs yet, but I am still hoping that we can get on their schedule for 2022. Also, I haven’t seen her in a while and it would be great if the two of us could take a trip up there some time to meet the new owners. The calendar is starting to fill up, though. November and December will be busy.

Swimming in Reds and Pinks

I am working hard to keep projects from piling up, because I can’t focus when I have too many things going simultaneously. The scrap bags needed to be dealt with, so that’s what I did Thursday afternoon.

Scrap: A small piece or amount of something, especially one that is left over after the greater part has been used.

My scrap system isn’t complicated. Anything bigger than a fat quarter gets put back into the stash. Long pieces get cut into strips. I have several Accuquilt strip dies ranging from 1” to 3” wide, and they make easy work of those pieces. Other leftovers get cut into 5” squares or 2-1/2” squares. Odd shapes end up as tumblers or hexies. I try to use up as much as I possibly can.

The red/pink/orange scrap bag is now overflowing:

I needed some mindless sewing last night, so I started making another Candy Coated quilt from the Sunday Morning Quilts book. This one will come entirely from this scrap bag. I sorted out the longest strips, sewed them together in pairs, then cut them into 11-1/2” long strips. I sewed the 11-1/2” strips into pairs, then pairs again, and so on, until I had three sections measuring approximately 24” each. I pressed and trimmed those sections to 10-1/2 wide, sewed them together, and boom—the 10-1/2” row was done.

I’ll do the same thing with the successively shorter strips, making rows of different heights, until I have enough rows to sew together for a quilt.

If any of my local quilting peeps need strips or want to make a tumbler quilt, let me know. I’ll share.

I also basted the blue tumbler quilt with batting and backing:

I have spent way too much time at Joann Fabrics lately, simply trying to find backings and borders for my quilts. If the color is right, there isn’t enough fabric. If there is enough fabric, the color doesn’t work. I thought I had found a backing for this one—the color was right and there appeared to be enough on the bolt—but when I got to the cutting table and the employee unrolled it, we discovered a huge flaw right in the center of the fabric.

Arrrggghhhh.

I started over and found another potential backing candidate. (By the way, two folds on a bolt is roughly one yard, so if you’re trying to determine of there is enough fabric, count the folds. It’s not exact, but it’s close enough.) Lucky for me, not only was there enough fabric on that bolt—just enough—but it was actually a clearance fabric that had been put back with the regular fabrics. Yay.

I need to start quilting soon. All of my basting pins are in use.

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Adam Taggart has had some really great interviews this week on the Wealthion YouTube channel. And while I’ve been aware, for a while, of creeping inflation at the grocery store, it hit me in the face the other day. I don’t always pay attention to the individual prices of items, but I know when it’s totaled up at the register if I’m spending more than normal because I buy the same items every week. The husband mentioned he was out of pepper jack cheese. He likes to cut it in cubes and take it in his lunch. A one-pound block of Tillamook pepper jack usually runs about $9, sometimes less if the store puts it on sale. I went to grab a block of it the other day and just about fell over. The price had gone up to $11.87.

I have to go to Costco soon and I have no idea what I’m going to find there. Hang on—I suspect we’re in for a wild ride.

I Was Distracted By a Pillow

I watch a lot of YouTube videos while I sew. I’m subscribed to the Fat Quarter Shop, A Quilting Life, Jordan Fabrics, Seamwork, and quite a few other sewing-related channels. The drawback is that sometimes I’ll see patterns or projects that I want to make. I watched one pillow video the other day and suddenly my feed was full of pillow project videos, so of course I had to drop everything and make a pillow.

Oh look!—a squirrel.

Kimberly, at The Fat Quarter Shop, did a video on making a Faux Pleated Pillow about a year ago:

She notes in the video that the inspiration came from a similar tutorial at the Quilting in the Rain blog (from 2012). I watched the video, read the blog post, and decided I needed to make a pillow.

Home dec is not really my thing. I admire people with houses whose decor could grace the pages of a magazine. I gave that up as a goal about 30 years ago. I don’t change my decor to match the seasons, either, because nature does that for me. In the winter, I decorate with snow. In the spring, I decorate with mud. I’m happy if I can keep the clutter and dust down to a dull roar.

One of the added benefits of this craft co-op, though—and specifically, the sale—is that I have an excuse to try out lots of different projects. I can make something, and if it’s not something I can use or gift, I can put it aside for next year’s sale.

So I made a pillow:

The video and blog post both call for a jelly roll for making the pillow. Some years ago, one of the fabric companies began naming its collections of pre-cut fabrics after pastries. A “layer cake” is a collection of forty-two 10” squares. A “jelly roll” is a collection of forty-two strips. 2-1/2” wide by the width of a piece of fabric (approximately 44”), rolled up. These names have found their way into the quilting lexicon generically, so if you say “jelly roll” to a quilter, they know you aren’t talking about food.

I have some jelly rolls in the stash, but I didn’t want to break one open just to experiment with a pillow pattern. I went to my collection of scraps and pulled out the bag of white and cream 2-1/2” strips, folded them, pressed them, and sewed them to a piece of Kona Bone. The one change I did make was to put a piece of thin cotton batting under the Kona so I was sewing strips to both the Kona and the batting. I thought that gave the fabric a bit more stability. The whole pillow front took about an hour.

By then, it was time to leave for Robin’s. We spent the morning visiting, looking at projects—I discovered she has a Wheeler and Wilson D9 treadle in her sewing room (!!!!!!!)—and marking our pants so they could be hemmed. We examined the quilt she made for her bed, which has the same block, set on point, as the Blue Thistle quilt block I am making. (Her quilt was done in reds and creams.) We went to the Somers Bay Cafe for lunch. I am ashamed to say that I have lived in the Flathead for almost 30 years and have never eaten there. It was very good. We split a Reuben sandwich and a shrimp and avocado salad.

After lunch, I ran into Kalispell to pick up the husband’s work boots and his nail bag. He had both fixed at a local saddle shop after I said that I could do it, but only if I bought another sewing machine. I also stopped at Joann Fabrics to get a pillow form for my pillow.

[I don’t really want to get into sewing leather. The shop fixed his boots and nail bag in less than a week for a very reasonable price.]

Joanns is having some growing pains. Our local store, like every place else here, has cut its hours due to lack of staffing. They are also in the middle of a desperately-needed upgrade to their dinosaur of a computer system, and I gather this is a national upgrade as the stores in Spokane were having theirs upgraded as well. However, the signs advertising discounts on merchandise don’t always match the prices being rung up on the register. The sign on the pillow form display advertised 40% off. I got up to the register to pay and the cashier was so busy chatting at me that I wasn’t paying attention to the price of the two-pack of pillow forms. I saw a discount ring up, but it wasn’t until I was halfway home that I did the math in my head and realized the discount that rang up was only 25%, not 40%.

