Knot Top Success

I had great plans for yesterday, all of which went out the window once the day got rolling. The day wasn’t a complete loss, though.

The husband left for work and I set about seeing if I could assemble the front of the knot top. Amazingly, I put it together correctly on the first attempt. (If you knew just how spatially challenged I am, you would understand what an achievement that is.)

The only thing left to do on this piece is some topstitching around the knot opening, where those red clips are. The function of topstitching in that spot is to keep the facing from rolling up into the knot area, although the facing is secured in the center front seam as well.

I still have to trace the back and sleeve pieces onto pattern paper, cut them out of the fabric, and assemble the rest of the top, but the hard part is done. I’m delighted that I will be able to make additional tops like this one, both long and short sleeved. And maybe a tunic or dress after I modify the pattern a bit.

After that big win, I headed into town to get a few things to make pies for the Mountain Brook Pie Social this afternoon. I was going to pick up what I needed on Thursday, because I was in town then, but I spent more time at the DMV than I planned to and had to get home in time to do a phone interview for the interim pastor position at our church. (Our pastor is retiring this year.) I thought I’d make a quick run to the grocery store, come home, and bake pies.

[Baking is not one of my talents, although I am capable enough to be able to knock out a few pies when the occasion calls for it. I asked around to see what kinds of pies other people are baking and chose some unusual ones for my contribution.]

Just after I got home with the pie supplies, the phone rang. It was the owner of the quilt store where I purchased my new serger. When I stopped in on Thursday to pay for it, she said she thought the shipment would arrive some time next week. It showed up yesterday morning. Did I want to come in and get my machine?

I hate to make multiple trips to town in a day. I even hate to go more than a couple of times a week. I didn’t want to wait another three or four days, though, as I have a stack of projects ready to serge. I put the groceries away and got back on the road.

[But wait, there’s more.]

I brought the machine home and started to unbox it, only to discover that the store owner had sold me the wrong machine. Bernina has three L-series serger models. Tera has the L890, which is the combination serger/coverstitch machine with electronic controls. The L860 is similar to the L890, also with electronic controls but without the coverstitch feature. The L850 has manual controls. I had decided on the L860 because I already have a coverstitch machine. The machine in the box was the L890.

I called the store. The owner was very apologetic. It was a simple mistake, easily remedied, but I had to take the machine back to exchange it. I loaded up the car for my third trip to town.

By the time I got home, I had enough time to feed chickens, check on plants, make dinner, and unbox the machine before heading out to help set up for the pie social.

I have not had a chance to sew anything on it. Perhaps I will today, after the pies are baked and cooling.

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It’s pouring rain at the moment, which may put a wrench in the pie social plans and force everyone to do their socializing inside our community center. We desperately need the moisture, though. I’d also prefer rain over snow at this point. Apparently, Kalispell had the coldest April on record this year. While I don’t want the excessive heat we have had the past couple of years, some warmth would be welcome, especially for the garden.

A Convoluted Mess

I did not pick up my new serger yesterday after all. So many people wanted to buy one after the Mystery Make class last weekend that the store sold out. The store owner made an appropriate judgment call and sold the in-stock machines to people who didn’t yet have sergers. She did not think I would mind waiting until she got the next shipment because I have multiple machines. And it’s not like I don’t have plenty of other projects to work on.

I’ll describe to you what I did instead, as it’s a perfect example of the idiocy of bureaucracy and what happens when the government gets so unwieldy that it’s at risk of toppling over from its own bloat:

The husband bought his new work truck on February 25. The bank had given us the loan paperwork as well as a check made out to Flathead County for the dealer to send in with the title paperwork. We expected that the dealer would file the paperwork, the county would send us a postcard saying it was in Kalispell, and I would go in and finish the filing and pick up plates for the truck.

Nope.

A few weeks after we bought the truck, we heard from the dealer that they tried to do that and and were told that they now have to go through a company called MVD Express, located in Billings, to complete the filing. They could no longer deal directly with the county.

More weeks pass. We hear nothing. The husband is now driving around on expired temporary tags.

The other day, we got a FedEx envelope from MVD Express in Billings. The envelope contained all the paperwork from the dealer and a hand-scribbled note at the bottom of the dealer letterhead saying that we have to fill out the “MVI” form and send it back to complete the filing. That’s it. There was no indication to whom the hand-scribbled note was addressed, and because it was on the dealer letterhead, I couldn’t figure out if it was written by the dealer or this outfit in Billings.

I tried calling the county. They won’t even answer the phone, and in fact, the call disconnects if you press anything other than the numbers in the automated menu.

I called MVD Express. I got some woman who snippily informed me that it wasn’t form “MVI” but form “MV1” that I needed to fill out and send back. I snippily informed her back that perhaps next time, they could write a proper cover letter instead of hand scribbling a note. She then said that either I could fill out the form and send it back to Billings for processing, or I could take a chance and take all the paperwork to the county and see if they would complete it.

