E-I-E-I-O

This is a long post, but yesterday was an eventful day.

Accuquilt offers a new Die to Try on the first Tuesday of every month. The die is a limited-edition release, but if it’s popular enough, they will make it a permanent part of their line.

The Die to Try for February was the Farm Animals Medley:

Their marketing department saw me coming from a mile away. I ordered this one and it arrived yesterday. I am positively giddy thinking about appliquéing little pink pigs all over everything, LOL. I wish they had included a sheep, too, but oh, well. I am sure I can get into enough trouble with just chickens, pigs, and cows.

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My friend, Scott, posted a funny follow-up story about his Singer 128 on his blog. I got a laugh out of it. I feel partly responsible for leading him down the vintage sewing machine garden path, but it has provided a lot of entertainment.

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The owner of the Quilt Gallery, the store here in Kalispell where I am teaching serger classes, said some very lovely things about me in yesterday’s Facebook Live video. I watch their Tuesday morning videos to find out what’s new in the store, not to go fishing for compliments about my teaching abilities, but she just happened to be talking about the serger classes I’m teaching there. I said to the husband last night—after I made him watch the video—that it is gratifying to be able to use so many of my knitwear design skills in teaching these classes. Knit fabric, after all, is knit fabric whether it’s tiny stitches knit on a machine or larger knit stitches made with two needles.

The Quilt Gallery is hosting a Bernina Academy Mystery Make—Overlocker Edition at the end of April. This is a two-day class taught by a Bernina educator. On the first day, students learn how to make a variety of different stitches using the Bernina L850 and L890 air-threading sergers. On the second day, they use their stitch sampler to make a project. I signed up immediately. Besides the fact that I get to be a student, not a teacher, the class will give me some hands-on practice with the Bernina sergers. I let Tera know about it in case she wanted to join me, but she’s taking a longarm class that same weekend.

The Sew Expo, hosted by Washington State University, traditionally has been held in early March in Puyallup, Washington. That’s only a few miles from Pacific Lutheran, where DD#1 went to college. This year, it’s a virtual event. Gail Yellen announced her classes on her YouTube channel right after tickets went on sale. I really wanted to take her coverstitch class, but it was already sold out. (I am not sure why they put a limit on virtual classes, but whatever.) Perhaps next year, they will have it in person again and I can make a trip over and take some classes.

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The Churn Dash blocks went up on the design wall yesterday:

I miscounted the first time and missed a block. There were 25 blocks in the bag, so I have just enough for this layout. I don’t need to make any. I also made the sashing strips but still have to cut them to length.

While I was pressing the blocks, I noticed a piece of paper taped to the back of one of them. It had “Ree Nancarrow” written on it and nothing else. Curious, I went to my computer and Googled the name and this website popped up. Ree Nancarrow is a quilt artist who spent many years in Alaska. Why was her name taped to one of these blocks? They don’t seem to match her quilting aesthetic. She does mostly landscape and wildlife art quilts.

It’s a mystery.

I have an evil plan to get my friend Sunnie—who is a supremely talented painter—to make an art quilt when she is here in Montana this summer. It doesn’t have to be big; even something the size of a placemat would be do-able and not overwhelming. I think I can enlist Robin and the other ladies in the craft co-op to help me. Sunnie, you’ve been warned. :)

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Cathy and I are taking a road trip tomorrow to Eureka. There used to be a processor up there that both of us liked, but he had his building sold out from under him early in 2021. That left me scrambling to find a place to take the pigs last fall. A new processor has opened up in that same building, so we’re going on a recon mission to scope out the place and ask questions. The processor we used this year was okay, but I’d like to see what services this new processor offers. And I am excited about getting to spend time with Cathy. I realized the other day that she and I literally have not seen each other for more than a few minutes at a time in almost two years.

The minister from the Lutheran church where I play for Lenten midweek services called yesterday. We talked for about 20 minutes. I get his weekly e-mails, so even though I haven’t played there since the pandemic started, I’m more or less aware of what’s happening with their congregation. Our discussion was sobering, though. These lockdowns damaged our communities in so many ways, large and small, and that includes churches. He’s not sure they will have the numbers to be able to have Lenten services, although I put the dates on my calendar anyway.

Churn Dash Sashing and Cornerstones

Yesterday did not go as planned because I spent the entire morning trying to straighten out an e-mail issue while dealing with a snarky tech support person. I managed to solve the problem without his help (or snark), but it wasn’t what I had planned to do when I woke up. And I think those two e-mail addresses are going to go away after this billing cycle ends. I’m done with that company.

[I don’t have much tolerance for people whose preferred method of communication is snark or sarcasm. Learn to communicate like an adult, not a 14-year-old.]

I was so irritated that it took a bit of effort after that to get myself back on track. I pressed a few lengths of fabric and watched the latest A Quilting Life podcast on YouTube. After lunch, I wrote up the class handout for tomorrow’s T-shirt class and started gathering my supplies together.

I also worked on the sashing for the Churn Dash quilt. I hadn’t intended for that quilt to shoot to the top of the queue, but both it and the Sunbonnet Sue quilt will have the same kind of sashing design. I would rather get comfortable with making the sashing and working the bugs out on the Churn Dash quilt, first.

Electric Quilt 8 has many features that streamline the work associated with making a quilt. It will tell you how much yardage of each fabric you need. It will spit out rotary-cutting instructions. It will create and print templates if you need them. However, it cannot factor in the many different tricks and shortcuts for making blocks, like making slightly oversized units and trimming them down after sewing. All of the instructions it generates assume that you will cut each individual piece exactly to size and sew it together perfectly.

This is the proposed layout for those Churn Dash blocks.

The sashing is made up of three narrow strips sewn together. The cornerstones are an inverse of the sashing strips. The teeny-tiny blocks in those cornerstones measure 1-1/4” before they are sewn together. In no universe would I be able to sew together anything that small and have it come out the correct size. My plan was to sew the narrow strips together, first, then cut them into smaller units and sew the units together. EQ8 only gave me the dimensions of each (tiny) unit, so I had to translate that into a strip and then figure out what size pieces I needed to cut from each strip.

Strip sewing is one place where I really appreciate the Accufeed system on my Janome sewing machine. Most sewing machines are engineered such that the feed dogs feed the bottom piece of fabric at a slightly faster rate than the top piece of fabric. That’s useful when you want to ease in one of the fabrics, but it can wreak havoc when sewing strips together. They end up being twisted and wonky. The Accufeed system—or a walking foot—feeds the fabrics through at the same rate. I put the quarter-inch Accufeed foot on my machine and ran all the strips through. They came out perfectly straight.

This is what the cornerstones look like after sewing the three units together:

I pressed the seams open on the back.

I usually press my seams to the side, but in blocks this small (3”), pressing them open does help to reduce bulk. I also used my tailor’s clapper as a seam press to flatten them, a trick I learned from Kimberly Jolly at Fat Quarter Shop.

All 36 cornerstones are made. Now I need to cut the sashing strips to the correct length and sew them to each block.

I’d like to get back to working on that red Candy Coated quilt soon.

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In other news, the accountant said he will have the construction company tax returns done this week. I still have to get him what he needs to do our personal returns, but that shouldn’t take long to put together. I’ve also scheduled my trip to Seattle, although the first Airbnb I attempted to reserve required proof of a vaccine passport. I found a different one about five minutes from DD#2.

Our church’s Mennonite Disaster Service group is going to Okanogan, Washington, for a week in March to help out on a project there. One of our members will be there for the entire month of March as a team leader. We don’t send a group every year, but in years past, we’ve had people go to Detroit, Texas, New Orleans, North Carolina, and a few other places.

Emergency Truck Sewing Repairs

The husband has been working on his older work truck this week (he has two). The driver’s side seat needed a new foam replacement seat, and in the process of taking the factory cover off to get to the foam, he noticed that the factory cover needed some repairs. The factory cover had been covered with a twill aftermarket seat cover, but the twill cover didn’t protect the factory cover completely and the wear wasn’t apparent until he took the twill cover off.

I have no pictures because this was a rush job. He wanted to get the seat taken care of yesterday. I patched one hole by sewing a piece of thick scuba knit on the inside (to match the base fabric) and stitching around the hole to keep it from fraying any further. There was also a broken plastic clip that hooked onto the base of the seat frame to hold the factory cover in place. That clip had been sewn to the cover—by a much stronger machine than anything I have—but the piece of thin backing plastic was broken and the clip was falling off. I substituted a piece of Peltex interfacing for the backing plastic and used heavy-duty upholstery thread to sew the clip back on through the existing holes (by hand). Peltex is used for bag and purse bottoms.

[This is why I have the equivalent of a small Joann Fabrics store in my house.]

“You just saved us $160 for a new factory seat cover,” he said when I had finished. He has to buy a replacement twill cover, but the factory cover should last a few more years, at least.

