Has Spring Finally Arrived?

DD#2 and I started our Sunday morning with brunch while I tried to figure out where to stay Sunday night. My choices were to stay just east of the city, get over Snoqualmie Pass and stay somewhere between there and Spokane, or try to get all the way to Spokane. I decided that we would do our shopping, see what time it was when we got back to her apartment, and reassess from there.

No trip to Seattle would be complete without a stop at IKEA. We picked up a few more items for her as well as some things that people here in Kalispell had asked me to get. The nearby mall—Southcenter—also has a Half-Price Books. It was there that I found this:

I had looked at this very book on Friday while shopping with DSIL’s mom and decided not to get it. I commented then that I had no business thinking I could begin a career as a fabric designer at 56, at which point I heard my mother’s voice in my head reminding me that she started her metal stamping plant when she was 55.

My mother and the universe are conspiring against me. I bought the book. Fabric design will be on the back burner as a project for next winter, unless I figure out how to cram 24 more hours into a day.

We finished our shopping and were back at DD#2’s apartment by 2:00 pm. I decided there was plenty of time for me to drive back to Spokane for the night. The weather was lovely and traffic was light. I pulled in to Spokane just after 6:00 pm and was back home in Montana by noon on Monday, rested and refreshed from my travels.

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Some farm updates:

The chicks got moved to the coop Tuesday morning. They were a bit shell-shocked at first, but they settled in and now spend their days running around and peeping at the big chickens. Dave seems unfazed, but then again, he is the most placid rooster I’ve ever had. The chicks are in a separate area, so they’re safe, but everyone can see everyone else.

The greenhouse is full of plants:

Susan brought down eight flats of tomatoes for the plant sale. Hers are farther along than ours. It has been a very cold spring and the seedlings haven’t taken off like they normally do despite being in the greenhouse. I am hoping our plants will catch up by the plant sale on May 21. I’m also trying to catch another mouse that has been wreaking some minor havoc in there. I see the neighbor’s cat prowling around the greenhouse every so often and I’m hoping she’ll help me out.

We had gorgeous weather yesterday. I skipped the craft co-op meeting—we are so far behind in garden prep because of the weather that I couldn’t justify going—and spent four hours working outside. The husband said he would plant potatoes this weekend. I pulled the plastic off that section of the garden and moved it to where I plan to put the tomatoes. The baby peach trees seem to be doing okay. I still have some concerns about this coming gardening season—and I am one of the featured gardens again on the garden tour in mid-July—but we’ll just have to see what happens.

I am sore from the work, but it’s a good kind of sore. I worked on serger class samples yesterday afternoon and tried out a few of the threads I bought on my trip.

I’ll be a student today and tomorrow! I signed up for the Bernina Mystery Make: Overlocker Edition class at the quilt store south of town. I’ve been looking forward to this for two months. We’ll be using the Bernina L850 and L890 sergers, so I’ll get some hands-on experience with those machines.

Clothes, Books, and Bad Plumbing

I did a purge of my closet earlier this year. I’ve replaced some stuff with me-made items, but I was looking forward to seeing what was in the stores. Despite the fact that I have nowhere to wear fancy clothing, part of me still likes and appreciates fashion.

I was getting ready to meet DD#2 on Saturday morning when I noticed that the drains in the Airbnb were—to put it delicately—slow. Very slow. I made a mental note to check when I got back. I went and picked up DD#2 and we headed north to the mall where she used to work. She still works for Nordstrom, but from home now, in a corporate position.

There is a Hobby Lobby, a Joann Fabrics, and a Half-Price Books all within a block of each other near the mall. We popped into Hobby Lobby first. I found some fabric I would have bought if I could have found someone to measure and cut it for me. Stores there are desperate for help, too. We wandered over to Half-Price Books to check out the craft section. I almost always find treasures there. I was not disappointed. This was on the shelf:

I literally looked at this on Amazon not two weeks ago but didn’t pull the trigger. It went into my shopping basket, along with a Singer book on serging. I look forward to digging into this one.

We went to Joanns to look at the selection of foam. I am making a set of cushions for DD#2’s patio furniture, but she wants thicker foam for them. I am still in the research phase of that project, but at least I have an idea of what she wants. I also gave her a mini-class on fabric, as she mentioned that she wishes she knew more about different fabrics types—fiber content, weave, etc.—and there is nothing I like better than to wax poetic about textiles.

Our next stops were Target, Kohls, Old Navy, and Barnes and Noble. I don’t shop at Old Navy, but I do like to go in and get ideas for baby stuff to make in my serger classes. We eventually made it to the mall, where we went into Nordstrom and chatted with DD#2’s old boss for a few minutes.

I am a trial to my child because I insist on shopping at JC Penney. I only shop there because that is who carries the Liz Claiborne brand. DD#2 started her career in retail fashion at our JC Penney here when she was 16 and she has opinions. LOL.

My sense from visiting stores in Seattle is that much of the backlog of merchandise that was held up during the pandemic has finally arrived in stores. (That was confirmed by DD#2.) The Liz Claiborne section of this JC Penney store was full to bursting. It’s a good thing that most of the tops were too short for me or I quite possibly could have bought way too much. I have no place to buy clothing in Kalispell—our one big department store closed several years ago, and while we have some small boutiques, they carry a lot of what I would characterize as casual and Western wear in lots of muddy earth tones. I don’t like to order online because I need to try everything on.

What I saw in Seattle was—finally!—a riot of color. Coral is big this year. We saw it everywhere. I can do pink-y corals, but if they lean to much toward orange, I steer clear. However, I also saw plenty of hot pink, emerald green, and royal blue, and I bought accordingly, both at JC Penney and at Macy’s. (Charter Club is another favorite brand of mine.) I plan to crib patterns off of several of the tops so that I can make future versions of them, including another style of Liz Claiborne knot top. I actually ordered a second one of that top when I got home so I can take it apart to trace.

We had a good day of shopping, capped off by dinner from Trader Joe’s that we prepared and ate at my Airbnb. I noticed that the drains were still pretty slow, so I went upstairs and talked to the Airbnb hosts. Apparently, they were aware their sewer line had an issue and repairs were scheduled for the following week. They were very apologetic and offered the use of their facilities, although that wasn’t really convenient. I decided I would just be vigilant and keep an eye on things.

On Sunday morning, however, I cut short my shower when I noticed the water wasn’t draining AT ALL. Then I began smelling sewer gas. I suspected we were one toilet flush away from an environmental disaster, so I got dressed, packed up my stuff, and loaded the car. I let the Airbnb hosts know that I was planning to leave and get a hotel for the night.

[The hosts later refunded that night’s stay and apologized again. They are subject not only to Airbnb rules but also to Seattle city regulations, and I think they were afraid I would give them a bad review that could jeopardize their license. However, I want to stay there in the future—provided they can get this sewer issue resolved—because it’s so convenient to DD#2. I gave them a good review.]

I’ll cover Sunday’s shopping expedition in the next blog post.

Friday in Port Townsend

A few weeks ago, I messaged our son-in-law’s mother to let her know that I would be coming to Seattle. She and DSIL’s dad live on the Olympic Peninsula. They are wonderful people and I enjoy seeing them when I am over that way. She suggested that we meet for lunch and shopping in Port Townsend, a lovely historic town halfway between their house and the western ferry landing. DD#2 had to work, so I was on my own for the day.

