The Sunbonnet Sue Quilt is Done

I finished sewing down the binding last evening:

I am so, so happy with how this turned out. I will pack it carefully this afternoon and get it ready to ship tomorrow. I am hoping to get the binding finished on the first of the baby quilts tonight so I can send that one off tomorrow, too.

The keyhole top is ready to drop off at the quilt store:

This is the New Look 6555 pattern, but made a size smaller than the first version. This one fits me much better. The fabric just came in to the store. Sue, who does the ordering, needed to round out an order with one of the fabric manufacturers, so she added a couple of bolts of woven rayon. I snagged three yards of this one when I was there last week. This class is scheduled for the first Friday in May.

[My sewing studio could benefit from a good-quality clothing steamer. We have Amazon reward points waiting to be used and I just need to decide which steamer to order.]

I used both the sewing machine and the serger to assemble this. The Janome was giving me tension issues, which was unusual. That machine is not temperamental at all. After some consideration, I changed the brand of thread—I was using black for the topstitching around the neck binding—and that solved the problem. Black thread is the most prone to being damaged or uneven because it has to be processed more harshly. Black yarn can have similar problems. I’ve run into tension problems with black thread on both my serger and my sewing machine.

Whew. I have had a productive couple of days. This feels like a good time to step back and reassess.

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When I went out to do chicken chores yesterday afternoon, the sun was shining and the snow was melting. I thought to myself, “Wow, it’s actually hot out here,” and then I looked at the thermometer, which read 35 degrees. Hahahaha. Mid-30s does feel like a heat wave after a few days of -12F.

Reports are that the farm store is selling out of chicks as fast as they arrive. Sigh. I would rather not incubate my own, but that is looking more and more likely.

Having exhausted all the mountaineering disaster videos, I was looking for something interesting to watch while I finished the quilt binding. I found the YouTube channel of a young Swedish woman named Elin Abrahamsson. She makes historical clothing. I don’t think she has uploaded any videos recently—the last one appears to be from seven months ago—but I watched several of them and enjoyed them very much. She covers the historical aspects as well as the technical sewing ones. The video where she dyed fabric using woad she grew in her garden was wonderful. Woad gives a dye similar to indigo and was grown in cooler climates. I can’t grow it here, though, because it’s a noxious weed in Montana.

We Made Pants

The Jalie Renee Pants class yesterday went very well. I had four students—three have been in previous classes of mine and one student was new. Two students used sergers, and two used sewing machines. Not everyone has the budget or desire for a serger, so it’s good to be able to accommodate all kinds of machines. For most projects, as long as the sewing machine can make some kind of stretch stitch, it can sew knits. (Stretch & Sew, anyone?)

The two students using sewing machines had never made clothing before. The other two students had been in my Easton Cowl class and had Bernina sergers. We started with a general discussion about measurements and fitting, then moved on to the specifics in the pattern. The Jalie patterns are well drafted and exceptionally thorough. I went over hip and waist measurements and helped each student choose the correct size. For this pattern, we went by full hip measurement.

The first time I taught this class, one of my students made “bike shorts” for her muslin. I suggested these students do the same thing. Getting the fit at the top of the pants is crucial; figuring out the length can wait until later. Also, that saves on fabric, although I had brought plenty of leftovers and remnants for the students to use for their muslins. It’s easier for me to bring a chunk of polyester interlock from the Walmart mystery rack—at $8 for three yards of 60” wide fabric—than to have the students try to source that material on their own when they might not yet have a good understanding of what they need.

The students traced their patterns, then cut their muslins. All of that had taken most of the morning (two hours). We stopped for a lunch break, and after lunch, they worked on assembling their bike shorts. Making the pants doesn’t take nearly as much time as prepping for them. One by one, as each student finished her shorts, I had her go into the bathroom and change into them. I came in and checked the fit. I had suggested that they NOT sew the waist darts in at the beginning. Some students don’t need them. I’ve made five pairs of these for myself, and I didn’t put the darts in the most recent pair, simply because I was in a hurry and forgot. Because these are knit pants with an elastic waist, I don’t think it changes the fit much unless there is a large discrepancy between the hip and waist measurements.

Every single one of them nailed the fit. One woman said they fit so well she felt like she wasn’t wearing anything. Only one student needed darts, and she didn’t need darts as large as the pattern piece for her size indicated. I pinned them in for her and helped her mark and sew them so she would understand what she needed to do on the final version.

Each student finished a muslin. (The woman who said she felt like she wasn’t wearing anything also said she planned to hem hers and wear them this summer.) We figured out the appropriate inseam lengths, and two students got their pants cut from the Robert Kaufman ponte the store had brought in for the class. And one student—who had never made clothing before—finished her pants except for the hems and the elastic at the waist:

She used a vintage Bernina Record 730 sewing machine to make her pants and had zero issues.

All in all, I was very happy with how the class went. The most gratifying part is seeing how excited these women get when they realize they can make clothing that fits them well. It doesn’t matter if they are short or tall, rail thin or plump. They are no longer confined to buying ill-fitting ready-to-wear, and that’s a heady feeling.

A student I’ve had in some of my other classes was also in the store, quilting a top on one of the store’s longarm machines. She joined us for lunch and told us about her current project of drafting and making bras for herself. That was fascinating.

The store is having another Bernina serger event in April. Unfortunately, I am going to be at the homesteading conference that weekend; otherwise, I would come in to help.

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I think we’re finally out of the deep freeze, although I heard a rumor that it might be windy again today. Ugh. Maybe the wind will be out of the southwest and won’t affect us as much.

I have one side of binding left to sew down on the Sunbonnet Sue quilt. I’d like to get that done this evening. Today’s task will be making the keyhole top (New Look 6555). I spent way too much time looking for the fabric for that top yesterday morning, so I should probably spend some time cleaning and organizing, too.

Calm Again, Finally

The wind finally stopped blowing after more than 48 hours. It’s -8F (air temp) right now, but a heat wave is coming in and it will be in the 30s starting tomorrow. (That wasn’t sarcasm.) One distinct advantage of subzero temps is that town was blessedly deserted yesterday morning. I got all of my errands run in record time, although I decided not to go to sewing. I am teaching all day today and I didn’t want to overdo the people-ing. I am great at faking extraversion, but only to a point. Also, the husband was here being a shiny toy.