We also looked at and measured the Honda generator on his newer truck for which he requested a Cordura cover. I have the fabric, but he wants a slightly different style for this generator than the cover I made for the other generator. This is not a complicated project. The front zipper will be the hardest part and even that isn’t that difficult. I just need to set aside a few hours to make it, probably next weekend.

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The tumbler quilt is all finished. I am very happy with the way it turned out. The border looks even better than I had hoped it would:

I did stars in the corners with one of my Amanda Murphy star rulers. That was done more out of desperation than anything else, although someone at Ruler Club noted that a few of the tumblers were made from star fabric, so perhaps I was channeling an unconscious design idea. (Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.) The binding is navy blue Kona.

I didn’t have time to work on the Candy Coated quilt yesterday. I finished prepping the backs for the comforters because Pat is bringing them to church today, and I cut a few more 5” blocks so she could make one more top. We have scheduled the comforter-tying party for the afternoon of February 26th from 2-5 pm. We’re planning a meal afterward, probably a baked potato bar. Any Kalispell peeps are welcome to join us! We’ll be working in the fellowship hall at the Mennonite church.

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I am a premium member at Living Free in Tennessee (my favorite podcast, by far), and as part of my membership, I get access to monthly webinars on various topics. I attended the bacon-making webinar yesterday. The presentation was excellent. I am undecided, though, about whether or not I want to try it. The process is not complicated; I just don’t need yet another project. However, I did learn a few things about the cutting process, and I will be better able to let the processor know how we want our pork processed in the future.

People tend to get fixated on “bacon,” meaning the bacon that comes from the pork belly, but almost everything except the ham and the picnic shoulders can be made into some form of bacon. I already knew this, because our previous processor would make Canadian bacon from the loins and Kansas City bacon from the roasts. We do try to maximize the “bacon” we get from our pork. I did not know, however, that the cheek/jowl meat can also be made into bacon. That’s standard practice in Italy. I suspect both processors we have used just took that meat and added it to the sausage, which is fine, but I’d like to try making bacon with those cuts next time we do pork.

I hate to waste anything from the animal. I always take the organ meats (dog treats), the fat (lard), ham hocks (soup) and neck bones (stock). If we’re going to put in all that work raising the animals, it just makes sense to get our money’s worth from them.

Don't Be a Jerk When You Come Here

The tire place called Thursday to tell me the new valve stem had come in. Apparently, the first order got lost, so they had to order again, and it was 10 days before the second order came in. I had my car there by 8 am yesterday morning and was on the road again by 9. Now I am down to one light on the dashboard. The check engine light presumably will stay on until BMW fixes this EGR cooler issue, but at least it doesn’t yell randomly like the tire pressure monitor did.

[I am so traumatized by the warning chimes on my car that when the chime goes off to the tell me the temperature is 37 degrees, I always get a bit of a gut clench until I see that it’s just that alarm. LOL]

It took me most of the morning to get all my errands done.

I’m trying very hard not to complain about all the people moving here, because we moved here 29 years ago, but my experience at the Panera drive-through is so emblematic of why we dislike this recent influx of foreigners, especially Californians. I pulled into the Panera parking lot intending to grab a quick bite to eat from the drive-through. A Ford Explorer with CA plates was parked just at the entrance to the drive-through—not in the drive-through, but blocking the entrance—with two empty car lengths ahead of it. I sat there for a few moments, expecting that the driver would notice that someone was behind them and pull up. Nope. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the car just to my left was trying to pull out of its parking space but apparently didn’t see me. I tapped on my horn to warn them and they stopped. The Ford Explorer still didn’t move. By this time, I was annoyed, so I honked the horn. The Ford Explorer moved into the drive-through just enough for me to pull up so the car to my left could leave.

The Ford Explorer still had two car lengths between it and the car ahead of it. Finally, the Explorer pulled up and the woman inside gave her order. She then moved up just enough so that I couldn’t get to the order kiosk. (There were still two car lengths between her and the car ahead of her.) I had to wait until she pulled up further. When I was done, I tried to pull forward so that the lady behind me could give her order, but the Ford Explorer had only moved a few feet. Her window was down, and I was so very tempted to yell, “People like you are why we hate Californians!” but I restrained myself.

Honestly, I would have been annoyed by that behavior even if she had had Montana plates on her car, but the CA plates were just icing on the cake. That is not how most people behave here. (And my apologies to my CA readers, because I know not everyone in CA behaves like that, either.)

It’s not even tourist season yet.

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I worked on the red Candy Coated quilt again yesterday afternoon. I’ve got one quadrant quilted:

I could feel the shift when I finally relaxed into the process. My quilting improved from that point, although Amanda Murphy is right. Part of what quilting does, besides anchoring the layers together, is add texture. As more quilting gets added, everything blurs together into an overall textural effect. I did lament to the husband that it seemed like my really nice swirls were in the sections where the thread blended into the background, so you can’t see them.

One added benefit of those gripper rings is that they keep me from hunching over my work, so my shoulders don’t get as tired. I did switch back to the larger ring and will continue to use that one. I found that as I got better—and faster—I was bumping up against the smaller ring too often.

DD#2 asked me when I was coming to Seattle again, so I’m planning a trip there in a few weeks. (Why yes, I’d be happy to take a road trip.) If BMW gets its act together, perhaps I’ll be able to combine that with a stop in Spokane to have the dealer do the recall work, but I’m not holding my breath.

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Broody Hen has been parked in her nesting box for almost two weeks now, so we may know by the end of next week if she’s got any chicks. The gestation period is about 21 days.

We have to make a decision about pigs soon. We had talked about taking a year off so that the husband could get some infrastructure work done out in the pig pasture. If we’re going to go ahead, I need to let the breeder know soon how many weaners we’ll want.

And my seed order arrived yesterday:

I’m always a bit nervous until I have seeds in hand, although I keep a backup supply in the freezer that I rotate out every year or two. I put a few veggies back on the list this year, like collard greens and acorn squash. I still have to get a fresh batch of seed potatoes. We saved the Yukon Golds for seed because they were so nice, but everything else has to be replaced. I’lll pick those up as soon as the feed store gets them in stock.

Why I Love Show and Tell

Our sewing group meeting yesterday was great fun. We always do show and tell after lunch. The eye candy yesterday was over the top. I think my favorite was this flying geese quilt that Beth did:

Beth and a couple of the other women have longarm machines on frames. While looking at the quilting on the various pieces, we got into a discussion about rulers on frames versus rulers on my machine, which is a longarm in a table. Beth said she is struggling with rulers because she has to hold the ruler with one hand and move the machine—which has handles—with her other hand. When I quilt with rulers, I am able to have both hands on the ruler while I slide the fabric around. The machine is stationary.

The differences between the various machines fascinate me.

When I got home, I sat down with the red Candy Coated and started quilting that one. I have decided to do meandering swirls. Swirls are basically loops with tiaras. I switched to the stippling foot, which is open on the front and allows me to see what I am doing. I also got out one of the Bernina gripper rings that I bought in Spokane a few weeks ago:

I don’t like wearing gloves when I quilt, although I have to in order to maintain a firm grip on the quilt. I am so used to feeling my work with my fingertips—be it knitting, sewing, or whatever—that to have gloves on that eliminate that sensation is very disconcerting. I bought the gripper rings after seeing Amanda Murphy use them in one of her videos. I was hoping they would allow me to free motion quilt without having gloves on.

I love the gripper rings. What a game changer. This is the 8” ring; there is also an 11” ring. I switch back and forth periodically because I can’t quite decide which one I like better.

My swirls are okay, but I can tell the difference between mine and ones that are done on a frame. The machines on frames are on ball bearings and move smoothly across the fabric. My swirls still look a bit jerky to me. I need to work on smoothing out the motion. I was also quilting late in the day, which is not my best time. This is not an heirloom quilt, though, and I have to practice on something in order to build up the muscle memory. I am not unhappy with this so far.

We did a lot of laughing over lunch yesterday. I left feeling grateful that I live where I do and also for the islands of sanity in the midst of the chaos of the last couple of years. I wonder about the psyche of this country, because I think that in some ways, we’re damaged beyond repair. And we did it to ourselves. How the human race has managed to avoid annihilating itself is a mystery.

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One of the ladies in Ruler Club is also a student in my T-shirt class. She chose—with my blessing—to make a T-shirt to fit her rather than starting with a kid’s T-shirt, so I asked her how her first iteration turned out. (Students are supposed to bring them to next week’s class so we can hem them on the coverstitch.) She said she was very pleased and just needs to make a few tweaks to the pattern.

The class manager at the store and I talked about it and decided to schedule another T-shirt class for April, May, and July. We had some requests for an evening class to accommodate people who work, so this one will be on Tuesday evenings from 5:30 to 8:00 pm. The store owner is also very interested in a T-shirt class for people who don’t have sergers and want to learn how to sew knits on their sewing machines (thank you, Joanna!). That’s going to be a one-session class, though, focusing on the kids’ T-shirt pattern.

