We Ate and We Laughed But We Didn't Sew

Yesterday was our craft co-op holiday potluck. I only had to drive up the road to Arlene’s house, which was good because it snowed all day. I didn’t feel like going any further. Sixteen of us gathered for an afternoon of fun.

The table was set in a fall theme—Arlene joked that we would have Thanksgiving first, then change the table to Christmas for dessert.

We had a business meeting followed by an amazing potluck lunch. I took a simple egg bake with eggs and our sausage. Sarah, who (like me) does not do gluten, brought lasagna with thin slices of turkey as the “noodles.” I thought that was brilliant and plan to try that soon.

[Gluten doesn’t kill me, but it does make me uncomfortable, so I have to have a really good reason to eat it. Potlucks are tricky sometimes. I usually take something I know I can eat.]

We had a gift exchange and I got the bag Susan had brought. It contained dried pears (yum), homemade raspberry jam, this lovely blue tea towel—which at first I thought she had purchased, but which she appliquéd herself—and a tin of ginger snaps from Trader Joes. (The husband is enjoying those.) Sarah brought a bar of soap for each of us, and the “napkins” at each plate were dishcloths made by Arlene.

The husband saw that little mug rug and said, “Did they make that just for you?”

I so enjoy this group.

Susan and I had a quick brainstorming session after lunch because I volunteered to head up the plant sale this coming spring to raise money for the Mountain Brook Homestead Foundation. That was Elysian’s brainchild from last spring and it was so successful that they would like to do it again. Because a lot of what they sold started in my greenhouse—and will again in 2022—I said I would be in charge. Susan will help me. And I think there will be another garden tour. My garden will look much nicer this year.

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I attended an online meeting last night hosted by the Forest Service. The area across the road from us is a combination of state and national forest land that is used for hiking, camping, skiing, and other activities. A few months ago, we were notified of a “collaboration project” to move forward with making the national forest land across the road a “focused recreation area.”

It sounds as if this process started even before we moved here. I was unaware of that until this meeting, and we’ve owned this property since 1994. Thankfully, there are some people in the neighborhood who were part of that earlier process 30 years ago and know some of the history. They were also in attendance at this meeting.

I am not opposed to people using public lands. That’s why they are called public lands. What those of us who live here do NOT want to have happen is for those areas to be overrun. We already have enough traffic on our road as it is. There is a buffer of state land between us and the designated forest land, but it is possible that access to that area would be from the road that currently runs through state land. We also don’t want the area opened to motorized vehicle access.

The next meeting is in February. We will have to see what happens. I plan to continue to participate in the process.

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I spent an hour rearranging freezers Wednesday afternoon. The big freezer in the garage is empty and ready to be defrosted. The Christmas ham has been located. What’s left of last year’s sausage has been moved to the freezer in the laundry room to be used up. I’ve got a roaster full of chicken stock simmering and I’ll can it tomorrow. I’m going to put my last couple of tops together today (including my Christmas top) and organize the other bedrooms so they are ready for guests next week.

Hurdles on the Way

It has been a bumpy couple of days, which is why the blog posts have been few and far between. I am hoping things smooth out a bit now.

The pigs were scheduled to go to the processor yesterday. Last week, the husband asked me to look at his back, and I discovered that he had broken out in shingles. I’ve had shingles and know how painful they can be, but mine were limited to a small patch about 3” across on my lower back. His spread from the middle of his back around to the front. He was past the window for antivirals at that point—and he wasn’t going to stop working long enough to go to the doctor, anyway—so he toughed his way through them. I could tell he was hurting, though, because he didn’t do much this past weekend beyond getting the trailer set up for loading pigs.

Loading pigs is an arduous process. The husband can’t back the trailer into the pasture; he has to back it close to the gate, then rig up a chute from the gate to the back of the trailer. He puts their food and water inside the trailer and closes off the pig palace. The pigs know, though, that to get to the trailer, they have to walk past the (no-longer-electrified) electric fence, and they are reluctant to believe they won’t get shocked. They also don’t like it when their feet leave the ground. Getting them to step up onto an unfamiliar surface takes some coaxing. And of course, the ground where the chute is located is virgin soil that they haven’t plowed up yet, so they have to stop every so often and dig for truffles. A flock of turkeys came to see what was happening.

It’s a process. Every year, it takes most of the day before to get them into the trailer.

I came home from town Monday with several bags of marshmallows, which are the pigs’ favorite treat and useful for getting 1800 pounds of pork moving in the desired direction. The husband was close to getting them into the trailer when the neighbors stopped by to say goodbye to them. These neighbors have been feeding the pigs scraps all summer—which we appreciate—but as soon as the pigs saw them, they thought the neighbors were bringing them scraps and took off to greet them. At that point, there was no getting them back on track. It was getting dark and starting to snow. And we had run out of marshmallows.

Neither of us slept much Monday night. The husband was in pain and worried about loading the pigs. Getting a date with a processor is incredibly difficult, and I had assured this one that we would be there first thing Tuesday morning. We ran through various scenarios about what we would do if we had to cancel.

I called our friend Smokey in the morning. Thank goodness for Smokey. He has extensive livestock experience and came right over. Between him, the husband, and our employees, they were able to coax the first five pigs into the trailer. A stubborn sixth one took a bit of manhandling, but not much. While they were busy, I called the processor to let him know what was going on. He knew the roads were icy and said we didn’t have to rush.

We were at the processor and unloaded by about 11 am and home by 1:30 pm. I grabbed some lunch, changed clothes, and then headed back into town for Ruler Club at the quilt store. After dinner, the husband parked himself in his recliner—the one place where he has been able to sleep comfortably—and I curled up on the couch under a quilt. We both went to sleep. DD#2’s plane was scheduled to arrive from Seattle at midnight. Normally, he would go to get her, but I wanted him to get some sleep. I set my alarm for 11 pm, went and picked her up, and went back to bed.

We’re both dragging a bit this morning, but the big hurdle of getting pigs to the processor is behind us. With all the issues we had with this year’s batch, I am not sure either of us is eager to commit to raising them next year. We’ll see. In any case, Smokey is getting a big gift of ham and bacon for all his help.

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I probably won’t do much sewing for the next couple of weeks beyond finishing the tops I’ve already cut up. I have more cleaning to do. The craft co-op Christmas potluck is tomorrow. I have to defrost a freezer.

One of the members of the Facebook Necchi sewing machines group shared this video this week. Apparently, the old Necchi sewing machine factory in Pavia, Italy, is scheduled to undergo transformation into a shopping area. They plan to name it “Supernova” as a nod to Necchi’s most famous machine. The video is in Italian (I am going to see if DD#2 can translate), but the shots of the old factory are fascinating.

Wardrobe Enhancement

Yesterday was all about making myself some tops. The stack of knit fabric looks good on the shelf, but it looks even nicer in my closet.

I cut out my Christmas top first, but I haven’t put it together yet. It’s a stretch velvet and I’ll have to sew it with 90/14 needles. I have 80/12 needles in the serger and the coverstitch. In the interest of efficiency, I put the lighter knits at the front of the line. I also put a gray thread in the loopers for everything and changed only the needle threads as needed.

I cut my knits with a rotary cutter—the cutting is much more accurate that way and the fabric doesn’t slide around as much. This is the tunic pattern I cribbed off a favorite Liz Claiborne top.

These tops aren’t complicated. I serge the shoulders together, lay the body flat on the cutting table and pin in the sleeves (I actually use mini Wonder Clips because pins and sergers don’t mix), set in the sleeves, serge the side/sleeve seam, make the turtleneck, and set that in. The hems will get done in one fell swoop on the coverstitch later.

I made two yesterday. Robin might recognize the blue/yellow/purple fabric as I bought it when we were in Missoula.