The fastest and easiest way to get to the peninsula from Seattle is via ferry, except during the summer months when everyone is trying to get to the peninsula. Even in April, I hit a fair bit of traffic. Getting to the ferry terminal does not guarantee you a spot on an actual ferry. I have the WSDOT ferry account in my Twitter feed and there have been times when I’ve seen a two-hour wait. Having the Washington State Ferry app on my phone is a must, too, as it lets me know when each ferry sails and how many spots are open.

I have learned to time my arrival at the ferry terminal as a current ferry is loading, such that I am close to the front of the line for the ferry I want to be on. I may have to wait up to an hour, but I’ve found it’s better that way. First on, first off, unless I luck out and get onto the current ferry.

I took the 8:50 am ferry. The ride takes about half an hour and the weather was gorgeous up on the sun deck:

By the time I got to Port Townsend, it was 10:15 am. Traffic was heavy even this early in the season. DSIL’s mom and I met in the McDonald’s parking lot. I moved the BMW over to the Safeway parking lot and she drove us both downtown. We lucked out and got a parking spot on the main street.

Women like to shop. Men, I am sorry, but that is a fact of life. Even I like to shop, albeit in small doses. The two of us indulged ourselves and went into every shop that caught our fancy. Of particular note were District Fabrics, where I splurged on two yards of a 100% wool jersey in royal blue and where DSIL’s mom provided helpful advice to a novice sewist on fabric choices for a dress; and a yarn store called Bazaar Girls, where she bought a book on Norwegian sweaters. DSIL’s sister is currently living in Norway and is a knitter.

In between, we walked and visited. The rosemary shrubs in this part of the country are something to behold I can’t overwinter rosemary here, even though it is one of my favorite herbs. This is a representative specimen:

If only.

We had lunch and shopped a bit more. I was trying to follow a tight schedule, though, and wanted to make a quick stop at Quilted Strait on the way back to the ferry, so I said farewell to DSIL’s mom around 2:30 pm. Quilted Strait was a bit of a disappointment. I had been there once before and drooled over their wool embroidery section, but they’ve pared it back quite a bit. I did buy the wool that was in yesterday’s photo and a spool of 12wt Aurifil thread.

Those 12wt threads are a fairly common size for embroidery, but they only come in small balls or loose skeins, neither of which work on the serger. Even the 12wt Aurifil, which comes on spools, requires that I trick out the serger with a horizontal spool pin or it won’t feed smoothly:

I arrived back in Seattle just in time for DD#2 to come by and get me for our 5:45 pm dinner reservation at a restaurant a few blocks from my Airbnb. I had a phenomenal bowl of seafood chowder. I was aiming for seafood at every meal last weekend and I came pretty close.

And yes, you have to wait for tomorrow’s blog post to find out what happened at the Airbnb.

Treasure Hunting

I’ve been traveling, as you might have guessed from the lack of blog posts. I desperately needed a road trip. The one I was supposed to take in early March was postponed due to the impromptu road trip to Tacoma at the end of February, and if I don’t get away every couple of months, I start to get twitchy.

As it turned out, my evening T-shirt class that was supposed to start last Wednesday night got cancelled for lack of students. My original plan was to teach that class, then leave early Thursday morning and power all the way through to Seattle, arriving Thursday afternoon. With Wednesday freed up, I changed the plan. I got everyone fed and watered Wednesday morning and headed to Spokane. I gained an hour going over, which put me there in the early afternoon.

I had a shopping list for this trip, as I usually do. I get overwhelmed if I don’t. The focus for this trip was serger supplies—thread, patterns, and anything else that might be helpful for teaching classes. I hit all the Joann Fabrics and Hobby Lobby stores in Spokane but didn’t find much to tempt me. I spent an hour wandering around The Quilting Bee, which is like Disneyland for quilters. They had all of their Accuquilt dies on clearance for 30% off, so I picked up a circle die in a size I don’t have.

This one makes 4”, 6”, 7”, and 8” circles.

As I was checking out, I noticed a basket of threads at the counter, also on sale. Yay! I picked up a spool of YLI 8wt rayon in black and one in gold, as well as a spool of Wonderfil Flash. That’s a 40wt reflective thread. I have no idea what I will do with it yet, but it was there so I bought some. (I suspect it is used mostly by people making athletic wear.)

I spent Wednesday night in Spokane and was on the road bright and early Thursday morning. It was showery and cool as I left Spokane, but the weather improved considerably the further west I got. I timed my drive so that I arrived at the Moses Lake Joann Fabrics just as they opened at 9 am. This store usually has a well-stocked remnant rack, but remnants were thin on the ground everywhere I went. Joanns has changed many of their pricing and sales models and I am starting to see the effects of those changes.

I continued west on I-90, over Snoqualmie Pass, to my next couple of stops. Gossypium Quilts is a lovely little store in Issaquah, Washington, just off the highway. They had all sorts of treasures, including one entire room devoted to Kaffe Fassett patterns and fabrics. That was a feast for the eyes. I bought a couple of yards of Essex Linen in colors I don’t have, as well as a pack of 240 die-cut hexies that were on the clearance rack for half off. Moda Fabrics was offering these for some of their designers. I don’t know if they will continue to offer them or not, but that was too good a bargain to pass up.

Just down the street from the quilt store is Issaquah Sewing and Vacuum. I was most excited about visiting this store because they are a Wonderfil Boutique and carry most of the Wonderfil line of threads. I was not disappointed. I filled my shopping bag with all sorts of goodies, including two holiday packs of Glamore, which is Wonderfil’s 12wt glitzy rayon/metallic, a spool of 30wt Mirage (rayon), some Fruitti (a varigated 12wt cotton), and another metallic thread recommended by the saleslady.

Because I was there on a “Sew Time” day, I got an additional 20% off and was invited to stay for the Sew Time presentation. The store does this six times a year and I just happened to be there on one of the days when they do a YouTube livestream. I was in the studio audience, LOL.

[The wool in that picture came from Friday’s shopping expedition.]

This thread haul will give me plenty to experiment with on my serger. I can also use many of these threads for my hand embroidery projects. My embroidered chickens are going to get some bling.

I made it to DD#2’s apartment around 4 pm. We ordered dinner in and then I headed up to the Airbnb. I found a nice Airbnb about five minutes from her, in a lovely little residential neighborhood. The mother and daughter who live in the house had converted their basement into an apartment. Basements are rare in Seattle, being that it is a city built mostly on a rock outcropping. This basement barely qualified as one, and there were a few spots inside the Airbnb where my head was touching the ceiling. Still, it was a great find, although I ran into an issue toward the end of my stay. You’ll have to stay tuned for the details, and for more on the rest of my weekend visits.

Another Serger Experiment

The other project I made on Saturday was a very simple placemat, also featuring the flatlock stitch. The pillow used flatlocking to seam two pieces of fabric together. The placemat has flatlocking as a decorative accent. I also wanted to try out this method of binding. I want to use a similar binding on the MCC comforters that we tied last month.

This is nothing fancy, but then again, it’s a placemat. They are supposed to be functional, too.

Coming up with class projects is not easy. I’d prefer that students simply learn the techniques and practice on pieces of fabric, but stores want projects so the students can leave class feeling like they accomplished something. It’s a fine line to walk. I have to design—or find a pattern for—a project that illustrates the technique being taught, is do-able within the limits of class time, and isn’t so complicated that it frustrates the students. Gail Yellen’s placemat project on the Bernina website is hugely complicated, because she’s trying to illustrate three or four different techniques in the same project.

This placemat is a good start, although it has the added issue of having to be made using both a serger and a sewing machine. We can get around that in class in a couple of different ways: students can bring both machines; the store can set up a machine for students to use; or students can do the serging parts in class and finish the project at home.