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I started making backs for the tops that Pat has put together. I don’t have to do much other than measure the wideback fabric and rip it to the correct width. (Widebacks are ripped, not cut.) When we tie comforters, we usually put them into a frame, but we only have one spare frame and we want to tie 4-5 comforters at our party in a few weeks. The last time, I sewed all of the backings and tops together, first, so that each one was finished except for the tying. That was a lot of work. My brilliant idea for this group of comforters is to make the quilt sandwiches and then baste them on the Q20. We’ll still have to bind them after they are tied, but we can do that by machine.

Another Prep Day

Today might end up being another prep day. I bought the fabric I needed for the Churn Dash sashing yesterday. I also cleaned out our Hobby Lobby of some Essex Linen that they just put on clearance.

This will be perfect for a few more Bear Paw baby quilts. I adore that sage green.

I finished quilting the tumbler quilt. It is trimmed and ready to be bound. I need to cut and make that binding—probably navy blue Kona—and attach it today. I’ll take that quilt with me to sewing tomorrow to work on it there. And if I have time to trace those other two garment patterns today, I’ll do that, too.

I took the tumbler quilt to Ruler Club yesterday, but here’s the thing: I brought show-and-tell, but so did several other people. That was so helpful. I think it’s always good to look at what other people are doing and ask, “Why did you make that particular design choice?” or “What would you do differently next time?” One lady brought a quilt top that she had made 20 years ago and said she was now inspired to get it out and finish it.

I do hope the store decides to continue Ruler Club for another session when this one is done.

I stopped at my friend Cassie’s house yesterday morning to drop off a sewing machine. She texted me last week and asked if I could help out her kids, who are in 4-H. The 4-H club has machines that the kids can take home and use, but they were getting frustrated with the machine they had borrowed. I said I would look over my collection and find something suitable. I have a couple of Singer Spartans, which are the 3/4 size version of the Singer 66, and thought one of those would be a good choice. The one I pulled out last week looks like it has hardly been used. The wiring is study and sound, the machine is clean, and it makes a lovely stitch.

When I got to her house, however, she was on her way out to the barn to check on a cow that was about to calve. We visited for a few minutes and decided to postpone the sewing machine session until later in the week.

[She mentioned that the local 4-H group would love to have some help with the kids’ sewing projects, which I knew, but I just can’t shoehorn anything else into the schedule.]

Your sewing machine eye candy for this week is my friend Scott’s latest blog post. A few years ago, I introduced Scott to the wonderful world of vintage sewing machines. He has picked up and rehabbed a few machines since then, but I thought he had scratched that particular itch because he told me he was done. Apparently not. His latest acquisition is a crinkle-finish Singer 128. (The crinkle finish is also know as the “Godzilla” finish in sewing machine circles.) Do check out his blog, because he posted a mesmerizing video of the bobbin winder mechanism in motion.

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I am in the process of upgrading the husband’s IT systems. For years—decades—he has always gotten the hand-me-down computers from the kids and me. He’s currently using my 2008 Mac tower, which was bleeding edge hardware at the time I bought it, but which can no longer be upgraded. I ordered him a new iMac yesterday. We kicked around the idea of getting him a laptop, too, that he could take out to the new shop with him. His new Bosch scan tool has a browser, though, so what he really needed was a way to get internet out in his shop. He bought and installed a wireless antenna that picks up the wi-fi from the house. At some point, we may need to run a phone line out there, but this setup works for now.

I also got him a new phone. I’ll have to take his current phone with me on Saturday to have everything transferred over at the Verizon store, but that shouldn’t take too long.

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I picked up this book while I was at the store for Ruler Club yesterday:

This is by Christina Cameli. She’s a quilting designer and teacher who lives in Portland, OR. I’ve seen her on some crafting shows and she’s great fun to watch. The cool thing about this book is that each page of free motion combinations comes in a black and white illustration. I can make a copy of the page and then practice by stitching over the paper with just a needle, no thread. I’m hoping this will help me get better at free motion. Rulerwork is all well and good, but there are times when a little background fill is needed.

Mondays Are Prep Days

I’ve fallen into a pattern of having Monday be the day that I prep projects to work on throughout the week. The system seems to be working, so I’m keeping it. I’m finding that doing so allows me to 1) clean up the mess that resulted from the previous week’s work, 2) organize and re-file anything I’m done using, 3) produce a pile of projects to work on throughout the coming week, and 4) make a shopping list if I am missing anything I need.

I’ve been making table runners here and there—instant gratification projects if ever there were any—and had half a dozen that needed to backed and basted. That was the first order of business yesterday morning. I pulled out my bin of leftover batting scraps and my bin of Christmas fabrics and got all of them ready to be quilted:

When I need a quick quilting project, I’ll sit down at the Q20 and knock out one or two of these.

I cut fabric for several more of these:

This is Jeni Baker’s Bear Paw Baby Quilt, although when I made this one, I used Essex Linen rather than quilting cotton, an idea I got from Anna Graham at Noodlehead. (The quilt in this photo went to my friend Susan’s second grandson.) Baby quilts are always handy to have on hand, and I had enough fabric to cut pieces for three of these. I’m using the Essex Linen again.

I am in desperate need of more aprons for myself. I went through my apron drawer a few weeks ago and culled some of the ones I don’t wear as much because I don’t like the style. Having a long torso means that waist ties don’t always sit where they are supposed to, and I hate when they ride up. I took the apron I reach for most often—because I love the way it fits—and traced a pattern from it. I cut six aprons from a pile of heavier-weight fabrics that I’ve been saving, including some twills, some canvas, and some linen. These still need pockets and ties, but the body parts are cut.

I ran more cotton fleece and terrycloth through the Accuquilt cutter for two more batches of makeup pads. I’m going to need the serger for another project soon, so I’d like to finish making these while it’s still set up for this particular threading.

And finally, I traced the Kristin dress pattern in preparation for cutting it out. I was a bit dismayed to discover that the instructions for putting this together are minimal, and that’s being generous. I first looked for them within the PDF, then realized that they were printed at the bottom of the sheet I was tracing:

Those are the only instructions. Fortunately, this is not a complicated dress. I also have enough sewing skills that I can figure out what needs to be done if it isn’t specified. I’m leaving out the zipper. This dress probably won’t get cut out until next Monday, because I’d like to cut several garment patterns at once and I need to trace two more patterns.

The only task I didn’t complete—because I need to get three yards of a red print fabric—was cutting the sashings for the Churn Dash and Sunbonnet Sue quilts. I want to do those at the same time because I’ll be cutting the strips on the Accuquilt cutter.

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I texted Kevin yesterday morning to tell him about the heater in my car shutting itself off. He texted me back and said he was not aware that it was related to the EGR cooler issue and thanked me for passing that along. The husband said that I should let BMW know that he is available for consultations on their product, LOL.

I made a salad last night with the first cutting of lettuce from the new system. The second tray isn’t far behind, and I started a third one a few days ago. I got a notice from Victory Seeds that my seed order shipped. I tend to stick to the same varieties every year—gardening is tricky enough without experimenting with our food supply—but I did add a few new items to try.

That Answers That Question

I drove the Acura to church yesterday morning and left The Diva here with the husband. He replaced the starter solenoid and hooked the car up to the scan tool to read the codes that the computer was throwing. The scan tool informed him that the reason the heater is working intermittently is because of the EGR cooler, which is the subject of the most recent recall. The computer shuts off the heater periodically, presumably to help keep the engine from catching on fire. That is not likely, but there is a non-zero chance it could happen. The EGR cooler already failed once and was fixed under a recall, but the recall part is also failing. However, BMW does not yet have a fix for the problem. I guess that until they do, a whole bunch of BMW owners are driving around wondering why their heater is only working intermittently (and hoping their cars don’t catch on fire).

[I might text Kevin this morning and ask him if he knows that the heater shutting off is a thing.]

The tire pressure monitoring system is also having intermittent seizures and flashing lights at me, but that’s because I stopped in at the tire place last Wednesday and asked them to look at the right front tire with the slow leak. They determined it needed a new valve stem—and ordered one—but as of Friday, said valve stem had not yet been delivered. The valve stem is connected to the tire pressure monitor, so they had to take the TPM out. It is currently sitting in the cup holder. The computer keeps looking for that TPM, though, and when it can’t find it, it freaks out.

Sigh.

Some days, I fail to see how all this extra technology on my car is helping me. There is such a thing as a point of diminishing returns. We were watching a Car Wizard video the other night and he said that he hates working on BMWs because people buy them but don’t have the budget to do the (relentless and ridiculous) maintenance on them, so they slowly fall apart. I would not have this car if I didn’t also have my own personal BMW mechanic. And I won’t ever buy another BMW.