That mauve-y print is from Girl Charlee Fabrics. I’ve ordered quite a few cuts from them and been happy with what I got, although that one surprised me a bit. It was definitely more of a pink color on my monitor. When I opened it here, I thought, “Oh, I can’t wear that color,” but the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. DD#2 can tell me if I look like death warmed over when I have it on. I can’t wear yellows or oranges, but I love prints that have bits of those colors in them.

I have a third top cut out but not assembled, plus the Christmas top. I’d like to get a few more cut out before I have to put the cutting table away. It’s in DD#2’s room and she’ll be sleeping there this week.

Is it weird to have a closet full of the same style top in different fabrics? Maybe, but I’ve reached the age where I care more about comfort than style. Around here, especially, I don’t think the average person pays that much attention to what other people are wearing. These tops fit me well and that turtleneck keeps my neck warm when it’s cold out. 

These are all double-brushed poly knits. I am planning to make some Nancy Raglans out of the stack of French terry. And I’d like to make a long-sleeve version of the knot-front top I cribbed off yet another Liz Claiborne top over the summer.

[Liz Claiborne is the only brand I could buy without having to try on, which is why my closet is full of it. I knew I could pull my size off the rack and it would fit. I haven’t bought as much in recent years because the quality went down noticeably when JC Penney started carrying it and now most of the tops are too short on me. When I was in Seattle, though, I picked up a few well-made tunic-length tops at the store there, which gives me hope that maybe the brand will recover. In the meantime, I’ll just draft patterns off the ones I like.]

I’ve also got a Burda pattern for a cowl-neck/hoodie style top that I’d like to try. Getting through my stack of knit fabric should keep me busy for a while.

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I’ve developed an obsession with documentaries about Mount Everest. I found a YouTube channel with just about every documentary made, dating all the way back to the early 1970s. The older ones are fascinating to watch. (Anyone remember “Turning Point” with Forrest Sawyer?) Some of the British documentaries are loaded with colonial attitudes toward the sherpas, sadly, which makes them harder to watch. Part of what is fueling this obsession is an attempt to understand the psychology of people who 1) voluntarily put their lives at risk like that and 2) survive when the odds are against them. (I said to the husband that I don’t need to go looking for life-threatening situations because the universe is happy to serve them up to me without me even asking.) I am not sure I am getting any answers to my questions, but the documentaries are good background entertainment when I am sewing.

Chicken Chimes

At the craft show Robin and I attended last month, one of the vendors was selling some unique wind chimes. I almost bought one to add to my collection, but decided against it as I was supposed to be buying Christmas gifts for other people.

Unbeknownst to me, Robin went back later and bought it for me for my birthday. It’s a rooster with three chicks:

I took most of my wind chimes down to put my winter lights up on the porch. In the spring, I’ll hang this from one of the hooks so it can add to the music. What a lovely gift!

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I outsmarted myself. When my friend asked to buy two of my canvas grocery bags, I told her I was sure I had some at least partially put together somewhere. I did indeed find the pieces to several bags in one storage bin—which became the bags in yesterday’s blog post—but yesterday afternoon, while looking for something in another room, I found two COMPLETED bags and one that just needs the handles made and the lining dropped in.

[First item on the to-do list in January is a complete reorganization and consolidation of the sewing spaces.]

I’ll take both sets of completed bags to church and let her choose the one she prefers. The other two will then be up for grabs if anyone needs to buy a last-minute Christmas gift.

I knocked out two kids’ T-shirts yesterday, one for a boy:

And one for a girl:

The only difference is in the sleeves. Both are size 12—the largest in the Oliver + S School Bus T-Shirt pattern—but the girl version has cap sleeves. (And oh, were they a pain!) The fabrics are Joanns remnants. I briefly kicked around the idea of using that bug fabric for a shirt for myself, but I didn’t have quite enough.

I hemmed these on the old coverstitch rather than unbox and try to figure out the new one. I know the old machine and its quirks, and I was reminded again why I decided to replace it. It’s so temperamental. Oh well, these tops are done and I’ll drop them off at the store on Monday.

I didn’t get the other tops cut out, so that project has been moved to today. I am watching all this weird weather and waiting to see what comes our way from Seattle. I follow the Snoqualmie Pass Twitter account, and last night they noted that officers had given out almost a dozen citations for chain violations (= trying to drive over the pass without them and most likely planting the car in a snowbank) in the space of two hours. Some people don’t have the sense God gave a chicken, which isn’t much.

Bags and Shirts

Our co-op meeting was fun yesterday—we had a big group and the discussion was lively. I got to catch up with Sarah, who brings a portable electric spinning machine with her and spins yarn. Robin made a cute table runner with fussy-cut gnome fabric. I took my finished Little Poppins bag for show and tell and sat and knocked out a few more hexies. I’m going to have to do something with all of these hexies soon.

My commission sewing is finished for the year. I was able to get the second of two reuseable grocery bags made yesterday morning before heading to co-op. This was an order from a friend at church. She showed up after church one day holding the bags I had made for her. She likes her so much that she asked if I would make a few more for her to give as a Christmas gift.

I made a whole slew of these bags several years ago—enough that I had the process down to an assembly line. I’ve got a couple, my kids have some, and I showered a bunch of my friends with them. And then stores stopped letting people bring their own bags because of the pandemic. I quit making them, although I still had parts for some bags in the stash. These are 10 oz duck canvas from Joanns with a quilt cotton lining. They are nice and sturdy.

I still have plenty of duck canvas and could make more of these, but they are down on the list. I need to do some serious project prioritizing for 2022.

Today’s task is to cut out a bunch of tops. I’m teaching a three-part class in January, February, and March at the quilt store where I have been teaching serger classes. I feel like I am still trying to find my footing there. What a store wants (or thinks it wants) and what makes a good class aren’t necessarily the same things. I know there is a lot of interest in me teaching a leggings class, but after my experience last summer when people showed up for class not having even unboxed their sergers, offering a class like that is courting disaster. I could see half a dozen students showing up with unboxed sergers, expecting to take home a pair of leggings that fits them perfectly.

Instead, I suggested a T-shirt class where we make a kid’s T-shirt. My rationale is that a kid’s T-shirt is going to be simple to trace, cut out, and assemble, giving students the experience of working with knits without being overwhelming. I expect to spend a fair bit of time on fabric selection, although I asked the store to order a bolt of Laguna Cotton and an Oliver + S pattern so that all the students come with the same materials. However, I know—I know—that there will be people who don’t look at the supply list and don’t come with what they need, and I anticipate having to explain why a slinky rayon/spandex fabric from Joanns probably won’t make a good kid’s T-shirt.

The woman in charge of organizing classes asked why I wouldn’t teach a class on making a T-shirt for the student taking the class. She said, “Don’t you think it would be better for each person to go home with something they themselves could use?” That’s a legitimate question. However, I differentiate between teaching a technique class and teaching a fitting class, and I don’t want to marry the two. I’ve left enough room in the class outline that if I get one or two really ambitious students who are comfortable with their sergers and want to try making themselves a T-shirt, we can do that. The last thing I want, though, is to have to teach fitting and fitting adjustments at the same time that I am trying to teach serger techniques for sewing with knits. Fitting (or fitting and pattern drafting) is a huge topic and needs to be its own class. I would rather plan a simpler class and have additional ideas in my back pocket to pull out as needed than plan an ambitious class that leaves students frustrated.

I’ve found that it’s also impossible to schedule a class at a time that makes everyone happy. The Jan-Feb-Mar classes are on Monday afternoons, because no one wants to drive at night in the winter (including me). However, that eliminates everyone who works during the day.

We’ll see what happens. I’m going to make up a couple of T-shirts this weekend that the store can use as display samples.

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I got my indoor lettuce-growing operation underway. This is a popular topic in the homesteading group and there are plenty of podcasts and YouTube videos about how to set one up. I started with a simple system but I think I am going to have to modify it. (Thus, I am not a good person to ask for advice.)

Now that I see it in action, I can see what I want to change and what kind of a system might be better. This is part of not being able to visualize things ahead of time. Once I get the system dialed in, though, I expect that we’ll be able to grow plenty of lettuce in the basement to keep us in salads all winter.