I came home and gathered up my class supplies. Today’s class is the Jalie Renee Pants. I have four students, which will be plenty for one session. The tricky part about teaching these clothing classes is that we spend more time making a muslin than we do making the actual garment. A clothing class isn’t like a quilting class where everyone makes the same thing without modification. I’ve got lots of leftover ponte and interlock fabrics, and what I had the students do last time was make a bike shorts version of the pattern so we could get the fit right in the upper part of the pants. Sometimes the darts are necessary and sometimes they are not. (On the last pair I made, I forgot the darts and decided they weren’t really required. Ponte is very forgiving.) The crotch length is plenty long enough for me without modification—which is unusual—but for some people, it might be too long and need to be adjusted. Once the fit is good in the waist and hips, we can address the length.

I spent an hour working on the Ravenwood pattern and completed the front of the bag.

I still have a long, long way to go on this project. The inside of the bag has several pockets.

I also put together one of the Laundry Day Tees. I’m running up a bunch of tops and then will have one long coverstitch hemming session for them.

One of the baby quilts is quilted and waiting to be bound. I would love to show you a photo of it but I want these to be a surprise. I am quite happy with the way the first one turned out. It’s a combination of rulerwork and free motion quilting.

The plan for this weekend is (hopefully) to finish binding the Sunbonnet Sue quilt, hem a few tops, and make that New Look 6555 top so the store can use it as a display sample for the class in May. Anything beyond that will be a bonus.

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We had a good group at choir practice Wednesday night considering the weather. With me singing alto on the acapella pieces, we had almost a double quartet. Steve had to carry the bass line by himself, but he’s more than capable. Finding music for our group is not easy. We are all accomplished musicians and good singers, but we’re small. The anthem arrangements for Easter Sunday are so frustrating as most of them call for trumpets and/or organ, a full chorus, and have complicated orchestral accompaniments.

Yesterday morning, I organized my piano music for Lent and Easter. I like to keep favorite arrangements in alphabetical order in notebooks. I pulled some older ones and replaced them with newer ones. I’ve got a fair bit of practicing to do before Easter, though.

Purple is a Pretty Color

I don’t use a lot of purple. I am not sure why. Purple is a good color on me and it plays nicely with blue and green—colors I do love. And I am enjoying it on this Sunbonnet Sue quilt.

I attached the binding yesterday morning and got one side sewn down last night. Here is a corner of the back:

I love love love that big flower.

I’ll take this to sewing for Show and Tell tomorrow. I won’t be able to work on the binding tonight because we have choir practice scheduled at church, but the plan is to get the quilt done by this weekend and packed up to ship on Monday. I talked to my college roommate, Marcia, about what to put on the label on the back and that is done, too.

The wind is still howling. I still have a sinus headache. This weather is supposed to last through today and warm back up to something seasonable by Saturday. The air temp is currently -1F. I hate wind. (That is putting it mildly.) Wind like this just makes me cranky, even without the headache. We lost power briefly yesterday, but only for about 30 minutes.

After I attached the binding to the quilt, I basted three baby quilt tops. I have one more cut out that needs to be assembled and a fifth waiting to be cut. I started quilting one of the tops yesterday afternoon. I think I’ll do the same quilting pattern on all of them as I have a deadline. Every single one of these babies is due at the end of April/beginning of May and I’d like to have the quilts done for the baby showers.

We’ll see.

The zippers for the Ravenwood Bag arrived yesterday. I’d like to make some progress on that project, too. Funny story: When I was ordering the lengths I needed, I neglected to notice that they come in bundles of five zippers per size, probably because the bulk price from this seller is similar to the price of one zipper at Joann Fabrics. So now I have a good supply of black metal bag zippers in 7”, 14”, and 18” lengths. Hit me up if you need one.

I need to make up a class sample for the quilt store. I’m teaching a class on this New Look pattern at the beginning of May:

I made this top once, but the owner of the store where I am teaching saw it and asked to buy it from me. I am going to make another one for myself. The first one was a bit large on me. I traced one size down for the second iteration. Now I just need to decide which of my pretty rayons to use.

At some point, I also need to clean up my sewing area. Right now, it looks like someone let a couple of toddlers loose in a Joann Fabrics store. I hate to get things out and put them away, especially in the middle of a project(s) so I tend to leave things sitting out where I can get to them. At a certain point, though, too much stuff wreaks havoc on the workflow. I do have projects corralled in bins, which helps.

Wait Until It is Quilted

We’re waiting for the arctic cold front to sweep through. Temps warmed up yesterday and it rained most of the night, which means that when the cold air and high winds come in, things likely will become a big mess. I have had an annoying sinus headache for the last 24 hours, too.

The Sunbonnet Sue top is all quilted, and I am thrilled with how it turned out. Kathryn, one of our quilters at church, gave me a great piece of advice some years ago. She said to reserve judgment on a top until it is all done, because it will look completely different when it is quilted. I constantly second-guess my way through quilting a top—because I am looking at the trees instead of the forest—but when it’s all done and I can see the overall design, I always love how everything works together.

I wish I had a good picture for you. The hero shot might have to wait until my college roommate gets the quilt and puts it on a bed. Right now, the quilt is trimmed and waiting for me to attach the binding. I had the perfect shade of purple Kona for that—a lovely, deep orchid—and will sew it on today. It will take me a couple of evenings to sew down the binding by hand.

I did do ribbon candy in the borders, which was a great choice. The corners have big flowers courtesy of my Amanda Murphy Daisy rulers.

Next up are the baby quilts. I will baste the two completed tops with batting and backings and start working on them. The other two tops are cut and only need to be sewn together.

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I’m still waiting for zippers to arrive, so the Ravenwood Bag is in time out. Anna Graham, at Noodlehead, released a new bag pattern this month, the Haralson Belt Bag pattern:

I have no immediate plans to make this, but I buy everything that Anna designs because her patterns are so good. Also, I like that this one uses small amounts of fabric and waxed canvas. She has a YouTube video accompanying this pattern on her channel.

And I have two Laundry Day Tees cut out, waiting to be assembled. I think my serger misses me.

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Nicole Sauce has a free webinar on her #My3Things system coming up this Sunday, February 26. If you are looking for a way to become more productive and organized, this might work for you. I use a slightly less formal version of it. Nicole is an excellent podcaster and presenter, and even though her podcast has “Tennessee” in the title, she doesn’t limit her topics to that part of the country. I have been a devoted listener for years. Check it out.

Spring is a Ways Off

We woke up to heavy snow yesterday morning, which I didn’t remember seeing in the forecast. I made a quick trip into town after church to get a few things in case we’re stuck here until the middle of the week from the forecasted storm that is supposed to come in this evening. It was not snowing in town. Our fire department got paged out for a car accident up the road near Susan’s house; there is a tight curve there that is the scene of frequent driver miscalculations. I drove through on my way home and saw a car and a truck ass-end up in snowbanks along the side of the road. Oops.