If I had noticed, they would have honored the 40% off, but it wasn’t worth turning around and going back. I am going to watch more closely from now on, at least until they get the bugs worked out of this new system. I am also noticing a visible decrease in the amount of inventory over what they normally have. Trying to find quilt backs is more difficult, because many of the bolts only have one or two yards on them. A quilt back usually requires 4-6 yards, unless it’s a wide back of 108”.

I may leave the pillow out; I may put it away for next year’s sale. This is a quick and easy way to use up scrap strips, though, and I did buy a two-pack of pillow forms. I could make a second one. I like the addition of the batting to make the pillow front a bit more substantial.

Sit and Sew, Get Up and Move

I love days when I can sew for hours at a time and make significant headway on some projects. The O block wallhanging now has borders and has been added to the “to be basted” pile. I have a list of the backings I need to get. And I’ve got more than half of the Blue Thistle (that is its working title) star blocks made.

(Please excuse the wonky picture. I know some of my photos look like I took them after a glass of wine. I blame my hand-me-down iPhone.)

I’ll need 13 of these blocks and about that many of the second block. I still have to cut the fabric for the other blocks, but once I do, those should come together quickly.

I can’t chain piece in long sessions. Even though I had all the pieces for these star blocks cut, I only chain pieced enough for 2-3 blocks at a time. I have trouble sitting still; it’s not physical pain but a need to get up and move around frequently. As much as I loved my transcription job, one of the downsides was sitting for long stretches. I had a lot of muscle and joint problems during that time and don’t want those to resurface. My occupational therapist daughter says that the fascia around the joints and muscles “shrink wraps” as one ages and contributes to mobility problems, so I try to stay active. That’s easy during the summer when I am gardening. I have to work a bit harder during the winter, though, to avoid becoming a couch potato. I try not to sit for more than 15 minutes at a time. I also make periodic trips up and down the stairs for cups of tea or to throw laundry in the washer. Yoga helps, too.

I am going to have to set aside a day soon to deal with scraps. This is bin #3:

That Accuquilt cutter will make short work of turning these leftovers into useable pieces. I definitely need more hexies, for one thing, and I can always use 2-1/2” strips for binding. I think I should also make another tumbler quilt.

Robin and I are getting together today to mark each other’s pants for hemming and have lunch. It’s much easier to mark pants with someone who sews. I bought a few more pairs of tall jeans from Kohls and they are about an inch too long. I don’t like my cuffs to drag on the ground and get frayed, fashionable though that may be.

Bordering

I am trying to get a few more quilt tops done and ready to baste, at which point I will tie myself to the chair in front of the Q20 and quilt for a couple of weeks. Right now, I am putting on borders. The tumbler quilt got a 6” wide border:

I kicked around the idea of doing two borders, but there is so much going on in the center of that quilt, with so many different shades of blue, turquoise, and yellow, that I thought it best to stick to one border. This blue looks solid, but it’s actually a subtle blue polka dot pattern. I think it calms the quilt nicely.

The Big O block wallhanging is ready for its border. Cutting and attaching that is on the schedule for today:

This one is getting a narrow 3” border of the same Grunge that is in the sashing. I am so tickled with the way this came out, and it allowed me to scratch the itch of that weird color combination. I would like to do this same wallhanging in some retina-burning Tim Holtz fabric so I can switch them out for different seasons. Hopefully, that won’t take me another 10 years.

I took out all of my tops and almost-finished tops and measured each of them. One needs a border and several of them need backings. I don’t want to buy fabric unless I have accurate numbers with me, so those are now written down. I’ll check my stash of yardage, first, to see what I have that will work. I am not a fan of pieced backings made up of lots of smaller pieces, but I will cut and seam 44” wide fabric. And for the wallhanging, I may just use muslin or Kona.

My neighbor was very happy with the pillow shams and sent me a picture of them on the bed:

More commission jobs are finding their way to me, but I have to decide how much of that I want to do. I know I don’t want to go into the alterations business, but smaller custom projects are fun.

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My father-in-law sent me a newspaper article about a quilt exhibition at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston. It is entitled “Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories,” and it runs from now until early January 2022. On yesterday’s episode of the A Quilting Life podcast, Sherri interviewed the curator of that exhibit and showed some of the quilts that are on display. The curator, Jennifer Swope, said that they deliberately tried not to arrange the display in chronological order. Rather, the quilts are grouped according to theme. One of the highlights of the exhibit is that both extant Harriet Powers story quilts are on display together for the first time. (Watch that short PBS video if you haven’t yet heard of her—Harriet was a remarkable African-American quiltmaker born into slavery in the 19th century and those two quilts are absolutely amazing.) If you are in the northeast US and can travel to view the exhibit in person, it would be well worth your time (and I will be jealous).

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PSA: Blog posts in November may be fewer and farther between due to my schedule, so don’t panic if you don’t hear from me. I’ll be back to regular posting after Thanksgiving.

Dave Stands Alone

It rained so hard Friday night, I was sure we were going to have to cancel our plans for Saturday. Butchering day is unpleasant enough without holding it in a torrential downpour. The rain stopped around sunup, however, and we were able to proceed. The four of us—Jeryl and Elysian came to help, too—did 27 birds in just under two hours. We had eight, Jeryl brought 16, and Elysian had three juvenile roosters. We should have had nine, but I missed one of the New Hampshire Reds hiding in the coop, so it gets to live another year unless it dies of old age, first.

Dave is now the only rooster in our coop. I am a bit concerned about being down to one. I said to the husband that I might have to hatch out some eggs next spring so I have a possible replacement if something happens to Dave. Baby roosters learn how to be good roosters by watching the big roosters (there is an important metaphor there), and I prefer to train mine up from chicks. For now, though, I will enjoy the peace and quiet of a coop without a lot of excess testosterone. Dave is in charge and taking excellent care of the hens.

No doubt the neighbors will be grateful that mornings will be quieter without roosters crowing in stereo.

I am always glad to have that unpleasant but necessary task over and done with. The sun was out by the time we finished, so the husband lit off one of the slash piles. I went to the sewing room and finished my neighbor’s pillow shams. She chose some really lovely fabric:

I also worked a bit on another project, Vanessa Goertzen’s Goody Goody Binding Kit, using Sheri McConnell’s modifications. Sheri made her version slightly bigger and did a YouTube video to go with her changes.

The outside is some turquoise fabric that I quilted onto Soft and Stable (yes, it is Disney princess fabric, but I liked it, so I used it) and the inside parts are being cobbled together from leftovers. As nice as the Mini Poppins bag is for toting my EPP supplies back and forth to sewing, I want something more compact and streamlined for traveling further afield. This looks like it will do the job.