I am going to play around with additional placemat designs. I suspect, too, that I will have a few more ideas after I take the two-day Bernina Overlocker workshop at the end of next week. I’m really looking forward to that class as it will be nice to be a student instead of the teacher.

I like this placemat binding technique. It’s very similar to the method I use on self-binding minky baby blankets. This YouTube tutorial from Cindy Bee was helpful. Basically, you cut the backing larger than the front, trim the corners, and sew a seam on each one. That miters the corners and causes the binding to flip neatly to the front side. Cindy fuses fleece batting to her placemats (as did I) and quilts them before binding them. I tried quilting the first iteration and did not like it, although I was quilting on my Janome because I didn’t want to take apart and rethread the Q20. The binding gets sewn down in the final step. The second placemat—the one that I didn’t quilt—seems plenty solid to me without it, although I suspect the quilting might help it to hold together better in the wash.

I also have a couple of apron patterns that feature decorative flatlock stiches. Those could be adapted for a class, too.

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Happy spring—this was our view yesterday morning:

We had about 8” on the ground by the time I got home from church. Temps are supposed to warm up into the 40s and 50s this week, so hopefully we have seen the last of the snow. I appreciate the precipitation, but I think I’d rather have it as rain now. So would the chickens. They will happily stand outside in a downpour, but they won’t go out if there is snow on the ground.

The chicks are starting to get their big chicken feathers. We’ll probably move them to the coop, in a separate section, by this time next month.

This is a busy week. The husband and I both have appointments at the eye doctor this afternoon, I’m teaching the serger class on baby items tomorrow morning, and my next round of T-shirt classes starts Wednesday.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

Holy Week is typically one of the busiest times for a church pianist—almost as busy as Christmas. The Lutheran church I play for had combined services with another church and didn’t need me, however, and our church had only a Good Friday evening service with an a capella singing group. I appreciated the break. I have plenty to play this morning.

Eight of us sang for the Good Friday service. I threw together a plan at the last minute and pulled out the music for “By the Mark,” a Gillian Welch song from her album Revival, released in 1996. Our church choir sang this almost 20 years ago and it has long been a favorite of mine. It has guitar accompaniment, so I am able to sing instead of play piano. Our pastor asked if our double quartet would also sing three other songs from the hymnal, so we met an hour before the service to go over the music. Besides the usual suspects—the regular song leaders and myself—we had two other singers join us. One of the men told me that he was singing only because he came up to ask someone else a question after church last Sunday and I handed him a piece of music. He’s joking. He’s a good singer and I was happy he joined us. The other member was a young woman new to our church. She has a lovely soprano voice but I think she was a bit shocked by our rehearsal. We are all accomplished musicians and have sung together enough that we tend to freelance. We spent the first few minutes jockeying over who would sing what part. (Often, on Sundays, I can hear Steve wandering around on the hymns—sometimes he sings the bass part, sometimes the tenor, and sometimes the alto an octave down.) We went over the three songs from the hymnal and then tried “By the Mark.” We were having trouble staying with the guitar, though, so we decided to ditch the guitar and sing it a capella. The timing is a bit weird, too, with a half-time measure thrown in every so often. Neither of the sopranos was familiar with the song, so I left Valeri singing alto alone and went over and sang with them. We also decided to eliminate a key change in the choir arrangement and alter the ending to something we liked better.

Singing with a group like that is a rare experience, with a lot of subtle, non-verbal communication happening. I thought the service was very meaningful and I hope we added to it. We’re going to sing “By the Mark” again in this morning’s service.

Snow is in the forecast again today.

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I finally felt like I got my feet under me again yesterday with my sewing. I pulled out this Baby Lock pattern for a flatlock pillow and made one up.

This is going to be a class, I think, although I am going to redesign the pillow a bit. I like the concept and it is a good way to teach the technique. Those contrast bands could be narrower, though. We’ll see. I’ll have to make it up in fresh fabric from the quilt store anyway because these were remnants I pulled out of my stash. The large-scale flower print is from Hobby Lobby and the smaller print is from Joanns. It was a happy accident that they coordinated. Both fabrics have gold metallic in them, which matches the gold metallic 12wt thread I used for the flatlocking.

[Why I Have an Enormous Stash, reason #1,489.]

I finished this pillow and decided that it reminded me of my Grandma Szabo’s living room. She was all about the heavy gold brocade upholstery and fancy gilt table lamps.

One of the destinations on my upcoming trip to Seattle is Issaquah Sewing and Vac. They are listed as a Wonderfil Boutique store and carry most of the Wonderfil threads. The quilt store south of Kalispell also carries Wonderfil, but only a few of the sewing thread lines that Wonderfil makes and some of the Sue Spargo embroidery threads. The only 12wt thread our store has is GlaMore, the metallic, that I used for the pillow. I am hoping to pick up some of the other threads in Seattle. Once I try them out on my serger, I can suggest which ones our store might order to have on hand.

I also made another flatlock project with the same thread and some Christmas fabrics. I’ll post that one tomorrow.

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The greenhouse is filled with plants. Our seedlings are in there, Elysian has seedlings in there, Susan brought down six flats of tomatoes the other day, and Mike planted his seeds over the weekend. At least half of what is in there is destined for the plant sale. (I don’t need 18 zucchini plants.) Elysian sent me the files for the promotional materials she used last year, so I’ll get those printed up this week to post around the community.

A Degree in Serging

I feel like I am back in school and studying for final exams.

This week has been about planning future serger classes so I can get them done and scheduled and off my to-do list. I spent a frustrating morning yesterday working on class samples for a flatlock class. I threaded up the machine, did some testing, then knocked out a sample. Unfortunately, I forgot to write down the settings before I changed them. When I tried to re-create the settings I had used, I couldn’t get the machine to cooperate. I changed the needle. I re-threaded the machine. I got it working, sort of, but I was still having tension issues. My sergers are usually very well behaved. And then it dawned on me—in Monday’s class, one of the students was using some black Maxi-Lock thread from Joanns and was having all sorts of tension problems. She had brought a brand new Baby Lock serger to class, so I knew it wasn’t her machine. I have never had an issue with Maxi-Lock thread. However, I know that sometimes black thread (or black yarn, for that matter) has quality issues because the dyeing process damages the fibers. Part of me wonders if Joanns got a bad batch of black Maxi-Lock thread and both this student and I ended up with it.

I changed to a different color and the tension issues disappeared. I’ll pick up a different brand of black serger thread next time I am in town. Black is not a color I use often, so I hadn’t noticed this problem before. I almost always prefer a dark gray thread unless I am actually using black fabric.

By the time I got that problem sorted, it was almost lunchtime, so I took a break and headed up to sewing for a bit. We had a big group yesterday. I sat and visited for about an hour and came home to do afternoon chores and attempt a few more serger samples.

I’ve pulled out all my bins of apparel remnants so I can experiment with different stitches on various fabrics. I had a couple of pieces of lightweight rayon twill, so I threaded up the machine with some embroidery thread in the upper looper to see how a rolled hem would look:

This turned out so nice that I made this sample into a scarf.

It’s not enough to be theoretical about this stuff. I need to experiment and make samples and push the boundaries so that when—not if, but when—problems come up in class, I can provide solutions. Also, design ideas sometimes come from the edges or from happy accidents.

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I’m not going to complain about the weather. I can’t change it, and I’m not outside working in it like the husband. I will just say that it doesn’t look like things are going to moderate until the middle of next week.

