Moving UFOs Along

I did get out the Slabtown Backpack project. I didn’t have to do much digging to unearth it as it has been sitting here in my office for a year. Restarting a project after a long hiatus can be difficult because it takes time to figure out where the project stalled. I have always been very impressed with the Klum House patterns, though. They are broken down into easily-manageable steps with excellent explanations and illustrations. I had marked the pattern where I stopped, so it was a simple matter to pick up and continue.

The backpack portion is now done:

I expected this to take longer. I thought I’d get one or two steps done every day over the next week, but finishing the bag only took about three hours. I still have to attach the straps and some hardware. I’ll wait to do that, however, until some morning when I am fresh and less likely to make a stupid mistake.

It feels good to move this along, especially as this was not an inexpensive kit. And we can always use another backpack around here. I just wish I hadn’t waited so long. I do enjoy sewing with waxed canvas.

I made another batch of curried zucchini soup while working on this. WS came over last night to buy my extra cucumbers to sell at his corner market. (At eight years old, he has a much better grasp of economics than most adults I know.) The collards are just about ready to pick, blanch, and freeze. I started doing collards instead of spinach a couple of years ago because I always missed the five-minute window between when spinach was ready and when it bolted. Collards are just as good in soups.

I want to experiment with canning some soups. I cannot bring myself to pay close to $5 for a can of Amy’s when I have all the ingredients here to make my own. I thought about canning that curried zucchini soup—freezer space is going to be at a premium soon—but I am not finding much USDA guidance on canning anything like that. I’ll start with some approved recipes, first.

[I used my homemade chicken stock as a base for the curried zucchini soup, and I have to say that it is so much better than anything I’ve ever bought in the store.]

I’ve got two Cookin’ in Color Apron classes today, one this morning and one this evening. That is not an ideal schedule for this morning person, but we had someone who could only take an evening class and I wanted to accommodate her.

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Finishing this backpack was the motivation I needed to keep going. My sew-jo was about to take a hike and I didn’t want that to happen. It is still ridiculously hot here, in the 90s until at least Monday. March and August are my two least favorite months of the year. The chickens are cranky and sniping at each other. Another fire started yesterday, not far from the one I drove by on my way back from Spokane. The husband is doing a job up by Glacier National Park and got caught in a traffic jam after a car accident on his way home the other night. There have been a lot of car accidents. People are driving like idiots. Every time I go to town, I pass drivers looking down at their phones (usually on Lake Blaine Road, for you locals).

I await fall. And snow.

Palate Cleanser, Sewing Edition

I can tell it’s time to work on a different kind of sewing project. I made a list of clothing projects last night, and either I have patterns but no fabric, or I have fabric but I am waiting on a pattern, or I have to trace something and haven’t yet done that. I believe I will resurrect the Slabtown Backpack and try to finish that one. I also have to mend a pair of the husband’s work pants, and both of those projects can be sewn on the Necchi industrial. And while I’m working on the Necchi, which is in my office next to the kitchen, I can probably have a cooking or canning project going on the stove. Function stacking for the win.

I needed another class sample for the Rolled Hem class I’m teaching next month, so I knocked this one out before leaving for town yesterday morning. This lovely piece of rayon crepe came from the 80% off remnant rack at one of the Joann stores in Spokane.

I adore the color and the print, but I look like death warmed over in anything yellow or orange. I have to content myself with making class samples in those colors. This is a simple scarf made from a piece of fabric about 12” wide, cut on the crossgrain with rounded points on the ends. I wanted to see how much I could get that edge to wave. The remnant was almost an entire yard. Had I cut it on the bias, I know I could have gotten it to wave even more, but I could not bring myself to waste so much fabric. I set the stitch length to the lowest setting, which has the effect of crowding a lot of stitches into a small area. Pulling laterally on the finished edge (very gently!) encourages the ruffling as those stitches spread out. The looper thread was wooly nylon and the other two threads were regular serger thread. I used some tearaway stabilizer on the edge, which was essential because of the weight of the fabric.

[I am struggling with what to do with my garment fabric scraps. Quilting cotton scraps are easy as they can get recycled into a scrap quilt. I hand out leftover knit fabrics in all my serger classes—or use the larger pieces for muslins—but I’m still swimming in them. One of the young women who works at the quilt store in town makes knit fabric headbands. I offered her the larger leftovers, but she’s moving and asked me to hang on to them until she gets settled. I hate throwing even small scraps into the trash, so the idea of cutting a scarf on the bias out of the middle of a yard of fabric was untenable, even from a remnant that only cost me about a dollar.]

I have got to spend some time today working on serger class administration. I would like to have a list of classes to give to stores so that when people ask “What class can I take next?” the store has something to choose from. I’ve got to organize supply lists, class samples, and handouts. The more I teach these serger classes, the more I am leaning toward making up class kits rather than having the students source their own supplies, for several reasons:

• It takes a fair bit of time to become familiar with what kinds of fabrics are suitable for what kinds of projects. I specified a rayon knit for a class last summer and one student showed up with a yard of a fairly pricey woven rayon. Even choosing fabric for a simple T-shirt can be confusing.

• Wonderfil can provide sample spools/ kits of thread, which would allow students to try out different kinds of thread without having to shell out money for something they might only use once. I don’t want students to think that they have to buy expensive supplies just to try a technique. Also, stores don’t necessarily want to place a minimum order for thread (or fabric) that they won’t be able to sell. Most quilt stores don’t keep a stock of garment fabrics, either. I noted in class on Saturday that the irony of teaching serger and clothing classes at quilt stores did not escape me.

• Supply chain disruptions are wreaking havoc on class materials. The stores will order class supplies for me, but that doesn’t guarantee they will arrive in time.

• If everyone in class has the same supplies, class will proceed much more smoothly—or so I tell myself.

Class kits are one of those things, though, that students either love or hate. Some students love them because it saves them the hassle of shopping, especially when they aren’t sure what supplies they need. Other students hate them because they would rather bring supplies they already have on hand. And the stores really want students to buy their supplies at the store. This is a fine line to walk. My goal as a teacher, though, is for students to leave knowing more than they did when they came to class, and I have specific ideas about how to make that happen.

The Pattern Queue is Full

I may need to take a break from the clothing sewing for a bit and do something else. When fall gets here, I definitely want to get back to quilting. The Slabtown Backpack stalled around this time last year and is still sitting here in my office next to the industrial Necchi. Working on that project would be a nice change of pace. I also need to prep some embroidery projects—probably more chickens—so I have handwork in the evening, not that I’ll be sitting down until canning season is over.

For now, it’s clothing. One of the women in my serger class on Saturday mentioned how much she likes the Pamela’s Patterns line. I took a look at the website when I got home and ordered three of the patterns. I ordered hard copies and had them shipped, because I’ve already got half a dozen other patterns in the queue and I’m not in any huge hurry. I might be ready to start them by the time they arrive in the mail.

The first one is the Magic Pencil Skirt:

I made a pencil skirt last year with some dark green ponte using the Liesel + Co Kensington pattern. I liked the skirt a lot, but I wasn’t crazy about the waistband construction. I thought it was clunky and looked unfinished. I’ve been kicking around the idea of frankenpatterning my own pencil skirt pattern using the top half of the Renee pants, because I love the way they fit. But then I saw this pattern and decided that I didn’t need to reinvent that wheel. This skirt’s waistband construction is similar and it comes with a YouTube video on dart placement.

The second one is the Classic T-Shirt Dress.

Again, I am trying to avoid doing the work if someone else has already done it for me. Rather than beating that Tessa Sheath Dress pattern into submission, I’m going to try this one. It has a bust dart option and that portrait collar is very intriguing. I watched the video for making the portrait collar and Pamela suggests using the three-step zig-zag stitch on the sewing machine to understitch collar facings on knits. I definitely plan to try that.

The last one is the Peek-A-Book Swing Tunic.

I think I might like this a bit better than the Laundry Day Tee just because it’s not quite as voluminous. Also, the bodice comes with a bust dart option. (There is a theme here.) I will not be making the “cold shoulder” version, though, because my shoulders do not like to be cold.

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I’m spending a lot of time in the kitchen. Yesterday, I made a batch of Red Lentil Coconut Curry using the recipe from the Simply in Season cookbook. I make this every so often so I can use up leftover bits of produce from the fridge, freezer, or garden. The recipe makes a big pot of curry; I portioned it out into smaller containers and put them in the freezer.

We’re swimming in cucumbers—why was I worried?—so the husband got a big batch of cucumbers in vinegar, or as my kids christened them when they were little, “instant pickles.”