And I cleaned off the table that holds the Q20. I can’t quilt on that machine until I do something with the projects that have been piled there all summer, including the Slabtown Backpack. That one stalled mid-stream. I looked over the pattern again to figure out where in the process I am, and I’ll start working on it again soon.

The husband brought me a pair of insulated Carhartt coveralls that need a replacement zipper (the zipper is missing an inch’s worth of teeth). A zipper isn’t hard to replace, unless it was put in as Step 2 of a forty-three step process of building a pair of Carhartt coveralls. I’m going to have to remove snaps and release seams in several places just to get the broken zipper out, let alone replaced. These overalls are not cheap to purchase new, however, so I will probably make an attempt.

I finally have a week on the calendar with nothing pressing scheduled. No appointments, no events to help out at, no meetings, nothing. We’ll see how much I can get done around here before the big holiday push begins next month.

Finished is Better Than Fancy

Angela Walters often says, “Finished is better than perfect”—meaning that one should not agonize over quilting mistakes that likely won’t be seen when the item is done. I’m adding a corollary. Sometimes “Finished is better than fancy”—meaning that I opted for simple but finished instead of extra piecing that runs the risk of the project languishing.

I took the rooster panel I bought in Missoula last week and cut it apart. The sides of the panel featured smaller squares of rooster art. The owner of the quilt store had added flying geese to those smaller squares and turned them into placemats. I’ll probably make potholders out of them. I could have gotten fancy and added extra piecing to the big rooster, but I opted for a simple border of red chicken wire fabric with a dark blue print in the corners to pick up and echo the blue in the rooster’s tail:

Simple, but closer to being done. This is all basted and ready to quilt. It is intended for me, so it doesn’t need to be fancy, just finished.

I pulled that red chicken wire out of my “animal fabric bin” and realized that I have a lot of chicken fabric. I have a plan for some of it that involves a Poppins Bag.

This is the original Poppins Bag pattern:

The bag is huge and has a wire frame at the top. It’s large enough to hold a small sewing machine. I haven’t made the large one—although I know people who have made literally dozens of them—but I did make myself a Mini Poppins bag in 2020:

This bag carries my English paper piecing supplies back and forth to sewing on Thursdays. I like it, but it occurred to me a few weeks ago that it would be nice to have a slightly larger version of this bag. The wire frame keeps the top open, and that would be handy for knitting projects.

My prayers have been answered. I was at the quilt store north of town the other day and saw a sample made up for the Medium size. The pattern has just been released. Kathy, one of the employees, is teaching a class on it in mid-November. I signed up and let Tera know in case she wanted to join me.

“Why are you taking a class on something you already know how to make?” asked the husband, which led to a discussion about the differences between men and women. Men take classes to learn things. Women take classes to socialize and learn things. Kathy joked that she wasn’t sure she wanted me in a class, but I said that I was just happy to have a day of sewing with a few other people. And I always learn something new.

Then Kathy asked me, while she was ringing me up, if I would be interested in teaching serger classes at their store. They are a Baby Lock dealer. The other store is a Bernina dealer. The Janome dealer is at a third (sewing/vacuum) store that I don’t patronize, which is why I visit the Janome dealers in Missoula or Spokane.

I don’t think it’s going to be a problem to teach at both stores. I am teaching as an independent contractor, and I don’t sense a lot of competition between the stores; in fact, I’ve heard employees at each store refer customers to the other store to find items or fabric lines that one of them doesn’t carry. I’ll let the owner of the first store know, though, before I set anything up at the second store. Also, I need to find 24 more hours in the day, LOL.

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I went to sewing yesterday. This is the group that meets a few miles up the road at the old schoolhouse. (The history of that schoolhouse is a long and rather convoluted story for another blog post.) The members of this group make up the bulk of the Mountain Brook craft-co-op. Many of them also belong to the Mountain Brook Ladies Club. Not all of them live in Mountain Brook, but that’s not a requirement for membership.

I invited Sarah, who just moved here from Seattle, to join us. Sarah is a spinner, knitter, and weaver, and even if she doesn’t join the craft co-op, I thought this would be a good way to get her plugged in to the community. She brought an electric tabletop spinning wheel and sat with us and visited. I suspected she would fit in well and I think she had a good time.

The more time I spend with that group, the more I enjoy it. That really is a cooperative—there is a lot of sharing and very little, if any, competition. Everyone takes joy in seeing other people’s projects. If somebody needs a certain kind of fabric, someone else in the group probably has some and offers it up. The wealth of knowledge about virtually every kind of fiber art is astounding. We call it “sewing” for simplicity’s sake, but it’s so much more.

Stop Buying

I listened to a fascinating interview yesterday with Wolf Richter, founder and publisher of “Wolf Street,” where he opines on a variety of economic topics. The interview was hosted by Adam Taggart, who used to be one of the hosts of another favorite podcast of mine, Peak Prosperity. He split off Peak Prosperity to found his own company, called Wealthion. (FWIW, I hate that name, because wealth consists of more than money, but I like Taggart’s podcasting style, so I am subscribed to the feed.)

The title of the episode was The “Everything Shortage”: Why Is Everything so Expensive & Out of Stock? I thought I had a good grasp on most of the principles underlying the current shortage, but about thirty minutes in, Wolf said something that made me think hard about what’s going on. Obviously, the “just in time” inventory system is broken. He says that what needs to happen is that consumers need to STOP BUYING—stop buying toilet paper, stop buying beans and rice, stop buying anything and everything and hoarding it. He believes that only when demand slows down will the system catch its breath enough to recover.

Of course, the federal government, in its infinite wisdom (sarcasm alert), is doing everything it can to juice the system and entice consumers into spending via endless stimulus and money printing.

“Hi, we’re the federal government and we’re here to help. We just broke your leg and now we would like to sell you this overpriced, badly-designed crutch. You’re welcome.”

It’s human nature, as well, to panic when it appears resources might be or become scarce. Wolf gave the example—germane to us, certainly—of the home builder who orders fasteners from his supplier only to be told that they are out of stock and won’t be available for three months. Concerned that the fasteners might continue to be scarce indefinitely, the home builder orders EXTRA fasteners to be delivered in three months, putting further stress on the system.

Of course, the federal government might inadvertently speed demand destruction as its rampant money printing causes runaway inflation. People might stop buying because they can’t afford to. I hold my breath every time I go through the checkout line at the grocery store. Food is far more expensive today than it was a year ago. We’re in a position to absorb those increases—painful though they are—but what about the people who can’t? I’ve seen requests in my homesteading groups for recipes for baby formula, because it’s scarce and expensive in some areas. Baby formula.