The seedlings are doing well in the greenhouse and should be mostly safe from rodents now. The chicks are attempting to eat their way through a whole 40-pound bag of feed this week. The other day, I opened the lid of the feeder and discovered a chick inside it happily eating away. There always seems to be one little piggy in every batch. I took her out and refilled the feeder.

I’m a bit concerned about those fruit trees we planted two weeks ago. The varieties are hardy to zone 5, which is us, but that probably refers to established trees, not saplings that got planted and then zapped by a cold snap before they had time to acclimate. I guess we’ll find out.

Cold in April

The current temperature is 13 degrees. I am praying that the heater stayed on in the greenhouse, although the diesel heater is still out there for backup. It has a thermostat and should kick on if the temperature inside drops below 70 degrees. At our pastor search committee meeting at church Sunday evening, we were discussing the possibility that this freak spring storm might cause some people to reconsider their plan of moving to Montana. One can hope, LOL.

The gusty winds finally died down after 24 hours. Both Elysian and another neighbor lost trees. The large tree in front of Elysian’s barn came down but landed without doing major damage. Dealing with the mess always takes time, though. We lost three more trees, none of which needs to be dealt with immediately.

Elysian was gone overnight Monday. Yesterday morning, the husband opened the kitchen door to find her dog standing on the porch. He had managed to get out of the yard. She has a big Alaskan Malamute (I think) who is not fond of men but adores me. The dog ran away when he saw the husband. I went out and called for him and he came running, so I put a leash on him and brought him back to our house. He had scrambled eggs and a bit of rice for breakfast:

I think it’s funny that all the neighborhood dogs come here when they get out or get scared. When Ali first moved in across the road, they had a dog named Eddy who knew how to work the door handle and let himself out. He would wait until the humans left for work and then go exploring. One day, I opened the door and found him lying on our porch in the sun next to Rusty and Lila. Sometimes he would come in with them and nap in the living room.

Elysian’s dog stayed with me until she got home and could make arrangements for getting the tree taken care of.

I went out to the greenhouse to water plants and discovered that another rodent had managed to evade the traps and had dug up a bunch of the melon and squash seeds. I replanted those and watered everything. The hose was frozen, though, so I had to haul water from the spigot in big watering cans. Hopefully, we will catch whatever is out there snacking on seeds. I covered the trays until the seeds sprout. Once the seedlings come up, they are usually safe.

I am still working on serger stuff. My class on Monday went very well. I had six students. Four of them had new air-threading Baby Lock machines, one had an older Pfaff, and one had a Brother. We had all the machines working and everyone had finished their projects by the time class ended.

[I need to become more familiar with those Baby Lock machines. The store owner offered to lend me one for a week so I could practice with it. I’ll probably take her up on the offer in May when things calm down a bit.]

The students wanted to know when the next class would be, so I am trying to get three or four classes put together and on the schedule for the next six months. This requires a fair bit of thought, however. What should the topic of the class be? Should I do a class on sewing with knits or a class on various machine stitches? What projects are going to showcase the techniques being taught and can be completed (or mostly completed) during class time? Should I have the students buy their own supplies or should I kit something up and include it in the cost of the class? If the store owner needs to order fabric, can she get it in time?

I can’t get too fancy, because some of the students will come with basic machines. The Baby Lock sergers have a setting for a “wave” stitch, which is a way to make a two-color edging swing back and forth. Lower-end machines won’t have that, although I discovered yesterday, while perusing the project manual for my machine, that I can do that stitch on my $300 Juki serger by holding the thread against the machine with my thumb as it comes through. It’s a crude method and I haven’t tried it yet to see if it works, but the instructions are in the manual.

And of course, the instructor needs to know how to do all these things she’s teaching. I watched an interview with Marianne Fons and Liz Porter—two women who founded a quilting empire—and Marianne Fons commented that when they taught their first quilting class, they would announce the topic for the next week’s class, and then the two of them would rush home, learn the technique, and sew all the class samples.

I’m enjoying myself, but class prep always takes time. Once I get them done, though, lesson plans should only require minor tweaks here and there.

Fifteen More Minutes of Fame

I’ve mentioned Nicole Sauce’s Living Free in Tennessee podcast here on the blog—it is, hands down, my favorite podcast and the one I’ve been listening to the longest. I am also an LFTN premium member because I believe in supporting the work Nicole does, and the additional membership benefits I get at that level are worth much more than what I pay for them. Nicole’s perspective on life resonates with me. She doesn’t sugarcoat anything. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to be a guest on her show. We had an enjoyable half hour visit where I attempted to condense the last 30 years of my life here into something coherent.

You can download the podcast in most podcatchers and listen to it there, or you can click on this link and listen to the podcast on the LFTN website.

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I am supposed to teach a serger class from 10-1 today at the quilt store north of town, but I am keeping one eye on the weather. This has the potential to be a wild weather day. We are under a winter weather advisory until 9 am this morning (it snowed a few more inches overnight), then a wind advisory until 2 pm, then a high wind warning from 2 pm until 9 am tomorrow morning. The high wind warning includes possible northeast gusts up to 70 mph. Those northeast winds that come back down off the mountains are the ones that took out so many trees on our property two years ago. At the very least, I expect the power to go out overnight.

Spring can show up anytime.

January in April

Gardening in Montana requires fortitude, and this is why no one puts plants out before the end of May:

We went from 60 degrees and sunny on Thursday to this. The snow started coming down as I was cooking up bacon and eggs for breakfast. By lunchtime, we had five inches on the ground. It warmed up into the low 40s by mid-afternoon, which turned everything into a slushy mess. It is 22 outside right now, which means that slushy mess is now frozen.

I said to the husband that this was more snow than we’ve gotten in the past three months. I wish it had come in January or February. Back then, I didn’t have chicks in the brooder or plants in the greenhouse. Spring chores are harder when it’s winter outside. The chickens were very unhappy yesterday. They don’t like to go out to the chicken yard when there is snow on the ground.

It is what it is.

The husband installed the new dishwasher yesterday morning. It cleans really well. My only complaint is that the lower rack has dish guides installed at right angles to each other rather than lined up in one direction. I cannot put the drip pans from my stove in this lower rack, so I am keeping the lower rack from the old dishwasher and swapping it out when I need to wash large or long items.

Neither of us had a terribly productive day yesterday. I cleaned the kitchen once the husband was done in there, but I spent the rest of the day sitting and reading or embroidering. I think we are still recovering from the auction. The husband came down with a cold this week (probably caught at the auction) and is pretty miserable.

Of course, now that I can’t work in the garden, my sew-jo has taken a hike. I should take advantage of this time to finish quilting the Blue Thistle quilt and to put the borders on the Sunbonnet Sue quilt and get that one basted. I will see my college roommate in June, so if I have the quilt done by then, I’d like to be able to show it to her. (I will ship it back to her.) Her brother lives in Moscow, Idaho, which is just south of Coeur d’Alene. Her brother and her husband have a bike trip planned for June. She messaged me the other day to say they were flying in to Spokane a few days early and would drive over to see me, but I did her one better—my mother and I are going to Alaska in June to visit DD#1, and it works out perfectly for me to spend a day or two with my roommate and her husband in Spokane before meeting my mother when she flies into Seattle.

I’ll find my sew-jo somewhere. I am nothing if not disciplined. And it’s a lot like writer’s block. Sometimes you just have to fake it until you make it. I am glad to be working on the embroidery projects again, though. I worked on my embroidered chicken project last night. It’s not to the fancy embellishment stage yet, so I have nothing interesting to show you.