I have all the ingredients for Grandma Milly’s BBQ sauce. I’ll do a batch of that soon.

I made 52 quarts of salsa last fall, based on the how much Costco salsa the husband used to consume in a year. That was a good estimate as we’ve used up 43 quarts so far. I’ll probably do 52 quarts again this year. I won’t need to do as much tomato sauce, though. We’re almost out of apple pie filling, but Susan informed me that my favorite Duchess of Oldenburg apple tree didn’t bear this year. (I have two that she grafted for me, but they are still small yet and not producing.) She said she has other varieties for me to choose from, though.

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Baby rooster discovered he can crow, so he has been practicing with abandon. Unfortunately, Dave now knows that there is another rooster in the coop and he is NOT HAPPY. The baby rooster and a handful of Barred Rock hens are still in the separate area of the coop. I let the rest of the pullets out with the general population. Dave paces back and forth around the outside of that blocked-off area looking menacingly at the baby rooster. The other day I went into the coop and Dave hopped up onto the top of the garbage can that holds the chicken feed and let loose a scathing editorial while I scooped scratch grains out of the other garbage can.

I will try to find a home for the baby rooster. I don’t dare let him out. Dave is probably the best rooster I’ve ever had, but he murders his competition. There can be only one.

Serging in Spokane

I left here Friday morning and drove over to Spokane. The drive over was lovely because it was early enough in the day that traffic was light. I took the northern route, through Libby and into north Idaho, and arrived in Spokane around 9 am Pacific time. Going westward nets me an extra hour.

I spent the day shopping, hitting all four Joanns and two Hobby Lobby stores. The clearance racks yielded up some treasures, and one store’s remnant rack was so full that all the remnants were 80% off. I picked up a couple of new serger project patterns at the big quilt store. I did some shopping at Trader Joe’s for myself and a friend. Dinner was a huge Cobb salad from Safeway (I do love their salads) and the hotel was so quiet that it was like I had the place to myself.

And oh my goodness—class yesterday was so much fun. I had six students. Two had newer air-threading BabyLock sergers, two had Bernina sergers (relatively new, but without air threading), one had an older Elna, and one poor lady had an early model Singer serger that was a beast to thread. She knew its limitations coming in and she’d like to upgrade, but she just bought a new sewing machine so a new serger will have to wait. Nobody brought a Juki, which surprised me a bit, but the store owner, Irene, had two Juki sergers and a coverstitch machine set up for people to try.

All of the students got their machines threaded and running and most of them also got to try out a few different fabrics. One student asked me if I had an engineering degree. No, but I have the genes.

And then class was over.

“When are you coming back here to teach?”

“Can we have a class on making tops and T-shirts"?”

“Is once a month too often for you to come to Spokane?”

LOL. The husband said I can’t move there.

I always ask at the beginning of class for students to tell me why they are in class and how they hope to use their sergers. Everyone in this class wanted to make clothing. Like me, they are tired of not being able to find quality clothing that fits. One lady even asked if I would do a private class for her on making a bodice sloper. Irene said I can come and teach whatever and whenever I would like. The only negative is that she has a tiny little classroom space—six students is the maximum and there really is no place to spread out and trace and cut patterns. I suggested that if we do a T-shirt class, we set it up so that we do a few hours on a Friday afternoon or evening to take measurements, send everyone home to trace the pattern and cut it, then come back on Saturday and assemble the top.

[I wore my Laundry Day Tee made from the turquoise and royal blue DBP print that I picked up in Missoula. I paired it with some royal blue Charter Club jeans. Even though I knew I risked looking like a giant blueberry, I was reminded of something Kaffe Fassett said in a podcast interview. He believes that color is an energizing lifeforce. If his fabric lines came in knits as well as quilting cottons, I daresay my closet would be full of them. No muddy earth tones there.]

I’ve really got to sit down this week with my calendar and get things under control for teaching in 2023. And did I ever think I would be teaching serger classes and classes on making clothing? No, I did not. The universe has a stunningly deep sense of humor.

My original plan was to spend Saturday night in Spokane, as well, but I decided to hit the road right after class and come home. A big line of thunderstorms came through here Friday night and I was getting alerts on my phone for smoke investigations and grass fires. (When our fire department gets paged out, the alerts come to our cell phones.) Being away was making me nervous. I took today off from playing at church and even though I am home, I think I am going to take advantage of the break and work in the garden.

Speaking of fires, I drove home the southern route, past the wreckage of the recent Elmo fire. A lot of people think of wildfires as consuming only treed areas, but wildfires in open, grassy areas are just as devastating.

This road was closed at one point, and you can see how close the fire got to the pavement.

This is looking northward—Flathead Lake is to the right. The fire went up and over that ridge.

There were a few spots where the red fire retardant dropped by the planes was still visible on the ground. I know several of the homeowners were wondering if they were going to lose everything, because the fire got to within a couple hundred feet of their homes. It’s mostly contained now and not threatening any structures. The fire probably won’t go out completely until it snows, however.

Seeing where this fire started and how it spread, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to know that it was the result of someone carelessly flinging a cigarette butt out the window.

Ten Pounds of Green Beans

I started keeping a canning journal a few years ago, which has been very helpful. I can look back and see how much of what I canned and when. I knew, for instance, that 10 pounds of fresh green beans would give me about 17 pints processed. I have not been able to get beans in the ground for the past two years, so I ordered some through one of my friend Anna’s suppliers:

That’s done and off the list. I have 10 pounds of carrots to do, but they can wait a week or so. I also need to do a big batch of Grandma Milly’s BBQ sauce. And we’re getting low on canned dry beans.

I think I might turn the zucchini into some curried zucchini soup and freeze that for this winter. The garden is really starting to look like a jungle. I ate the first ripe tomatoes off the vine yesterday. The husband asked if they were in last night’s salad and I said they never made it to the house. Eating the first ripe tomato is the prerogative of the gardener, one that I embrace readily. That explosion of flavor in my mouth always reminds me of the fall that I was having chemo. My MIL busted me out of the Cleveland Clinic for a few weeks between chemo treatments and we flew back to Montana. I was not supposed to have salads or fresh vegetables while immunocompromised because of the risk of infection. As soon as we pulled into the driveway, I got out of the car, went into the backyard, and popped a fresh tomato into my mouth.

[“Patient is noncompliant” is written in big letters all over my medical records, but I’m still here. Doctors have been wrong about a whole list of things when it comes to my medical care, actually.]

I weeded the lettuce and collards yesterday morning and pruned out some of the raspberry canes and branches on the currant bushes. I find it’s easier to do as soon as they are done bearing, as it opens things up and lets air circulate through there. The gooseberries are just about ripe, too.

And it’s hot. We got a little bit of rain yesterday evening, but the atmosphere is so dry that most of it evaporates before it reaches the ground.

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The new website for the Mountain Brook Homestead Foundation is just about ready to launch. A few of us had a meeting Tuesday night to get the PayPal stuff straightened out. I am hoping that I can make the website live early next week. We’ll be able to utilize it for so many things—some of which could generate additional revenue—although I noted during the board meeting Monday night that we’re going to add new features slowly and one at a time so as not overwhelm the webmistress.

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I’ve been so frustrated by my trips to town lately. I think I’ll run in and get everything done in an hour or two and I end up spending half the day there. The traffic is ridiculous—our infrastructure was not built to handle this influx of people—and when I do get to each destination, even making a simple purchase takes forever. A lot of places are using the “labor shortage” as an excuse, and I know it’s an excuse because there are plenty of staff milling about trying their best to not do any actual work. I was in one store the other day where I watched an employee stand on the floor for 20 minutes (I had to wait in a long line) visiting with a friend of hers about their kids. I watched another couple of employees at the farm store chat with each other in the loading area, and when I finally got their attention, the young lady said to me, “Oh, sorry, we’re shorthanded today.” Not shorthanded enough that you can’t ignore customers in favor of visiting with your coworker, apparently.

I know I’ve reached the age of “Get off my lawn!” but part of me wishes that I had a copy of that list of employee guidelines that my grandparents kept posted above the time clock at their ice cream parlor. I would hand one out every time I see instances of lousy employee behavior, and it starts with acknowledging that people are in your store to give you money in exchange for a product. Don’t make it difficult for them.

Serger Summer

My Serger 101 class on Monday was supposed to have two students, but one called in sick. The lucky remaining student got a mastery class on her BabyLock machine. She was not a serger newbie, just unfamiliar with that new-to-her machine, so we made samples of all the three- and four-thread stitches. She was delighted and I got additional experience with the BabyLock models. That’s why I don’t mind teaching a class with one student; I learn as much as the student does. And this lady drove in from 2-1/2 hours away, so I wanted to make it worth her while.