Christmas Preps

I am having a small anxiety attack over where I am going to put people when they come to visit. Even though we’ve kept beds in all the bedrooms, those rooms are also full of sewing stuff. I am trying very hard to clear out some projects before I have to put everything away. I am also making a plan of attack for what needs to go where. I suspect some stuff, like the Accuquilt cutters and dies, will have to get moved to the yarn room in the basement for the duration. DD#2 arrives next Tuesday and she needs a good spot to set up her home office. I put her on the table with the Q20 last time, and that worked well, but what do I do with the six basted quilts that are stacked up there? (Put them on the couch in the basement, probably.) I also need to have enough stuff available to work on so that I am not sitting around with nothing to do. Oh, the horror of having to sit with nothing to do, LOL.

I’ll get it figured out. I made two weighted blanket covers yesterday afternoon and will deliver them this morning, so that’s nine yards of fabric no longer sitting on my cutting table. Grocery bags are up next. I still have to cut out my Christmas top and a sample T-shirt for my January serger class and make those. I will probably finish them on the Janome 1000cpx coverstitch and wait to unbox the new one until after Christmas. No sense adding a new variable to the mix. The closets will be filled. I’d like to put up some extra shelving in DD#2’s room, but the husband is rather stressed out at the moment and I hate to ask him to add another job to the list.

[The check engine light has not come back on and the computer is not throwing any more EGR codes, but I am still getting the drive train malfunction message. It comes on and goes off—and it did that all the way to Seattle and back—so I don’t think it’s more than a minor issue. The car is running fine. The Diva and I hauled eight bags of pig feed and did a Costco run yesterday.]

The concert for tomorrow night has been canceled, which I think is a relief to all involved, especially the music teacher. This time of year is just so hard. I am struggling with feeling like I haven’t gotten everything done that I wanted to get done in 2021, and it’s almost 2022. I am aware that some of that is the result of having a ridiculously ambitious to-do list, but if you think mine is bad, you should see the husband’s. We are two peas in a pod.

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Robin brought these pins to co-op one Thursday and I loved them:

These are made by Dritz, but I’ve also seen similar ones from other manufacturers. I usually use the yellow ball-head pins, which are fine, but I like these better. I also have the very thin glass-head pins, but I tend not to use those as they seem to have an affinity for stabbing me. I’ve picked up a couple of packages of these on my travels.

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I ordered four fruit trees from Stark Brothers this week. I would have ordered from Fedco, but they didn’t have what I wanted. I got a Macintosh apple, a Hale Haven peach (the variety my grandfather grew), a Reliance peach, and a crabapple. DSIL’s mother was telling me about a pickled crabapple recipe at Thanksgiving and it sounded good, so I thought we should put in a crabapple tree, too.

The trees should arrive in April. I would like to move the peach trees to a more protected area of the property, but I need to think a bit about where that might be. I suspect the one peach that has produced for us is also a Reliance and I think I bought it at Costco. I like that Stark Brothers tells you if what you’re selecting is hardy for your zone. Hale Haven is supposed to grow here, but we’ll see.

I’m also working on getting the indoor lettuce-growing operation up and running. If it goes well, we should have fresh lettuce after Christmas. Stay tuned.

Deep Clean, Christmas Tree

I have nothing exciting to write about today because all I did yesterday was clean the kitchen. We’re talking deep clean, though—I took everything out of the cupboards and drawers, washed it all, vacuumed and cleaned all the surfaces, filled a couple of boxes of stuff to donate, and finished by washing the baseboards and mopping the floor. The husband took down the pot rack for me so I could give it a bath in the tub. I still need to clean the fridge, but I ran out of energy by the end of the day.

We get a lot of dust here. The smoke from the fires in recent years has added to that with a lot of fine ash. I feel like I am forever vacuuming and wiping it up. The whole house could use the same kind of cleaning. The living room is next on the list, and then I’ll have to see how much of the upstairs I can get done before Christmas. My office could use a good cleaning, too, but that’s not critical right now.

I’ve still got two sewing commission projects to do this week. I am making a two weighted blanket covers for one person and some grocery bags for someone else. I also made a stuffed Christmas tree for my sister.

These are like potato chips. I asked her what color and she said, “Denim blue or ivory,” so I pulled this remnant out of the Christmas fabric stash. I made myself a template out of template plastic (AKA cheap plastic cutting mats from the Dollar Store). Cutting three pairs out of a double layer of fabric is quick and easy. Sewing takes another few minutes, and then I can sit and and stuff them in the evening. Joanns had Poly-Fil on sale this past weekend so I bought a large bag. And that stainless steel chopstick works perfectly for stuffing.

The husband happened to be here at lunchtime yesterday when our department was paged out for a fire call, so he spent the afternoon on a structure fire. It snowed all day, too, which meant there were a lot of MVA calls all over the valley. The UPS guy stopped to drop off a package and mentioned that someone had gone off the corner down the road from us. People seem to be having a hard time remembering (or learning) how to drive in this weather. I’ve been driving DD#1’s Acura RSX for the past week so the husband could work on the BMW. It’s a little sports car with a manual transmission, but with snow tires on, it handles nicely on these roads.

We’re hoping the husband has managed to fix The Diva. My 2007 Dodge MegaCab had a similar problem. Those diesels have a special emissions system on them that is supposed to collect all the soot from the burned fuel and then incinerate it at a really high temperature. That system never worked well on the MegaCab. The BMW dealer replaced the sensors on The Diva, but the computer was still throwing EGR codes. The husband actually took the EGR valve out and cleaned all the soot out of it. He also put a new gas cap on. We’ll see what happens when I drive it again.

I’ve been rendering lard and that’s almost done. The pigs go to the processor next Tuesday, so moving some things around and defrosting a freezer is on the list for this weekend, but I’ll try to find more exciting blog fodder than that.

The Quilt Won the Argument

A quilt and I had an argument Friday.

I lost.

That’s okay, though. The quilt was right.

I started quilting the jelly roll race quilt top I made when I was in Alaska last spring. The fabric is “Cultivate Kindness” by Deb Strain. The center of the quilt is a riot of bright colors and the backing is a red tone-on-tone print. I’m not confident enough about my machine quilting to have it be front and center, so I usually choose a thread color that blends in. I had thought to use a pale gray Signature 40wt on top and Aurifil 50wt in the bobbin. That’s a thread combination I use a lot in the Q20. For some reason, however, it wasn’t working. (I also used that Fairfield Toasty Cotton batting again, and I just need to stop buying it because I don’t like it.) I could not get the tension sorted properly. It took me three hours with a seam ripper to take out 10 minutes of quilting.

[Even when using the same brand and combination of thread weights, the tension still has to be adjusted on the Q20 every single time. The manual even says that the bobbin tension should be checked and adjusted every single time a new bobbin is inserted into the machine. Different colors of thread take up dye differently and that absolutely affects the tension. Black is notoriously difficult.]

After ripping out the botched quilting, I had a glass of wine and put the quilt in time out until yesterday morning. I ditched the gray thread in favor of a bright multi-colored Signature 40wt variegated on top, even though I knew it would show more. I kept the red bobbin thread.

The quilt was much happier with that combination. I am quilting loopy flowers all over to echo the flowers in the fabrics.

I have about half of the center done. I am not sure what I will do in the border, although it would be a good opportunity to try some of my new Amanda Murphy rulers from Ruler Club.

This is not an heirloom quilt. This is one of half a dozen tops in the “need to get it quilted and bound” stack.

I also made a tree yesterday:

This is a pattern from the Amanda Murphy Modern Holiday book. (I am turning into an Amanda Murphy fangirl.) I made it because it looked like fun, and it was. I might make a few more. It consists of six tree pieces sewn together into three pairs, turned inside out, stacked and sewn down the center, and stuffed. I need to get more stuffing, though, as this one tree used almost an entire bag.