I thought about all of that as I did my shopping yesterday. And I’ll admit, I did the very thing Wolf said not to do—I bought. I bought four yards of Insul-Bright because I need it for making inventory for next year’s sale and I remember what it was like when I couldn’t find black Kona last year. (I’ve been buying black Kona any time I see it on a remnant rack, so I have a decent supply now.) I’d also thought about stocking up on batting, because if cotton prices go up, batting prices will, too.

My problems are trivial issues in the grand scheme of things, and my not buying things is not, singlehandedly, going to help the system recover. It’s a hard habit to break, though. Having backup supplies has been a way of life with me since we moved to Montana 28 years ago. One does not just run to the grocery store 20 miles away for something at midnight in January when it’s snowing. I’ve gotten us through some lean times with what I’ve had on hand.

These are issues to ponder.

There is some quilt content to this post. and it’s related. Although I bought Insul-Bright, I did not buy quilt batting. I have a 25-yard roll of it in the closet, purchased for a rainy day. I pulled that roll out yesterday afternoon and used it to baste this quilt.

This is a jelly roll race quilt that I did when I was in Alaska in May. I took one of my little Janome sewing machines with me in a carry-on case and left it at DD#1’s house. That way, if I’m there and something needs sewn or I want to work on a project, I’ll have a machine. This is a jelly roll from the Cultivate Kindness fabric line, designed by Deb Strain. I love the bright colors.

Two tops are now basted and waiting to be quilted. I may get a couple more ready by this weekend.

What Makes Me Happy

I had Ali’s little guy again on Monday. He accompanied me to town and helped me run errands. (I have a car seat, yes, because these little people ride with me often.) Of course, we stopped at Joann Fabrics. He goes there quite a bit and knows his way around, so he went straight to the fabric section. I told him that if he wanted to pick out fabric for some T-shirts, I would make him some. He and WS are about the same size, so I could use the same Oliver + S pattern. He looked at the fabric and then said, “Auntie Janet, what I would really like is a Mandalorian blanket.” Joanns has “kits” consisting of two large pieces of fleece fabric. You lay them out, one on top of the other, and cut 1” wide by 6” deep fringe into each side, then tie the two layers of fringe together to make a blanket. “The Mandalorian” is a Disney Channel series that is part of the Star Wars franchise. This child was an X-wing fighter pilot for Halloween last year. He knows Star Wars inside and out and filled me in on the whole Mandalorian backstory.

I had a coupon, so he got a Mandalorian blanket. We came home, had lunch, and I crawled around on the floor and tied fringe while we watched heavy equipment failure videos on YouTube. Auntie Janet is nothing if not fun. And crawling around on the floor is good for me. It keeps me limber.

Yesterday afternoon, he and his mom dropped off a thank-you note and the suncatcher he made for me:

My life is full of simple pleasures.

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Yesterday was a sewing day. Literally nothing BUT sewing. I started at 7 am and went full steam ahead until about 4 pm when I had to stop and make a salad for dinner. I worked on various projects as I felt like it—a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit some place else—and made more Big O blocks. And then I started putting them together:

As with that red, white, and blue quilt, the blocks look better on the background. (The colors in this photo are close, but not really; what looks like black is instead a dark gray.) Every setting I’ve seen for this block has them butted up next to each other, which is easy but boring. Adding that inch-wide sashing strip gives them some much-needed breathing room. The rows will get a similar inch-wide strip between them, and the assembled blocks will get a border of the same Grunge background. What I want is for the “O’s” to look like they are floating on the background.

I have enough fabric cut for two more rows, but I’ll wait to make those blocks and add them until I see how long these are when they are all sewn together.

Despite those supposedly “difficult” partial seams, the blocks for this quilt came together quickly. I just need to finish it and have the husband help me hang it up. This project wasn’t on the list, but it has gone quickly and I can cross a task off the to-do list that has lingered there far too long.

I also made the 52 large periwinkle hourglass units for the green/purple remake quilt. (Note to self: Needs a name.) I am going to need 104 small navy blue polka dot half-square triangle units, as well, and those will be done next. The rest of the units in that block are 2-1/2” squares and one 4-1/2” square, all of which are cut. The second block is exclusively background and accent squares, and I’ll strip-piece those. When I get that top put together, I will take a break from piecing and start basting and quilting these tops that are piling up unchecked. I also need to write some patterns.

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We will be butchering chickens on Saturday. Butchering day is easily my least favorite day of the year but it has to be done. We only have about eight or so to do, but our pastor, Jeryl, is coming to help and bringing a dozen, and Elysian and WS are also coming to help and bringing some of theirs. The equipment takes some time to set up, so it’s better to combine our efforts. When it is all over, we will be down to one rooster—Dave. He is the best rooster I have ever raised, but he wants to be the only rooster. I plan to accommodate him. I will be sad to see the other rooster go, who is also a good rooster, but such is the way of things. We can’t keep them separated forever.

Get Those Machines Up and Running

I’m going to set up one of my sewing machines—probably the Rocketeer—to make nothing but half-square triangles. Normally, I piece on Vittorio, my Necchi BF. I don’t want to put Diagonal Seam Tape on the bed of that machine, though, because the finish is delicate. If I sew HSTs on the Necchi, I’ll have to draw lines on my squares. I really like the Diagonal Seam Tape and prefer to use that if at all possible. I’ve been using it on the Janome, which is fine, but I like to use that machine for other tasks, too. I have plenty of machines. I could dedicate one to making nothing but HSTs.

[“I have plenty of machines” = understatement of the century.]

The Rocketeer is in a convenient spot and deserves to be used more often. This is what that machine looked like when I brought it home from the thrift store: filthy, missing the nose door, and being held in the cabinet by a piece of clothesline:

I cleaned the poor thing thoroughly, replaced the missing parts, and brought it back from the dead. It makes a lovely stitch and would be a great piecing machine.

I got one pillow sham made yesterday, but I want to check with my neighbor and make sure it’s the right size before I make the second one. It’s a simple envelope design and didn’t take long. After that, I ate more potato chips—er, made more O blocks:

I decided that the blocks with the pumpkin-colored units were yelling a bit too loudly. That’s always a risk with yellows and oranges. A little goes a long way. I took those fabrics out of the rotation and made some quieter blocks without them to tone down the quilt. I’ll spread the brighter ones out even more once I get all the blocks made. The overall effect is much better now, although the blocks still look funny on that white design wall. I plan to separate the blocks with a narrow sashing. They need the breathing room.

I was trying to remember when I first started quilting. It had to be around 2013, because there was a quilt store near the Pacific Lutheran campus, and I shopped there when DD#1 was in college. Part of the reason I wanted to learn to quilt was to make a wall hanging for the blank area over our staircase.

It’s now almost a decade later. Have I made a quilt for that spot? Nope. It’s still bare. I’m thinking, though, that this one might be a good candidate. The walls are a neutral beige color (a Sherwin-Williams paint color called “Bagel,” which is on several walls of my house) and this would look nice against that backdrop. I need to measure the area and do some calculations.