The annual spring invasion of the forest animals has begun in earnest. We have a female flicker who has decided that the metal ridge cap of the house would be a great place to try to find bugs. (The husband reminds me that bird brains are not very large.) She starts up at 7 am every morning. It sounds like someone is jackhammering our roof. We have not figured out how to dissuade her. This has been going on for about two weeks now. There is also a very persistent, very opinionated stellar jay who lets me know that he is unhappy when his daily ration of cracked corn is late. The male turkeys seem to have moved on and left the females here by themselves. (No doubt the females are relieved.) I need to get my hummingbird feeders filled and hung up, although if I were a hummingbird, I would stay south for a few more weeks yet.

No bears yet, although we’ve heard they are out.

Barred Rock Peeps

I made a quick trip to the farm store yesterday morning to see if they had gotten any chicks. The store was very quiet when I walked in, and at first I thought the shipment hadn’t arrived. By the time I got to the live animal section, though, I could hear tiny peeping noises. The chicks must have been a bit subdued from their travels.

I was the only customer and had my pick of the shipment. I got 16 Barred Rock pullets, paid for them ($4.50 apiece, which is way more than we’ve paid the last couple of years), and brought them home. They settled right in:

The brooder box is in the old garage. I popped out there a couple of times yesterday to make sure the chicks were still doing well. This seems to be a lively, healthy bunch.

I can breathe a bit easier now that we have peeps. I am the queen of contingency plans, but I hate to implement the fallback strategy unless I absolutely have to.

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After I got the peeps settled, I ran up to sewing for a bit. Until the plant sale is over and all the plants are in the ground, my sewing socializing time is going to be limited. The weather yesterday was stellar, too, and I wanted to take advantage of it, so I didn’t stay long. I came home and attacked the herb garden. We would still like to extend the chicken run into this area. It is wild and overgrown but also full of lots of seedlings. The first thing I did was to dig up two very old, very large lavender plants. I think they’ve been in there for close to 20 years. One had gotten so big that it was blocking the entrance to the garden, but I couldn’t get to it until I dug out the other one. I did not try to save either plant. At that age, they get woody and misshapen. (It’s not like I don’t have plenty with which to replace them.) To my delight, I found a smaller lavender bush underneath them that still had the nametag next to it. The variety is Lavandula ‘Elizabeth’. I plan to dig it out and move it to a prime spot over in the big garden.

I dug out eight or ten lavender seedlings—a fraction of what is out there, because my lavenders are so promiscuous—some catmint, a true hyssop, a bunch of thyme, and some garden sorrel. I took all of the seedlings back over to the greenhouse and potted them up there for the sale. I still have lemon balm, oregano, and bee balm to dig up, but that will have to wait for the next nice day.

I am going to label all my lavender seedlings as “Janet’s Surprise Lavender.” I had so many different varieties in the herb garden at one time that it is genetic chaos out there. People won’t know what color the flowers are until the plant blooms. They could be white, pink, pale purple, or deep purple.

My goal for this plant sale is to double what it took in last year. I think we can do it. We’re offering some really cool and interesting plants that cannot be had locally except from us.

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I got an e-mail from the owner of the quilt store north of town yesterday. I am scheduled to teach a Serger 101 class there on Monday. She asked if I would contact a potential student to make sure she was prepared for the class as she had inherited her machine. I called and chatted with her for a bit. This student says her machine was working when she got it, so I encouraged her to sign up for the class. With her in the class, I will have five students.

The store owner also said that people are asking for more serger classes. Who knew that this was such an untapped market? She asked me to look over the calendar and pick a few open dates. I probably won’t schedule anything until June. The rest of April is a nightmare and May isn’t much better.

Figuring Out Flatlocking

I no longer wonder why sergers sit, unused, in closets all over the world. We are in the age of limitless information and yet it has taken me more than a month of reading and watching YouTube videos to get a handle on the flatlock stitch. And I don’t think it’s because I am stupid.

I should point out that I am one of those people who is most comfortable learning by following an example. Nothing makes me more anxious than being thrown into something without a detailed road map to follow and being told to figure it out. I’d like to think that is part of what makes me a good teacher, because when I develop class materials, I always make sure that what the student learns is framed within some kind of context and shows concrete examples—in other words, I teach the way I would like to learn. That doesn’t work for every student, but the ones who don’t need that information can ignore it.

The first place I went for information on the flatlock stitch was the manual for my Juki serger. I actually have two manuals: the basic setup manual and an additional manual that has more in-depth information as well as some projects. I think one of the projects might feature the flatlock stitch, but I can’t tell from either the instructions or the photo. That manual does, at least, have suggested stitch settings. It also mentioned something about a converter, and I found one in my box of accessories, but that was the extent of the guidance.

I pulled out a couple of my serger books. Several of them have very good photos, but again, what I was missing most was context. When would I use the flatlock stitch? And when would I use a two-thread flatlock versus a three-three flatlock? What is a reverse flatlock stitch?

I picked up snippets of information here and there. Flatlock mimics the seams on activewear, although most of those are done on industrial flatlock machines or on coverstitch machines. Flatlocking can be done with decorative threads. (Okay, which decorative threads?) Flatlocking can also be done on woven fabrics.

I searched for patterns and projects on the internet. I found a few, including some on the Bernina website. I have to say, Bernina does a good job of educating consumers, but that’s almost a requirement for them to do so because their products are so expensive. It’s hard to convince someone to spend $8000 (not a typo) on a top-of-the line serger/coverstitch machine unless that person knows how they are going to be able to use it. Still, the Bernina projects don’t always provide sufficient background material about stitches, thread, and fabric choices.

Gail Yellen is a Bernina educator and she’s really good. I want to take a class from her someday. She has a placemat project featuring pintucks and flatlocking on the serger. The accompanying YouTube video is an hour and a half long. I have watched it twice and plan to watch it at least one more time. When I finally thought I had a handle on flatlocking and its variations, I went back and watched other videos and read my serger books again. The information is finally starting to fall into place.

I had an hour yesterday afternoon before the husband got home, so I sat down at the serger yesterday to experiment. The first step was to unthread, clean, oil, and put in a new needle. Flatlocking is done with one needle, most commonly the left needle. I rethreaded the serger with three different colors of regular serger thread—so I could see what thread(s), if any, needed to be adjusted— got the serger to make a chain, then rethreaded the upper looper with a 12wt Aurifil cotton thread, as suggested by Gail Yellen.

The flatlock is an unbalanced stitch, meaning that some of the threads are deliberately looser or tighter than they would be if I were sewing a seam or finishing an edge. The red is the 12wt Aurifil. It is thicker than regular serger thread. I have white serger thread in the lower looper and green serger thread in the needle. This is how the edge looks when it comes off the serger:

The magic of a flatlock stitch—and what makes it so useful on thicker fabrics—is that after serging the seam, you gently pull the two fabrics apart so that they are lying next to each other. Whether you sew with the right or wrong side of the fabrics together determines which side of the stitch is on the public side of the piece. I was using Kona scraps, which don’t have a right or wrong side, but I pretended that I was sewing them wrong sides together. Thus, when I pulled them apart, the needle threads formed ladders on the wrong side of the work:

If you wanted the needle threads to be on the public side of the work—so you could weave decorative ribbon through them—this would be called a reverse flatlock stitch.

However, if you go to all the trouble of using that lovely 12wt Aurifil in the upper looper, you probably want that side of the stitch to be visible:

Gail Yellen uses both the flatlock and reverse flatlock stitches in her placemat project.