[Yes, my office is a mess at the moment.]

DD#2 and I had dinner at a sushi restaurant near the movie theatre last weekend. I do not eat raw fish, and if you want to know why, I’ll pull out my clinical parasitology textbook and show you. I do, however, like cooked fish, and this particular restaurant has a nice selection of cooked rolls for us uncouth Americans. I had one with scallops, DD#2 had one with spicy crab, and we split one with avocado, cucumber, and cream cheese. Spokane also has a sushi restaurant that is a favorite of ours, and it was there that I learned to eat using chopsticks. (The restaurant will provide forks, but you have to ask.) The sushi restaurant in Seattle had stainless steel chopsticks, which I had not seen before because I live in Montana and don’t get out much.

Chopsticks are very useful for poking out corners of sewn pieces and for stuffing Christmas trees. I did an Amazon order last week and added a package of stainless steel chopsticks to the cart. There are five pairs in a pack, so I put two of them with my sewing supplies. We’ll use the other ones if I ever get around to learning how to make my own sushi rolls.

A Mini Brick Road Runner

Every so often, a pattern comes along that immediately gets put into the “tried and true” column. These are the patterns that get used over and over and over again. The Candy Coated quilt from Sunday Morning Quilts is one; the Nancy Raglan by 5 Out of 4 Patterns is another. Shari McConnell of A Quilting Life often talks about how much she loves the Mini Brick Road table runner pattern from Atkinson Designs, so I bought a copy of the pattern the last time I was at the quilt store north of town.

This is not a complicated pattern, but it is clever. The instructions have you take a selection of squares and divide them into two piles. One pile gets cut one way and the other pile gets cut a different way. The fabrics in each pile are sewn together in random combinations to make new squares which are then laid out to form the runner.

I was curious to see how long one of these would take to make. I grabbed a selection of Christmas remnants, did the cutting and the sewing, and about two hours later, I had this:

Of course, I still have to quilt and bind it, but in terms of instant quilting gratification, this pattern is right up there near the top of the list.

A couple of notes:

• I made the size indicated in the pattern, but this is infinitely customizable by changing the number of squares.

• I might add a border, but I haven’t decided yet.

• No guidance is given in the pattern on fabric selection beyond suggesting a fat eighth/fat quarter bundle. Shari McConnell usually uses fabric from the same line in her versions, and they all seem to be of medium value. I would say that if you choose fabrics with higher contrast—as I did—make sure that some of them are solids or read as solids. I made the first pile of blocks and then subbed a few pieces of dark green Kona into the second pile to quiet things down a bit. The units all bump up against each other, so using too many prints will result in visual chaos. I’d say that half prints and half solids would be a good combination.

I’d like to try this with fall/harvest fabrics next.

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One day a few weeks ago, I found the husband cleaning out his trucks with a battery-operated Milwaukee vacuum cleaner. I commented to him that I thought that one of those would be a great thing to have in the house. (Yes, I could borrow his, but it lives on his truck, so if he’s not here, neither is the vacuum.) I have a 12-gallon Shop-Vac here for vacuuming the wood floors, but it’s big and unwieldy and I don’t like to cart it up and down the stairs for small jobs. The Dyson that I keep upstairs works great on the carpeting, but it has a 3’ long inflexible wand that makes it difficult to use for jobs like cleaning the sergers. Also, I am limited by where I can take those machines because they require electricity.

When I came home from Seattle, a birthday present was waiting for me on the kitchen table:

I was delighted! ! I’ve been a bit baffled by the reaction I’ve gotten from people who know about it though—a reaction which can best be summed up as, “My husband knows better than to buy me a vacuum cleaner for my birthday!”

To which I say, “Great! I hope your husband knows you as well as mine knows me and gets you something that makes you happy, just like my husband did.”

I have a pretty severe metal allergy and can’t wear jewelry. I am not interested in lingerie. I love presents that make my life easier and more efficient. Now I can clean my sergers and vacuum up loose chicken feed from the back of the car. And I will never understand censuring someone for not getting the “proper” kind of gift if the gift is something the recipient appreciates.

Lifelong Benefits

I have been so scattered and unfocused recently, to the point where it was causing me almost physical discomfort and stress. I was pretty sure that part of the reason was that I haven’t sewn much other than some hexies for about 10 days. I like to shop for fabric, but at a certain point, the joy of shopping for fabric morphs into frustration that I can’t make something with all this beautiful fabric I have acquired. Frustration and I are not friends.

After finally being able to sew for a bit yesterday, I did feel better, which rather confirmed my suspicions about what was going on. I also didn’t like that the stress was spilling over to my piano playing, which made me stress out about the concert scheduled for last evening. I gave myself a stern talking-to on the way to the church in town. And then the kids came in and started warming up their instruments, and I looked at all the parents sitting out in the pews and felt their excitement, and by the time we started the first song, it was clear that it was going to be a magical evening. For all the years that I have been playing, I am still amazed at the synergy that happens when a group of individuals comes together—even novice string players like these kids, who had only played together twice—to create music. Unexpected things happen and then other unexpected things happen. The director, a retired music teacher herself, even said to me afterward, with some amazement, “Did you notice how the kids realized they got ahead of you in that one spot and stopped and waited to come in again?”

It’s a cliché at this point, but truly, music and other creative pursuits confer so many positive, lifelong benefits. Even if those kids never pick up their instruments after high school, they will have learned discipline, teamwork, and the joy that comes with adding something beautiful to the world. I am grateful to all the music teachers I had over the years, and of course, to my parents for getting me to piano lessons and being forced to listen to the rousing strains of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” every morning before breakfast. LOL.

Clara, the music teacher whose students performed last night, sent me a lovely e-mail and asked if the three of us—Clara, Anna (the retired music teacher) and I—could continue working together. We shall see what happens next. And I woke up this morning feeling like I could attack my day with my usual laser focus.

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Speaking of creative pursuits, I was delighted to discover that DD#2 has taken up cross-stitch. Both of my kids know how to knit, and DD#1 has her Cricut machine and a piano, but DD#2 didn’t seem to have any relaxing hobbies. She said she watched a couple of YouTube videos, bought some supplies, and just started stitching. I bought her a book of patterns while I was there and told her she could raid my embarrassingly-large stash of embroidery thread while she is home. (At some point, I will switch from hexies back to embroidery in the evenings.)

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I don’t have much homesteading news to report. The chickens were unhappy with the snow that we got last week, but we’ve been breaking temperature records this week and now it feels like spring out there. (The temperature was 60 degrees when I got to the church last night for the concert.) The pigs have filled out nicely. We still have three up for sale—either whole or in halves—for late December delivery. I am about to put together some fruit tree orders for next spring. I want to try a few more varieties of peaches in a better spot on the property. I found out, when I was in Cleveland, that the variety that my grandfather grew was called Hale Haven. I think they will grow here. A variety called Reliance is also supposed to be very cold hardy.

We need a picture, and this one seems appropriate. This is a beautiful cross-stitch piece made by my friend, Pat, that was on display in the foyer of our church.

Thanksgiving With the In-Laws

We consider ourselves so fortunate not only to have acquired a son-in-law, but to have acquired his family as well. His parents also live in Washington state—on the peninsula—and I’ve been to visit them a number of times. They welcomed DD#2 for Christmas a few years ago when she was still working as a sales associate in a Nordstrom store and couldn’t come to Montana for the holiday. They even kept the snow tires for her Jetta in their storage container and made arrangements for her to get her car serviced in their town. So no one thought it was weird that they invited DD#2 and me over for Thanksgiving dinner even though their son and DD#1 were celebrating in Alaska.