The owner of the store in Spokane called me last evening to touch base. I have six students, which is about all we can fit into her classroom space and still be comfortable. I’m curious to see what machines students bring. I’m not as familiar with the newer Juki machines—mine is almost eight years old—so I’ll be getting up to speed on those models.

And I have two Cookin’ in Color apron classes next Wednesday—one during the day and one in the evening. It is so hard to schedule classes in a way that makes everyone happy. The Saturday time slots are usually full. The store would schedule classes on Sunday, too, but my Sundays are committed to church activities.

I wore my new Laundry Day Tee to class on Monday, but I’m not as happy with the double-brushed poly version as I am with the rayon spandex version. The DBP from Joanns is thicker than the rayon jersey and doesn’t drape as well. I also compared the Joanns DBP to the QT Fabrics DBP that I bought in Missoula—which I made into another LDT, now awaiting hemming—and there is a noticeable difference in the weight. Unfortunately, it appears that most of the fall knits that Joanns is stocking are going to be DBP. They have very few rayon/spandex knits. I’ll still wear it, but I won’t use the Joanns DBP for any further versions of that pattern.

I was perusing the Seamwork Patterns website yesterday and was excited to find this pattern:

This is the Sadie Tunic. This is almost identical to the Liz Claiborne tunic I bought in Seattle that I’ve been thinking about copying. Now I don’t have to.

Most pattern companies provide large format files of their patterns, so I’ve been taking them to the place in town that does blueprints. I’d rather pay to have the pattern printed there than print them here and have to tape dozens of sheets of paper together.

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The owner of the quilt store where I taught the pants class recommended a new podcast called Sew & So, which I am enjoying very much.

From the website: The Sew&So podcast will be a simple and casual conversation with many guests in the sewing/quilting community. We will talk with different individuals on what excites them, what inspires their work and how they grow and connect with their communities.

The episode from the recent Bernina University in Palm Springs was especially interesting.

Listening to sewing podcasts is about as close as I am going to get to sewing for a few days, though. The pressure canner is taking up residence on the stove today. I’ve started organizing the pantry—moving what is left of last year’s canning to the upper shelves so those items get used up—and figuring out how much of what I’ll need to do in the coming weeks. Today is green beans and then carrots. I was in the kitchen most of yesterday afternoon doing the prep work. I also made a raspberry crisp for the husband. My friend Anna dropped off a box of romaine lettuce; she said it needed to be cleaned and she didn’t have time, so I could either clean and use it or give it to the chickens. I did both. I pulled off the outer layers for the chickens and kept the good parts for our salads.

I remembered to get a picture of the Carolina Amethyst peppers yesterday. They are such a pretty color:

I thought that one had sun scald, but I think they are that color until they start turning purple. Or not. I am curious to see how these taste.

We might get some spotty thunderstorms today. The forecast also looks like more hot weather for the foreseeable future. The chickens are hot and cranky and pecking at each other. I’ll put the sprinkler on today to see if I can cool them off a bit.

Peas, Potatoes, and Peppers

Some of the pea plants escaped being munched on and actually produced some peas. I got enough to fill a quart zip bag. I think I am going to dig up what is there and replant them in hopes of a fall crop.

The husband went over the last of the raspberries yesterday morning because he is tall and can get into the middle of the patch. While he was doing that, I checked on the rest of the garden. The Carolina Amethyst pepper plants are, indeed, producing purple peppers. I see some ripening tomatoes. I could get another five-gallon bucket of currants if I have time. The grapes are filling out nicely and I need to start tying organza bags onto the bunches to protect them from marauding turkeys. The potato plants are starting to die back, so I grabbed a fork and dug up one plant to see how they did this year:

I am delighted. The potatoes always do very well in that part of the garden, which is odd because nothing else really grows well there.

My friend Anna, who has the catering business, got me 10 pounds of beautiful green beans from one of her suppliers, so those are first on the canning schedule this week.

To look at it now, you’d never know that the garden was struggling until almost July. I will take the bounty and be grateful.

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I ran up another Laundry Day Tee yesterday afternoon. I have three of them cut out, and they don’t take long to make.

This one was made from two chunks of double-brushed poly from the remnant rack. I think I will wear it today when I teach my Serger 101 class. I don’t like the DBP as much as the rayon jersey—DPB doesn’t breathe as well—but Joanns has a lot of it. I think the rayon jersey also drapes better. I certainly wouldn’t go with a fabric much heavier than this DBP.

I reinforce the shoulders on most of my tops. I used to use clear elastic, which is soft and flexible until you cut it, at which point it becomes sharp and poky and annoying. I ditched the clear elastic in favor of 1/4” wide ribbon. Serging the ribbon into the shoulders is a breeze on my old Juki serger, so that is the one I use for that part of the construction.

I need to make sure I change up my tried-and-true patterns or I am going to end up with 15 LDTs. I like this style, but it does run the risk of looking like a maternity top. A few raglans would be nice, and a raglan would lend itself well to using up some of the small leftover chunks from other projects.

My stash of fabrics is slowly being turned into finished garments. Several of the fabrics in the stash are there because I liked the color or print, not because I had something specific in mind for them. I have a much better idea now what fabrics work well in what patterns.

Pants Class Was a Success

The first time teaching a class is always a bit nervewracking because I just don’t know what problems are going to crop up. By the third time I taught Serger 101, I had a pretty good idea what questions people would have. This pants class was a totally new ballgame.

Funny story: I was getting dressed yesterday morning and went to put on the lovely stretch bengaline Renee pants that I made last week. Did you know that bengaline stretches vertically, not horizontally? No, neither did I. The pants wouldn’t go up past my knees. I had cut the pieces with the grainline parallel to the selvedges—as I would have if making them out of ponte—to maximize the stretch in the horizontal direction. The problem is that with bengaline, there is no horizontal stretch to maximize. I took them anyway and showed them in class. If I can’t be a good example, I should be a horrible warning. I will see if Hobby Lobby has more of that fabric and make another pair and cut them perpendicular to the selvedges. I decided to wear a pair of jeans and my Laundry Day Tee, instead.

As it turned out, one student called in sick, so I only had two in class. They happened to be two students I’ve had before. One works at the quilt store and used to be a patternmaker in Los Angeles. She doesn’t have a lot of experience sewing clothes, but she knows the process of pattern drafting inside and out. I love having her in class. The other lady makes clothes for herself and her grandchildren, but always out of wovens. She wants to become more comfortable with her serger so she can start making clothes out of knits.

Marci, the woman with pattern drafting experience, had made herself a couple of muslins (out of some 1970s vintage plaid double knit) before class, which ended up giving us a huge head start. The two ladies differ in height, but they were close enough in size otherwise that the muslin fit both of them. I had each of them try it on and we talked about where the fitting issues were. They had to make only minor adjustments to their pattern pieces. My brilliant stroke of genius was to tell them that we would wait to put the waist darts in until we got the rest of the pants fit properly. (The pattern has you sew the darts as the first step.) My other stroke of genius was bringing all my leftover ponte fabric so that they could make muslins before cutting into the good fabric. I only had enough fabric for them to make bike shorts, not full length pants, but that gave us the fitting information we needed.

This is Marci cutting out her bike shorts:

And this is Ariella assembling hers:

One of the most gratifying things about teaching is seeing a student gain confidence as class goes along. Ariella came to class not sure if she would like wearing these pants, both because of the style and because she isn’t used to wearing knits. I could see how much more relaxed she got with her serger as class went on, but the fun part was when she finished her muslin, changed into it, and came back out into the classroom. The bike shorts fit her perfectly and she liked the way they fit without the darts in them. She also wondered how the pants would look with a flowy knit top, so I went into the bathroom, took off the LDT, and let her try it on with her pants. She’s a convert.

I helped Marci mark the dart placements on her bike shorts. We also measured her inseam because she had to shorten her pants quite a bit. (Her inseam is 25”; mine is 33”, which is another indication of how much bodies differ.)

All in all, I couldn’t be happier with how this class went. Certainly, having two students with experience in clothes sewing and patternmaking helped. I think that for future classes, I am going to specify that students bring clearance fabric for making muslins and save the good fabric until we get the fitting issues worked out. I know the stores would rather the students buy the good fabric for the class, but they will lose customers if someone spends a lot of money on good fabric that ends up being an unwearable garment. I could load up on bolts of clearance fabric and factor that cost into the cost of the class, too. Stores are used to people buying supplies for quilting classes, but clothing classes are not like quilting classes.