I love making these blocks. I have some screamingly bright Tim Holtz fabric with a coordinating Grunge-like blender—all from the same line—that is marinating in the stash because I haven’t yet decided what to do with it. These blocks would be a good way to use that fabric. I’d also like to try an on-point setting with them, which would give the design a completely different look.

I have no trouble coming up with projects. I do have trouble, sometimes, remembering that I have other responsibilities besides sewing all day.

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A travel video about Fortnum and Mason, the London department store, popped up in my YouTube feed the other day, so I watched it. We visited the store when we were in London two years ago. They have a whole department dedicated to nothing but tea, as well as a gorgeous specialty food market on the lower level. My sister said that if there is a heaven, it looks like the F&M food market and she wants to go there when she dies. I’d be content to end up in the tea department. The British know how to do tea. Williams-Sonoma carries a few varieties of Fortnum and Mason teas, including Countess Grey, which is one of my favorites. I drink a lot of tea during the winter, although I have to confine myself to the decaf varieties. Anything more than one cup of coffee in the morning and one cup of regular tea in the afternoon and I don’t sleep at night.

One of my plans for next summer is to do better about harvesting and drying some of my plants for herbal teas. I have mints and lemon balm, echinacea, raspberry leaves, mullein, lavender (of course), and I think the currants could also be added to a dried tea blend. Lots of possibilities there.

Battery Pickup and Fabric Shopping

Robin and I went to Missoula yesterday. On the way down, I swung by the new pork processor that we’re going to be using. I had to find a new processor because our old processor sold his business to an Amish family. They will do beef, but they don’t have enough experience with pigs and aren’t taking them yet. I picked up a copy of the cut sheet from the new processor so I can give it to customers ahead of time. Also, now we know where to go so we aren’t driving around with a stock trailer full of pigs.

Our first stop in Missoula was a battery supplier. One of the husband’s work trucks needs to have the batteries—there are two—replaced. I saved the $50 delivery charge by picking them up. Having accomplished that, we moved on to the Janome/Bernina dealer a short distance away. The store does not yet have any of the Janome 3000cpx coverstitch machines in stock, but I reserved one and should be able to pick it up in a couple of weeks. My co-op sale profits are going toward that machine. I was a bad enabling friend, though, and I roped Robin into trying out the Bernina Q20 in the table and the Q24 in the frame. The quilting motion is different between the two systems. I move the fabric on my Q20, whereas in the frame system, the machine moves. Some people prefer one over the other. I like moving the quilt; Robin much preferred the frame system.

I don’t think Robin hates me for making her try out the Q24, LOL. She gifted me this cute fabric to make some aprons.

We had a few requests for masculine aprons at the sale. I need to have some on hand for next year and this fabric will be perfect.

We went to Kohls. I was explaining to the husband that Kohls used to have so much inventory that it was hard to navigate the racks, and clothing was often strewn hither and yon. The stores are much emptier now, and when they do have stock, they might only have one item in each size. The difference is stark. Ironically, that makes shopping easier. Robin found some tops and a pair of pants, and I bought two hoodies. I rarely wear sweaters anymore. I like zippered hoodies that I can put on and take off easily.

We had lunch at Cafe Dolce, then wandered over to Joann Fabrics. Robin was disappointed in their selection and said she thought we had more flannel widebacks at our store. I picked up a bit more fabric for that orange and gray quilt and a few remnants.

The Book Exchange is a wonderful used bookstore in Missoula with a great selection of new and used craft books. I’ve really cut down on my book acquisitions in recent years and only buy books if they have specific information I want or need, like this gently-used one full of hexie projects:

Now my pile of hexies will make their way into actual projects.

Missoula has three independent fabric stores. The Confident Stitch is downtown, and while they do carry quilting cotton, they focus more on garment fabrics. We skipped that store on this trip. Gone Quilting is on the northeast side of town just off I-90. I picked up some half-yard cuts of gingham in orange, pink, and green for binding. I also bought a gorgeous rooster panel. The panel is going to be a quick project on the Q20 to get me back into the machine quilting groove, and then it will get hung over the kitchen table. I have a rod there and rotate wallhangings in and out of that spot. The panel came with some smaller pieces on the sides that will become either potholders or placemats.

I also found some turquoise gingham at Vicki’s Quilts Down Under:

Interestingly, the turquoise gingham is printed diagonally, which means I can cut it on the straight of grain but it will look like I cut it on the bias.

I could have done a fair bit of damage at Vicki’s in the knits section, but I have to sew up what I have on hand before I buy any more.

No trip to Missoula would be complete without a stop at the Amish store. Robin got a package of regular cheddar cheese curds and I bought one of white cheddar curds and we did a taste comparison on the way home.

Our route on this trip took us through the section of forest near the south end of Flathead Lake that burned this summer. I’ve seen burned-over areas before, but not that close, and not ones where houses were lost. I am amazed that no one died in that fire. It was very sobering.

All in all, we had a lovely day. I said to the husband when I got home that I would love to get a group of quilting friends together for a trip to Missoula or Spokane. We could rent a Sprinter van and an Airbnb for the weekend and have a great time.

Prepping for the Next Project

Yesterday was a day of slicing and dicing, washing, pressing, and prep work. I auditioned a few more fabrics for the corner pieces in that navy/purple/teal block with no success. The quilt wants that sparkle fabric. I do not argue with quilts—sparkle fabric it is. All of the fabric for those blocks has been cut and put next to the machine for the next piecing session.

I love these Ikea bins. They come in two sizes and I use both. The larger ones are perfect for stacking fabrics for a project, and the smaller ones hold piecing-in-progress.

I went with a cream Grunge for the background, but lighter than the one I used for the test block. I rather liked the way the background looked in the mistake quilt, with the variations between white and cream, and this lets me re-create that look with one fabric.

And I played around with an idea for that gray and orange group of fabrics that I pulled last week. I cut one 2-1/2” strip off each piece of fabric and made some of these blocks, which finish at 6”:

This is miles out of my color comfort zone, but I had great fun making these. They are the quilt block equivalent of potato chips. The background is another color of Grunge. I haven’t decided on a setting yet. This is how they look on point:

I will put some kind of sashing (not white) between the blocks. And I might go with a slightly lighter background Grunge (if I can find one) for more contrast, although I am okay with this one. I have noticed that many quilt designers aren’t as obsessed with contrast as I am, so I am trying to relax a bit.

These blocks are pieced with partial seams, which—along with Y-seams—fall into that category of “These are hard!” that grinds my gears. I hate to hear that used regarding quilt blocks (and knitting, and lots of other things). Neither of those techniques is what I would call difficult. A bit fiddly, maybe, but by the third one of these blocks, I was sailing along.