By this time, the husband was beside himself. We still haven’t heard from the insurance company on the settlement and he is running out of patience. He talked to a friend of his who also bought a work truck recently and went through the same thing. Apparently, because Montana has no sales tax, the state has been overrun with people who form an LLC here to buy equipment so they don’t have to pay the sales tax. As a result, the state hired this company in Billings to process all LLC equipment purchases requiring titles. The husband’s friend did say that he was able to take his paperwork in to the county and they completed the filing for him. He suggested I go there, talk to the person at the information desk, and see what they advised.

So many people have moved to Montana in the past couple of years that the county outgrew its old vehicle department. A few weeks ago, they moved the office to a new location. The new location is nice, but past experience indicated that I’d probably have to take a number and wait in a long line to actually file the paperwork.

I got to the office at 9:30 am and took a number, just in case. My number was D45. They were on C67. I overheard the young man standing in front of me ask how long the wait was, and the woman at the information desk told him it would be at least 2-3 hours.

[This young man reeked so strongly of marijuana that I thought I’d probably walk out of there high myself, and I was standing 6 feet away from him. I don’t care what you do on your own time as long as you don’t force me to participate.]

Fortunately (I guess), the county has now instituted a notification system. I was able to scan a QR code with my phone which linked to the county DMV website where they kept a running list of the numbers currently being served. The woman at the information desk looked at my paperwork and said she thought they could finish the filing there because we were locals. She also noted that they had just received the paperwork for the two trailers the husband bought last week to replace the dump trailer that was destroyed in the accident. I asked her if I could take care of all three simultaneously, and she said, “No, we have a limit of two transactions per window, so you’ll have to wait and take another number at least 10 numbers after the one you currently have and do them as two separate transactions.”

Oh, the absurdity.

I went and ran my errands while keeping one eye on the DMV website to make sure I didn’t miss my number. There is no way to determine how quickly your number will come up. I got back to the DMV office a little after 1 pm and went to the lobby to wait.

About 20 minutes later, they called my number. I went to the window, explained the situation, and handed all the paperwork to the woman behind the glass. She started to go through it, looked something up on her computer, and then said to me, “I can’t process this because your company is not listed with the Montana Secretary of State.” I responded that it had to be, because I paid the $20 fee to update the listing last month, as I do every April. She insisted we weren’t a legitimate company. I insisted we were. When she asked, “When did you move from Whitefish to your current location?” I said, “Are you sure you have the correct company? We’ve been at our current address since 1994.” She turned the monitor around and I saw that she had pulled up a company with a similar name. I asked her to search on our full company name and lo and behold—the listing popped up.

[She was very apologetic and I attempted to be gracious about it.]

After another ten minutes—now four hours after I first took a number—and more apologies, I left with the plates. I was told that they would e-mail me the information for the trailer titles and that I could process those transactions online so I don’t have to go through this again.

Your laugh for the day:

And because I need to have a thumbnail pic for my Facebook link, here is the next pattern I plan to cut out and make:

This will be done in the black rayon blend sweatshirt fabric that Joanns started carrying this spring.

A New and Improved Knot Top Pattern

One of the Liz Claiborne pieces I bought in Seattle was a knot-front top made from a rayon/spandex knit. As soon as I tried it on, I was reminded how much I like this style. I would have bought one in every color except that it only came in black and an orange-y coral. DD#2 nixed the coral.

[I took the girls with me one time to shop for a bathing suit. I think DD#2 was about 4 at the time, but she’s had definite clothing opinions from a young age. I tried on a bathing suit and she looked at it and gave me the thumbs down sign. At least I can trust her to tell me the truth.]

I should have bought two of these tops in Seattle, but I didn’t, so I came home an ordered another one. I took the second one apart to determine how it was constructed and to make myself a pattern from it. This is the second time I’ve reverse engineered one of these tops. I made this one last summer using a pattern I copied from another Liz top in my collection that had seen better days:

The fabric was a linen/rayon knit I snagged from the clearance bin at Hobby Lobby for $3 a yard. I expected this one to be a prototype, but I wear it quite a bit. I wore it last weekend for the serger class. I had every intention of making a few more like it this summer, but then I found the black top in Seattle. The construction of the black one is similar but with a few improvements. I’ll talk about the differences in a moment.

Burda has this pattern, 6911, which I made the muslin for:

I don’t like this one as much as the Liz version. For one thing, the construction is much more complicated—so complicated that spatially-challenged Janet had to watch a YouTube video of someone else making it in order to understand how it went together. The pattern has facings to finish the top bodice edges, but the facing extends down and becomes part of the bust darts. That doubles the amount of fabric in the front bodice. I don’t need the extra padding there, believe me.