All in all, we got probably 8” of snow over the weekend. Winter isn’t over yet, despite people attempting to drive as though it is.

The long-term forecast for March is for continued below-average temperatures. I usually start seeds in the greenhouse in March, so I am considering backup plans if for some reason I have to push that back a couple of weeks. The greenhouse can be heated with propane, but getting over there is a slog until the snow melts.

I took a break from quilting yesterday. I’ll finish the sashing this morning. I went through the quilting rulers and pulled out some possibilities for the border. I could always do ribbon candy, which I love, but I feel like I should broaden my horizons a bit. On the other hand, I’ve kind of stretched myself with quilting this top and ribbon candy would be a relaxing finish. I am still pondering.

I’ve been working the wheatear stitch (purple) on my leaning pumpkin and I like it a lot:

Slow and steady wins the race.

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I discovered that the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has a podcast. I get their e-mails and in a recent one, they highlighted an episode about long-term side effects of treatment. I listened to it a few days ago on my drive into town. The hosts interviewed two women. One had non-Hodgkins lymphoma nine years ago and got the standard R-CHOP regimen. The other woman had acute myeloid leukemia when she was 4 years old, was treated and in remission for 22 years, then relapsed when she was 26. I also had acute myeloid leukemia and received two of the same drugs—idarubicin and Ara-C—over the course of six months.

I listened to about half of the podcast and turned it off. It was so depressing. These poor women have a host of health problems, from bone degeneration to memory issues to dental problems. I consider myself fortunate to have escaped all of that. The only long-term issue I’ve had to manage is some peripheral neuropathy, which manifests as tingling and numbness. I notice it in my fingers when they get cold, but I also have it in my toes no matter the temperature. I am trying to stay on top of it so it doesn’t worsen. I take vitamin B6, which I was given while having chemo, and I also take over-the-counter GABA. And I am trying to be more careful about tripping hazards around here.

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The little deer is still here but she has competition. I put a cup of sweet feed out for her a few days ago, and the next thing I knew, a flock of several dozen turkeys came running over and hoovered it all up. On Saturday, I went to the garage—where we keep the feed—and got a container of scratch grains for the chickens and a cup of sweet feed in a yogurt container for the deer. Sometimes she is waiting for me, but I didn’t see her. I walked back to the house, set the yogurt container on a table on the porch, and went into the coop to feed the chickens. I was in there, at most, for five minutes. When I came out, the deer was on the porch with her nose stuck in the yogurt container, busily munching away. We do not encourage that behavior, trust me.

A Different Approach to Creativity

The sashing on the Sunbonnet Sue top is mostly quilted. I’ll finish the sashing today and quilt the borders tomorrow. We are supposed to get a big storm tomorrow night:

We are “in the mountains,” so it’s quite possible we’ll get dumped on. And this looks like a back door cold front with high winds.

The sashing design required some thought. I had it in my head that the blocks were 12” square. They were, before I put them into the quilt. Finished, they are 11-1/2” because the seams are 1/4” on all sides. I didn’t want to trim them down any further and risk losing space around the appliqués. When it came time to quilt the sashing, though, I realized that none of my quilting ruler motifs would fit evenly into that 11-1/2”. Sometimes it’s possible to fudge things a bit because the human brain will smooth out any tiny discrepancies, but I didn’t see an easy way to do that without ending up with partial motifs in places.

I have always had terrible spatial perception. I have a lot of trouble visualizing things in my brain. In some ways, it feels a bit like being head-blind. We used to take aptitude tests in school where some of the questions involved looking at a two-dimensional drawing, with dotted lines, and we were supposed to “fold” the drawing and predict the shape of the object. Fail.

I’m much better at this than I used to be, which is a testament to the plasticity of the human brain. (And, apparently, to how stubborn I am.) The turning point seemed to be when I had to force myself to learn to read knitting charts. There was a time, back in the early 1990s, when all the magazines wanted to transition to chart-only patterns. I wanted so desperately to knit a vest pattern from Vogue Knitting, but it had a five-stitch, four-row chart. (That sounds so simple now…) The key to reading a knitting chart is to know that the symbols show the stitch as it appears on the public side of the work. Thus, when working back and forth, every other row has to be translated. If the chart shows a knit stitch, it has to be worked as a purl and vice-versa.

Some of you out there are probably saying, “That’s not hard!” but it was for me. I persevered until I had figured it out and knitted the vest. And then, just for fun, I went on and designed complicated cabled sweaters with intricate charts. The husband always says that he thinks it is interesting that I have picked hobbies which challenge my lack of innate ability. Really, though, where is the fun in something easy?

Because of what I saw as a deficiency in processing, I always assumed that I was missing that “thing” that enabled one to be creative. Creative people see things in their heads and bring them into being, like Sunnie, who paints beautiful pictures. The husband can look at a set of plans and know what the finished house will look like. My friend Ginger comes up with an idea and brings it to life in the form of visuals in our sanctuary. I could never “see” the thing that I wanted to make. Drawing? I can’t do much more than stick figures.

[Interestingly, I cannot play music by ear. Transposing is difficult for me, too.]

One of my art teachers, in middle school, said something one time that has stuck with me. She said that art can be considered as a problem to be solved. I can solve problems! I love algebra. Maybe I could approach creativity as a problem to be solved rather than a fully-formed idea that springs from my brain.

This was the problem: I had blocks that were an odd size, such that I either had to quilt the sashings freehand, without rulers, or I had to figure out some way to fit a pattern into that space. I don’t like to quilt freehand. It feels too much like drawing to me. I like quilting with rulers.

One of the tricks quilters use is to work from the center out. I do this when quilting borders. I’ve got a center-zero tape measure that allows me to identify the center point of a long stretch of fabric. I’ll position the motif so that it either straddles that center point or starts next to it—depending on how the math works out—and go from there. Any partial motifs end up at the sides where they won’t be so noticeable.

This is what I came up with. I’m showing you a line drawing I made up in Illustrator because I’m quilting in a thread color that blends into the sashing print and a photo won’t show this as well:

Imagine that those ovals are diamonds and the stars are hearts. I found the one diamond ruler in my collection that fit well into the sashing space. I marked the center point of the sashing along each square, then positioned the diamonds—there are six—so they split evenly on either side of that center point. I quilted a heart in each cornerstone.

[Someone out there just read this blog post and thought that the solution was blindingly obvious. If that is you, congratulations. Your brain works differently than mine. I have to analyze and dissect and think through a problem before I come up with a solution.]