Will I make a whole quilt? I am not sure. I could scratch this itch with a wallhanging or table runner. And I am working on finding balance with my fabric cutting. I deliberately limited myself to one 2-1/2” wide strip from each fabric until I decide how far I want to go with this idea. With this many fabrics, I had quite a bit to work from. I could make another half dozen blocks just with what I’ve cut so far.

I quilted the rest of the hot pads, trimmed them, and set them aside for binding. I also prepped the fabric for my friend’s pillow shams. I’m going to try to get those done this weekend, but I need to do some math, first, before I do any cutting.

Ali’s little guy was here for a few hours on Monday. He and Ali recently went to visit family in Minnesota. They also went to a museum dedicated to the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. He recited the whole story of that ill-fated voyage—and sang me the Gordon Lightfoot song—and then we watched a Discovery Channel documentary about it on YouTube. YouTube now thinks that I want to know all about Great Lakes shipwrecks. I watched a few more documentaries yesterday while I was sewing. I did grow up on Lake Erie, so I have more than a passing interest in this type of stuff.

In weather news, we had snow flurries yesterday. I am sure the higher elevations got some significant snowfall. I know that not everyone shares my desires for a cold, snowy winter—won’t those California transplants be surprised?—but I am not unhappy about this. I am also glad I got my snow tires on last week.

Got Some Grunge

I spent most of the day in town yesterday, starting with a morning visit to my naturopath. This was one of my twice-yearly thyroid check/general wellness visits. All of my numbers are good and he is happy with where I’m at. Yay. I also had him order a covid antibody test so we could see where I am at in terms of immunity. I think that’s just good information to have.

I left his office and headed for the quilt store. I went to the quilt store north of town, first, because I haven’t been there in a while. They tend to be heavier on Moda fabrics and I knew they had expanded their line of Grunge recently. Grunge is a fabric line that came out a few years ago and has been a huge hit, especially with quilters who prefer more modern designs. It’s what’s known as a “blender,” meaning that it pairs well with other fabrics and can be used in lots of different ways in a quilt. The design of the fabric is basic, with one base color and one or two other colors in random brushtrokes:

I picked up a couple of one-yard cuts to have in the stash, finished the bolt of the metallic gold Grunge (great for Christmas projects), and chose a few fat quarters of other colors to see if they would be suitable for future quilt designs. I love that this store has fat quarters—or will cut them for you—because it’s an inexpensive and useful way to test out fabrics.

The rest of the day was spent running errands until it was time to go to ruler class at the other quilt store at 3 pm. I pulled into the parking lot a bit surprised to see how empty it was. Sure enough, class had been cancelled because the teacher was sick. Unfortunately, the only way to know this is to show up and find out that class has been cancelled. The store doesn’t call students. Had I known, I could have concluded my errands earlier and gone home. Oh, well.

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Elysian and WS came over the other day and I had him try on the T-shirt I made for him. I made a size 8, and while he said it fit and was comfortable, I think the next one is going to be a size or two bigger so he has room to grow into it. This is the Oliver + S School Bus T-Shirt pattern and it’s one I am planning on using in a class in January.

I hemmed the shirt yesterday morning. I also quilted a few casserole hot pads. My system of having things cut and ready to go is working really well. Rather than fritter away time on social media before leaving for town, I grabbed the stack of assembled hot pads and ran them through the Janome. (I do plan to quilt some of them on the Q20, but the Janome was already set up.) Now I have a stack of hot pads quilted and trimmed and waiting to be bound. Yes, I am still firmly part of that cult of efficiency, but I am happy there.

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One of the ladies in the craft co-op called me on Monday to see if I would be willing to alter a dress for her. I’ve done some minor alterations, but this is a mother-of-the-bride dress and I do not feel competent to attempt something like that. I declined.

Last night, I got a call from someone looking for an accompanist for a Christmas program. I hesitate to agree to things like this, especially because this person didn’t have a lot of information about who I would be accompanying or what music I would be playing (other than Christmas carols). I said to the husband that it would be like someone trying to get him to commit to building a house without seeing the plans first.

I didn’t say no, but I said I needed more information as soon as I could get it. The husband’s only comment was, “The road to hell, Janet . . . “

I don’t mind helping out—and this Christmas program is to be a fundraiser for a local community organization—but the older I get, the more wary I am of being taken advantage of. The Lutheran church pays me the going market rate for church pianists and I appreciate that, but I am also keenly aware that the majority of people assume that playing the piano is easy. If it’s so easy, why are accompanists in such high demand? I don’t practice as much in the summer, but over the winter, I try to play for at least half an hour every day. I’ve been working on some new prelude music—I buy my own music, too—because I get tired of playing the same pieces over and over.

My friend and mentor, Catherine, used to tell me, “It’s hard work to make it look easy.”

That applies to a lot of areas of life, I think.

That Perfect Fabric

Some of you might recognize this block:

This is a block featured in the ill-fated green and purple quilt—the quilt in which I used Kona White for the background, but accidentally grabbed some Kona Snow that was sitting on my cutting table and incorporated it into the quilt. And then I didn’t notice my mistake until the quilt was quilted, bound, and hanging up for a photo. That one definitely qualifies as a mistake. I can’t pass it off as a design element.

Remaking that quilt has been on the to-do list. I don’t want to do purple and green again. That was fine back in the spring, but now I find myself gravitating toward other colorways. I’m out of all of those green and purple fabrics anyway.

Stash diving yielded up that center unit fabric. Navy blue must be resonating with me right now. The purply-blue herringbone in the large triangles and the navy blue polka dots were obvious choices. I don’t, as a rule, like white for backgrounds, and even less so now since messing up that other quilt. The center print has tiny cream-colored flowers in it. I think perhaps a nice low-volume cream fabric would be good for a background. For the test block, I grabbed this hunk of cream Moda Grunge out of the scrap basket. I like the idea, but I am not sure Grunge is the right choice. Robin Pickens’ Thatched collection might work.

Those little corner squares are giving me fits. I want a fabric there to pull that bit of light turquoise out of the center block (the cluster of three flowers on the right). I have a lot of turquoise fabrics in my stash. In fact, I would say that’s the most popular color in my stash. I have two bins of turquoise ranging from teal to peacock. You would think I could find the right color. Nope. If the fabric was the right color, it was too dark, or the wrong kind of print, or I didn’t have enough of it. The fabric you see in the block above is close—and has blue flowers printed on it that echo the center fabric nicely—but I’d like something a bit more saturated.

I took everything even remotely suitable out of my stash and held it to that center print. Sometimes the color you think you’re looking for isn’t the color that actually works.

And then I found this:

This is perfect. It’s the perfect shade, the perfect saturation, and it has tiny teal and blue accents on it.

It also has sparkles.