The Kona is thin enough that when I pulled the two pieces of fabric apart, they didn’t lie next to each other. Rather, one ended up on top of the other, but they are within the seam so it’s hard to see. Some sewists will go back and topstitch over one side of the flatlock stitching for additional strength, although I’m not convinced that’s necessary.

That was Kona, a thin woven fabric. How does flatlock work on a thicker knit, like fleece? I ran a few scraps of fleece through as an experiment and was pleased with how it turned out, but those results—and more about the two-thread flatlock—will have to wait for a future blog post.

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Everything that needs to be started in the greenhouse has been planted. We should have plenty for ourselves and plenty of stock for the plant sale.

The farm store did not have chicks on Monday. They had a sign saying they were expecting a shipment at the end of the week. I will check today and again tomorrow. I am a bit concerned that this is 2020 all over again and people are panicking and buying up the supply. I could hatch out my own eggs again, but that’s going to result in far more roosters than we need. They can go into the soup pot, yes, but I don’t look forward to that period at the end of the summer and before butchering when I have a posse of teenage roosters to manage. Also, Dave would be unhappy.

We’ll see. The husband reminded me that last April, the farm store put chicks on sale because they had so many left after the initial rush.

We might try to get potatoes planted this weekend. I also need to work on DD#2’s porch furniture cushions.

Happy 406 Day*

Last week, when we had no time to deal with it, the dishwasher decided to stop working. I left it until Monday night and then asked the husband what he wanted to do. I expected him to tell me he would take it apart, determine what failed, and buy the replacement part and install it. I have a 26-year-old dryer that is still running because he refuses to allow it to die.

“Assuming you can find one, go buy a new dishwasher,” he said.

“Who are you and what have you done with my husband?” I asked.

Our current dishwasher is a Bosch, probably about 15 years old. It leaks, randomly. It will go for three months without leaking, at which point I will decide to take up the towel that usually sits on the floor in front of it (because it leaks), and then it will start leaking again.

Sigh.

I started at Home Depot yesterday morning. They have nothing. They have no idea when they will have anything.

I went to a Pacific Northwest chain called Fred’s Appliance. The reason Home Depot doesn’t have anything is because all the dishwashers are at Fred’s Appliance. I like Fred’s. We bought our Speed Queen washer there. If they ever get JennAir downdraft gas ranges back in stock, I might let my mother buy me a new one. She’s been trying for many years.

[People do not like my current JennAir downdraft range because it has to be lit manually. We have propane, not natural gas, and the lighter has never worked properly, not for 26 years. It doesn’t bother me. I just pretend I am lighting a Bunsen burner in the lab when I cook dinner.]

Fred’s had plenty of Bosch dishwashers in stock AND apparently now those dishwashers come with anti-door leak technology. How nice to know our leaking dishwasher was not an isolated issue.

The husband will install this tonight.

It was too late when he got home last night. He is still trying to decompress from the auction and needed to sit and relax.

[My house is in desperate need of a thorough deep cleaning. I see no point in starting that, though, until this season of rain and mud is over.]

Once I had the dishwasher problem sorted, I went and taught a serger class at the quilt store south of town. I only had one student. That’s fine—I’ll teach one student. She came from Eureka, about an hour and a half away, and brought two machines. The first one, an older Singer model, had belonged to her mother. We started with that machine, but it was not catching the left needle thread. The last time I had a student with a machine with that problem, the store owner said that it probably needed to be re-timed.

I’ve re-timed sewing machines, but re-timing a serger is above my pay grade.

This student also brought a New Home (Janome) model of slightly newer vintage, probably late 90s or early 2000s, so we switched over to that one. The New Home machine had differential feed, which the Singer did not. She told me she picked it up at a yard sale for $15 and I told her she got a screaming deal. It was a lovely little machine. We went through it from top to bottom. I suggested she get a supply of needles and replace the knife, but the machine worked well for the class. We tested out a four-thread stitch, a three-thread stitch, and the rolled hem. All of them looked great.

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I am staying home today. I need to finish planting seeds out in the greenhouse. Everything I planted a few weeks ago is up, although I need to replant a few things that either didn’t sprout or got dug up by a mouse (who has been eliminated).

I also stole an hour yesterday morning and started a new quilt. I like it. This one is going to be fun.

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*Montana only has one area code for the whole state—406.

Made it to the Other Side

The 2022 Creston Auction is in the books. This is a great event put on by great people for a great cause, but it’s a huge relief to me when it’s over. Now I can turn my attention to chicks and plants and taking a road trip to see DD#2.

It wouldn’t be the Auction without some kind of weather event. This was Saturday morning:

In Montana, however, there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing choices.

[I was in need of some canvas work pants for this event (and others) and found a brand called Noble Outfitters at the farm store. I am going back this week to get a few more in my size. The canvas was a good weight—Carhartt is cutting corners with skimpy canvas—and the pants came all the way up to my waist and fit beautifully. I wore them all weekend with long johns underneath.]

The snow put a damper on the crowds, but the people who came out seemed to be having a good time bidding for treasures.

Yesterday’s weather was a big improvement over Saturday’s. When the husband and I arrived at the sale grounds to get ready for the equipment sale, the sun was shining and the snow had melted:

We took in a lot of inventory for this year’s sale. The auction started at 11 am and I didn’t get off the auction wagon until 6 pm. My job was to sit there with the computer and enter the sale price and bidder number for each sale. That information was then sent to the cashiers so they could take payment from the winning bidder.

We sold our stock trailer at the auction. It had a gooseneck hitch and we no longer have a truck that can tow it. We’ll have to get a different one for the next batch of pigs. We also sold our police cruiser this week—via a private sale—which was the car that DD#2 drove in high school.

The seedlings in the greenhouse are looking good, although it was touch-and-go for a bit when the husband discovered that the fuel company had filled the wrong propane tank when they came out last week. We have a propane tank for the rental house and one for the greenhouse. When I call, the dispatcher always asks, as she did this time, which tank we want filled. I told her we needed the greenhouse tank filled. Unfortunately, the guy driving the delivery truck saw the first tank, for the house, and filled that one instead of driving further back on the property to fill the greenhouse tank. We didn’t discover that until Friday, by which time it was too late to call them. The husband put a portable diesel heater in the greenhouse and I have a call in to the fuel service company. They can send a truck out today to fill the greenhouse tank, although I am going to refuse to pay the $90 same-day delivery fee because this was their mistake, not ours.

I will check the farm store this week to see what they have for chicks. We’re all set up and ready for them. I’ve also got a Serger 101 class scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I have a bit of breathing room later this week, but April is going to be a busy month.

An Auction Again

Some things have a stated purpose, but have an equally important—if not quite as obvious—secondary purpose. The Creston Auction has always been a way for the Creston community to raise additional funds for its all-volunteer fire department, but as the husband commented to me last night, this would be an important event even if all we did was break even. The secondary purpose of the Creston Auction is to strengthen to the web of community that holds us all together. We are people united in the common cause of making our community the best possible place to live, and right now, we’re raising money to build a fire station to replace the one we’ve outgrown. We didn’t have an auction in 2020 or 2021, and even though we had some other fundraising events, they weren’t quite the same as the Creston Auction.

I spent yesterday cataloging the information about the cars and equipment that were being consigned to the Sunday sale. (While I was doing that, the husband was outside on the equipment field getting the consigned items unloaded and placed.) I had two assistants. One was the retired secretary from my kids’ elementary school. I used to sub for her when my kids were in school there. She was my notary, because sometimes consignors bring titles that need to be notarized. My other assistant was a young woman who is part of the large family that helped found our Mennonite church over 100 years ago. She and DD#2 used to take dance classes together when they were little. She’s a sharp cookie and we like to train the younger people to take over some of these jobs.