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My friend Ginger brought her latest project to church yesterday to show me. I didn’t think to take a picture, but she sent me one later in the day.

This is boutis, a form of French quilting. (The Art of Boutis, by Kumiko Nakayama-Geraerts, is a good resource.) The picture doesn’t do it justice. The texture of the piece is amazing.

Ginger is so creative—for many years, she has done the visuals at our church. Walking into the sanctuary every Sunday is a treat for the eyes. She also knits and sews, and now she is doing boutis.

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This is the pattern I chose to quilt in the border of the tumblers quilt:

I am using one of Amanda Murphy’s Lollipop rulers; in Ruler Club, we are using the Mini Lollipop rulers, but there is no triangle shape in that set, so I got the set of larger ones. This was a bit tricky because she doesn’t include any instructions for using the motifs horizontally. They are intended to be used vertically, in columns, and there are few markings on the ruler for horizontal positioning. I did some experimentation on a quilt sandwich, though, to determine the correct spacing.

That bottom horizontal line of traveling quilting is going to be hidden in the binding, so when the quilt is done, it won’t show. The motifs will look like they are coming up from the edge.

This is how the ruler looks when I am using it:

Amanda Murphy says she now prefers to call them “templates” rather than “rulers,” but I still think of them as rulers.

I’ve got both long borders done. (The math was easier for those sides.) I’ll do the two short borders and the corners, trim the quilt and attach the binding, and this one can be crossed off the list.

I need to practice stitching in the ditch. Mostly I do okay, but there are a few places where it shows. I love how the variegated blue thread looks in the border. The stitching is more visible than it would have been if I had used a solid blue that matched the fabric, but the contrast isn’t so great that the mistakes stand out like sore thumbs.

I might take this to Ruler Club with me tomorrow for show-and-tell, although I don’t want to be that student. That’s the teacher part of my personality coming out, I think. It’s always helpful to have visuals.

I mocked up a quilt design in EQ8 with 25 Churn Dash blocks so I could get a yardage estimate for the sashing and borders.

This sashing is similar—although not identical—to the kind of sashing I plan to use for the Sunbonnet Sue quilt. I need to set up the Accuquilt cutter to cut strips for both quilts, and then I am going to be sewing a lot of long, straight seams.

Thrift Store Score

I stopped in at one of the thrift stores in town yesterday and found a few goodies. I like this particular store because they always have a lot of sewing supplies. A Singer 404 in a case was sitting on the floor with a note that said “Runs, but needs tension adjusted,” and I was so very tempted—cleaning and adjusting the tension mechanisms on those machines is not difficult—but I have to be realistic about the time I have to spend on machines. I am re-homing one next week and I need to keep the inventory moving out, not in.

However, in a dresser drawer marked “Quilt Projects,” I found a bag of twenty-four 9-1/2” churn dash blocks:

They are red with low-volume cream/white print backgrounds. Just add sashing and a border and poof!—instant quilt top! I might make one additional block so I can do a 5 x 5 setting. Margaret would be proud of me, I think. She often bought half-finished projects at Mennonite relief sales, finished them, then donated the quilt back to the sale the following year.

I also picked up an Easy Circle Cut Ruler and a thimble. I am irrationally happy about finding that thimble. I have such fat, stubby fingers that most thimbles are too small. I have one that fits me perfectly and I am so afraid I am going to lose it. Now I have two.

I popped in to Kalispell Copy—they are the big construction plan copy center in town—to have the Style Arc Kristin Dress pattern printed on their large-format printer. I’ll trace my pattern from that master.

I chose this dress pattern because it’s very similar to a couple of favorite dresses I bought at H&M, of all places. I especially like that this pattern has bust darts, which hopefully will give the dress some shape and help to keep it from looking like a potato sack on me. One of the three lengths of ponte knit in the stash—navy blue, periwinkle blue, and hot pink—will be perfect. Before I use one of them, though, I’ll make up a muslin to make sure I like the fit. This pattern also has gotten good reviews on the Sewing Pattern Review website. That’s a great resource. I read the reviews and noted that everyone who made this dress said the zipper was optional, so I will try it without.

Before leaving town, I stopped at Joann Fabrics (of course) and discovered that a big chunk of their juvenile knit fabrics have been put on clearance. New fabrics are starting to arrive. I talked to Deb, the manager, while she was cutting my fabric, and mentioned that I was teaching serger classes in town. She said that was great because people don’t often know how to sew with knit fabrics, which is why so many of them end up in the clearance bin. Now I feel like I am on a mission.

I also dropped the construction company tax information off at the accountant’s office. That item has been (happily) crossed off the list. I am a favorite client of our accountant, because I don’t leave things until the last minute. I think the only time we’ve had to file an extension was when I was in the hospital in February 2018.

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When I got home from town, I finished quilting the center of the tumbler quilt. Now it’s on to the border, although I need to make up a quilt sandwich and test the motif I plan to use so I can make sure the spacing is correct.

I may take a break from quilting next week, after I finish my homework for Ruler Club. That won’t take long. But then I need to give some attention to the pile of projects that need to be machine appliquéd. I’ll set up the Janome to do those so they can move forward. I’m trying to batch my projects for efficiency. I’ll probably cut sashings and borders for a couple of quilts, as I might as well do those together, too.

The Tumblers Are Tumbling

I am close to finishing the center of the tumbler quilt. The lines on either vertical side of the tumblers are all quilted.

I need to spend another hour quilting the horizontal lines on either side of each row, and then it’s on to the borders. I loved watching the look and feel of this quilt change as I worked on it yesterday. What a difference the batting makes. This batting is Warm and Natural. The quilt is going to be nice and cozy.

I listened to Amanda Murphy’s Facebook livestream yesterday while I worked. That was the perfect background for quilting. She talks a mile a minute because she has so much going on, and the livestream lasted for more than an hour. She talked about her business, about teaching, about rulerwork, and about dealing with disgruntled Facebook followers. I absorbed everything by osmosis. One comment she made really resonated with me. She was talking about when (and when not) to take out mistakes, and she said to remember that the goal of the quilting is to add texture to the overall design. I love texture. My knitting designs always focused on texture—cables—so for me to think of quilting as adding texture makes so much sense. I think that keeping her words in mind will help me to answer the question of “How much quilting is enough?”

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My friend Cristina of Bumbleroot Design just released a new pattern, the Big Rock Tote Bag!

Cristina is a former technical writer, and let me tell you—her patterns are thorough. This one is 30+ pages and comes with accompanying videos to help you get through the tricky spots. If you’ve ever wanted to try making bags, her patterns are great ones to help you get your feet wet. She has some really clever construction techniques. If you visit her website, be sure to check out her page of vintage sewing machines. She and I bonded over our Necchi BV industrials. I have enjoyed watching her business grow. And she is donating 10% of each Big Rock Tote pattern sale to The Autistic Self-Advocacy Network.

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I’ve got a broody hen. I wonder if it’s the same Buff Orpington who hatched out a chick last year. This hen has been parked in the same nesting box for the past week, and she pitches a fit if I get too close. (I tried to sneak a few more eggs under her, but she wasn’t having it.) We’ll see if any babies show up in a couple of weeks. If she’s going to hatch out chicks, it would be nice if she had more than one this time.

Dave has a big job out there, keeping all those hens happy. Chickens don’t like to go out in the snow, so they spend a lot of time inside the coop and there is a fair bit of squabbling. I’ve know I’ve said this about most of my roosters, but Dave truly is the best rooster I’ve ever had. He’s not as friendly as some of them have been, but he’s not aggressive, either. He just does his job. We’ve had the heat lamps on this week because it’s been so cold. I said to the husband that it’s interesting to me that the hens that are always sitting under the heat lamps are those diva Leghorns that we got from the show chicken farm last year.

My first batch of lettuce is going to be ready to cut soon:

What a great system this is.

Retreat planning is underway. Finding a date that works for all of us will be the big challenge, but I think we can do it. And who knows?—maybe this will become an annual event.

Looking at the Forest Instead of the Trees

Part of what makes the husband and I such a good team—once we sort out who gets to be in charge—is that he is really good at systems-level thinking and I am a master of details. Building his new shop is a perfect example of how we work together. He managed the overall vision of what he wanted and I figured out how to pay for it (without taking out a loan). The problem I have is that sometimes I get stuck looking at all the pretty trees and can’t find my way out of the forest.

I watched the latest episode of the A Quilting Life podcast on YouTube the other day, and Sherri McConnell mentioned a new app she had on her phone for managing her life. It’s called AnyList. She’s also got a new quilt planner out, as does Lori Holt. I thought about what I needed to help me manage all of my projects. I don’t want a phone or tablet app. I want something low-tech, because I like to add notes, doodle, and make liberal use of my collection of highlighters.