In any case, I am happy with the way the sashing looks. I am still thinking about how to quilt the border. The border is 8” wide, so I could do something dramatic, like feathers—I have feather rulers—but I’m not wedded to that idea. After I finish the sashing, I’ll go through my collection of rulers and see what might work.

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I’ve got two Laundry Day Tees cut out—one of which is the fruit and veggie fabric—two baby quilt tops assembled, and two more baby quilts cut out. Next week is mostly clear until Friday, when I am teaching a Renee Pants class. After I get this Sunbonnet Sue quilt done, I’ll quilt the baby quilts and put those two LDTs together. We’re also starting choir practice this week. If you are local and want to sing for Lent and Easter, feel free to join us at the Mennonite Church on Wednesday night at 6:15.

Wearing Fruits and Vegetables

I went to sewing yesterday and handed the raffle quilt top over to Joyce, who is going to quilt it. Judy will make a label for it. When Joyce is done, she’ll give the quilt to Jessie to bind, and when Jessie is done, the quilt is coming back to me for photos. The quilt will be a fundraiser for the homestead foundation.

[Yes, we have a Jessie, a Joyce, a Janet, and a Judy in our sewing group.]

I stayed and knitted and visited with Sarah. She is very excited about the upcoming growing season. She was never able to grow tomatoes when she lived in Washington state but she can grown them here, and they’ve become one of her passions. It is lovely to have friends who go whole hog on things the same way I do.

We got to see Jessie’s almost-finished quilt during show and tell. (She was sewing down the binding while we sat and visited.) The spools are made up of sewing-themed fabric, and Joyce quilted it with an allover sewing-themed pattern. If you look closely, you can see needles and spools of thread. Jessie plans to hang this in her sewing room.

I stayed and knitted to the end of the skein of yarn I had with me, then left and came home to work on the Sunbonnet Sue quilt. I’ve got 21 of the 30 blocks quilted. I plan to get at least six more done today, finish the rest tomorrow, then start the sashing and borders. I am pretty sure I know how I want to quilt the sashings. I am still thinking about the borders.

The Sunbonnet Sue is on track to be quilted by the middle of next week, and then it’s a matter of attaching and sewing down the binding. I’m like Jessie—I like to sew my bindings down by hand.

I also assembled a second baby quilt and cut out fabrics for a third one. I have enough fabric to do five, even though I only need four, but I’ll go ahead and make an extra one to have on hand.

I found this fabric on the Walmart mystery remnant rack the other day:

Of course I bought it! How could I not? It’s a light rib knit and it’s going to become a Laundry Day Tee. I can wear it at the plant sale. LOL.

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One of our employees has expressed an interest in starting his own business. This young man is pretty sharp. He keeps the other employees in line and the husband trusts him enough to leave him in charge on jobsites. (This is also the kid that calls the husband “sir,” and refers to me as “HR,” which makes me laugh.) The husband will help anyone who is willing to put forth the effort—he had to learn this stuff on his own—so he is teaching this kid how to estimate the costs of an upcoming concrete job. The husband gave him all the information and told him to come up with a price. The husband is also estimating the job. They conferred about it last night in a phone call, and this morning, the two of them are going to go over the two sets of numbers.

Apparently, the husband also advised this kid that he should marry someone capable of running the administrative end of things if he wants to start his own business. We do have complementary superpowers. The husband is great at making money and I am great at managing it.

Turn the Lights On

I am chatty this week . . .

The husband installed my Valentine’s gift in the garage over the weekend:

These are new lights, and more of them. This is where I park my car and work on sewing machines, and now I can see what I am doing. Such a thoughtful gift. Much better than a box of chocolates!

That poor man worked in this garage for 20 years before we built his new shop. I don’t know how he did everything he did in here.

I quilted another column of Sunbonnet Sue blocks yesterday morning. Twelve of 30 blocks are done. I am pleased with the progress.

After lunch, I worked a bit more on the Ravenwood bag and completed the front piece with the cargo pockets:

This project is stalled until the zippers arrive. They are on the way.

[I’ve got this app called Route on my phone, which I love. It shows me when orders have been shipped, where they are in transit, and sends notifications when they have been delivered.]

I cut pieces for a second baby quilt and made 24 half-square triangles while watching documentaries about climbing Mount Everest. It’s that time of year again. I don’t know why these documentaries fascinate me. Perhaps it’s because I almost died twice (without trying), so I am trying to figure out what part of their brains those people are missing.

Robin is substitute teaching all week at a nearby elementary school. She came by after school and dropped off the raffle quilt. I will take it to sewing tomorrow and hand it off to the woman who is going to longarm quilt it. Robin is worn out at the end of the day—a room full of energetic kids will do that to you—but she doesn’t appear to have acquired my cold.

I have to go to town today. I think I’ll break up the next set of Sunbonnet blocks and do three today and three tomorrow.

I’ve lost count of how many people have said to me that they read my blog and it makes them tired. Maybe the husband and I just reinforce each other’s natural tendencies to be productive, although I am sure there is a genetic component to this. My mother doesn’t sit around, either. She still goes to work and bowls in a league and she’s 81. A busy day feels normal to me.

Quilting Sunbonnet Sue

I made quite a bit of headway on the Sunbonnet Sue quilt yesterday. I started with a quilt sandwich of the same battings and fabric—one layer of Warm and White and a second layer of low-loft polyester between quilting cotton—and tested my stitch tension. On most quilts, I use 40wt Signature cotton in the top and 50wt Aurifil in the bobbin. For this quilt, I am using 50wt Aurifil in both top and bobbin. Once I had the tension dialed in, I began working on the quilt.

There are five columns of six 12” blocks divided by sashing. No cornerstones. On this top, “quilting the bones” means outlining each block rather than stitching in the ditch along the sashing. I started with the center block, working out from there, and was able to get the center column of blocks quilted by lunchtime. (I stop every 20 minutes or so and get up and walk around.)

I want those appliqués to take center stage. I stitched in the ditch to outline each block, then stitched 1/4” from the edge of each Sunbonnet Sue. The background is filled in with a basic meander—or, as I like to call it, “amoeba quilting.”

This is where those two layers of batting help. The background recedes due to the quilting and each Sunbonnet Sue puffs out ever so slightly. I will not quilt within the appliqués.

One block takes about 40 minutes to quilt. I think the next column of blocks may go a bit more quickly. The center of the quilt takes longer because there is more fabric to wrestle around. As I move to the outer edges, I can roll up the excess fabric to keep it out of my way.