DD#2 and I got up bright and early on Thursday to catch a ferry across Puget Sound to the peninsula. The trip took about 25 minutes. We simply drove the car onto the boat on one side and off the boat on the other side. We arrived around 10 am. The house smelled amazing. DSIL’s mother is an accomplished cook and loves to bake. I really wish the husband had been with me to do justice to that meal. We had a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, the turkey expertly carved by DSIL’s dad. (His father had been a butcher, so he learned young how to carve a turkey properly.) There was not one, but three pies for dessert, including the most awesome pecan pie. That’s one pie I don’t ever make, so I indulged myself. I even had a piece for breakfast the next morning. Yum.

DD#2 and me before dinner:

After dinner, we sat around and watched TV and visited and I worked a bit on some hexies. I’ve got quite a stack of them done.

DD#2 and I headed back to Seattle on Friday morning. Our plan for that day was simple and included only a trip to Ikea and possibly the Container Store in search of a trash can to go underneath DD#2’s kitchen sink. You would not think that finding a suitable trash can would be so difficult, but it was.

Ikea is not really a Black Friday destination and wasn’t crowded. Unfortunately, I could not find the items on my list—lint roller refills, some little pouches for hanging off my rolling cart next to the Q20, and the stacking plastic bins that I use to hold quilt projects. I ended up ordering them off the website when I got home. We did not find a trash can, either, so we headed over to the Container Store at the nearby Southcenter Mall.

Oh, my. That was where all the Black Friday shoppers were. The traffic and the crowds were awful. I went into Joann Fabrics but came out empty-handed. We ducked into the Container Store, found a trash can, ordered food for take-out at a restaurant in the mall, and got ourselves out of there.

As a Nordstrom employee, DD#2 gets a substantial discount for a short period around the holidays. She had made a shopping appointment for Saturday morning with a friend of hers who is a sales associate at the Bellevue store. The Bellevue store is in the high-rent district. The only store that is bigger is the flagship store in downtown Seattle. The plan was for me to leave DD#2 at that Nordstrom to do her shopping while I went to the nearby Joann Fabrics. When we got there, however, I discovered that I had left my phone in her apartment.

It is a malady of modern civilization that being without one’s cell phone inspires such a high level of anxiety. I was in an unfamiliar location with no way to navigate or to contact DD#2. Fortunately, the Joann Fabrics was just a few miles from Nordstrom on the same road. I got myself over there, did some shopping, and got myself back without incident.

I’m going to digress here for a bit. Washington state has a mask mandate. That is enforced at various levels depending upon where one is—the stores in Spokane are much more lax about it than the ones in Seattle. At the end of October, King County also instituted a vaccine passport system. People have to be fully vaccinated, with proof, or have to have had a negative covid test within the past 72 hours in order to eat in restaurants or go to movie theatres.

DD#2 and I wanted to have lunch at Nordstrom, but both of us had forgotten about the passport requirement. I am not considered fully vaccinated, having only had the first shot. And I hadn’t thought about getting a covid test so I would have proof of a negative result. Thus, we could not eat at the restaurant inside the Nordstrom store. DD#2 thought for a moment, then said, “Let’s go get lunch at the E-Bar and eat in the mall.” So we did. We walked just outside the store entrance to Nordstrom’s E-Bar, ordered lunch, then sat at a table and ate it.

INSERT EYE ROLL HERE.

We had plans to see the House of Gucci movie, too, on Saturday night, but we had anticipated the passport issue. After we finished our shopping in Bellevue, we headed back to DD#2’s apartment, unloaded her purchases, then went to a different mall in a different county—one that doesn’t have a vaccine passport—where we were able to see the movie with no restrictions.

We both enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed spotting a couple of Necchi industrial sewing machines, seen in this clip:

And part of the movie was filmed at the Villa Necchi-Campiglio, built in 1935 by the Necchi family.

I headed back to Spokane on Sunday. Traffic was fairly heavy, but I had left early enough to avoid the “multiple collisions” in the Snoqualmie Pass area. I spent the night in Spokane and raced back here Monday morning.

Playtime is Over

I spent last week in Seattle with DD#2. As has been the pattern lately, the trip did not go exactly as planned, although this time is wasn’t car trouble, it was weather. I had been planning to leave Tuesday morning, drive to Spokane, spend the night, then drive to Seattle Wednesday morning. However, I got home from running errands Monday morning, and the husband—who had stopped home in between jobs—said, “Did you know there is a winter weather advisory for tomorrow?”

Um, no. The last weather report I had seen showed nothing out of the ordinary. I checked the forecast, and sure enough, it looked like Tuesday morning would be a mess driving over the mountain passes. I could do it, but if I could avoid it, all the better.

There is a saying that the best gunfight is the one you’re not in, and I feel that way about weather. The best snowstorm is the one I’m not driving in. After conferring with the husband, I checked with DD#2 to make sure it was okay that I showed up at her place Tuesday afternoon, hastily packed my stuff, changed the hotel reservation for Monday night instead of Tuesday night, and was on the road by 2:30. I gained an hour going over and was in Spokane by 6:00 pm local time.

I was slightly delayed by a Montana traffic jam:

This was a herd of bighorn sheep crossing the road. The lead ram had walked out into the middle of the road, stood there waiting for cars to stop, then signaled to the rest of the herd—about 40 sheep—to come across.

It was snowing by the time I woke up Tuesday morning. I looked at the forecast for Snoqualmie Pass and decided I would time my departure from Spokane so that I missed the worst of the snow going over that pass. That area is notorious for road closures in bad weather due to the fact that people can’t drive, and in fact, I-90 was closed for about five hours Tuesday morning over Snoqualmie because of spinouts.

[I have a few Washington State travel apps on my phone that send me text alerts about problems, which has been a huge help while traveling.]

While I was puttering around in Spokane, I got a text from DSIL’s mother. She and DSIL’s dad were on their way back from visiting relatives in the midwest and were just outside of Missoula. She wanted me to know they were behind me on the road in case I had car trouble. She also said they were planning to be home Tuesday night and wanted to invite us for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.

I left Spokane around 10:30 am. It was dicey for the first 40 miles or so, with heavy fog and snow showers. By the time I got to Ritzville, though, the snow showers had stopped and the fog lifted, and by the time I got to Snoqualmie, the precipitation had changed over to rain. I arrived at DD#2’s apartment and unloaded my stuff. She had dinner and a glass of wine waiting for me.

On Wednesday—my birthday—we did some shopping. My traditional birthday dinner is crab legs, and we kicked around the idea of going to Pike Place Market to get them, but in the end, I decided that a pound of jumbo lump crab meat from Costco served up as Crab Imperial would be a more than adequate substitute.

I’ll write more about our week in upcoming blog posts, but I arrived home yesterday around noon and landed in the middle of a meat grinder. We had concert rehearsal last evening with another one tonight and the concert tomorrow night. I have three sewing commission projects that need to get done this week or next, and I also bought fabric to make myself a Christmas top. DD#2 arrives here on the 14th for two weeks. I have to reorganize my sewing area so she has a place to sleep, and she’ll want to set up a workspace in my office. The piano tuner is coming Thursday morning. The whole house desperately needs to be cleaned, but I’ll start with the living room so he can get to the piano. I am trying hard to stay focused on what has to be done first. Wish me luck.

A (Mostly-Finished) Little Poppins Bag

It’s almost done. I have a bit more hand sewing to do to finish attaching the base, but the rest of the bag is complete.

And before anyone asks—no, I will not take orders. I would have to charge far more for a bag than what most people are willing to pay. Any future Little Poppins bags I make will be given as gifts only.

The inside pockets:

I’ve got a page of notes/changes that will be kept with the pattern. Specifically:

1. Rewrite the pattern in step-by-step format to make it easier to follow.

2. Label each photo/illustration and reference it within the text.

3. Reorganize the steps to make them flow more logically. (Why make the zipper pulls halfway through the bag construction when they aren’t put on until the very end?)