The husband has a whiteboard in his office. It’s divided into four sections: Bid, Sold/Pending, In Progress, and Done. The job name starts out under Bid and moves to each successive category as it goes to completion. It gives him a higher-level view of what he’s got going on at any moment in time. I looked at that and decided I needed something similar for all my quilt projects, because what I really need is a way to track them through the pipeline, from idea to finished quilt. I’m not a fan of whiteboards, though. I really need something portable.

I picked up a binder, some tabbed dividers, a pack of loose-leaf gridded paper, and a new pack of highlighters in town yesterday and made myself a project management notebook. So far, I like it. I even woke up in the middle of the night and remembered a couple of projects that are languishing, unfinished, in bins, so I’ll dig them out and add them to the notebook for accountability.

In addition to listing each project in the appropriate category, I also physically stacked projects under the same category together. If I have to set them aside for any length of time, at least they can keep each other company.

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I pieced the backing for the latest red Candy Coated quilt and basted that one Monday afternoon. I have a whole roll of that Fairfield batting that I don’t like very much. I think I don’t like it because it’s so thin. I much prefer the Warm and Natural or even the Warm and Plush when I can find it. I need to use up this roll of batting, though, so I used it in the Candy Coated quilt, but I used two layers instead of just one. Two layers made a much nicer batting. The Candy Coated quilt is now in the queue for quilting. I plan to do an allover free motion design—probably loops—instead of rulerwork.

I set the wallhanging aside and started working on the tumbler quilt:

I am echoing the seam lines with stitching on either side. This goes quickly—almost as quickly as free motion loops. Because of how I have to hold the ruler and move the quilt under the machine, I’m doing all the stitching lines on one side of the seams, then turning the quilt around and doing the stitching on the other side of the seams. I quilted a good chunk of the center in about an hour yesterday afternoon. Once the center is done, I’ll do the rulerwork in the border. The thread is a variegated blue/turquoise Signature 40wt that I picked up in Spokane last week. I think it’s going to look really nice in the border. I am getting braver about having my stitching show.

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Pat made a third comforter top with the 5” squares, so when I get mine done, we’ll have four to tie. I ordered backing for them using my Joann+ account, which gives significant discounts when buying in bulk. I thought I would also order more of that modal sweatshirt fabric they just started carrying. I’d like to make up a Simplicity jacket pattern to see if that might work for a serger class next fall. The pattern calls for three yards, though, and when I bought some of that modal sweatshirt fabric in Missoula, I only got two yards.

This is how maddeningly difficult the Joann website is to use: I’ve already filled out their feedback form and asked them to stop listing fabrics that are no longer available (some haven’t been available for two years now) or provide a way to filter them out. It makes the search process clunky, and if the fabric is no longer available, why list it? And forget about the inventory listed on the website matching what they claim is in the store. I don’t think those two systems actually communicate with each other.

I put both the modal sweatshirt fabric and eight yards of a wideback (108”) into the cart. There was a coupon for 50% off a cut of fabric, but when I went to apply it to the cart, I got a message that “Discounts cannot be applied to tiered items.” (Tiered items are the bulk items.) Fine, but why can’t it be applied to the other item, which isn’t tiered?

I took the wideback out of the cart, applied the coupon—which worked that time—then added the wideback to the cart again. The coupon disappeared and I got the same message again about discounts not being valid.

Arrrrrggggghhhhhhh.

One would think that a national chain would invest in a robust e-commerce system, particularly because they are actively pushing people toward buying online. (That doesn’t work well for fabric, by the way, unless you know what you need.) The in-store POS system is about a decade behind, too, but at least they are making an effort to upgrade that.

I ended up having to place two orders. That’s hardly the end of the world, just annoying.

Leftovers Put to Good Use

Our church’s sewing group would like to have another comforter-tying party, perhaps this month or early in March. We hosted one two years ago and everyone had a great time. Just before Christmas, I took my bin of 5” squares to church, and Pat took it home and put together a couple of tops, this one:

And this one:

They are so colorful and cheery! She said there are still enough squares left for two or three more comforters. I also have a bag of squares here—I meant to take it with me to Spokane and work on it there, but I forgot to put it with my sewing supplies. I’ll get those sewn together. We have plenty of batting in our sewing supplies at church, I think, so I will order backings and get the tops basted together and ready to tie.

This makes me so happy. That was not a small bin of 5” squares, and it’s so gratifying to know that they have been put to good use. The comforters will be donated to Mennonite Central Committee.

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Robin, Tera, and Sunnie are all in for a retreat. I’ll start planning that soon. I think we should include a visit to the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture as part of our trip. NWMAC always has such interesting exhibits. They also have a respectable textile collection. I wanted to stop in last week, but, they were closed due to staffing shortages. I am excited, though, about an exhibit that is scheduled to start this week and run through October, entitled Golden Harvest: Flour Sacks From the Permanent Collection. The website states:

These graphically striking cloth sacks date primarily from the first half of the 20th century and most are in pristine condition. Several vintage objects made from recycled flour sacks, including a rare dress c.1880s, will also be on display, as well as art and images from the MAC’s permanent collection.

The NWMAC website currently is hosting an online exhibition entitled Quiltscapes, which is also worth checking out, and the good news is that you can do it from the comfort of your computer!

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I’m still quilting away on the wallhanging. I haven’t reached the level of quilting competence that I want and that’s causing me no end of frustration. Technically, I know what I am doing. Design-wise, I am still struggling with how much and where and what kind of quilting to do. This is one of those situations where there is no one right answer—just a series of choices—and learning to distinguish between the choices takes time and experimentation unless you happen to be one of the lucky people for whom that comes instinctively. For future projects, I do need to get into the habit of making some quilt sandwiches with the leftover blocks so I can experiment with designs on them, rather than on the quilt itself.

I quilted around the octagons, then added circles inside the diamonds formed by the sashing (they are hard to see):

Those circles were difficult to do because of the size of the ruler. Were I to do it again, I would probably make diamonds, instead, but I was trying to contrast the angular nature of the piecing with some curves. I might echo those curves by doing some kind of circular quilting in the border, too. Right now, I am stitching in the ditch around the squares in the center of each octagon, because I felt like those needed to be anchored down.

Here’s the thing: When this is finally hanging on the wall, the piecing and overall design is going to be what people see, not the quilting, so I don’t want to spend hours and hours custom quilting this. This is all part of the learning process. I’m getting close to the “finished is better than perfect” stage of this project. I am going to set it aside for a few days and work on something else while I consider what I want to do in the border.

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Our Joann Fabrics is still on reduced hours, but they have hired a few new employees. I stopped in yesterday because I need about a quarter yard of a specific fabric to finish a project, but realized when I got to town that I had left my phone—and thus, all my Joanns coupons—at home. They had the fabric I needed, so I’ll pick it up later this week.

Quilt Store Crawl

My plan for Thursday was to visit the Joann Fabrics and Hobby Lobby stores on the north end of Spokane before heading even further north to check out some quilt stores in Deer Park and Chattaroy. I also threw in a stop at Trader Joe’s because it was on the way and they open early at 8 am. As I suspected, the Simplicity patterns were on sale at Joanns, so I picked up three that I had earmarked the day before, including a new vintage apron pattern and one for a knit fabric cardigan that might make a good serger class next fall.

Deer Park is about 20 miles northwest-ish of Spokane. Urban sprawl hasn’t gone that far, and once outside the city limits, the landscape quickly becomes rural farmland. I stopped at the first of two quilt stores in Deer Park—Sew-Into-Quilts—which is a small but nicely-stocked store whose owner is friendly and sports bright purple hair. I looked around for a bit but really couldn’t find anything to buy that I needed. Still, it’s nice to know that store is there. She is a Handi-Quilter dealer and had quite a few of the HQ longarm rulers.

Literally a stone’s throw away is Ed and Jean’s Quilt Shop. Ed was there and informed those of us in the store that Jean was currently enjoying the sunshine in Mexico. This is a tiny store, made even tinier by the fact that there were two longarm machines in the front room. I think longarming is their primary business. The rest of the store was crammed full of fabric and probably would have given the fire marshal heart palpitations, but Ed knew exactly where everything was and how to put his hands on it if someone asked. I was delighted to find a bolt of the exact fabric I was hoping to use for the sashing of the Sunbonnet Sue quilt and bought a couple of yards. Yay! Now I just need to finish the last four blocks and make the sashing and that one will be ready to quilt.

I had to travel about 10 miles east over to Chattaroy to find the last store, called As The Crow Flies:

This store popped up in my Facebook feed a few weeks ago because I follow the Washington State Quilters page and As the Crow Flies was one of their featured retailers. It is the most adorable store. The owner has a wonderful eye for interior design and the inside is as cute as the outside. She specializes in wool embroidery as well as quilting and I could have spent several happy hours (and lots of money) there. She also designs and has a line of her own patterns. I know I saw only a fraction of what she’s got.