Sigh. Do I put a sparkly fabric in this quilt? These sparkles seem integral to the fabric, unlike glitter that comes off in the wash. (The husband does not want to go to work looking like a Disney princess.) Or do I spends hours in the fabric store hoping to find something similar sans sparkles? Should I stick with the lighter fabric that’s in the test block?

I spent three hours messing around with one test block yesterday afternoon, and 99% of that time was spent considering fabrics. I already know how to make the block.

I will let this marinate a bit, although I want to make a decision soon. I have a few other projects to keep me busy in the meantime.

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For my Kalispell peeps, I need to let you know that the Mennonite Church has decided not to hold the fair trade sale again this year. We will, however, be promoting Ten Thousand Villages on our church’s social media pages so that if you want to order items for Christmas, you can. We may also have some products that can be purchased and picked up at the church. I’ll try to remember to put those links in my blog posts as appropriate.

Knocking Them Out

The picnic quilt top is done except for a border:

I’ll look for some border fabric this week when Robin and I go to Missoula.

I don’t like the Kona Navy that most of the stores carry. It has a greenish tint to it. This color is called Midnight and it’s a much truer blue. (I cannot get a good photo because of the light in the cutting, room, though.) Unfortunately, this length of fabric met with a mishap in the washing machine:

This happened to a couple of pieces of fabric before I finally figured out what was going on. The washer is a Speed Queen Heavy Duty and I love it. This is our third washing machine in 30 years. Washing the husband’s clothes shortens the lifespan of most machines significantly. I asked him if perhaps oil was leaking from the washer into the drum, but he said he didn’t think that was possible. The only other explanation is that the diesel oil that he sprays onto the forms so they will release from the concrete after the pour—and which he gets on his clothes—was sticking around and re-circulating through the wash. I now wash his clothes on heavy duty with the extra rinse cycle, then wash them a second time, then run a cycle with no clothes, then wash a load of something like towels before I will wash anything else. Yes, it’s wasteful, but so is throwing out oil-stained fabric that I can’t use.

[We really need a commercial washing machine just for his clothes but we don’t have the space for it.]

The husband and I went on date night last night to Blaine Creek Grill. On the way there, I was lamenting the fact that I don’t have staff, LOL. I watch a lot of Fat Quarter Shop and Missouri Star Quilt Company videos while I am sewing and marvel at how much they get done. Jenny often comments that each quilt is made three times (!)—once as a prototype, once to check the pattern, and finally in a fabric line that is current when the pattern is released.

The funny thing is that it has been so long since I worked on this quilt that I forgot that I had also made a version in red and green, for Christmas:

You get a photo on the floor, because the husband is still sleeping and I can’t put this up on the design wall.

This one is 3 blocks by 3 blocks. FWIW, I like the darker color on the outside of the stars, as in this version. This one is not scrappy. Each of the blocks has the same fabric.

I think I have scratched the itch with this block. I don’t want to make any more of them. It is one of those blocks, though, that lends itself well to experimenting with color placement.

I’ve got five tops and a few smaller items in the queue to be quilted, so I am going to need to oil the Q20 and get to work. Ruler Club also starts up again this week, on Tuesday. We’re doing the Amanda Murphy Lollipop rulers. This club comes with a practice panel, and I need to baste that together with batting and a backing soon.

Someone should also start working on patterns again. See comment about needing staff.

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The husband blew out the water line to the greenhouse yesterday and shut it off. The indoor lettuce-growing operation is all set up in the basement. It is time to plant seedlings and get that system up and running so we have fresh greens this winter.

Keeping the Ideas Under Control

I know why “startitis” is such a common problem among makers, because I am fighting a bad case of it myself. I have a half-finished quilt up on my design wall. The block is called “Providence” and it’s based on a 5 x 5 grid—25 units total—but some of the units are made up of even smaller units.

I cut a whole bunch of fabric thinking I would make a much larger quilt. (Also, it is very easy to get carried away with that Studio cutter.) I’m doing a controlled scrappy layout, so even though the colors of each block are similar, the fabrics differ. Great idea in theory, nearly impossible to keep organized in practice. I have to pull all the pieces for each block before I start making it so that I know I have enough of each fabric. I can chain piece, but only one block at a time. This might have been better done a la Bonnie Hunter, letting the units fall where they may.

I had to put quilting aside last spring when gardening season ramped up. At that time, I had completed eleven 10” blocks. I had chosen a red, white, and blue colorway. I don’t usually make holiday-themed quilts, but it seemed like everyone was doing Fourth of July quilt projects on YouTube. I succumbed.

Did I get it done in time for Independence Day? No, I did not. And now it is October and I want to be working on fall and Christmas stuff. However, I cannot stand to have half-finished projects lying around; hence, the rule that I cannot start anything new until I clear out the queue. I got a good start when I finished putting those tumblers together the other day, so I pulled out the Providence blocks and stuck them back up on the wall.

Abandoning a project at the mid-point—even temporarily—is a bad idea. When it gets that far, the sunk costs of labor and materials are such that I feel guilty not finishing it. Enough time has passed, though, that I’ve forgotten what I was doing, so I had to spend an hour or so finding the materials and instructions and familiarizing myself with the steps required to make a block. At least I am smart enough now to put each project in its own bin.

This is also the point in the process where what is up on the wall doesn’t look anything like the finished vision in my head, so doubts about that vision abound. This quilt will have a dark sashing to set off the blocks. However, my design wall is a white flannel sheet. The blocks look weird on that white background. I have to keep pulling up the image in EQ8 to reassure myself that I know what I am doing.

I will get this done. I tied myself to my sewing chair yesterday and knocked out three more blocks. I have two to go. The idea has been pared back; instead of a larger quilt, I will finish sixteen blocks and call it good. With the sashing and cornerstones and, likely, a border, the finished quilt will still be a respectable size. (Think picnic quilt.)

Of course, my brain is in cahoots with my fabric stash and is churning out ideas faster than I can write them down. I picked up a remnant on my travels last week—it’s the top print in this pile—and before I knew it, these other fabrics had jumped out to join it.

I normally gravitate toward bright, saturated colors, but I am obsessed with this combination, and it’s a weird one for sure.

I’ve been playing around in EQ8, trying to come up with a design for these fabrics. I haven’t succeeded yet, but in the process, I knocked out two other quilt designs that are clamoring to be made up. Go figure.

I’ve got a couple of commission projects that are next up after I finish the red, white, and blue quilt. My neighbor asked if I would make two pillow shams for her. I am going to visit with her this morning about a few details and then get them done. My college roommate, Marcia, wrote me last month and asked if I could finish a Sunbonnet Sue quilt for her. Her grandmother had started it when Marcia was a child. All the squares are appliquéd; they just need to be assembled. She has a picture of a similar quilt that belongs to her cousin, so I have an idea of how I want to finish it. And the other day, I got an e-mail from someone I’ve done work for in the past, asking if I could make her a queen-sized quilt. I said I was booked up until Christmas, but she’s willing to wait. I haven’t said yes yet.