I got a lot of comments on the Laundry Day Tee, both at that quilt store and the other quilt store. (I stopped at the quilt store north of town to drop off my home dec samples after class was over.) I think that if I do another T-shirt class, I’ll purchase the teaching license for the LDT. That style is flattering to many different body types and wouldn’t require a lot of fitting adjustments.

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We had a windstorm overnight. It was one of those windstorms where the pressure gradient sets up over the Continental Divide and the winds come back down the mountains from the east. Our house faces east, so I had to close the bedroom and bathroom windows down to cracks because the pleasant crossbreeze we get at night had turned into gale force winds. When the husband came to bed, I said that I had no idea a windstorm was in the forecast. He said that the windstorm had been in the forecast on the NOAA weather radio that he keeps on in the shop. I checked the NBC Montana weather app on my iPad and noted that we were under a high wind warning—a warning that had only been issued about an hour previously. I said that someone probably looked out the window and noticed the wind was blowing, so they decided to issue a wind warning. He told me I was too cynical.

[I’d love to have a job where I got paid big bucks to be wrong so often.]

The winds have died down now. I’ll be out in the garden this morning until it gets too warm to work out there, although the high is only supposed to be 78F. A heat wave is in the forecast for next week and we’ll be back up into the 90s. I’ve got two serger classes on the schedule, one of which is the Spokane class. I am trying to decide which route to take over to Spokane. The road is open near the fire, but I’d prefer to avoid that area if possible.

Today is Pants Class

Sometimes I look around and I see things that need to be done but aren’t being done, and I think to myself, “There’s an opportunity! No one has written and self-published a book on finishing techniques for knits, so I should do that” or “No one is teaching serger classes, so I should set some up!”

I do not always stop to think that maybe those things aren’t being done because other people thought through the idea and realized it was fraught with all sorts of potholes. No, I just forge ahead until I am so far into the project that I don’t want to abandon it.

Today is my pants class. Apparently, I am nervous enough about this that last night, I dreamed I got to class and had left all of my teaching supplies at home. In that dream, I also had 12 students instead of the three that I know have signed up. 😳

I don’t think I am in over my head, but we’ll find out. Pride goeth before, etc., etc. It’s one thing to teach a class on a technique or project where everyone is making the same thing, in the same size, in the same materials. It’s quite another to teach a class where each student is making something slightly different and customized to fit her body. The actual making of these pants is not difficult or time consuming. I can knock out a pair in a little over an hour. What is going to take most of class time (five hours) is going to be the measuring and fitting. Fortunately, I know the students who will be in this class—their backgrounds and skills—and I think we will be okay. I expect to learn almost as much as the students do.

I also have confidence in this pattern. I’ve made three pairs of pants from it already, and may have a fourth underway as part of today’s class. I think it is drafted and sized well. I know what adjustments, if any, we might have to make and where to make them.

You’ll have to tune in tomorrow to find out how it went.

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I played around with the three-thread edging stitch on my serger again yesterday. This is how it looks on the home dec class sample with a 12wt cotton thread (Wonderfil Spaghetti) in each looper:

The blue thread is the one I almost ran out of while stitching. This is intended to be a basket liner that shows on both sides. (The fabric line is “Decorum” by BasicGrey for Moda.) I’ve seen this edging done with 8wt perle cotton and it’s even more dramatic.

I made a sample yesterday with two layers of flannel and wooly polyester (Wonderfil Sofloc) in the loopers to see how that worked:

I probably could crunch the stitch length down even a bit more for additional coverage on that edge—almost like a satin stitch—but for a sample, this was fine. It told me what I needed to know.

I went through my stash of knit fabrics and sorted them into piles—double-brushed poly, French terry, etc.—and prioritized what I want to make next. I am trying to be more intentional about filling holes in my wardrobe. Navy blue DBP might be boring to work with, but I could use a basic navy blue top.

I also popped up to sewing around lunch time yesterday to do some visiting. That group of women knows how to laugh and have a good time. I always enjoy being there. (We missed you, Sarah!) I don’t think we always get much sewing done, but we do our part to solve the world’s problems.

The garden needs some attention, so that’s on the schedule for tomorrow. The zuccihni and melon patch is turning out to be quite a surprise. Apparently, I put a wide variety of plants in the ground and promptly forgot what I planted. I think the tomato patch is going to be the same way.

Looper Chicken

Those of you who sew may be familiar with the term “bobbin chicken.” That’s the race you play with your machine to see if you can finish sewing a seam before the bobbin thread runs out. Knitters have a version as well. The serger version is “looper chicken.” Yesterday, I played looper chicken and won:

I was working on the last of my home dec class samples. That one called for a three-thread edging using serger thread in the needle and heavier 12wt thread in each of the loopers. I had a large spool of one color but only a sample spool of the other color. (Wonderfil makes sample spools for teachers to use in their classes.) The two colors together were perfect for the print I was using.

The edging is decorative and thread intensive, intended to cover the entire edge, so I knew it was going to be close. I was sweating that fourth side. I stitched the last 6” of it with one eye on the spool. If I ran out, I would have had a sample with a partially-finished edge, but I made it with this much to spare. Yay me.

The samples are done; now I just need to put the handout together. I may make a second set of samples, though, in case I teach this class at another store.

Speaking of classes at other stores . . . I’m scheduled to teach a Serger 101 class at the small quilt store in Spokane this month. Back in May or so, I also contacted the big quilt store in Spokane and offered to teach some classes there, too. The big quilt store responded that they already had people teaching serger classes but would call me if they needed another teacher.

The big store puts out a class mailer every quarter with a list of the upcoming classes. I looked at the mailer that just came out to see what serger classes they are offering in case I want to take one. (LOL.) The only “classes” they offer are the model-specific mastery classes that you get for free if you buy a machine there, although you can take one if you pay for it, if you bought your machine elsewhere. They also have a Bernina serger club which meets monthly and does a different project each month.

So yes, they are offering classes, but not classes open to just anyone with a serger. The mailer states, “If you do not have a current machine model, please call to inquire about your options. We are happy to accommodate other machines, based on instructor availability, as you may require a one-on-one session.” Those individual sessions are $40/hour, which is good information to have because the stores where I currently teach sometimes get requests for private instruction.

Part of me can’t fault the store for setting things up this way. They are a dealer and they want to sell machines. Perhaps their current instructor doesn’t want the hassle of dealing with other brands of sergers, especially vintage ones. My experience, though, has been that people who come to class with machines they inherited, pulled out of closets, or bought at yard sales quickly determine the limitations of those machines and start looking at newer ones.

Here is the interesting thing: I called the smaller quilt store yesterday to see if anyone signed up for the serger class being offered there. I don’t want to make travel arrangements if no one is registered. The woman I spoke with on the phone said that it’s sold out; she registered the last person a couple of days ago. Granted, it’s a small class—we limited it to either six or eight people—but it’s sold out. This is a Serger 101 class and we didn’t limit it to one brand even though this store is a Juki dealer. I will be curious to see what machines people bring to class.

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It’s supposed to be a bit cooler for a few days, although breezy. That fire on the west side of Flathead Lake is still burning, mostly uncontained. And the Flathead County Sheriff’s office released information yesterday that five grass fires over the weekend appear to have been started deliberately. All were extinguished quickly, but it wouldn’t take much for one of those to turn into a wildfire under the right conditions.

I have thoughts about people who get their jollies that way, and they aren’t charitable thoughts.

We had cukes from the garden in our salad last night, and we even have a watermelon in the patch!

So far only one, and it’s only about the size of a softball, but I have hope.

More Gifts From Friends

My friend Sunnie texted me yesterday afternoon and asked if she could drop something off. I was home so I said yes, and a few minutes later she pulled into the driveway. I jokingly asked her if she was bringing me pants to hem and she said, “Oh, no, that’s Robin! I brought you something fun!”

Robin went to visit Sunnie in Texas in March and the two of them went fabric shopping. Sunnie is an artist although she doesn’t sew. She does, however, shop. She and Robin saw this fabric and decided I needed some.

Certainly I shall make myself an apron from this! They also found a coordinating green solid that I can use for the back.

I need to visit the raspberry patch this morning before it gets hot, but then I have a whole day of sewing ahead of me. I have two LDTs cut out and ready to assemble. I pressed all the fabric for the home dec serger class samples yesterday afternoon and need to make those. I need to cut out the pieces for another pair of Renee pants—black Robert Kaufman ponte for these—so I can use them for demonstration purposes in class on Friday. One of the patterns I want to try has a neckline edge treatment that is going to require some experimentation before I attempt it on the actual garment.