I spotted a sign in the store that mentioned a quilting retreat. Thinking it was an annual retreat she hosted, I asked her about the dates. She informed me that the sign referred to the retreat center next door, The Crow’s Nest, which she rents out. The old farmhouse sleeps seven and comes with a large quilting studio with plenty of room to set up machines and work on projects. Kalispell peeps, what do you think? A group of us could rent a van—I’ll drive, as I know my way around—and go over for a couple of days. We could spend one day there working on projects and spend another day visiting all the quilt and thrift stores in and around Spokane. I suspect Robin and Sunnie and Tera would be up for the adventure, and we could probably persuade a few others to join us.

I would like to get back to doing wool embroidery in the evenings. I bought three pincushion patterns because pincushions are small, discrete projects that work up quickly and make good gifts for fellow sewists. I also have 25 pounds of crushed walnut shells to use up. This was one of the patterns I bought at As The Crow Flies:

It went together quickly and now I just need to work the embroidery on the sewing machine motif. I bought the kit for this pincushion because those are reproduction Civil War-era fabrics and they don’t feature prominently in my stash.

I left Spokane at first light Friday and arrived home around 1 pm. The husband had taken an early weekend and was waiting for me when I got here.

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This week, it’s back to business. I have to start working on Auction stuff. The pile of tops is still here waiting to be quilted. I ordered the rest of the rulers from Amanda Murphy’s website. They should arrive tomorrow.

I need to look into better ways to track my sewing projects. It’s not that I’m losing them in the chaos, but more that I have periods of time where it looks like I’m not getting anything done. I need a good way to reflect my progress. Checking things off a list is part of what motivates me.

[From the “slower by the minute but faster by the month” department—I have something like 43 hexie flowers made. I am rethinking what I want to do with them as they would be more than enough for an appliqué quilt design of some sort, like this one.]

I’m going to look like a finishing maniac when I get this pile of quilt tops done. I’ve got a bunch of table runners and other small items lined up behind them that also need to be quilted. And DD#2 asked me last night if I could make a batch of makeup pads for the friend she’s visiting in San Diego, so I’ll knock out another batch of those. They’re a good mindless serging project for late in the day.

Please Read the Supply List

The Quilting Bee always has a full roster of classes, and I had planned this trip partly so I could take one. There were two scheduled for Wednesday. The morning class was on making a threadcatcher pincushion. I didn’t need a class for this—I actually drafted a pattern and made one last year—but it’s fun to be a student instead of the teacher, so I signed up. The afternoon class was on making a byAnnie travel bag. The only reason I didn’t take that one as well was because it required some work to be done ahead of time and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get that work done and come to class prepared.

Coming to class prepared apparently is a foreign concept to some people. I’ve experienced it in my own classes, when people express surprise that there was a class supply list on the store website. On Tuesday evening, I got a call from the store asking me to confirm my attendance at the class Wednesday morning and asking if I needed a machine. “No,” I said, “I am bringing one with me.”

[I have a little Janome Jem 639 that I picked up at one of the thrift stores in Spokane for $15.00. The machine is nothing fancy—it only has three pre-set stitch lengths—but it’s solid, with metal innards, and it’s a great class machine. I cleaned and oiled it before I left so I knew it would be ready to sew. The machine and all my class supplies travel in a milk crate on wheels that I got at Staples. I also use the milk crate to tote my serger to class when I teach.]

Just in case you were wondering, this is how big a destination quilt store is:

The store has been in this location for a couple of years. Before that, they were crammed into a tiny space in a strip mall about a mile away.

I arrived at the store around 9:45 am and was directed to the classroom. There were a couple of machines already set up at some of the workstations. The store will provide a class machine if you ask ahead of time. They are often the latest and fanciest models, though, which is not always ideal. Using an unfamiliar store model means the student spends more time learning how to operate the machine than learning the technique being taught.

I was the first one there. Gradually, the rest of the students wandered in, and as I was setting up my workstation, I was listening to the conversations happening between them and the teacher.

“Were we supposed to bring a machine?” Well, yes, you should always bring a machine to a sewing class.

“But a sewing machine wasn’t on the supply list.” (I could not help myself. I rolled my eyes at that one.)

“I didn’t bring a rotary cutter/ruler/cutting mat. Do I need one?” Yes, that was specified on the supply list, but I have an extra you can use.

“Was there a supply list?” Yes, it was on the website.

“Can you help me wind a bobbin? I don’t know how to use this store machine.” Yes, you wind a bobbin this way . . .

The instructor, a retired fifth-grade teacher, was very patient and gracious. Eventually, she was able to introduce herself and hand out the instructions. I took off and got started on my project. I did have the advantage of having made one before, but I also came prepared with a cutting mat, ruler, rotary cutter, and a machine ready to sew—in other words, everything that was on the supply list. By the time the class was half over, I had finished one threadcatcher and started a second one.

“You left everyone else in the class in the dust again, didn’t you?” the husband remarked when I talked to him that evening. Yeah, well, it’s not hard to show up prepared for a class. Or life, for that matter. I wonder, sometimes, if I am being too hard on other people by expecting them to be even moderately competent, but I don’t think so.

In any case, here is my finished pincushion threadcatcher.

I still have to stuff the pincushion. Some people did that in class, but I have a 25-pound bag of crushed walnut shells that I need to use up.

I left the store, went and got lunch, then headed up South Hill to visit one of the three Joann Fabrics stores and the other quilt store. I spent a quiet half an hour thumbing through the new Simplicity pattern catalog and writing down pattern numbers. I knew that a new Joanns weekly flyer was coming out on Thursday and I suspected the Simplicity patterns would be on sale.

The quilt store on South Hill is small, but well stocked. It’s so well stocked, in fact, that the owner would like to move into the space next door and expand, but she told Tera and me how much she is currently paying in rent and I think it’s astronomical. And she’s not even downtown. This store carries Juki machines. I was the only one in the store, so I casually mentioned how much I love my Juki sergers and that I was teaching serger classes in Kalispell. I asked if she ever had requests for serger classes—I’ve never seen them on her class calendar—and she said that she would love to offer some, but she just doesn’t have time and doesn’t know other machines well enough to troubleshoot problems.

[You see where this is going, don’t you?]

I offered to send her my teaching information. She seemed eager to schedule at least a basic serger class to see if there was interest. If the universe wants me to teach serger classes, I might as well embrace the opportunity. It’s not like I have a lot of competition.

I was back at the Airbnb by 4:30 pm in order to miss the evening rush hour, and spent a relaxing couple of hours working on my EPP and reading. On Thursday, I went further afield to two new quilt stores, so stay tuned. My Kalispell quilting peeps will be especially interested as I may have found a place for us to have a retreat.

Itinerant Stitcher on the Road Again

I went on a road trip. I usually take one toward the end of January or beginning of February. In years past, several of us have gone to Portland for a denominational get-together—and I’ll often act as chauffeur—but that meeting has been Zoom-only since the pandemic and will be again this year. Next Saturday, a group of us is getting together at the church and attending the Zoom meeting together. I am making a batch of BBQ pork and either cole slaw or potato salad. My schedule starts to fill up soon and I probably won’t be free to go anywhere until after the Auction, so I took advantage of this opportunity to travel. I might have gone to Seattle, but DD#2 also needed to get away and is in San Diego visiting her best friend from high school.

My friend Susan was going to go with me on this trip. Her daughter lives about an hour south of Spokane and had planned to come up and meet us and take Susan home with her for a few days to visit the grandkids. Susan texted me Monday night, though, to tell me that she had gone to town with another friend of ours, and by the time they got back, our other friend was experiencing fever and chills. She later tested positive for covid, so Susan decided to play it safe and stay home. We were both disappointed, but she didn’t want to risk exposing anyone else.

This was my haul from the trip, and I’ll explain what I got as I go along:

I left Tuesday morning at first light. About halfway to Spokane, I noticed that I no longer had heat coming out of the vents. “Hmmm,” I thought. “That’s new.”

[Honestly, nothing about this car surprises me anymore. The husband thinks it is possessed. I said that wasn’t rational, because it’s a machine, but he stands by his assertion.]

I was plenty warm with just the seat heater on, so it wasn’t a huge issue. I fiddled with the controls so that I could explain to the husband exactly what was happening. Basically, the fan works sometimes, but sometimes it doesn’t, and even when it’s working, the air that is coming out of the vents can best be described as “lukewarm.” He said that didn’t really help him to diagnose the problem, but he’s going to put the car in the shop and look at it. I might be driving the Acura for a few days. The replacement starter solenoid also arrived and he needs to put that in. I don’t want to buy another car, but I told him that he needs to tell me when working on this car has gotten to be too much of a hassle. He says he hasn’t reached that point yet. If I didn’t have my own personal BMW mechanic, I would have traded this car in for a reliable Honda a long time ago.