Once the blocks are quilted, I’ll go back and quilt something inside each sashing strip. Diamonds, maybe? And then I’ll have to decide what to put in the borders. I am still aiming to have this all quilted by the end of February. I know my college roommate would like to have it on a bed where it belongs. Her grandmother made the Sunbonnet Sue blocks and yes, those are true vintage fabrics.

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I got so much quilting done in the morning that after lunch, all I did was press fabric, drink tea, and read a book. I want to speed this cold on its way. I went to bed early, too.

I am going to postpone errands in town until tomorrow. We’re under a winter weather advisory and I am likely still contagious. I’ve been doing a Costco run the first week of the month, and I only have to go to the grocery store twice a month.

We’ll see if I can get another six blocks quilted today.

Those Pesky Viruses

I woke up yesterday morning with a cold. No, it’s not covid or the flu. It’s just a garden-variety cold. I rarely get sick. This is the first cold I’ve had in over a year. I feel bad because I don’t want Robin to get it, although I had absolutely no warning it was coming. I felt fine all day Saturday on our trip to Missoula.

I stayed home from church yesterday. There is no need for me to be spreading this around. I won’t go anywhere today, either.

I drank lots of hot tea and took it easy yesterday. I even napped in the afternoon, which is unusual for me. I was not a complete slug, however. I traced some patterns while watching YouTube videos.

This is Burda 6610:

I bought it to make view C, the tunic. This is similar to the top I found at Kohls. If I make it myself, I can ensure it will be long enough. I probably won’t make the split hem so deep, but I like it otherwise. I am still on the hunt for some tried-and-true patterns for wovens. That old See & Sew raglan pattern is a keeper, but I want a few others. I have some nice rayon wovens in the stash that I’d like to turn into tops.

The other one I traced is New Look 6453:

This is another princess-seam top. I am still playing around with fitting that silhouette. View C looks like it would be plenty long enough, although I am not crazy about hi-lo hems.

I am really looking forward to that bodice sloper class at Sew Expo. Hopefully, what I learn in that class will eliminate or reduce the need to do so much experimenting.

I also ordered Simplicity 8169 off Etsy:

This is similar to the Burda pattern, although I would probably make the keyhole version, view B. I like the fluted sleeves. I tend to avoid fussy details, as a rule, but those sleeves are attractive without being in the way. No big statement sleeves for me.

The raincoat pattern may end up being my summer project. It requires five yards of coating fabric and four yards of lining. The Confident Stitch has some nice raincoat fabric, although nothing in colors as saturated as I would like. A hot pink raincoat might be a bit much, but emerald green would be nice. I am going to order swatches from Mood and from Seattle Fabrics, and maybe I’ll find something while we’re at Sew Expo. We might have time to take a quick side trip to Pacific Fabrics, too.

I ordered zippers for the Ravenwood bag yesterday. I know better than to try to source those locally. That was an exercise in frustration with the first version. Either I could find the color I needed, but not the length, or I could find the length I needed but not in colors I wanted. I usually order zippers from ZipIt, on Etsy. The pattern specifies two 7” zippers, a 14” zipper, and an 18” zipper. I found them, in black, although they don’t come in black nickel finish so I went with antique brass. That will be close enough. I’ll do as much as I can on the bag until the zippers get here.

These are all first-world problems, to be sure.

I plan to start working on the Sunbonnet Sue quilt today. I will make a practice quilt sandwich, first, to dial in the tension and try out some design ideas.

FART Success

Robin and I went on a Fabric Acquisition Road Trip (FART) yesterday. I picked her up at 8:00 am and we headed to Missoula. Our first stop was the store A Clean Stitch, the Missoula Bernina/Janome dealer. They carry the entire line of Amanda Murphy rulers. The last time I was there, I bought the large hexagon set but the smaller hexagon set was out of stock. I picked up the small hexagon set yesterday as well as a Bernina set of border rulers:

I really wanted that loop-to-loop ruler and the cable ruler as I don’t have anything like them.

We stopped at Walmart to peruse the mystery remnant rack. I bought an intriguing chunk of fabric—it’s a white background with black circles that get progressively bigger from top to bottom, making it basically a border print. The fabric is a medium weight and I think it will make a lovely tunic top.

Our next stop was the reason for the trip in the first place. Robin is assembling a quilt that will be donated to the homestead foundation for a fundraising raffle. She could not find a border for it in Kalispell. We went to Vicki’s Quilts Down Under to see if we could find one there. The two of us spent over an hour combing through the fabrics. We had narrowed it down to two possibilities when Robin asked Vicki what she thought. Vicki looked at the top, walked over to the shelf, took down a bolt of a batik, and laid it down next to the top.

The batik was nothing like either of the fabrics we had chosen but it was perfect. Perfect. Vicki is a genius and I know why her store is so popular. Robin bought a few additional fabrics and I got a backing for one of the baby quilts.

We left Vicki’s and stopped at Kohls. I was so disappointed—I found a lovely blouse in a bright print, on sale. I tried it on even though I knew what would happen. It fit beautifully except that it was 3” too short. I considered buying it anyway and deconstructing and reverse engineering it, but I really don’t have time.

By then, it was past noon and we were starving. I drove downtown to one of our favorite restaurants, Notorious P.I.G. Their pulled pork sandwiches are excellent. The restaurant also happens to be two blocks from The Confident Stitch, so we headed there after we ate.

I try to shop for fabric with a list so I don’t get distracted by all the pretties. The Confident Stitch carries some quilting cottons, but their selection of garment fabrics is why I visit. I scoped out possible raincoat fabrics, looked at some Essex Linen, and bought two yards of a screaming bright pink tencel print from Kaleidoscope Studios:

I also bought a Christine Jonson pattern—the store has an entire wall of drawers full of indie patterns—and a remnant of Essex Linen.

Over at Joann Fabrics, Burda patterns were on sale. I bought two and picked up the Simplicity 9713 raincoat pattern that was just released. Our store still didn’t have it last time I checked. I also bought fabric for the lining of my Ravenwood bag.

We needed to head back toward Kalispell as it was already 2:30 pm and I knew a stop at the Amish store was on the itinerary. On the way to Missoula, I had pointed out a new little fabric store in Ronan to Robin and suggested we stop there, too, on our way back. The store has expanded their inventory since I was there last. I found backings for the other three baby quilts.

All in all, it was a productive shopping day. Getting the perfect border fabric for the raffle quilt was great. Robin will put the border on today, and once it has been quilted and bound, I’ll get some good photos for us to use for advertising.

Bear Paws and Bags

In addition to the Sunbonnet Sue quilt, I need to make four baby quilts before the end of March. I really ought to make twice that many so I have a few extra on hand. I’m using Jeni Baker’s Scrappy Bear Paw Baby Quilt tutorial, although mine won’t be scrappy. I love that pattern. It works up quickly and is fun to make, and what could be more “Montana” than a bear paw?