And I’ll be keeping one eye on the weather—the fire that is burning on the west side of Flathead Lake, near the junction of Hwy 28 and Hwy 93, jumped the highway and also started burning north, so the sheriff was going door to door to evacuate residents. That fire has burned over 12,000 acres. One structure was lost. Fire managers requested engines from a couple of Flathead County rural fire departments; I heard them get paged out just before dinnertime yesterday. Hwy 93 was shut down because of poor visibility. (The NBC Montana website has pictures if you want to look.) I woke up around midnight last night to hear rumbles of thunder from a storm over the mountains just east of us. I doubt the storm dropped any rain, but I saw several flashes of lightning. It is still hot and this afternoon is supposed to be windy. That is not a good combination of conditions.

I will not complain about snow when it comes. This is, without a doubt, my least favorite time of the year. (March runs a close second.) My cousin’s daughter is coming for a visit at the end of August and I’m really hoping the whole place isn’t on fire. The chickens don’t like the heat, either. They’ve stopped laying and there’s a lot of arguing and pecking going on in the coop. I’m going to rig up a misting system in the chicken yard for them today.

Gifts From Friends

Robin and I had lunch together on Saturday. I hemmed a pair of pants for her on the coverstitch machine and she gifted me this mini chicken from her travels:

He is tiny—just about 1-1/2” tall. He could be a pincushion, but I suspect he is meant to be a pattern weight. I have him sitting by my computer.

I have been remiss in my other thank-yous. My neighbor Theresa brought me this beautiful wool scarf from her trip to Scotland in April:

I wish it were snowing and I could wear this with my new winter coat. It is so hot right now.

[From the Seattle Weather Blog Twitter account: Seattle is very likely to top 90° this afternoon for the sixth day in a row, making for the longest streak of 90-degree days on record. Records date back to 1891. Current record is 5, set in July 1941, Aug 1981 & July 2015. DD#2 asked for an air conditioner for her apartment for her birthday this year.]

Sarah gifted me a couple of tomatillo plants in the spring. We agonized over whether they would make it, but it appears now that both of us will have plenty for making salsa:

The cukes and melons also have taken off. If it stays this warm, we might get some after all. My sense of garden timing is so messed up this year.

The husband was home all weekend. He spent time doing some cleanup around the house and yard, sweeping up pine needles and clearing away brush. He put out hoses by all the spigots, too, so they are ready if we need them. And the electric fence is up around the apple trees.

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I hemmed my Laundry Day Tee and wore it to church yesterday. I have another one ready to cut out from the blue DBP I bought in Missoula. I hemmed the bengaline Renee pants and I might wear them to class this Friday. It’s supposed to cool off a bit by then, to the high 70s. I like to wear my me-mades when I teach. Or I could wear the black ponte Tessa dress. I hemmed that one, too. I still like the way it looks and fits, and I plan to talk a lot about the importance of making muslins.

I really need to get the projects under control. I know I keep saying that. It’s just so lovely to be able to make clothing that fits me and that I enjoy wearing. I’m not constantly pulling tops down because they are too short or pulling pants up because they are falling off my hips. And the best part is that I get to choose the colors.

I’ve also get one more set of class samples to make for the home dec serger class I am teaching at the end of September. I bought the fabric last week and just need to run them up.

August, though, is traditionally the start of canning season and I’ll be hitting that hard. I also need to do a thorough sweep of the house, especially the basement, and take a couple of loads of stuff to the thrift stores. It’s cool in the basement and a good time to clean.

Fire Season Has Begun

We had such a cold, wet spring that fire season seemed a distinct impossibility this year. I should know better. A fire started last evening along the route I take to get to Spokane. It blew up quickly—last report was over 200 acres—and Hwy 28 west from Hwy 93 is closed. Residents are being evacuated. This is about 40 miles southwest of us, but if it happened there, it can happen up here, too. The photos I’ve seen are sobering.

I will take January over late July and August any time. We won’t get any relief from this heat until the middle of next week, but it looks like the long-range forecast for August is hot and dry, too. Ugh.

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I have found what I think is the perfect use for that Eloflex stretch thread. I used it in the looper of my coverstitch machine when I hemmed the Renee pants:

I’m going to try it on a T-shirt next and see how it does, but I think it looks and sews better than the wooly nylon.

I started reading Jenny Rushmore’s Ahead of the Curve fitting book last night, and now I’m rethinking that Tessa Sheath Dress pattern again. I will see if I can do a Zede boob bump on the unaltered side of the pink muslin, but if that doesn’t work, I might go ahead with my original idea to just put darts in the upper bodice and be done with it.

I didn’t get as much hemming done yesterday as I’d hoped because a “quick trip into town” ate up four hours. I had to wait for stores to open and for things I’d dropped of to be finished so I could pick them up again. Traffic was insane. Some stores didn’t have what I needed so I had to go to other stores. Did I mention traffic was insane? I thought I might go to Costco, but at 10:15—well past when they opened—the line to get in stretched out into the parking lot.

The Big Brown Truck of Happiness delivered my Amazon order yesterday. The box contained three large, brightly-colored rubber snakes. (I checked in town, but neither the Dollar Store nor WalMart had any for sale.) The husband thinks this attempt at keeping pests out of the garden is amusing, but I am desperate. Last night, I went out to check on things after dinner and when I stepped out of the greenhouse, I could see the raspberry canes moving. A couple of turkeys and four poults wandered out of the patch. These animals seem to think I planted this smorgasbord just for them.

We’ll see if the rubber snakes deter the ground squirrels. I’ve got a tray of arugula starts that I’d like to transplant, but I don’t want them to get mowed down as soon as they’re in the ground. I put the rubber snakes in strategic locations.

This cosmos made such a pretty picture the other evening:

I like having flowers planted among the veggies.

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I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one here on the blog, but I think it’s helpful to mention what has worked for me in case it helps others. I have followed Dr. William Davis for several years—he is the author of the book Wheat Belly and a lot of his research in the area of wheat intolerance has been helpful for me. He is a huge proponent of probiotics. He is particularly fond of the strains of Lactobacillus reuteri. This microorganism was first isolated in 1962. It used to be found commonly in the digestive tract of human beings, but its prevalence has decreased significantly over the past 50 years—coincidentally, as inflammatory diseases have increased.

I’ve talked here before about the MTHFR gene mutation running rampant in my family. That has manifested as a B12 deficiency in my mother and a folate deficiency in me. I’ve been reading up on the benefits of L. reuteri recently (this is a good start), and it appears that some strains are capable of synthesizing both B12 and folate in the gut.

Hmmmmm.

I started taking an L. reuteri probiotic about a week ago. This isn’t the strain that synthesizes vitamins—I need to find and order that one specifically—but I can tell that something different (and beneficial) is happening in my gut. I’ve been front-loading and taking a capsule with every meal, although I expect to back off from that soon. I’ll post further developments as they happen.

Not the FBA I Need

Yesterday was productive. I knocked out a pair of Renee pants in the stretch bengaline. I have not yet tried them on because it is so hot that I cannot bear the thought of snug fabric on my legs. They look good, though, and the bengaline was reasonably easy to work with. They are sitting on the “to be hemmed” pile, which I plan to tackle today.

I also figured out what is going on with the Tessa Sheath Dress. Spoiler alert: Not all FBAs are created equal.

I cut out and ran up another muslin with the Joann ponte I got in Missoula. It’s a dusty pink color, which is a much better color than black for identifying problems because I can actually see what’s going on.

[This would be a pretty color on me if it were a bluer dusty pink, not a brownish dusty pink. I would dearly love to have a conversation with the person responsible for choosing fabric colors for Joann Fabrics. My first question would be, “Why all the mud?”]

For this muslin, I traced the XL shoulders, then graded down to the Large with FBA. I put the dress on—and darn it, I still had excess fabric at the bust. I could have pinned out darts again, albeit smaller than the ones on the black version. I took out the side seam and cut off some of the extra width from the FBA and ran up another seam. Better, but still not quite right.

And then it hit me. The problem isn’t so much the FBA, it’s the kind of FBA. Look at this picture (and yes, there is a reason I am not a fashion illustrator).

This is basically the shape of the full bust pattern piece for the Tessa Sheath Dress. Do you see how the piece starts to widen immediately below the base of the armhole opening? That is where I kept having to pin out excess fabric.