I got to Spokane around noon on Tuesday and headed for the two quilt stores in Spokane Valley. One—Heartbeat Quilting—is a dedicated longarm store. They rent time on their machines and have all sorts of supplies for longarm quilters (except rulers—more on that in a moment). They also carry the entire line of Signature thread. I stopped there, first, and picked up some thread colors I needed. (I went on this trip armed with a list, which is the only way I can shop at quilt stores without getting overwhelmed by all the pretties.)

My next stop was The Quilting Bee. This is a huge store. Huge. It’s what is referred to as a “destination quilt store,” because people (like me) make actual pilgrimages there. This store is also a Janome and Bernina dealer, and it’s where I take my Janome 6600P every June to have it serviced. They sell Bernina machines but don’t rent time on their longarm machines, preferring to send people to Heartbeat Quilting. The last time I was at The Quilting Bee, they had the whole line of Amanda Murphy longarm rulers, so I was excited about rounding out my collection with the ones I hadn’t been able to find locally. Unfortunately, when I went to look for them and couldn’t find them, the saleswoman that was helping me said that they had put all of them on clearance at their sidewalk sale.

That sound you hear is me wailing with disappointment. I was hoping not to have to order the rulers, because I wanted to come home and finish the tops I’ve got stacked up and waiting. I moved on to the next few items on my list, which were a ruler foot for Robin, an Oliso mini-project iron for me, a set of Bernina gripper rings for my Q20 (for free motion quilting), some Aurifil thread, and a backing for the red Candy Coated quilt. I managed to find a bolt in the sale section with five yards on it, so I got a screaming deal on that backing.

[I had a mini project iron—one I bought at Wal-Mart—but I cannot for the life of me find it in my quilting supplies. I’ve looked for it everywhere. I might have left it somewhere after a class. Oliso recently came out with those little project irons, so I bought one to replace the one I can’t find, which just about guarantees that the other one will resurface soon.]

After I finished shopping, I took the car through the carwash—it might be a diva, but it’s going to be a clean diva—and hit all the thrift stores on that side of town before heading to the Airbnb. I stayed at the same Airbnb where I stayed last October, because it was so convenient and comfortable. It was also $38 a night, so three nights cost me less than one night at a hotel and I was able to make breakfast and dinner there.

Tomorrow, you’ll get to hear about the class I took at The Quilting Bee, and my discovery that there are students everywhere who come to class not having read the supply list.

A Couple of Days of Mindless Activity

My brain needed a couple of days off. I’ve been asking it to learn new quilting skills, crank out ideas, and teach people, and it was tired. We got an unexpected “winter storm” on Thursday—perhaps it was the one that we were supposed to get Monday which never materialized—with a few inches of new snow followed by a messy rain/snow mix. I decided it would be a good day to stay put.

[The husband poured a footing at a property around the corner on Thursday. They got it done, but he came home cold and soaking wet and then had to go to CPR refresher class.]

I spent Thursday morning sorting paperwork into file folders, a mindless activity if ever there was one. I’ve got a few entries to make in Quickbooks and then last year’s financial information will be ready to send off to the accountant. Yay. I am glad to have that taken care of. My Accuquilt cutter is back in place and ready to cut fabric.

After lunch on Thursday, I pulled out my red, pink, and orange bag of strips and did nothing but sew strips together. Miles and miles of strips. I started a Candy Coated quilt from that bag a few months ago, but the bag is still overflowing and needs to be dealt with. I sewed Thursday afternoon and again yesterday morning. I gave myself until noon yesterday to see how far I could get. I finished all the rows:

These just need to be sewn together, basted with batting and a backing, and added to the queue. I didn’t empty the bag completely, but I put a significant dent into it. The next bag of strips I tackle will either be the cream/white ones or the blue ones.

I need to finish quilting the wallhanging, though, and then start quilting the tumbler top. While I was sewing, I was also watching Amanda Murphy videos and now I have a whole collection of new ideas to try out. I’ve got something fun in mind for that tumbler quilt.

In one of her videos, Amanda demonstrated how to combine free motion quilting—she was quilting loops, my favorite—with rulerwork motifs like stars and flowers. I can’t wait to try that combination. In one of her books, she made the comment that rulerwork tends to appeal to quilters who love piecing. That totally makes sense now that I think about it. I am not an improv/free motion kind of quilter AT ALL. I can do it, but rulerwork makes my brain happy.

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I have two trays of lettuce seedlings:

I’ll start the next tray in a couple of days. Once it’s all up and growing, this should keep us in lettuce until I can get some planted in the greenhouse or outside.

Our fire department is planning to have its annual fundraising auction again this year. We’ve had to cancel it for the past two years because of the pandemic, but we’re trying to build a new station and we need to get money coming in again. My auction job for the past decade or so has been to run the Finance Trailer, where all the money comes in, because I like counting pennies. The husband has a new job, though, as the person in charge of the equipment sale portion of the auction, so I am moving over there to be his assistant. I need to get up to speed on the equipment sale software and the whole process of verifying titles and checking in equipment. The sale is the first weekend in April.

Can we work together? LOL. Sometimes there are too many generals and not enough foot soldiers in our relationship, but he knows more about the equipment coming into the sale than anyone else, and I’m good at administration. It makes sense for me to be his assistant. I am the closest thing to a mind reader he’s got.

Making T-Shirts

T-shirt class went very well. I had six students, including one from the Serger 101 class at the beginning of January, three who had been in my serger classes last summer, and two new students. One of the new students really should have taken the Serger 101 class because she was not familiar with her machine—and she acknowledged that—but she managed. Thankfully, all the machines were well behaved.

I am glad I structured the first class the way I did. I started with an overview of different kinds of knit fabrics and passed out samples for each student to take home. The quilt store owner had ordered a bolt of Laguna Cotton for me, so the students had quality fabric to work with in class, but we also talked about what they could expect to find online and at Joann Fabrics. It’s unrealistic to expect a quilt store owner to carry a wide selection of garment fabrics, and this owner knows that people may be buying garment fabric elsewhere.

We moved on to discussing patterns and pattern tracing. I had downloaded my pattern, printed it, and taped it together at home. One of the students had taken hers to Kalispell Copy and had them print it on their large-format printer, so everyone was able to see the two options. We talked about tracing paper and Pellon Easy-Pattern. I showed them how to use a dressmaker’s curve and why it’s best to cut out knits using a rotary cutter rather than shears.

I had cut out the pieces for a child’s T-shirt before class and brought my machine to class with me. I demonstrated how to serge the shoulder seams and add either clear elastic or 1/4” ribbon to stabilize them. I do have an elasticator foot for my serger, but I pointed out that on my serger, my regular presser foot has an adjustable opening for feeding elastic/ribbon. We checked everyone’s machines to see if others had that option.

I laid out the front/back, now serged together at the shoulders, and we talked about the relationship between armscyes and sleeve caps and how to pin in the sleeve using small Wonder Clips. I love that some of my knitting design experience has transferred so nicely to sewing. When I serged the first sleeve, part of the seam was a bit wonky, which gave me a chance to show them how to remove that part of the seam and re-do it. (Everything can be a learning opportunity.) I made a neckband, showed them how to divide it into fourths and clip it into the neck opening, and attached it. I serged the two side seams. The T-shirt was done except for the hems. I promised to bring my old coverstitch machine to next month’s class so they could try it out and hem their finished T-shirts.

That was the first half of the class. During the second half, everyone traced their patterns and some students even got their pieces cut out. Others wanted to take the fabric home and wash it, first. I had told them at the outset that there might be homework. Everyone went home happy and satisfied and I expect to see a batch of T-shirts at next month’s class. Next month, we’re going to trace an existing shirt and draft a pattern from it.

And some of them are already asking about a leggings class.

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I decided to cut out the rest of the circles for the makeup pads before sorting tax stuff. I serged the rest of them yesterday morning before class so I could take them with me to sewing today.

Securing and trimming serger tails will be a good activity to do while sitting and visiting. I might throw this batch in the washer and dryer when it’s done to get rid of more of that lint.

The husband bought a new Honda generator for his other truck and asked if I could make a cover for it. I made a cover for the first generator out of some 500D Cordura. That one has held up well. I need more Cordura, though, so I ordered some from Seattle Fabrics on Monday. Their website notes that that they will be opening to the public again soon. That news makes me happy. The store has been closed to walk-in traffic for almost two years. I got a shipping notice within a few hours of submitting the order on the website, so I expect the Cordura to arrive soon.

The husband also ordered a new scan tool. This is a small tablet that hooks up to a vehicle’s computer and reads and diagnoses error codes. Scan tools range from very simple ones that just spit out the code to sophisticated systems that come with expensive subscriptions to a database with detailed information on virtually every make and model of vehicle. I’m not sure he’s at the expensive subscription level yet, but he’s close, thanks in part to The Diva. I am all for anything that makes it easier for him to work on my car.