4. Note when sewists might want to change thread/bobbin thread colors.

5. Interface plain pieces of fabric, such as the pockets, to beef them up a bit.

6. Possibly add elastic to the tops of the pockets, in which case I might forego the added interfacing.

7. I changed the base construction, partly because I had to salvage the first base I made. I think I like my way better, however. The instructions have you make two separate bases from Craft-Tex or Peltex, fuse them to the base fabric, then cut out each base. (No template is given in the pattern for the base, although instructions are given for making your own template.) The first change I would make is to cut the bases together as one layer so they truly are identical. This is easy with a rotary cutter. The instructions then have you bind each base separately with what looks like a single layer of binding, after which you fuse the two bases together with the fabric facing out. I thought the single layer of binding was too flimsy. I ended up binding the two layers together the same way I would a quilt. I think the result looks neater. I understand that the bag may have been designed and the pattern written the way it was to account for the fact that most people will be making these bags on domestic sewing machines, but I did not think that even two layers of Peltex were difficult to sew through.

8. Note in the pattern that the clear plastic tubing for the handles needs to be 1/4” outside diameter tubing. The other student in the class had gone to Lowes and bought tubing, but it was 1/4” inside diameter tubing and was too big to fit inside the handles.

One of the women in the craft co-op has made several of the large Poppins bags and she says she does two at a time. I see the wisdom in that, considering how confusing the instructions are. Also, if you’re setting your machine up to do one bag, you might as well do two.

I do love the size of this bag. This one is perfect for carrying a knitting project. The large Poppins bag is big enough to carry a sewing machine, although I wouldn’t do that because it would be too easy for the base to give way, and there goes your machine. That size would make a great overnight bag, however. Most of the large Poppins bags I’ve seen feature panels rather than yardage.

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Not much will get done this week, which is fine. My birthday is Wednesday, which is also the release date for House of Gucci. DD#2 and I made plans several months ago to go see it.

I think it’s going to be good. The husband also informed me this morning that he ordered my birthday/Christmas present. I am pretty sure I know what I am getting, LOL. It’s not a sewing machine, but something equally useful.

Caught in the Cat-Griz Traffic

I stopped to get Robin around 8 am yesterday morning. We decided to leave a little bit later than usual because of the heavy fog—freezing fog can turn roads into skating rinks—and although it burned off quickly, we hit heavy traffic on the way down. About halfway to Missoula, I figured out why. Yesterday was the annual Cat-Griz game between Montana State and the University of Montana, and it was being held in Missoula. That actually boded well for us once we got there, because 25,000 people were in the stadium watching the game and the rest of the city was empty.

[The husband asked me if The Diva behaved on this trip. I am still getting random warning lights that come on and go off, but the car runs fine. We are going to try a cheap fix, suggested by Kevin when I called him last week, which is to replace the gas cap. Apparently, the gasket on the gas cap can develop tiny cracks which prevent it from getting a good seal. That makes the emissions control system think that something is wrong. We’ll see. The husband ordered a new cap and it should be here this week.]

Robin and I started out at Michaels to kill time and carry out product research. Kalispell has a small store; Missoula’s is much bigger, although neither of them is carrying fabric as the ones in Seattle do. We wandered around but didn’t see anything noteworthy.

Our next stop was the sewing machine store, where I paid for and picked up the Janome 3000 coverstitch (stock picture from the Janome website for reference).

This machine was my gift to myself for having done so well at the craft co-op sale. I have not yet unboxed it. I probably won’t until after Thanksgiving. I also got an 18mm rotary cutter. It’s tiny. I prefer to use a rotary cutter when I cut knits, and this is going to be great for getting around tight spots.

We went to Kohls so Robin could return a pair of pants, then headed to Joann Fabrics. They had issued a rare 60% off one regular-price item coupon, good this weekend. Robin used it on a bolt of Pellon Easy-Pattern for tracing patterns. I truly couldn’t find anything I needed that wasn’t already on sale. I did get two more lengths of knit fabric—my wardrobe is woefully short on winter tops at the moment—and two pieces from the remnant rack, but that was it.

We also visited Vicki’s Quilts Down Under and had the place mostly to ourselves. Robin was looking for Halloween fabrics to make more items for next year’s sale. She sold out of almost all of her fall and Halloween inventory at the sale and needs to replenish her stock. I succumbed and bought some Grunge. Vicki was very interested in the craft co-op and asked lots of questions about the sale and what items sold best.

The trip home included a visit to the Amish store, of course, where Robin did some shopping and I got a generous dish of strawberry ice cream. As we were leaving, Robin suggested that we stop at the quilt store in Polson. Polson is a small town on the southwest “corner” of Flathead Lake. If one drives down the west side of the lake, the store is on the way. However, because of where I live, I almost always drive down the east side of the lake and bypass the town of Polson itself. Going to that quilt store would require that a) I remember that it’s there and b) I take a short detour. I think I’ve been there twice in the past 10 years.

We both did a bit more shopping at that quilt store. I discovered that my friend Valeri’s sister works there, so I introduced myself and we chatted while she cut fabric for us.

While I was out bopping around western Montana, the husband was here setting up his new hydraulic press that was delivered on Friday. I’ve been teasing him that he needs a bigger shop. I am glad, though, that he is investing in some equipment that will let him transition into other kinds of work when he decides he has had enough of concrete.

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I can’t believe that it is almost December. I feel like November got away from me. It is time to sit down and revisit the sewing to-do list and try to bring things under control again. I moved one of the basted quilts to the Q20 and have been working on it here and there as I have a few minutes. I know I get a lot done, but when I’m in the middle of it, sometimes it feels like all I am doing is treading water. The Poppins bag should be finished tonight and I can cross that one off the list.

Choosing the Right Sewing Machine for the Job

The Little Poppins Bag is close to being done. I completed one step and went on to the next and before I knew it, I had only the bottom left to sew on. That will need to be done by hand, hopefully tonight.

I was reminded again that some machines are better than others for certain tasks. Sometimes the issue is motor strength. An anemic motor isn’t going to allow the machine to sew through multiple layers of foam interfacing easily. Sometimes, though, the actual structure of the machine gets in the way. I think I’ve talked about this before, but it is worth revisiting.

I took my Janome 6600P to class because it is relatively portable and I knew it would do the job I asked it to do. Its motor is plenty strong and has sewn through everything I’ve thrown at it so far. However, maneuvering in tight spots is tough. Much of that has to do with the position of the light, which is in a housing sticking out to the left of the needle. I had a lot of trouble sewing certain parts of the Poppins bag because it kept getting hung up in that spot.

I took out some of what I had sewn in class when I got home and redid it on the industrial Necchi, which has no light and thus a much slimmer profile with more room to maneuver a bulky bag:

(That green throat plate is a Teflon plate; even though I don’t sew much vinyl, I keep it on there because it has clear measurement markings.) If it were up to me, I would forego the light on the Janome altogether—sewing machine lights are notoriously dim and most people end up putting LED lights above the bed—in favor of more room to move.

The Necchi is also a treadle, which allows me to sew as slowly as I want/need to, including stitch by stitch if necessary. The “motor strength” is provided by my legs, but it’s hardly a strenuous workout. And the BV is a straight-stitch only machine that makes a beautiful topstitch. For sewing bags, it is my machine of choice.

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Robin and I are heading to Missoula today. I am going to pick up the Janome 3000 coverstitch machine. We’ll see what other trouble we can get into.

I ran across this video from Shabby Fabrics yesterday. The project is a tabletop Christmas tree made using Bosal moldable foam interfacing.

I have never seen this product before, probably because it has to be ordered. This is part of why I watch YouTube videos—to find out about things I can’t get locally—and I like the Shabby Fabrics, Riley Blake, and Fat Quarter Shop videos for precisely this reason. Has anyone else used this moldable foam interfacing?

A Partial Poppins Bag

The Poppins Bag class on Tuesday was fun. There were just two of us in the class plus the instructor. The other student and I discovered that we both had kids who graduated from our high school at the same time—her son in 2009 and DD#1 in 2010—and were now living in Ketchikan. Her son runs a guide business there. DD#1 didn’t know him in school, but Ketchikan is small enough that they may run into him at some point.