Now look at this picture:

This is what I’ve normally done for a full bust adjustment in stretchy knits. This is the “boob bump” a la Zede Donahue of the Sewing Out Loud podcast. Her version begins an inch or so BELOW the base of the armhole opening, scoots out, and scoots back in again. It makes the side edge of the front a bit longer than the side edge of the back, but that extra fabric just gets eased into the seam.

I don’t need a full bust adjustment to begin beneath my armpit. I need less fabric there, not more. When I pinned that excess out and adjusted the bustline, the armhole seam—which had been full of wrinkles—straightened out.

I got out the Standard bust pattern piece and laid my full bust pattern piece on top so I could compare them. What I really need, I think, is the Standard bust front pattern with a Zede boob bump so that I only have extra fabric where I truly need it.

Melissa, I wonder if this is why you prefer the original Laundry Day Tee with a boob bump rather than the LDT with the full bust front. I didn’t notice this issue in the LDT, but then again, that bodice widens under the armpit and keeps going, and I made the second one in a very drapey rayon jersey.

I might be able to take the other side seam out on the pink muslin and test out this theory, or I could find more clearance ponte and make a third—and hopefully final—muslin before making a real dress. And I do want to make a “real” dress.

This explanation lines up with what I am seeing in the Love Notions pattern group on Facebook. For a subset of people with a specific shape, the Love Notions kind of FBA probably makes a lot of sense. For people like me, this kind of full bust pattern piece puts extra fabric in a place I don’t need it. Maybe all of this is blindingly obvious to more experienced sewists, but I’m having to analyze and intuit my way through this process.

Hemming today, and then I’ll revisit the pile of fabric and patterns and see what I want to tackle next. I might just spend a couple of hours hemming napkins on the serger. Napkins don’t require fitting adjustments. My brain could use the break.

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The plants in the garden are loving this heat. My sister’s acorn squash is coming along nicely.

I grow these for her and she takes them home in her suitcase when she comes to visit.

I planted a few other kinds of squash, too, but I can’t remember what they are. They were from the plant sale. I think one of them is a butternut. One might be a spaghetti squash. We’ll find out eventually.

LDT Success, Finally

The second iteration of the Laundry Day Tee fits me much better in the shoulders. I used a rayon/spandex jersey for this one (clearance fabric from Joanns). I think it looks better on me than on the dress form, but it’s easier to photograph this way. I have not yet hemmed it. I am making a stack of things to hem and will do them on the coverstitch in a marathon session.

I lowered the armhole on this size, too, by about half an inch. I’m glad I did. Apparently, this is not an uncommon hack for this pattern line, as the designer has a blog post about how and when to do it.

Speaking of the coverstitch, I need to set up the binding attachment and start practicing with it. The LDT has options for a regular neckband and a bound neckband. This is one top that could benefit from a bound neckband.

I like the LDT enough—now that I have the correct size dialed in—that I probably will make a few more. I think the next one will be out of that cobalt/turquoise double-brushed poly that I picked up at The Confident Stitch on Tuesday.

Whew. That was a process.

I cut the grass yesterday morning, hopefully for the last time. It tends to go dormant in July. The husband also wants to put the electric fence up around the orchard because the apple and pear trees are loaded and we still have a marauding bear in the neighborhood.

And it’s hot. It’s so hot. Everyone I know is complaining about it. Those of us who live here obviously prefer cooler temperatures. It’s nothing like last summer, but five days of 90+ degrees is five days too many.

Today will be another day of sewing, although I am heading over to a friend’s house for a bit this morning to help her plan out her garden for next year. She wants to get started on the prep work now, which is very sensible.

This is what is next up in the queue:

1. Another pair of Renee pants, but this time from some stretch bengaline rather than ponte. Hobby Lobby had all their fabric at 40% off this week. Our Hobby Lobby has some new and interesting garment fabrics for fall (are you listening, Joann Fabrics?) and I picked up this bengaline in a two-tone black/charcoal mini-houndstooth pattern. I’m curious to see how it works for this pattern. The Renee pants class is next Friday, so it would be nice to have these done as another class sample.

2. A second iteration of the Tessa Sheath Dress. I have hope of hitting the correct size now that I’ve made a LDT that fits me.

3. Another version of the New Look 6577 cowl neck top with my pattern adjustments. I plan on making this out of some black rayon/spandex. I can always use more black tops.

4. I’m going to cut a few heavier tops out of my stash of French terry using a Burda pattern that I’ve lengthened into a tunic. I made one last winter and I always get compliments when I wear it. As hot as it is, though, cutting those out may be as far as I get right now.

And I am going to try a Seamwork pattern, specifically the Lenny dress. I know, this isn’t turtleneck weather, either.

I have been listening to the Seamwork podcast for a while now, although I haven’t tried any of their patterns. I am curious, though, to see if these work better for me than the Love Notions ones, because Seamwork patterns are drafted for a 5’8” frame. The Love Notions patterns are drafted for a 5’5” frame. I am 5’7” tall. Perhaps that is part of my issue with the Love Notions patterns. We’ll see.

I bought a comfy Liz Claiborne tunic in Seattle in April. I’d love to have a few more in that style. I’m rather hoping to find a similar pattern (Burda, maybe?) but thus far, no luck, so I might have to draft one myself. Oh, and there is that Upton dress . . .

Here’s another garden pic for you. My tomatoes once again look like I planted them on top of a nuclear waste dump, and they are on the opposite side of the garden from where they were last year. They really do like that black plastic. They are setting quite a bit of fruit, too.

The Heat Wave is Starting

I went to Missoula yesterday. The drive down was lovely; it was early enough in the morning that traffic was light. I had the joy of listening to the Whipstitch podcast—Heather, thank you so much for the link to her website and to that podcast!—which made the drive even more pleasant. I was gratified to hear her talk about how much work it is to fit garments properly. Zede and Mallory said something similar on one of their recent podcasts. If these expert sewists have to make multiple muslins for some garments, I’m going to give myself some grace in that department.

I went to Joann Fabrics first. It’s on the south end of Missoula and I like to start there and work my way back. I am not sure what is going on with the Joann Fabrics in Kalispell. All the other stores in the region are open 9 am to 9 pm. Our store is still on pandemic hours and is only open from 11 am to 5 pm. Ostensibly, it’s because of the labor shortage, but part of me wonders if the manager just likes it that way.

I could not believe the selection of garment fabric in the Missoula store. We have maybe one aisle of knits and one aisle of special occasion fabric. The Missoula store has three times that much, and it’s no bigger than our store. We never got the modal sweatshirt knits. The Missoula store has the original stock AND new colors. I might have a chat with the manager next time I’m in our store. She may just not know that people want to sew garments and would buy that fabric in Kalispell if the store stocked it. To look at our store, you’d think that the only things people in Kalispell sewed are fleece blankets.

[Joann Fabrics pushes people to buy on their website, but they have a two-yard minimum on fabric cuts. That’s fine for garment sewing but less fine for quilting and other types of projects. Also, I don’t like to order fabric I haven’t seen in person.]

I scored some rayon ponte from the clearance rack. It was priced at 50% off with another 40% off red tag clearance, and when I got to the cutting table, the woman there knocked it back even further because the edge was dirty. (Someone had set the bolt on the floor.) The ponte is not a color I would wear, but at that price, it will be fine to use for another attempt at the Tessa dress.

[I was scrolling through the posts about the Tessa dress on the Love Notions Facebook group and ran across one from a woman whose body shape looks a lot like mine. She noted that she made a Large with no FBA. It fit her nicely with no pulling, so maybe there is just a lot of extra ease built into that pattern.]

I left Joann Fabrics and headed for The Confident Stitch. I don’t like this store for reasons that have nothing to do with fabric, but I cannot argue with the fact that they have an excellent selection of product. Joann Fabrics has acres of olive green, navy blue, and burnt orange, so it’s nice to walk into a store that carries bright colors that I can wear. I did a fair bit of damage there and came out with a length of Robert Kaufman Trainers French terry in a lovely dark teal, some Birch Fabrics Abyss interlock in a saturated medium blue, and some QT Fabrics double-brushed poly in a geometric cobalt/turquoise blue print. I have not tried any of those fabrics before.

I also picked up some Essex Speckle Yarn Dyed in Cream, which is a 68% cotton/31% linen/1% polyester blend. It’s cream-colored with tiny bright-colored speckles. When I was in Alaska, DD#1 and I had a discussion about cloth napkins. She said they would like some that match but are also unique so that guests can be “assigned” a napkin. DSIL said that his mother does the same thing and I think it’s an eminently sensible idea. I think this fabric will make nice napkins, and I can change the rolled hem edging thread so that each one has a different-colored edging.