Ultimate Broken Machine

I called Kevin at the BMW dealer in Spokane to give him the code that the husband picked up with the code reader in case they needed to order a part for the car. When I gave him the code, he said, “Ohhhh, hold up—a recall on that part just came out.” He ran the VIN and sure enough, my car is included in the recall. I told the husband and the husband said, “But you had that part replaced already.” (Indeed, I did.) Here’s the kicker: the part is being recalled (again) because the “recall component was not produced with sufficient long-term durability characteristics,” according to documentation filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

As of yesterday, Kevin said, they don’t yet have a fix. He suggested I just drive around with the check engine light on until they do have one, at which point I can bring it in and they’ll do the recall work for free. We canceled the appointment I had made. The husband said that it’s nice that BMW will do recall work on a car with 111,000 miles on it and I responded that I thought it would be better if BMW stopped trying to cut corners and made parts that didn’t self-destruct before they were supposed to. (This makes two, the other one being the transfer case that failed, spectacularly, at 70,000 miles.)

“Ultimate Driving Machine,” my ass. It can’t be an ultimate anything if it doesn’t work.

At least the brake pad sensor issue has been fixed. I am still getting the drivetrain malfunction warning, but that’s related to the recall issue.

Between this car and all the car repair videos I watch with the husband, I know way more about cars than I really need to. Last night I learned how to change a brake line in a 2014 Dodge Caravan.

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I spent yesterday morning getting my T-shirt class stuff together. This has been a difficult class to organize, not because I don’t know how to teach it, but because what the store wanted—or thought they wanted—wasn’t what I thought lent itself well to a class, so there was a lot of back-and-forth about number of sessions and scheduling. The initial request was for a T-shirt class where every student could go home with a T-shirt that fit him or her. That would work if every student were the same shape and size. We compromised on a three-session class over three months. (I am discovering that stores like classes that run over a period of time, which keeps students coming back to the store, but requires some adjustment in how I plan my classes.) In the first session, which is tomorrow, we’re all going to trace, cut out, and assemble a kid’s T-shirt. Children basically have zero fitting issues, so we’ll be able to concentrate on the basics of making a garment with a serger.

The second and third classes are somewhat dependent upon what happens with this first class. I like to joke that “No class outline survives first contact with the students.” I hope that everyone will get a T-shirt made or at least well underway tomorrow, even if they have to finish it at home. We will then be able to focus on pattern drafting and fitting in the second and third classes.

Wish me luck. I’ll report back later in the week.

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I made several dozen makeup rounds yesterday which just need to have the serger tails secured and trimmed. I was cutting the rounds with the Accuquilt cutter, but I had to put the cutter away because the table that it sits on is the place where I sort and organize paperwork for tax season. Our construction company is a partnership, and partnership tax returns have to be filed by March 15. I like to have the information to our accountant by the end of January. Most of it is in Quickbooks and the reports are easy to pull, but I have to tease some things out of the mound of paperwork that I am too lazy to sort during the year because I hate filing.

So no more fabric cutting until taxes are done. I know how to motivate myself, trust me.

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The second tray of lettuce is planted. I am going to wash the totes I was using in the previous system and give them to Ali so she can try setting up a system at her house. We are all fond of salads here in the neighborhood.

Binding continues apace.

A few more car videos and this one should be done.

Designs in the Wild

One of my blog readers—hi, Elizabeth!—made the Cobbles and Pebbles quilt and shared a picture of it with me on Facebook yesterday.

Elizabeth made this with remnants of the “Jane Austen at Home” fabric line by Riley Blake Designs. (She said that the rest of the fabric went into an English Paper Piecing quilt.) I love how it turned out! The overall look is soft and subtle, and even though it’s made from a single fabric line, it looks scrappy. Seeing my designs out in the wild is so much fun. Thank you, Elizabeth!

[Funny story—I was teaching at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival some years ago and a student came into my class wearing an Aran sweater. I complimented her on how nice it looked and she said, “This is your Son of Aran sweater from the knitalong!” (I hosted an Aran sweater knitalong 20 years ago on the Aranknit Yahoo group.) I didn’t even recognize one of my own “children,” sadly.]

If only I could clone myself. I know I get a lot done, but I wish I could do everything I want to do. I have about 20 quilt designs in my head waiting to come out. I joked to the husband that I should have had a few more kids, because many of the productive quilt designers out there have family-run businesses. Or perhaps the problem is that I am interested in too many things.

I made and attached binding to the squares quilt yesterday and sewed one side down while watching the cliffhanger end of the San Francisco-Dallas playoff game. (I thought Tony Romo was going to blow a gasket, LOL.) The O’s wallhanging is back on the Q20. That one shouldn’t take long as it’s all straight-line rulerwork. I’d like to quilt the turquoise tumblers quilt after that—I am thinking that one might lend itself well to a combination of rulerwork and free motion quilting.

I looked for this Amanda Murphy book while I was in Missoula on Friday but couldn’t find a copy:

I have her Ultimate Guide to Rulerwork Quilting book that just came out—and it’s great—but I’d like to have the rulerwork idea book, too. The husband has Kindle Unlimited with Amazon. I downloaded a copy for free to his Kindle so I could look at it, but that’s not a convenient place to have it. I’m going to have to order a hard copy.

So much to learn and so much to do.

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The low tire pressure light came on as I was leaving church yesterday, so I called the husband on my way home to let him know I would be bringing The Diva over to the new shop to have it filled up. He told me just to pull the car into the shop so he could put it up on the lift and look at it. A bit later, he came in and said he had replaced the brake pad sensor because it had a broken wire. And one tire has a very slow leak, which we suspect is the same problem it had last winter. The tire place didn’t get the bead seated properly and I had to take it back and have them re-seat the tire on the rim. I might stop in there this week. That leaves only a bad EGR sensor—for now—and when I take it in to the BMW dealer in Spokane, I’ll have them replace the sensor if they have the part in stock. I’m going to drop the car off at 8 am and get a ride to the quilt store so I can take a class in the morning. The quilt store has open stitching in the afternoon, so I could spend the whole day there if I needed to.

Another One Quilted

I finished quilting the square-in-a-square top yesterday. This one was a learning experience in several ways.

• Custom quilting, either free-motion or rulerwork, takes a lot longer than a free-motion edge-to-edge design. That’s why custom quilting costs more. I said to the husband that I probably wouldn’t quilt a top like this with rulerwork again in the future if it’s destined to be donated, although I might custom quilt a top if it were to be donated to the quilt auction in Ritzville and I wanted to ensure it brought top dollar. This is not that kind of a top. This is a humble, scrappy, square-in-a-square quilt whose main purpose will be to keep someone warm. Because it is a heavily geometric design, though, it lent itself well to practicing rulerwork. I could practice rulerwork on quilt sandwiches made just for that purpose, but I’ve found that the learning process is more likely to stick—and I am more likely to put forth my best effort—if I practice on an actual quilt top.

• Custom quilting requires that one think about the design as well as how to quilt it and in what order to quilt it. There is all sorts of advice floating around out there about how to quilt a top: Start in the middle and quilt out. Start at one side and quilt to the other side. Quilt in one direction and then in the opposite direction. Divide the top into quadrants and quilt one section at a time. I think the answer really depends on the top. I do like Amanda Murphy’s advice to “quilt the bones” first. That helps to stabilize the design and provide a foundation for additional quilting.

• I have learned that there are different kinds of rulerwork. This top wanted rulerwork that complemented the geometric nature of the piecing. Some designs want rulerwork that emphasizes a motif or motifs within the top, perhaps motifs that are appliquéd on or printed on the fabric. I suspect I am going to do more of the former, but I’m learning some of the latter, too, because we’re working on a motif-printed top in Ruler Club. Also, it’s not an either-or situation. Some tops feature both kinds of rulerwork and free motion quilting. Robin pointed out such a quilt to me on Friday. It was hanging in the hallway at The Confident Stitch in Missoula and featured a top comprised of 6” equilateral triangles, each of which had been quilted a different way. The end result was very striking.

Overall, I am happy with the rulerwork I did on this top and I think it complements the piecing well. The center has curved “orange peels” around the large squares and within the small squares. I quilted 1” round circles within the white border, and finished up with simple piano key quilting in the outer border:

I thought about doing another rulerwork design in the outer border—I have lots of good rulers for border designs—but I was tired and wanted to cross this top off the list. Sometimes, enough is as good as it gets. This top is ready to be trimmed and bound and added to the “to be donated” pile. I am going to move the O’s wallhanging back to the front of the queue and finish that one next.

Or maybe I’ll take a break and just serge makeup pads for a while. T-shirt class is this Wednesday and I need to do a bit of prep work for that, too.

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Lettuce seeds sprout quickly in that new growing system:

I must have missed putting seeds into that rooting plug in the back. Oops.

I’ll get another tray started today, I think, so we have a rolling supply.