The issue with the Liz Knot Top 1.0 (Hobby Lobby version) was that the top edges of the front and back piece were hemmed with a narrow hem. Hemming knits that way is do-able, but tricky. The fabric stretched as I was hemming it. The neckline has sprung back into shape after a few trips through the laundry, but I am not a fan of that technique.

The Liz top I bought in Seattle features facings on the front bodice pieces to get around that problem. (The back piece still has to be hemmed.) A facing also hides the wrong side of the fabric, which otherwise would be exposed in the knot. Unlike the Burda top, though, the facings in the Liz top don’t extend all the way down the front, nor is there a bust dart. I’ll take some pictures as I make this new version and hopefully, that will help illustrate what is going on.

I made a pattern from the deconstructed top. These are the front bodice pieces of the Liz Knot top 2.0:

The facings are included in the bodice pieces; they fold down from the top, which is at the right side of the photo.

[This is another rayon/spandex knit from the clearance bin at Joann Fabrics. I’ve already made myself one top from it.]

The tricky part, now, is going to be finishing edges and putting these bodice pieces together in the proper order, because there are a number of steps to take to make the knot. Fortunately, I have the other top to use as a guide. If this works, I expect I’ll be making several summer tops from this pattern, in colors of which DD#2 approves. These will be done on the new serger, which I am picking up from the quilt store today.

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The influx of rodents into the greenhouse seems to have slowed; we’ve only caught one in the past couple of days. Maybe the other mice got the memo.

We’re full to bursting with plants in there. I dug up two dozen lavender seedlings from the garden yesterday and potted them up for the sale, along with some salvias. I still have to do lemon balm and bee balm and echinacea.

Come Join Us in Mountain Brook!

When we bought our property in 1994, we had no idea that we were settling into a part of the Flathead Valley with a thriving local community. Our area, which runs along the base of the Swan Range, is known as Mountain Brook. Logging families moved into this area in the early 1900s. Back then, a 17-mile trip to Kalispell took much longer than half an hour and involved a ferry ride across the Flathead River. The people living here had to rely on each other to survive. For several years, I belonged to the Mountain Brook Ladies’ Club—still in existence—which has a long history of providing food and entertainment to residents, by hosting activities like Pinochle Parties and an annual Harvest Supper.

The original Mountain Brook School campus is situated in the middle of our community, at 2353 Foothill Rd. The land was donated in 1927 by a local family and the school built with volunteer labor. (That is how many projects get done around here.) That school was still in use for kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades into the late 1990s. After all the grades were moved to the main elementary school campus, the Mountain Brook Homestead Foundation was created in 2002 to help preserve the historic campus, although it was still managed by the school district. The campus was recently donated to the Foundation, which continues to work to restore it and make it a hub of our community activities.

Some of the events that are held at the Community Center or sponsored by the Homestead Foundation include:

• Holiday craft parties for kids, such as the recent Easter Egg dyeing event.

• Spring Clean-Up Day

• A pie social in the spring and fall

• The plant sale coming up on May 21st

• New this year—a yard sale at the campus where participants can purchase a 20’ x 20’ spot to sell items, June 25th

• The 2nd Annual Garden Tour on July 16th

• Presentations and classes given by local community members

• Thursday meetings of the Mountain Brook Craft Co-Op

• Monthly meetings of the Mountain Brook Ladies’ Club

You don’t have to live in Mountain Brook to participate! We welcome involvement from people across the Flathead Valley. This Saturday is our spring Pie Social from 4-7 pm. We will offer chili, quesadillas, homemade pies, and ice cream. The Swan Jammers will be there to provide toe-tapping music. The Mountain Brook Ladies’ Club has donated this 75” x 75” Flower Glass quilt to be raffled off at our September pie social. The quilt will be on display and raffle tickets will be for sale at the pie social.

Please visit the Mountain Brook Homestead Foundation’s Facebook page or the website for additional information.

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I spent four hours out in the greenhouse and garden yesterday morning. I planted lettuce starts, half of the strawberries, and re-potted seedlings for the upcoming plant sale on May 21. We are going to have lots of plants for sale! The weather is supposed to be nice through tomorrow, so I’ll be out digging up even more plants for the sale from the herb garden this week.

I also finished up some class samples for upcoming serger classes and pulled out patterns for the clothes I’d like to make. One of the older ladies at church asked me if I’d bind a quilt for her—I love to bind quilts—so I made the binding and attached it yesterday and now I have handwork for a few evenings this week.

Invasion of the Forest Animals, Spring 2022 Edition

We caught five mice in the greenhouse over the weekend and one in the house. The one in the house ran across my office floor yesterday morning and then disappeared. As I walked into the living room to collect my music from the piano so I could leave for church, I saw it dash along the edge of the baseboard, right into the trap sitting next to the piano.

RIP, mouse.