I meant to add this book to my pile of purchases while I was there, but I forgot.

I ordered a copy when I got home. The section on full bust adjustments is fabulous.

I did not stop at Vicki’s Quilts Down Under even though she also carries a nice selection of knit fabrics. I bought enough at The Confident Stitch to keep me busy for a while. In fact, I was pretty well done shopping by noon (the heat! the traffic! the tourists!) and decided to head back to Kalispell with a stop at the Amish store in St. Ignatius. The husband wanted some Lebanon bologna to take for lunch and I’ve been having trouble finding it here in town.

We’re at the beginning of a heat wave here. I am planning to cut the grass this morning (hopefully for the last time this summer), then spend the rest of the day inside, sewing. I’ve been getting a couple of zucchini every morning, and the husband has been snacking on the first raspberries. I also cut this lovely cauliflower the other morning:

In my family, cauliflower is most often prepared by browning bread crumbs in butter—do not skimp on the butter!—then pouring that over a bowl of steamed cauliflower florets. I did that with this head of cauliflower and have been eating it ever since. Bugs and worms do not plague my produce. I brushed three earwigs off while I was cleaning this one and that was it. Thank you, snakes.

We Work for Fun

My friend Scott read my Sewcation post and sent me this video clip. It makes me giggle every time I watch it. I made the husband watch it yesterday morning, too, after I asked him what his plans were for the day and he said “Work.” We are peas in a pod.

The funny part is at the beginning.

I made quite a bit of headway on class samples yesterday afternoon. The scarf is done—all fringed—and I made more rolled hem samples. I lost my original set of rolled hem samples. I have looked through all of my class supplies and they are nowhere to be found. Of course, they will resurface now that I have made a second set. I experimented with a rolled edge on a remnant of rayon crepe de chine. I had to use some washaway stabilizer (OESD Stitch-2-O) on that edge, which took a bit of practice, but it turned out beautifully. I washed the rayon and have it hanging up to dry right now.

It’s a bit lettuce-edgy at the moment, but my experience with rayon is that it shrinks in water but stretches out again once it’s dry. And lettuce-edgy is fine, too.

Our renters’ little girl loves unicorns. I had just enough of a remnant of unicorn jersey fabric from Joanns to make her a T-shirt. I cut that out yesterday and will run it up this afternoon.

And I made another pile of fabric and patterns to play with this week, including Laundry Day Tee 2.0 in the larger size. If version 2.0 doesn’t work, I will call this a valuable learning experience and move on to another pattern line. DSIL’s mom had a great idea—she suggested I baste together my pattern pieces and try them on myself or on my dress form. I trace using Pellon Easy Pattern, which is a spun-bonded substrate that is stable enough to sew through. I will have to see how it works to use my dress form for fitting; I can pad out the bust, but the measurements in the hips and waist are different than my body measurements. (I didn’t take a picture of the Tessa sheath dress because it looks good on my body but bizarre on the dress form.) Still, it would give me a rough idea of what’s going on.

I redrafted the New Look 6577 cowl neck pattern and took out the armhole pleat. I also took out the back shaping. That might be a good candidate for the basting method, to see if my changes are an improvement or not. I know that one fits well in the shoulders and bust.

And if I can muster up the courage, I might start working on a muslin of the Upton dress. I’ve got some bolts of quilting cotton that were intended for quilt backs, but I could use one of them for a muslin. The dress requires about six yards and I doubt I’ll find that much of a suitable fabric on the clearance rack.

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My friend Anna, who owns a catering business, is interested in some of the zucchini for her menu this week. I will have plenty to spare. I am re-evaluating what I put in the freezer now. The husband eats a lot less wheat than he used to—I don’t know if it bothers him when he does or if that is just a consequence of me not having it around the house because it bothers me when I eat it. I don’t think I need to make and freeze 36 loaves of zucchini bread any more like I used to.

I might still get peas, in August, which is just bizarre. I think of those as a cool weather crop, but mine got nibbled on by some animal and they are just now reaching a stage where they are putting on blossoms.

I can’t control the weather. I couldn’t control it last year when we sweltered under a heat wave that made the cauliflower wither, and I can’t control it this year when it’s been so cool that the cucumbers are struggling to grow. Every year is different. I say that every year and every year it’s true. We’ll take what we get and be grateful for it.

What Works and What Doesn't

Warning, this is a long post. I have a lot to talk about.

The past two days have been a battle with the Tessa Sheath Dress pattern. I know there are people out there who are fans of the Love Notions patterns. The Facebook group has 54,000 members. I’ve tried two of the patterns and had issues with both, so I am not sure this line is for me. It’s either that or a whole lot of operator error, which is entirely possible.

My issue with the Laundry Day Tee was that I chose the size to make based on my high bust measurement, as recommended by the pattern. That resulted in a top which was too tight across the shoulders and too tight in the sleeves. Armed with that information, I chose the size for the Tessa dress in the same way, but then went up one size to make sure it would fit in the shoulders. I also used the full bust pattern piece.

I ended up with a dress I was swimming in. It fit me in the shoulders, yes, but it was huge everywhere else. I put it on inside out and started pinning. I took the dress in by 1-1/2” at each side seam. I got it to fit well from below my bust to the hem, but it still left me with a ton of excess fabric at the bust and under my arms. I took the sleeves out and put the dress on again inside out. I pinched fabric in various places to see where I could remove the excess. The best option seemed to be bust darts, so I played around with pinning them in different places and finally came up with a placement I liked. I also had to adjust the armsyce slightly, which actually made the sleeve cap set in better.

It took most of yesterday afternoon, but I finally beat the dress into submission. I like the end result very much. This is a flattering style on me and the ponte is comfortable, to boot, but I have no idea how to translate the adjustments I had to make back to the original pattern unless I take the whole dress apart. I could try grading the Tessa pattern from a larger size at the shoulders to a smaller size in the lower body, but I think what I am going to do is to frankenpattern the upper bodice of the Style Arc Kristen dress—which fits well and has the same kind of bust darts in the same location—to the bottom half of the Tessa dress in a smaller size. I will make another muslin to test out that idea. Thank goodness for clearance fabric.

I was talking this over with the husband last night. He doesn’t know much about sewing, but he can visualize what I am trying to do and he listens well. (He was unfamiliar with the term “frankenpattern,” so I had to explain that one.) I’m reluctant to blame the designer for these issues, having been a designer myself and knowing that it’s impossible to design something that fits every body shape and size out there. Based on the posts I’ve seen in the Facebook group, this is what I suspect is going on: People carry weight differently. I think that the people for whom these patterns work really well are those who have narrow shoulders but carry their weight in their bust and lower torso. I am, to put it bluntly, top heavy. I’ve got broad shoulders and I’m busty, but below my bust, things narrow quite a bit.

The fabric I used was the black ponte I got on the clearance rack at Hobby Lobby. Ponte comes in different kinds of fibers. The Kristen dress was made with the “summer ponte” from Joann Fabrics, which is 100% polyester. The first pair of Renee pants (the hot pink ones) were made with that same fabric. The second pair of Renee pants were made with the “refined ponte” from Joann Fabrics, which is 65% rayon/30% nylon/5% spandex. I have several lengths of the Robert Kauffman ponte, which is 67% rayon/28% nylon/5% spandex. The Hobby Lobby ponte is 63% rayon/32% nylon/5% spandex. The 100% polyester ponte does not stretch as much as the rayon blend pontes. The Hobby Lobby ponte seemed to stretch quite a bit while I was monkeying around with that dress yesterday. I am sure it’s a lower quality fabric than the Kaufman ponte.

I am trying to be patient with this process. Patterns rarely fit anyone well without some adjustments, and I am learning a lot as I go, but it takes time.

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When Susan and I were running around town last Monday, we stopped in at the quilt store. I got to talking with a woman who has been in a couple of my serger classes and she asked me why I was teaching the Cookin’ in Color apron class at the other quilt store and not at the one we were in.

[Some people will patronize both stores; some people are very loyal to one or the other. I know I am treading a fine line by teaching at both stores, but I did clear that with the store owners first.]

On Tuesday, when I was in to do the Facebook Live video, I mentioned the conversation to the owner of that quilt store. I said that I did not want her to think that I didn’t want to teach in her store, but I also pointed out that I had submitted a list of at least half a dozen potential serger classes—including the apron class—to her class manager after the Mystery Make in April and could not seem to get any of them scheduled. (The other store owner does not have a class manager; she tells me to pick an open date on the calendar and schedule what I want to teach.)