I was struck, over and over and over again, by how deep and broad our connections are. People came in and out of our office. We visited. We reminisced. We commiserated about how much we hate the influx of “city folk.” Our fire department was paged out early in the day for a medical call and we found out later that someone we all knew had died. Updates on families were traded back and forth. We were getting ready for an auction, yes, but we were also re-establishing and strengthening the web of community in the process.

I went out to take pictures during a lull in the action, but I only got a picture of the general merchandise field because I got called back into the office:

I’ll try to get a picture of the equipment field today. We have a lot of equipment and vehicles to sell tomorrow.

I have to laugh again at the differences between men and women. I told the husband it’s analogous to when someone has a baby. If you ask a woman for details about the new arrival, she will be able to tell you the baby’s exact weight, the length, how long the labor lasted, and the baby’s full name. If you ask a man, he will say, “I think it’s a (girl or boy).” Getting information out of the men was like pulling teeth. I would ask, “What item do you want to sell?” and the man would respond, “A trailer.” I would have to say, “Could you give me more information?” because “trailer” included everything from a small homemade contraption to a 53' car hauler.

Thank goodness for all the knowledge I’ve assimilated via osmosis while the husband was watching car repair and heavy equipment videos. I may not be an expert, but I am at least conversant in the basics.

Today is a bit less busy for us. We have to do a bit of sorting and organizing for tomorrow’s sale. The husband will be out on the field answering questions from potential buyers. For the first time in many years, I’ll get to watch some of the general merchandise auction while it’s happening. And I am sure there will be a lot more visiting and reconnecting with old friends. Come find me if you’re out there.

Creativity Happens at the Worst Times

I have a pile of hexie flowers sitting on my worktable. I’ve been waiting for them to tell me what they want to be. Yesterday, while I was watching a quilting video on a completely unrelated technique, they decided. I love their idea. I have all the supplies.

I cannot start the project right now.

I went as far as pulling some material from the stash before I came to my senses. I cannot start anything new until after this fire department auction is over. The pile of material is sitting on my worktable next to the hexies.

Instead, I worked on finishing up some projects. I finished quilting the wallhanging. I made and attached the binding to it. I made and attached the binding to the second Baby Bear Paw quilt. And I started quilting the Blue Thistle quilt, because I had an idea I wanted to try out. In her promotional video for her Every Daisy quilting rulers, Amanda Murphy did a combo design of loops and flowers using the smallest Daisy ruler. I thought it would look good on this quilt:

I love it. The first few flowers are a bit rough but I can always take them out if they drive me nuts. I got better as I went along. The thread is a variegated King Tut 40wt cotton; I wanted to use the Wonderfil Konfetti 50wt, but I could not find a suitable color in that thread. The King Tut, however, has subtle color changes and looks great.

This will go quickly. I did that amount of quilting in about 45 minutes.

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Seedlings are starting to pop up.

These are hollyhocks, a variety called Jet Black, or Nigra, which apparently date back to 1629 and were also planted in Jefferson’s garden at Monticello. I love hollyhocks. I had them in my herb garden at one time, but they died out. Some of these will go in my garden and some will be sold at the plant sale.

And the swiss chard is up:

I could have direct-seeded these, but I thought I might sell some at the plant sale, too.

The fruit trees I ordered from Stark Bros arrived yesterday afternoon. The husband happened to be home from work early, so we went ahead and planted them. The two peach trees—Hale Haven and Reliance—went out by the garden. According to my mother, Hale Haven was the variety my grandfather had in his orchard. They are supposed to be hardy to zone 5. And I am pretty sure that Reliance is the peach I bought a number of years ago at Costco. That is the only peach that has ever produced for us and it is delicious.

The other two trees are a Snappy Mac (Macintosh variety) and a Whitney crabapple. They went in with the trees in the front yard, where we have the apple orchard.

I have so much to do and it all has to wait until after this auction. The husband set the brooder box up in the garage. Getting chicks is on the schedule for next week. I still have to plant the cukes and melons and a few more things for the plant sale. I have to start working on promotional material for the plant sale. I need to dig up lavender, thyme, and other herbs from the garden and pot them up for the plant sale. I got seed potatoes a few days ago and they need to get planted. I’ve got to make a decision on garden layout so I can move the plastic around and start setting up my new watering system. I’ve got three serger classes scheduled for April. And I am going to make a quilt.

Not at the Same Time

Winter is over and I am having to come to grips with the fact that my production level was less than I wanted it to be. I had a whole list of things I wanted to make for the co-op sale this September. I am not sure I will even have as much inventory as I did for last year’s sale. I really wanted to design and publish a few more quilt patterns. That didn’t happen, either. What have I been doing for the past six months?

The obvious answer to that question is that my goals are insane and I need to scale them back into the realm of possibility. And it’s not like I was sitting around. I worked on developing and teaching serger classes. I made clothing. I taught myself rulerwork. I knocked out ten million hexies. I did finish several quilts and three or four more are almost done.

It’s not as bleak as I am painting it to be inside my head. I need to stop comparing myself to quilt designers on YouTube who have large families and staff that enable them to crank out fabric lines, quilt patterns, and videos on a consistent basis. And if I were like them, I wouldn’t have chickens and pigs and a garden.

It’s like that saying, “You can have it all, just not at the same time.”

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I finished quilting another Baby Bear Paw quilt. I liked the concentric circles I did in the first one, but wanted to try something different in this quilt. I thought I might try 60-degree diamond quilting. My straight line quilting ruler even has 60-degree line markings on it. However, they are in the middle of the ruler, so using them cuts the effective length of the ruler in half. I was having trouble getting the lines established. I finally got one of my 24” cutting rulers, which also has 60-degree lines on it, and drew in the lines with a disappearing marker so I could quilt them.

I don’t know that this is the “right” quilting pattern for these large squares, but I do love the texture it gives. This one is all done and just needs to be bound.

I worked on the O’s wallhanging again yesterday—this is the one that is destined to be hung over the stairwell if I ever get it finished. Making a wallhanging for that spot was the reason I started quilting in the first place (almost 10 years ago). It is close to being done. I just need to finish quilting the borders and bind it.

Next up will be the Blue Thistle quilt. That one is going to get an allover pattern, so the quilting should go relatively quickly.

In the evenings, I’ve been working on the embroidery kit that Tera gifted me:

This is called Hummingbird Garden and it was designed by Lisa Bongean of Primitive Gatherings. There are twelve 5” squares that will be sewn together into a wallhanging. Tera did all the hard work of cutting and appliquéing the designs. I get the joy of doing the blanket stitching and other embellishments.

I find the Primitive Gatherings designs to be more approachable than Sue Spargo’s. I love Sue Spargo’s designs—I still want to do Squash Squad—but they are intricate and detailed and require that one take out a bank loan to be able to afford all the specialty threads. Lisa sticks to about a dozen different stitches and uses mostly cotton and wool threads. I have a ton of embroidery thread from my mother and would like to use that up before buying any more.

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I’ve got about a dozen flats of seeds started out in the greenhouse. Some of the plants will be for my garden and some are destined for the plant sale. The plant sale will be held May 21 at the Mountain Brook Community Center, if my Kalispell peeps want to put it on the calendar. I still have to plant the zucchini, cucumbers, and melons, but I’ve held off so they don’t get too big and rootbound. I also need to dig up some lavender seedlings from the garden and pot those up to sell. If I ever stop growing vegetables, I could start a lavender farm.