I knocked out one baby quilt top yesterday morning. I’ll do all four tops, then get backings and batting for them. Each quilt will be a different color combination.

I worked a bit more on the Churn Dash quilt. I’ve done eight of the 25 blocks. I will set that one aside next week and get started on the Sunbonnet Sue quilt.

The Ravenwood bag is a carrot—I am not allowed to work on it until I’ve hit milestones on other projects. I was productive enough yesterday that I rewarded myself with a couple of hours of work on it late in the afternoon.

The first step of the pattern is to make the cargo pockets for the front of the bag. The color combo is going to be green and black. The zippers will be black and the hardware black nickel. I remembered, from the first bag I made, that I didn’t like using the same lining fabric for the cargo pockets as I did the inside of the bag. No matter how carefully I sew, the edges of the lining fabric peek out from behind the waxed canvas. For these pockets, I used some green Kona in a shade to match the canvas. (I think the color is Pesto.) The thread is an upholstery-weight polyester just a bit darker then the canvas. I still haven’t decided on a lining fabric, although I am not limited to just one. A combination of prints might be nice.

I love working on my Necchi industrial. I have that machine set up as a treadle and working on a project like this is so relaxing.

That white implement is a Hera marker. I use it to make guide lines on the waxed canvas. The markings stay until the bag is completed, and a quick once-over with a hair dryer makes them all disappear.

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Seeds are here (new packaging for 2023):

I always order from Victory. I have had great success with everything I’ve gotten from them. They carry my favorite variety of leaf lettuce, called Ruby. It is what is growing in our indoor lettuce system. The flavor is amazing.

I keep looking at the chick schedule from the farm store and I can’t decide. I am leaning toward either Brown Leghorns or New Hampshire Reds, but some of that depends on whether I can get chicks at all. I noticed that this year, Lavender Orpingtons are on the schedule. Buff Orps and Black Orps are relatively common, but the Lavender Orps are much rarer, at least in the US. A breeder in the UK began selecting for them in the 1990s. The chicks I’ve seen for sale here have been three times the price (or more) of other breeds. I’ve also read that the genetics aren’t all that stable, but that may have changed with sustained breeding.

Janet Versus Joanns

I’ve landed myself in the soup pot. I am so annoyed with Joann Fabrics that I sent them some feedback through their website yesterday morning. Within a couple of hours, I got a response, then a second response. My feedback has been kicked up to “upper management.”

I made it clear that my gripe is not with my local store. I am not interested in getting anyone reprimanded or fired. Besides, this looks like a wider issue. I noted two weeks ago when I was there that the Spokane stores also have cut their hours. I think our store is doing the best it can in this current labor environment, but it appears to me that some of these edicts are coming down from on high with no regard to how local stores operate. (Quelle surprise.) When I was there earlier this week, one of the staff commented that she spends a good portion of her shift hunting down items to fill online/pickup orders, which are being pushed—heavily—by Joanns.

I also complained about the selection of garment fabrics. I would like to see a wider selection of knits beyond double brushed polyester in muddy earth tones and sad pastels.

A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail alerting me to a “big announcement” in sewing technology that was set to debut at Joanns on February 8. I suspected it had to do with pattern projectors. I was not wrong.

Joanns is now offering Ditto, a pattern projector, for $800.

Help me out here, readers. Is this something sewists have been clamoring to have? Am I being a Luddite? I personally cannot fathom wanting to cut my patterns this way, but perhaps I am missing the boat. Yes? No?

We shall see where this goes. The husband just laughed when I told him what happened. He’s a veteran of 30+ years of his wife tilting at various windmills.

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I had a productive day yesterday. Robin stopped by in the morning to raid my stash. Our Ladies Club/sewing group made and donated a raffle quilt last year to raise money for the homestead foundation. They are donating another one this year. Robin is assembling the quilt and one of the other members will quilt it on her longarm machine. Robin can’t find suitable fabric here in town for the outer border. She has a very good sense of design and knows what she wants. We looked at my collection of Grunge, but I didn’t have the right shade. She and I are going to make a trip to Missoula tomorrow because we’re fairly sure we can find something there.

I cut all the pieces for the Ravenwood bag:

The pattern called for 1-1/2 yards of 60” wide waxed canvas. I seem to remember from the first iteration that that was a very generous estimate and I was not wrong. I received this pattern as a member of the Bag of the Month club. It was not released to the public until six months later, and I wonder if the BOM pattern was a beta version. The cut list was a combination of measurements and pattern templates, so I went ahead and made up pattern pieces for everything and laid them out to make sure I would be able to get them out of one yard of 60” wide waxed canvas. They are all cut and labelled. I haven’t chosen a lining fabric yet.

And the Sunbonnet Sue quilt is all basted and ready to go:

I have to move furniture in our bedroom to have enough space to lay quilts out on the floor for basting.

When my college roommate sent me the blocks, she gave me free rein on the design. I wanted the blocks to shine, so I kept it simple. She and her husband came to Spokane last June and I spent a few days with them. I mentioned that I had chosen a purple 30s print for the sashing and borders—without consulting her—and she was thrilled. Apparently, purple is one of her favorite colors. That was a lovely bit of serendipity. Purple is not a color I use often, but it seemed right for this quilt.

I’ll start quilting this next week. I’ve sketched out some ideas.

Sew Something Else

I need to take a break from making clothes. The last couple of projects have been unqualified disasters and now I’m just getting frustrated. Clearly, the universe thinks I should be working on something else. I pulled some lovely dark emerald green waxed canvas from the stash for a possible Ravenwood bag. (No fitting required.) I also pressed the backing for the Sunbonnet Sue. Wrangling a 108” x 108” square of fabric over the ironing board takes some doing. That one is ready to baste, hopefully today. I got a bit distracted by the Churn Dash top. I did four more blocks yesterday afternoon. At this rate, I may just keep going until I’m done.

I did matchstick grid quilting in one block:

Some tiny wave quilting in the one next to it—this was supposed to be clamshells but I didn’t position the ruler correctly. I’ll try clamshells in another block:

Spiral echoes, which I really liked and rather wished I had done in every block, but where would be the fun in that?

Besides, I also love this one:

I drew these in with air-disappearing marker, lest you think I am some kind of free-motion genius.