I did not remember, from making the Mini Poppins bag, how awful these instructions are. They are written in a narrative format, not a logically-numbered step-out format, and the terminology isn’t consistent. I was glad we had the instructor to walk us through what we were doing. We were also able to watch the videos that accompany the pattern. I’ve got lots of notes written on my pattern in case I make another one. The construction method is very clever and leaves no exposed seams, but it could have been presented more clearly.

We were to have the bag pieces quilted before class, although additional quilting is done during class. We were so busy visiting that we probably didn’t get as far as we might have were we working alone. I am about to sew the bottom binding onto my bag prior to making and attaching the base:

I will finish this, but probably not for a few weeks yet. I have also moved over to the Necchi industrial for the remainder of the bag. The Janome does okay, but making bags is far easier on my industrial treadle.

The instructor of our Poppins bag class is also teaching a series of classes on table runners using this Doug Leko book:

I was so tempted to sign up for the monthly sessions, but I know better than to fill my schedule with more classes. I did buy the book, though. Table runners seem to sell really well at the co-op sale, so I’d like to make some, and I like Doug’s designs.

I did no sewing yesterday as it was music practice day. I had an appointment at 9:30 am, ran errands, went to the first music practice at noon, came home and had lunch and checked on animals, then went back for the second music practice at 4 pm. We have a break next week for Thanksgiving, then two more practices before the concert on December 1.

I’d still like to make some more long-sleeve tops, too, as my wardrobe is woefully lacking in them. I was going to make another Nancy Raglan out of some French terry, but I couldn’t find my traced pattern. I had to get out the original pattern and trace another one. Organizing and labelling supplies is a work in progress. I do so many different kids of sewing, and each kind of sewing requires a different kind of storage system. I am considering making a master list with numbers on each bin.

Snow is in the forecast for tomorrow and Robin is working (she subs), but she and I are going to Missoula on Saturday to pick up my new coverstitch machine.

Property Work

While I was traveling, the husband was hard at work here. The side of the property where we lost all those trees is almost cleaned up. That was a huge job that took close to two years. He spent a few days last week landscaping with the heavy equipment.

I love that he smoothed out the transition from the “yard” to the “woods,” especially by the chicken coop:

This will make so many things easier, like getting in and out of there with the tractor.

The last few slash piles are burning:

Getting some larch seedlings to plant in this area next spring is on my to-do list. Also, now that this area is cleaned up, the ground squirrels have no cover left. They will have to move somewhere else.

A few dead trees still remain and have to come down, including a big one by the chicken coop. That will have to wait until next spring, I think.

We’re also putting a driveway on the south edge of the property.

This has been in the works for a couple of years. The easement to our rental property and to our neighbor’s property runs between our two parcels and comes out at the road on a dangerous blind corner. We’re moving that access to this side of the property. Our neighbors have horses, so hopefully this will also help make it easier to get their horse trailer in and out. Their property is landlocked behind ours. The fenceposts are for another neighbor’s fence project.

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I made binding yesterday afternoon, mostly for the batch of casserole hot pads, but also so I would have a supply laid in for other projects. I can cut both straight-grain and bias strips on my Accuquilt cutter, which makes it fast and easy.

I got an order for more canvas grocery bags yesterday, too. I stopped making them when stores stopped letting people bring their own bags because of the pandemic. I think it’s time to start production again. The industrial serger is still set up to do them.

Today, though, I am going to baste three more tops for quilting, cut out the rest of the pieces for the Poppins Bag class tomorrow, and cut out a couple of long-sleeve tops to make for myself.

I have been griping to the husband about a few of the videos we’ve been watching lately. For some reason, I am overly sensitive to videos where people talk nonstop. He put one on last night—some British guy doing a commentary on phthalates in fast food—and I had to get up and leave. Listening to this guy was like trying to drink from a fire hose. I can’t process what some of these people are saying because they never slow down or take a breath. And it’s not just the videos on his YouTube account, either; I’ve had to turn off quilting videos for the same reason.

He says it’s because I have been living with him for 30 years and he doesn’t talk, LOL. I’m not entirely sure what the reason is, but if you’re a content creator, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, think about how you’re delivering your information. Silence is not a bad thing.

How to Shop the Remnant Rack

I’ve had a couple of requests for a tutorial on how to shop the remnant rack. I am happy to share my tips and tricks with you. If you sew or quilt, the remnant rack is one of the first places you should look when you shop at Joanns or Hobby Lobby.

What is the remnant rack? The remnant rack is the place where any cuts of fabric less than one yard end up. Those pieces are too small to put back onto the bolt. I am one of those people who will take the extra fabric that might be on the bolt, if it’s less than a yard, so I bless those shoppers who buy only enough for their project and leave the remnants for the rest of us.

Why shop the remnant rack?

• The remnants are discounted. The associates at the cutting counter will cut a piece of fabric from the bolt as narrow as 4” wide, but you may pay full price for it.

• You may only need a small piece for your project. Perhaps it’s because I do a lot of scrappy quilts, but I like the challenge of designing with smaller bits. That does come back to bite me on occasion, however. Once a fabric ends up on the remnant rack, that’s probably the last you’ll see of it.

• You might want to experiment with a new fabric. Maybe you haven’t worked with clear vinyl yet. Before you have the cut counter pull that giant roll off the rack to cut a small piece, check the remnant rack for smaller chunks. Because you got the remnant at a discount, you won’t feel so bad if your experiment isn’t successful.

• It’s a quick and inexpensive way to build up a fabric stash, so that when you get hit with an urge to try a new pattern at 11 pm on a Friday night (or 5 am on a Saturday morning), you can pull out what you need and get started.

Our Joann’s remnant rack looks like this:

Our remnant rack is not very organized. The remnant racks in the Spokane stores are sorted by color, which I appreciate. Some stores will also separate the fleece remnants from the other fabrics—perhaps putting them on a separate display—which I also appreciate. As I look through the remnants at our store, I try to sort and straighten them for the next shopper. I should get that 30% discount for team members.

That sign at the top notes that remnants are 50% off, and the small print underneath notes that the price is 50% off the current sale price, if any. More on that in a moment.

Each remnant is rolled and tagged before it is put on the rack. Our Joanns recently hired someone who rolls the remnants into half-size (6”) rolls, which is driving me nuts as they don’t fit in well with the rolls that are about 12” long. (Get off my lawn.)

I usually start at the top left and look through each section. There is no rhyme or reason to where the newest remnants end up. Some associates put them on the top rack. Some put them on the bottom rack. I almost always look for quilt cotton remnants, first, as those are the fabrics I use most often. I have to be careful, though, because some of the flannels have a flat nap that makes them feel like quilt cotton. As I go along, I make a stack on one side of the rack of things I am considering.

Each remnant has a label, and this information is key:

Let’s start at the top. The first number tells you how much yardage is in that remnant. This label came from a chunk of Christmas fabric. I see that this remnant is 7/8 of a yard. (Hopefully, you learned how to convert decimals to fractions in school.) The next number ($10.99) is the regular price of the fabric per yard, and they have calculated out how much that remnant would be at full price ($9.61).

However, the remnants are 50% off the current price of the fabric. If the fabric were full price, this remnant would be half of $9.61, or $4.80. All the Christmas fabrics were 50% off the regular price yesterday when I picked up this remnant, so the price of the remnant was actually 50% off the sale price.

$10.99 x .50 = $5.50 (the sale price of the fabric per yard)

0.875 x $5.50 = $4.80 (the price of this remnant at the current sale price)

$4.80 x .50 = $2.40 (the price of this remnant with the remnant discount factored in)

I think of the fabric I find on the remnant rack as my “latte fabric” because sometimes I get several pieces for the price of a Starbuck’s latte. It lasts a lot longer and doesn’t end up on my hips. I made myself a T-shirt this summer from two one-yard chunks of knit fabric I found on the remnant rack. Total cost: $6.00.