The store owner said she would talk to her class manager. The class manager called me a few days later and we had a good conversation. We put a few classes on the calendar, but now I am having to scramble and make up class samples and handouts and supply lists because some of the classes are next month. I’ve also got to factor in what I think makes a good class and what the store owner wants me to teach, which aren’t always the same thing. And both stores would prefer I teach classes unique to them, so even if I am teaching the same technique, I’ve got to approach it differently.

This is also a process and I am doing my best to hold up my end of things, but it’s not just a matter of putting a class on the calendar and poof!—I have all the information immediately.

This scarf is a good example.

This is a pattern designed by the woman who taught the Mystery Make class in April. She made the pattern available for free, with the stipulation that if I teach it as a class, the students get the pattern only if they purchase the fabric at the store. I can only teach this class at the store where we had the Mystery Make class. Those are not unreasonable stipulations; it’s her design and she can put whatever limitations on it she wants to. (Please do not ask me for the pattern.) I had bought the flannel for this scarf during the Mystery Make weekend, so I cut it out and put it together after I got the Tessa dress sorted. Now I have to fringe the ends up to that line of stitching. I asked the instructor how long it took her to fringe her sample scarf, and she said, “Four episodes of Magnum PI.” That’s about right. I got this much done last night while watching YouTube videos with the husband.

The store owner suggested this scarf project for one of the technique classes, which is fine, but it’s going to take at least another evening or two to finish fringing the scarf so I can get a photograph for the class listing on the website.

I need to spend some time this afternoon making up a schedule for this week. I hesitate to make a formal schedule because that is an invitation for the universe to start lobbing wrenches, but I’ve got to stay on track.

Sewcation

In the past, when I’ve needed a break, I’ve hit the road. That is still my favorite way to unwind, but for some reason, I’ve been procrastinating about going anywhere. That’s totally unlike me. When I sat down and had a talk with myself, I realized that I what I most wanted was several days alone to do nothing but sew (emphasis on the “alone” part). I had amassed a stack of new patterns and fabrics and until Cinderella’s mice take up residence in my sewing room, it’s up to me to put them together.

I’m making headway. The apron is done and ready to ship. Yesterday, I knocked out New Look 6577, the cowl neck top:

Is it perfect? No, but it’s everything I needed a muslin to be because I learned a lot from it. We’ll start with the fabric, which is some glittery metallic spandex-y stuff from the clearance bin at Joanns. It worked well for this top and wasn’t awful to sew, but now I have glitter from one end of my house to the other.

I can’t decide if I like this pattern better than the Easton Cowl. This one was a bit more complicated because it has pleats at the shoulders to help drape the cowl. It also has a pleat within the armhole, which continues that cowl draping all the way down through the abdomen. I am tempted to take that armhole pleat out.

[I will say that standard garment 5/8” seam allowances are much easier to work with than 1/4'“ seam allowances given in the Easton Cowl pattern.]

This top also has a shaped back. I might redraft the back bodice piece to make it straight rather than shaped. The upper bodice fits well, but I didn’t like the fit around my hips. I think that letting out the back shaping would help that. (The model on the pattern envelope is about 12” wide, which should tell you something. I am not 12” wide.) As Zede Donahue likes to say, “Knits should skim, not cling.”

I really like the length of the sleeves. Fussy sleeves—and especially cuffs—drive me nuts. I had to flatten the top of the sleeve cap again to get it to fit, which I shouldn’t really have to do in a stretchy knit. Once the sleeves were in the top, though, they fit beautifully.

One thing I won’t do again is interface the edge of the cowl. I should have done that with the Easton Cowl, but this fabric didn’t need it. I think the top edge of the cowl would drape better without it. And I like the way the back facing is done. I’ve seen similar facings on some of my Liz Claiborne tops but hadn’t quite figured out how they were done. Now I know.

I am at the upper end of the New Look pattern sizing, so I was pleasantly surprised at how nicely this top fit. One of the views on the pattern package is for a dress. If I can find some suitable fabric—sans glitter—I might try a dress version. I have that dark green Lurex that I also rescued from the clearance bin, but I think it might be too heavy and stretchy for anything other than a top. It might work for version 2.0 of this one, though.

While I was in town yesterday, I picked up two yards of black ponte from the clearance rack at Hobby Lobby. My obsession with ponte continues. It will be today’s project—I am going to make the Love Notions Tessa dress from it. I learned my lesson with the Laundry Day Tee and went up a size when I traced the Tessa dress. This should be a quick sew, and if I end up with a Little Black Dress, so much the better. I have a whole collection of LBDs because I wear them when I play for funerals. (Morbid, but true.)

I also bought the Upton Dress pattern:

This one might be a stretch even though the pattern is labelled for Advanced Beginner. Jenny, at Cashmerette, has got it dialed in when it comes to designing for curvy bodies, so I have hope. Her explanation of making an FBA for a shirtwaist dress was my first introduction to the concept. (I can’t find the link right now, but she has other good ones on the Cashmerette site.) I would like to try the version of this dress with princess seams in the bodice.

I’m giving myself one more week to play around with patterns, and then I need to get back to gardening and food preservation. I’ve also got a couple of serger classes scheduled for August, September, and October that need some prep work.

Why You Make a Muslin

The husband was working late on a job last night—sometimes he has to babysit the concrete until he knows it is setting properly—so I ran up a Laundry Day Tee to see what I thought. I don’t usually sew in the evenings because I tend to make stupid mistakes, but the potential for messing this up was minimal.

Eh. I am not sure this is the right pattern line for me, although I might give it one more shot. Here’s the issue: The pattern suggests choosing a size based on the high bust measurement and doing a full bust adjustment. One the face of it, that is sound advice. Because of the way clothing sizes are graded, if you choose a garment size based on the full bust measurement—your largest upper body circumference—you run the risk of having the shoulders be too large. I run into this all the time with RTW even though I have broad shoulders.

I made a size Large in the Laundry Day Tee based on my high bust measurement, and used the full bust piece for the front (the designer thoughtfully does the FBA for you). I had a sneaking suspicion going in that there might be issues, just because of the shape of the front pattern piece:

This piece has been modified by the designer with a dartless full bust adjustment. The original front bodice piece was slashed vertically from the hem to the bust apex and the side section rotated toward the armscye. (If you need a better explanation than the one I am giving here, search on “dartless FBA” and a bunch of sites will come up with better pics and descriptions.)

Two things happen as a result of this FBA:

1. Extra fabric gets added to the front bodice, which is what we want.

2. Rotating the side section toward the armscye closes the armsyce, which helps to minimize the gaping armhole that sometimes results when extra fabric is added to the front bodice.

I had two problems with the finished T-shirt. The first was that the shoulders of the size Large—which I chose based on my high bust measurement—are too narrow for me. Good to know. Choosing a size based on my high bust measurement may not always work.

The second problem was with the sleeves. Look at that armscye again. See how short it is vertically? I also thought the sleeve cap shaping was too tall. (I modified the sleeve cap on the pattern piece, so I can’t show you what it looked like originally.) Indeed, when I tried on the T-shirt, there was a little tent of fabric sticking up at the top of the sleeve.

It is one of those paradoxes of pattern drafting that a high, tight armhole actually gives better range of motion than a looser, lower armhole, because you’re not dragging all that excess fabric around. However, this pattern has a VERY high, tight armhole—higher and tighter than I think is comfortable for a T-shirt, especially with that FBA. I suspect the sleeve cap needs to be flattened a bit to better fit the armscye, too, although some of that may have to do with the shoulder width.

I’m not faulting the designer here. Human bodies vary SO MUCH in size and weight distribution that it is virtually impossible to design something to fit every body. And this pattern gets rave reviews all over the internet, so it must fit some people very well.

Making this muslin wasn’t a waste of time. I learned a few more things about fitting in general, and about fitting my body specifically. I do like the neckline on this top. It is a bit lower than I usually make for myself, but it looks good. And even things that don’t fit can be used as class samples.

Should I make another iteration of this pattern in a larger size, lowering the armscye a bit and flattening the sleeve cap? Or do I just go back to some of the other patterns I’ve drafted that don’t need so much tweaking? I’m undecided. I’ve been stocking up on clearance fabric from Joanns, so I don’t feel like I am wasting anything, but I don’t know how much more time I want to invest in this. I will say that making aprons is a welcome relief, because they don’t require as much fitting.

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I was a guest on the Quilt Gallery’s Tuesday morning Facebook Live video yesterday. I did a presentation on WonderFil threads. If you have a burning desire to listen to me talk about thread, click here and the video should pop up. You can also see me modeling the Renee ponte pants (they are so darn comfortable) and the Easton cowl.