This makes five patterns, and there are 25 blocks. I have two or three more ideas I want to try, but I’ll repeat some of these in additional blocks. Coming up with 25 unique quilting designs might be a bit much for my brain. This is starting to remind me of the 88 Blocks art project we did when I was a freshman in high school. We had to draw a grid of 88 two-inch blocks on a large piece of paper. Each block had to be filled in with a different design and painted, and we were limited to two complimentary colors—I did orange and blue—and tints and shades of those two colors, created by mixing with black or white. We had to come up with a unique design for each block. I actually have a quilt project started that is supposed to be similar to 88 Squares, although it will be much bigger as I am using 2-1/2” squares.

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The chickens have been outside every day lately. They were stuck in the coop for several weeks and hated it. Dave crows constantly when he’s in the chicken yard. I had to remind him yesterday that everyone was awake. He takes his job so seriously.

I picked up the chick schedule from the farm store. The husband and I talked about it a bit last night because I think we might want to get chicks a bit earlier—if they don’t sell out—because of my schedule this spring. I’m thinking Brown Leghorns. We haven’t done those in a while. The problem is that we have quite a mix of breeds out there at the moment. I need to get back on the routine of buying a different breed each spring so we know which ones are the oldest.

Seeds are supposed to arrive today. I also need to start another tray of lettuce in the grow system. Spring is coming.

Pebbles in the Churn Dash

I quilted a Churn Dash block yesterday.

I am undecided. I don’t usually like dense quilting, but this looks pretty cool. However, it is tedious. Doing this in all 25 blocks would send me around the bend (and make the quilt very heavy). This was the center block in the quilt. I started there and am working my way out. I think I would choose maybe 3-4 other blocks around the top and quilt pebbles in them, but that would be it.

I need to come up with a few other fillers. I have some ideas. The problem is that these areas are small, so the fillers have to be scaled down. I’m going to quilt a second block today with a different filler. The Amanda Murphy mini-lollipop rulers should work nicely for some of these areas.

[I am glad I decided to go with the sit-down Q20 rather than one on a frame. This set-up fits my working style much better. Quilting on a frame means that once you load the top, you’re pretty much committed to quilting it until it’s done. I can switch quilts as I need to.]

Today’s serger class had no students, so I canceled it. I don’t take this personally—sometimes classes fill and sometimes they don’t. I think a lot of people are still getting over their holiday making frenzies, too, and just need a break. I am not lacking for projects. Item #1 on the list for today is basting the Sunbonnet Sue top with the backing and batting.

I’m kicking around the idea of revisiting this pattern:

I made one of these in 2018. I actually started working on it the same day I came down with the flu that landed me in the ICU on a ventilator for a week. I worked on the bag off and on after I got out of the hospital. It was such a great pattern and such a fun make that I would like to do another one. This—like the Slabtown Backpack—is a project I can sink my teeth into but can work on in little bits here and there. I know I’ve got all the supplies.

[The Slabtown is going to Sew Expo with me. That will be the perfect bag for carrying supplies and Ellie Lum, the designer, is teaching there. Even though I’m not taking any bag classes, it will be fun to show her my version. Most designers love to see what people make with their patterns.]

My skills also have improved considerably since I made the first Ravenwood. And waxed canvas is fun to sew.

We’ll see. I’d still like to do that Simplicity 9713 raincoat pattern, but it’s going to take me some time to gather all the materials.

Telling Stories Around the Fire

I had the sermon time at church yesterday. Our transitional pastor put together a series that she is calling “Faith Beyond Our Fears” and asked people to share personal experiences. I agreed, reluctantly, not because I hate public speaking—I’ve always said that if you stick a microphone in my face, I’ll happily chatter away—but because some of what I’ve experienced in my life is difficult to revisit. I did it, though, and I think it went well. I also know that sometimes it helps to hear from people who have been through tough times and soldiered on. I just never wanted any of that to become my identity. I am not a victim, just a person navigating life like everyone else.

Ginger, who does our visuals, came up with a mock fire pit idea, and her husband, Steve, built it:

I sat on the bench by the “fire” and spoke from there.

I was given the gift of not having to be the pianist yesterday. We sang the whole service acapella and I chose the hymns. I love to sing and don’t often get the opportunity because I am up at the piano. I can’t sing and play at the same time.

I came home after church and put together the Olympia/Miramar muslin:

I like it a lot, although this muslin is too short. Something went awry in the frankenpatterning. I need to revisit the pattern tracing and do a better job of “walking” the seams to make sure everything matches up.

[I do finish most of my muslins so I can donate them. Just because they don’t fit me doesn’t mean that someone else can’t wear them, and I hate to waste the fabric.]

All this fitting I’ve had to do lately is getting old. I might knock out another Laundry Day Tee just so I can feel like I’ve accomplished something, although it might be time to get away from clothing for a while.

Today and tomorrow are pretty full, but I will get that Sunbonnet Sue top based this week so I can start quilting it. I plan to quilt an outline around each appliqué, then fill in the background with something. Part of the reason I wanted to quilt the red Churn Dash, first, was to test out that idea. Those blocks aren’t appliquéd, but the quilting technique is similar. Now that the sashing is quilted, I’m going to try out my idea on one of the Churn Dash blocks before I move to the Sunbonnet Sue. I just need to change the thread color.

Measurements, Muslins, and Memories

Tera and I both signed up for the bodice muslin-making class at Sew Expo next month. We have to fill out a measurement sheet and send it in ahead of time—this week, actually—so the instructor can generate a test pattern for us. We’ll sew that up in class and make any necessary tweaks. I had to get the husband to help me with some of the measurements. He’s used to measuring inanimate objects in straight lines, not somewhat squishy live bodies, but my sheet is filled out and submitted. We shall see how close we got when I make the bodice muslin.

[I’m fairly well acquainted with my body measurements, so I don’t expect there to be a huge amount of tweaking required.]

I’ve got the Olympia/Miramar mashup cut out. I’m making the muslin in some navy blue double-brushed poly, although I haven’t had time to sew it up yet. The memorial service for my girls’ first-grade teacher was yesterday morning. The church was filled, as I expected it to be, and I got to visit with many of their teachers and other moms I haven’t seen since our kids grew up. The former principal of the school gave a beautiful eulogy. Jan, the teacher we were remembering, worked with our friend, Debbie, who did the flowers for DD#1’s wedding. Debbie taught at the school, too, and was also the bus driver. Before the service, Debbie and I reminisced about them doing the flowers for the wedding:

That’s Debbie on the left and Jan on the right. I love this picture. We were so fortunate to have a village help us raise our children.

After the service, I went to the quilt store south of town to get a wideback for the Sunbonnet Sue quilt. The top ended up being big enough that I decided I didn’t want to piece a backing. The store had the perfect backing for it and now I’ve got everything I need to get that top basted together so I can start quilting it.