This coming weekend is the big fire department fundraising auction. I will be glad when it’s over. Being in charge of the equipment sale is a big responsibility and one I would like to have done and off my plate.

Adding Some Breathing Room to a Quilt

I basted some quilts this week, but I am going to have to take one of them out and re-do it. Several years ago, I bought a bag at a yard sale containing the pieces for a Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt. Some 40+ hexie flowers had been completed. A few of them had been sewn together with white background hexies. However, the white background hexies were made up of different fabrics—many of them dirty or stained—so I decided to liberate the hexie flowers from the background hexies and appliqué them to white background squares instead. I ended up with 42 squares in a 6 x 7 straight setting.

I did not put a border on the quilt. I have mixed feelings about borders. Sometimes I think they get used as an excuse to make the quilt bigger rather than as a necessary design element. However, they have a practical use, too.

This is the quilt laid out and pin basted:

I think the quilt looks fine without a border. I like the flowers floating on the white background. However, as the quilt top gets quilted, the fabric will shrink and shift. Those outside edges will become distorted. They can be trimmed and squared up, but only if there is sufficient extra fabric at those edges. On this quilt, there isn’t. I risk trimming off some of the flowers. That potential problem didn’t occur to me until I had finished basting this one.

The border wouldn’t have to be wide. A 2” white border added to each side would provide sufficient breathing room. I could add the borders fairly easily, even without taking the whole thing apart, but I am not sure that would leave enough overhang for the batting and backing. The backing and batting have to be at least a couple of inches larger on each side than the quilt top. If I add borders and discover that the backing and batting are too small, I’ll have to take the whole thing apart and put it back together with a bigger backing and batting.

For now, the quilt is rolled up in the spare bedroom. When I have some time, I will lay it out on the floor and reassess. I wish I had thought this through more carefully while I was basting this one, but I got into production mode and wanted to finish.

The Churn Dash and Blue Thistle quilts are also basted and ready to quilt. Do I have any idea when I will have time to quilt them? I do not. The next couple of weeks—and most of April, really—are chock full of other things needing attention. And I have to make a set of cushion covers.

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The 2022 gardening season is officially underway:

Being out in the greenhouse at this time of year is not a hardship. Planting seeds is not difficult. Most of us end up with way too many seedlings anyway, which was part of the motivation for having a plant sale.

On Wednesday, I planted a few varieties of tomatoes, some peppers, some flowers, and some herbs. Today, I’ll do more tomatoes, the corn, and the squash and cukes. I am trying to plant many different things so we have lots to offer at the plant sale in May. And other people in the community will be contributing plants to the sale that they have started or dug up from their own gardens.

The husband and I had drinks on the veranda yesterday afternoon and discussed our upcoming projects. Everything is prefaced with “After the auction . . .” The fire department fundraising auction is next weekend, and while it’s going to help raise money for the new fire station, it’s the kind of event that requires that we shove everything else aside until it’s over. He and I are in charge of the equipment sale this year. This is a new job for me. I understand—in theory—how it is supposed to go, but it’s still unfamiliar and a fairly steep learning curve.

Once the auction is over, though, we’ll be able to get chicks and concentrate on the infrastructure projects that need to be done around here.

Today is Planting Day

I knocked quite a few items off the to-do list yesterday, starting with 17 pints of beans:

I still need to do a batch of white beans, too, but this will keep us going for a while.

Every fall, I put a string of lights up around the porch to brighten up the place. I took the lights down yesterday and replaced them with the wind chimes. I like the lights, but I also like the sound of the wind chimes.

I sewed the pincushion and stuffed it with crushed walnut shells. A few years ago, I bought a 25-pound bag of walnut shells. I still have 24 pounds left.

The annual spring invasion of the forest animals has begun. Every so often, I have to go out and yell at the female flicker who seems to think that our TV antenna is a tree. (We live in a pine forest. I don’t know how you could get the two confused.) There are male turkeys fighting in the front yard. The stellar jays harass me for scratch grains every time I go out to the chicken coop. The deer and rabbits wander back and forth in front of the driveway alarm and set it off. I would not be surprised to see a bear out there soon.

After lunch, I went out to wander around the garden, where I had a short conversation with a male turkey who couldn’t figure out how to get out. He eventually realized he could fly out the way he came in.

I checked on the rhubarb—always the first thing to come up in the spring—and saw a few tiny red shoots:

It was warm enough for me to be out in shirtsleeves yesterday. I am happy with the way things are looking out there. The berry bushes all have buds on them. The lavenders are starting to green up. I am itching to play in the dirt.

Today is supposed to be even nicer, so the plan is to get as many seed trays started in the greenhouse as I can. I’m feeling a bit more stressed about this than usual because we’re not only starting plants for ourselves, we’re starting plants for the Mountain Brook Plant Sale in May. Oh well, all I can do is plant what I plant and see what we have for sale in a couple of weeks.

From Inside to Outside

We are going from cold and snowy to warm and sunny this week at breakneck speed (for Montana). This is the time of year that everything happens at once. I will get seeds started tomorrow, but other jobs on the list include pruning the fruit trees and grapevines, fixing some trellises out in the garden, making sure the tractor is ready to go, and spreading chicken manure around. Some of the black plastic needs to be moved. I have a rough idea in my head where things are going to get planted, but a formal sketch would be helpful.

We could still have weeks of cool weather, yes, but if I don’t start thinking about some of these things and planning for them to get done, they will take me by surprise when the weather does stabilize. And I am looking forward to getting outside and moving around.

I’m canning a batch of beans today and working on other inside tasks. This house is going to need a good cleaning soon. The indoor lettuce-growing setup seems to have run into a problem. I need to look at it and figure out what is going on. Quilting and sewing are going to have to take a back seat for a bit. I am making a conscious effort not to be distracted by new projects. When I do have time to sew, it’s going to be focused on finishing what’s already in the pipeline.

I’ve had my fill of making hexies, so I got out the embroidery projects to work on in the evening. This is a pincushion kit I picked up at As the Crow Flies near Spokane in January:

This is ready to be assembled and stuffed. I’ve also got a kit that Tera gave me that needs to be finished, my embroidered chicken project, and this one:

I broke down and bought the printed pattern. Squash Squad was a free stitchalong that Sue Spargo hosted in the fall of 2020 on Instagram. I tried to participate in the stitchalong while it was happening, but Instagram is not my favorite social media platform and it was just too frustrating. Sue’s videos were supposed to be on IGTV—Instagram TV—but Instagram shut down access to some features due to “misinformation.” Trying to find specific posts for the stitchalong was a nightmare. I am hoping that I can restart this now that I have the written instructions all in one place.

I just realized that my embroidery projects consist of sewing machines, chickens, and vegetables. LOL. I have a pig one started somewhere, too, but it hasn’t resurfaced recently. The husband helped me measure for shelving in DD#2’s bedroom. I’ll pick up the supplies this week. Once he installs it, I’ll be able to corral some of these works-in-progress.

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The BMW has been running very well since the husband replaced the EGR valve. I haven’t had a single light come on. I am particularly grateful right now for the fact that my car gets 40 miles to the gallon. When the snow tires come off, I can go back to driving in Sport mode, which will make WS happy when he travels with me.

I think we’re going to sell our stock trailer at the upcoming fire department fundraising auction. It is a gooseneck trailer, and the only truck with a gooseneck hitch is the one that was totaled in the accident. (We are still waiting to hear on the settlement.) We talked about pigs again last night. We’re still going to take a year off, and if we don’t have a stock trailer, this will be a good year to do it.