The remnant label has other useful information, like the fiber content. Sometimes I can tell by feel, but sometimes I have to check. It also gives the width of the fabric, which might be 42” for quilt cotton, 58” for knits, or even 108” for wide backs. If you have concerns about washability, check the care section to see what it recommends.

A few other things to note:

• Every so often, Joanns will put the remnants on sale for 75% off, usually after Christmas or when the remnant rack is full to overflowing.

• “Remnants” include anything that comes on a bolt, which includes batting and interfacing, too, so don’t forget to look for small pieces of those items.

• The week after a big sale is usually a good time to check the remnant rack. If Joanns puts all the novelty prints on sale for 40% off, it’s a good bet that there will be a bunch of them on the remnant rack a few days later.

• Hobby Lobby doesn’t have a remnant rack, per se—they put their remnants in with the clearance items. Our Hobby Lobby has a clearance rack near the fabric and craft section, but I have been in HL stores where there was ONE clearance rack and the fabric remnants were way on the other side of the store. Sometimes it requires a bit of detective work. Also, HL discounts each remnant, but the price you pay is the price that is on the label. There is no extra math to do.

Having been in dozens of Joann Fabrics stores around the country, I note that the remnant racks reflect different shopping habits of sewists in that area. Our remnant rack gets gleaned thoroughly on a regular basis. The remnant rack in the Moses Lake, WA store is huge and overflowing. Sometimes I wonder if their customers even know it exists.

Hopefully this has been helpful. I already have lots of competition for the remnant rack here in Kalispell, so I don’t think I am giving any secrets away.

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I walked the craft show with Robin yesterday morning. I found a Christmas present for someone on my list, but the show was smaller than I thought it would be. Only one vendor had a booth full of sewn items. Lots of jewelry, lots of crocheted items, lots of woodworking. I’m glad I went, but I was reminded why I don’t usually go to town on Saturdays. Traffic was awful.

When I got home, I quilted the body pieces for the Little Poppins bag and started collecting supplies to take to class. I also took advantage of having the Janome set up for straight-line quilting and did a stack of casserole hot pads that were assembled and waiting to be quilted. Now I have about a dozen that are quilted and trimmed and waiting for binding.

Fickle Me

I changed my mind yet again about what fabric I wanted to use for the Little Poppins bag, and switched to this one from Tula Pink’s “Homemade” line:

The bag pieces are basted and ready to quilt, so I can’t change my mind again. I am not a huge fan of Tula Pink’s designs—they are a bit too far out and modern for me—but I liked this line and have a couple of prints from it. The coordinating tape measure print will be used for the lining of the bag. I bought those prints intending for them to be either a bag or a sewing machine cover, so there you go.

The instructions call for quilted straight lines 1” apart and I’ll do that on my Janome today. I finished the apron yesterday and that will get shipped on Monday. As it turns out, I can’t go to Missoula on Monday to get my coverstitch machine because the store is closed on Mondays. I will probably go next Friday.

The husband drove The Diva and checked and cleared the codes and says he thinks it is unlikely to strand me by the side of the road. Let’s hope. When it has broken down, it’s thus far managed to do it within a few miles of home or the BMW dealer in Spokane. He’s putting the snow tires on the Acura today, though, so I’ll have that one as a backup vehicle if I need it.

Elysian came over for a chat yesterday afternoon, and while we sat and drank our tea, I finished sewing down the binding on the rooster wallhanging and put it up over the table:

Yes, that is a close approximation of the wall color in my kitchen. It’s a Sherwin-Williams color called Pesto. This may not be the right place for this hanging to live, but the other one needed to be washed. I’ll leave this here for a few days, at least.

One of my blog readers, Joanna, e-mailed me with a great suggestion for a post about how to shop the remnant rack. I want to get some pictures for that post—which requires that I visit the store—so watch for it in a couple of days.

While I was gone last week, the husband did quite a bit of landscape work. The woods on the south side of our property where all the trees blew down is looking really nice. If we get a break in the rain today, I’ll get out and take some pictures.

Some of us from the craft co-op are going to walk a big craft show in town today. I love industrial espionage, LOL.

Stash Acquisition

I try to visit other fabric stores when I am traveling. Joann Fabrics and Hobby Lobby are relatively easy to find as they are usually near malls or other big box shopping areas. Independent quilt stores are a bit harder to search out, but worth the effort.

Cleveland, despite being a large metropolitan area, has fewer Joann Fabrics stores than Spokane does. There were two within reasonable driving distance (30 minutes) of my mother, and I visited both.

Fabric manufacturers produce a specific number of yards of fabric for each line released. It is very rare for them to reprint a line. I think Joanna Figuroa had a line reprinted, but I’m not sure it was even the full line, just the most popular prints. Some quilters will buy bolts of fabric from particularly sought-after designers, like Tula Pink, and hold onto them for a few years until they can sell the fabric at a hefty markup on eBay.

Our Joanns—and every Joanns on the west coast, it seems—sold out of a few prints that I’d dearly love to have more of. I was curious to see if I could find them in Ohio. Lucky for me, I did! I found two that I’d been searching for, and bought what was left on the bolts. I was surprised, too, to see that the remnant racks were full to bursting. I stocked up on quite a few pieces of knit fabric destined to be baby beanies or leggings for next year’s sale.

Hobby Lobby just opened a HUGE store in the town where I grew up. The east coast distributors must be having an easier time getting product than the west coast distributors, as that HL had no empty shelves.

My visits to those stores yielded a box of remnants which my mother shipped back to me. I meant to take a picture before I took the remnants out and washed them, so you’ll have to use your imaginations. Sorry about that. I was being efficient.

My mother also sent me some egg cartons:

She buys her eggs at Drug Mart (everyone who has ever lived in Cleveland can sing you their theme song), which is the official drug store of the Cleveland Browns. I am feeling better about the Browns since they trounced the Bengals last week.

[Interestingly, the other side of that Browns insert is the same thing, but with the old Cleveland Indians logo. I may hang on to these for posterity’s sake. The Indians are now called The Guardians, for those of you who don’t follow sports.]

Back here in Montana, I did my birthday shopping at the quilt store north of town, because they offer a discount in each customer’s birthday month. I picked up this book, which I have been meaning to order:

It’s full of photos and history. I can’t wait to start reading it.

I also bought this book:

I have Joanna Lindstrom’s coverstitch book, which is excellent, but because reference books about coverstitch machines are still thin on the ground, I thought I should have another one. My new Janome coverstitch machine is in at the store in Missoula. I was going to run down today and pick it up, but the weather is supposed to be crummy and I’d rather wait. Robin can go with me on Monday. I also need the husband to check out The Diva (my car) this weekend as it seems to be running fine but is throwing random error codes. I called Kevin at the BMW dealer in Spokane the other day and asked him what the possibility was that the electronic control module—the “brain” of the car—was about to have a seizure and die.

There was a slight pause and then he said, “Well, it’s not zero.”

That’s the worst-case scenario. It could be another bad sensor. The husband said it could also be a bad battery, although the dealer replaced the battery for me back in June when they fixed the transfer case. He will check it out this weekend and see what he can find.

I can drive DD#1’s Acura, which is still here, but it needs snow tires put on it. The husband can do that as well. The Acura is a little stick-shift sports car, but it does surprisingly well in snow. It’s hard to haul chicken feed in that car, however.

I am not at all interested in buying a new car right now, for a variety of reasons. I was hoping to drive The Diva for at least another couple of years, but that’s looking less and less likely.

The apron fabric is washed, pressed, and cut, so I’ll assemble the apron today. I also made and attached binding to the rooster wallhanging after I got home from lunch at craft co-op yesterday. I have one side left to sew down. And I have to get the body pieces quilted for the Little Poppins bag class next Tuesday. We have to have that step done before class and I have been dithering about what fabric I want to use. I finally settled on a chunk of Jane Sassaman fabric that has been aging in the stash.