I don’t have a lot of tolerance for rodents. I won’t put up with ground squirrels in the garden. Most of the mice we’ve caught have been in the basement, and even those have been rare lately. When our dog, Rusty, was old and senile, he would take mouthfuls of food out of his bowl and drop them all over the house—in places I didn’t know about—and we had a big mouse problem; hence, the network of traps.

I’ve also got ants in the kitchen. I’ve been wiping things down with a borax solution, but I may have to go hunt for the nest. We had this problem one year and there was a huge nest under the front porch. The husband eradicated it with the pressure washer. Unorthodox, but it worked.

The robins have begun nest-building in earnest:

I couldn’t figure out what they were doing by starting a nest in every single one of the rafter bays, so I watched them for a few minutes. I think they just get confused about where they started. Every rafter bay probably looks the same to them. Eventually, they will get a whole nest built in one bay and have some babies.

I like animals, I really do. I just don’t want them living in my house or eating my food.

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The husband planted potatoes yesterday. I went across the road to my friend Anna’s house after church and got some strawberry starts from her. I’m moving and replanting my entire strawberry bed this year and that’s on my schedule for today I also want to plant the lettuce seedlings that were in the indoor growing system and dig up and pot more herbs from the herb garden to sell at the plant sale.

[This plant sale is either going to be a bust or an overwhelming success. It brought in a little over a thousand dollars last year and my goal is to double that amount this year.]

We’re traveling around the neighborhood in style now. The husband bought us a golf cart at a recent estate sale:

I drove it over to Anna’s yesterday and he took it to have dinner with our friends Tom and Marcie last night. They graciously fed him because I had a dinner meeting to attend. I think the cart goes a whopping 3 miles per hour, but it’s going to be useful.

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We were asked not to show pictures of the mystery make from the serger class this weekend, which I why I don’t have any. I enjoyed the class very much and I hope Marianne, the store owner, invites the teacher back again next year to do another mystery make class.

I pick up my new serger from her on Thursday. I’m trying to arrange my schedule this month so that I get some sewing done early in the day, work in the garden for a few hours after it warms up, then sew a bit more. My calendar is much less crowded than it was in April. I don’t know how April got to be such a mess.

In any case, I’d like to finish the quilt projects I’ve started and get all my serger classes prepped and scheduled. I’ve also got some clothing projects planned.

The Bernina Academy Mystery Make Class

I went to the store a bit early yesterday morning to help the owner set up for the serger class. Eleven students were enrolled, including several from my Serger 101 and T-shirt classes. The teacher’s name is Sandra Swick and she lives in Coeur d’Alene. She’s a Bernina Educator and travels all over the country. I asked her how often she teaches and she told me that she is gone every weekend from about September to May, except for holidays. She doesn’t teach over the summer. That’s a grueling schedule. She must enjoy it, though. And she’s an excellent teacher.

This store has a great classroom facility, added on a few years ago:

A few students brought their own machines. The store provided some and borrowed some from customers. I got to use Tera’s machine. She has the serger/coverstitch combo model.

I was hoping Tera would be able to take the class, too, but she had already signed up for a longarm quilting workshop this weekend. I had the pleasure of sitting next to and getting to know another friend of hers, though. It’s a small world here.

This class is billed as a “mystery make,” so students don’t know the project ahead of time. Everything was provided, down to the tiniest notions. Lunch was catered. We got chocolate delivered at 3 pm when our energy started to flag.

[The husband wondered if it was possible to have a sewing class without snacks and I said I had never heard of such a thing. Do men not take classes? Do they not eat while they work?]

These classes are designed to sell machines as well as teach. I don’t begrudge the store owner that one bit. She needs to make money and I also have a vested interest in having her be successful. April is National Serger Month (who knew?) and Bernina is offering some special deals on machines. I am tempted, but I haven’t decided. I am starting to push the limits of my current Juki domestic sergers. I don’t need the combo machine, though, as I am quite happy with my Janome coverstitch.

I’m very impressed with these Berninas—more so than any other brand I’ve seen, and I’ve had a lot of different sergers come through my classes in the past year. They command a premium, but not without reason. The difference between serging on my $300 Juki and serging on a Bernina is the difference between driving a Ford Escort and a BMW 7-series. And I love my Bernina Q20 for quilting.

The husband is no help either—this is the man who never met a tool he didn’t like. He said if I want one, I should get one. I would keep my Juki sergers to take to classes with me for demos.

We’ll see. I am not an impulse buyer. I also hadn’t anticipated becoming the local serging teacher. I thought I might do a couple of basic classes and that would be the end of it. Every time the teacher showed a new technique or pattern, the other students looked at me and said, “Can you do a class on that?” I will have my hands full keeping up with all the requests, and I am teaching at both stores now.

We go back today to finish our projects. Tomorrow is May Day and my May calendar is much less crowded than April’s. The focus really needs to turn to gardening.

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.