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My first batch of fire cider steeped for six weeks, so I strained it the other day and tasted it. It is potent for sure. I am going to dig up more horseradish today and make another batch. The dreaded S-word is in the forecast for this week. I’m not dreading it—I got my snow tires put on the other day so I am all ready—but some of the California transplants might be a bit surprised.

Bye, Bye Tomatoes

All of the frozen tomatoes have been cooked down into sauce, save for some that I left frozen to use when I make stock. Seeds from the Indigo Rose tomatoes that Elysian brought over are fermenting.

I am trying to get used to seeing tomatoes with green insides.

The tomato seeds that I fermented and dried a few weeks ago were put into labelled envelopes for next spring. Thus endeth this year’s tomato harvest. Hallelujah.

I called the processor the other day about the pigs. We were on the schedule for next Monday, but this year’s batch of pigs has been slow to put on weight. Our pigs have always been up around 300 pounds when we take them in. This group is currently about 200 pounds each and the processor suggested we wait to bring them if we could. We’re not the only ones with underweight pigs; about half of the kids raising 4-H pigs this summer had animals that didn’t make weight in time for the fair. Many of us get weaners from the same supplier, so perhaps it’s a supply issue. Or the excessive heat this summer? Who knows.

In any case, after checking with the husband, I moved the processing date to mid-December. This is going to create extra work for him—which he says he will just deal with—because we have a pig shelter but not a barn. The pigs won’t mind the cold or even some snow, but the water lines will eventually freeze. However, the pigs should all be at weight by then. We don’t want to sell underweight pigs to our customers.

Yesterday was a sewing day for me. We were up early because the husband was pouring concrete at 8 am, so I had a head start. I have a rule that I cannot start anything new until I get stuff from last spring off the list. This is a tumbler quilt from scraps:

Having that Studio die cutter is both a blessing and a curse. It really speeds up fabric cutting, but it really speeds up fabric cutting. I have a whole plastic bin full of these 4-1/2” tumblers. Tumblers are good mindless piecing.

This is one of those “controlled scrappy” situations—my first attempt at a tumbler quilt was totally scrappy and I hated the way it looked. One day last spring, I pulled out all the blues and yellows from the bin and made myself a rule: All of the turquoise and yellow tumblers had to be first sewn to a blue (mostly navy) tumbler. The blue tumblers are either Kona or a blue print that reads as a solid.

That worked. The “solids” add some stability to what otherwise would be an incoherent mess of prints and colors, but there is enough diversity within the solid colors to keep the quilt from being boring. I had a few moments of doubt along the way, but as I got the tumbler pairs sewn into rows and put them up on the design wall, I liked the layout more and more.

The quilt currently measures 48” x 72”. I will trim the side edges even and add a border and this will be a nice twin-size quilt.

I am going to have to spend some time soon getting scraps under control, or else clone myself into a second version that sews nothing but scrap quilts. The Accuquilt cutter makes short work of all my scraps, but now I’ve got a bin of charm squares, a bin of 2-1/2” squares, and a bin of tumblers, not to mention all the strips. And the hexies. I also have two big bags of fabric pieces that need to be cut into sizes that fit into one of those categories.

I’m getting there, though. Slowly but surely, the sewing room is getting organized into stacks of projects. Each stack will get put next to the appropriate machine. Every time I finish some current UFO (unfinished object), I will treat myself by starting something else. After I got this tumbler top put together, I cut out enough supplies for some hot pads and potholders. And created more scraps, LOL.

Quilt Report

I saw TS yesterday morning and got a report from the quilt auction. Overall attendance—which they determine by a count of the cars coming into the parking lot—was down at this year’s relief sale by about 30%. Total revenue was down by about the same amount, but still close to $100,000. The four quilts that I took brought in almost $1000, which is more than I had hoped for considering three of them were scrap quilts. I am pleased by that. The high-selling quilt was one that TS and Holly had purchased from Amish quilters here in Montana and donated to the sale (it was hand quilted).

TS suggested that Holly and I collaborate on a couple of quilts for next year’s auction; she’ll piece them and I’ll quilt them on the Q20. Debbie, the quilt sale coordinator, asked me if I longarmed for other people. Apparently, my machine quilting is better than I think it is. The answer to that question was a resounding, “No” as I don’t need any more work, but I appreciated that she asked. She also asked me if I got a longarm machine to replace Margaret, but I assured her that nothing could replace Margaret. We missed having her at the sale with us. She used to come along and cook sausage samples, and she and I did a couple of quilts together for the auction.

Our Mennonite Women group also sent over some supplies to be made into school kits, and I took the last of the tied comforters that we had done for MCC’s 100th anniversary celebration in 2020. Our comforter-tying party was all the way back in January 2020, just before the pandemic started. How long ago that seems now.

The lady who makes and sells wind chimes at the sale was there again this year, so I bought another one to add to my collection. I love being surrounded by music.

I chose this one because it was kind of quirky. I am running out of room, though. The husband may have to add some hooks to the porch rafters for me.

I spent yesterday catching up on paperwork and getting a blood test ahead of my visit with my naturopath next week. The only work I did in my sewing room was to iron all the fabric I bought—I prewash everything—and organize some supplies. I’ve also got the last of the tomatoes cooking down for sauce because I need to clean out the freezers. I decided to do sauce instead of more salsa in the interest of saving some time.

When I got home Saturday, a check from the co-op sale was waiting for me in the stack of mail. I did much better than I expected to given that it was my first sale. Accompanying the check was a spreadsheet report listing what sold and for how much, and that will be a big help in pricing items for next year.

I’ve been kicking around the idea of getting the new Janome 3000 coverstitch machine. I have the Janome 1000cpx coverstitch and I’ve complained about the fact that I had to do a lot of tinkering to get it to work properly. Janome rushed those early models to market. Mine does what I need it to do now that I have it adjusted, but it would be nice to have a machine that isn’t such a diva. I’ve looked at some other models, including the Bernina. However, the new Janome machine is getting rave reviews in the coverstitch groups I belong to. It appears that Janome took all the (overwhelmingly negative) feedback from their first three models and came up with the machine they should have released in the first place.

The proceeds from the co-op sale cover more than half the cost of the Janome 3000. The husband—who has never met a tool he didn’t like, couldn’t use, or didn’t want and thus is absolutely no help in reining me in—asked me if I had ordered one yet. My friend Robin and I are planning a trip to Missoula soon and I would like to visit the Janome dealer there, first, and try one out. (I won’t go to the Janome dealer here in Kalispell.) I’ll try the 3000 and see if it’s something I need or just nice to have.