I’ve settled on a final version for that See & Sew raglan top, the one I made in the floral rayon a few weeks ago. That top has pleats in the front, which I love, but it also had a pleat at the back neck. I am pretty sure that pleat at the back neck was there to ensure that the upper bodice wasn’t so tight that it restricted movement. However, it was driving me nuts in the finished garment. All that extra fabric below the pleat—which accounted for an additional 3” of width in the back—billowed out, distorting the sides of the garment and making it hang badly. On the floral raglan, I ended up taking in the sides by quite a bit, which helped, but I suspected the real issue was with that back pleat. The New Look raglan blouse pattern I tested out last week does not have either front or back pleats and it fits reasonably well.

I made yet another muslin of that pattern and removed the back pleat. What a huge improvement.

I keep telling myself that once I get a stable of patterns I’ve tweaked to my satisfaction, I can stop messing around with fitting. LOL. I doubt it. I like the challenge of making things fit. The next fitting project is going to be princess seams and, ultimately, an Upton dress.

I’m teaching two serger classes this week, both at the quilt store north of town. Tuesday’s class is on making baby items: beanies, leggings, and other useful pieces. Saturday’s class is on on a simple open-front knit cardigan. I have an idea for a pattern hack for that one. I pulled a similar Liz Claiborne cardigan out of my closet the other day. The only difference is that the sides of the cardigan angle down to a point at the side seam. I think I’m going to hack that pattern this week and cut one out to take to class with me to demo the construction. The silhouette of that LC cardi is very similar to the waterfall cardi I keep meaning to recreate, but the construction is far simpler.

Inspiration From My Friends

I have to force myself to go out sometimes. I am quite happy here at home by myself, but I also know that I can’t become a total recluse. The weather was stellar yesterday—mid-20s with brilliant sunshine—so I made myself go to sewing. We meet at the community center about four miles up the road. I really have no excuse not to attend.

I was very glad I did. This group of women is so much fun, and even though all I did was sit and work on a prayer shawl for about an hour, I came home refreshed and inspired. Show and Tell is a big part of our get-togethers. People bring their projects for us to ooh and ahh over, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing what everyone is doing.

When I arrived, Sarah was giving a mini master class on preparing fine fibers, like cashmere:

And then she demonstrated how to spin them on a supported spindle:

She spun the yarn for and knitted that gorgeous sweater that she’s wearing.

Several women showed off quilts they had just finished. Robin brought a lake-themed wallhanging. I remember when she bought some of the fabric for it on one of our trips to Missoula.

I came home and put the borders on the Sunbonnet Sue quilt. That one is ready for basting, hopefully this weekend. I still need to get batting for it, but I wasn’t sure exactly how big it might end up. I should be able to start quilting it next week.

And I frankenpatterned the Olympia with the Miramar. I’m going to run up a muslin of that one soon. I have some navy blue DBP in the stash. If it turns out to be a wearable muslin, that will be a nice addition to the wardrobe.

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Piglets—six of them—have been reserved for delivery around June 1. I put in my seed order yesterday morning and that is on its way to me. Sarah and I were comparing notes yesterday. She had such success with tomatoes last year that she wants to grow even more of them this year. I am on a waiting list for the Carolina Amethyst pepper seeds. I grew that variety last year and I could not believe how well it produced. Peppers are iffy here. Some years they do really well and some years not. I did get some Chocolate Bell pepper seeds as a backup.

We lost some fruit trees over on the rental property in December when we had that heavy, wet snow. I was not heartbroken about it because those trees had been in for over 10 years and never produced a single piece of fruit. We’ll replace them this spring. Susan is grafting more apple trees for me and she said she might be able to graft onto the rootstock of those trees if there is any left.

Overheard at Joann Fabrics

I eavesdrop when I am in fabric stores. Sometimes it is unavoidable—why do people find it necessary to have cell phone conversations on speakerphone in public places?—and other times it just happens. I don’t listen to personal conversations, but if it has to do with sewing and I think I might be able to help, my ears perk up.

I was in Joann Fabrics yesterday when I overhead the manager and a young woman conversing at the cutting table. The young woman was considering buying a serger and was asking about the different models. At one point, she said, “Do you offer any serger classes here?” (they don’t), which was my cue to walk over and say, “I teach serger classes. Maybe I can help you?” The manager looped me into the conversation and we spent the next 20 minutes talking about sergers. I am of the opinion that people need to start where they are most comfortable, and if that is with a $200 Brother serger, start there. I used a $300 Juki serger quite successfully for eight years before I upgraded. I’ve had several students with Brother sergers in my classes and they are fine starter machines.

After a bit of discussion, this young woman said that she was most interested in making baby and childrens’ clothes. She already has four kids under the age of 6 and is pregnant with #5. I said to the husband that she probably doesn’t have time to take a shower, so I wonder how she is going to find time to sew, but she looked determined. I gave her my cell phone number and told her to call or text if she had questions. She bought this machine:

One of the new Joanns employees was also in on the conversation, and I chatted with her a bit, too. She graduated from the University of Montana with some kind of degree (art? home economics?) that included a focus on sewing, and she’s currently working with the Whitefish Theatre Company in their costuming department.

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After I got home from town, I finished two muslins. One was for Butterick 6754—the basic shell blouse that I decided to make one size larger using the C-cup pattern pieces. That worked perfectly. It is now big enough in the shoulders but still fits well in the bust. I also ran up the New Look 6225 raglan blouse, which is very similar to that See & Sew pattern I like. I think I prefer the See & Sew version. That one has a neckline facing. The New Look pattern has a simple bias bound neckline and I don’t like it as well. It is still an option, though. Both tops were made up out of clearance polyester charmeuse from Joanns.

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I’ve got a bunch of paperwork and miscellaneous tasks to take care of today. I’d also like to pop up to sewing at lunchtime and visit with some people. I don’t think I’ve seen Robin or Sarah since before Christmas. I had the copyshop print the Olympia pattern for me when I was in town yesterday and I’d like to get that one traced so I can try it out.

I was awakened at 1:33 am by thumping and banging noises on the porch. I woke up the husband and we went down to see what was out there. The two male cats were fighting again. I am baffled as to why they find it necessary to fight on our porch. Also, what could possibly be worth defending here? An unlimited supply of gourmet mice?

The little deer shows up every morning. I tell her that she has to wait until afternoon when I feed the chickens to get her ration of sweet feed. She is usually back here right on time.

Lily Chin is on a month-long knitting cruise to South America and Antarctica. I am thoroughly enjoying her Facebook posts about her adventures. It is a Craft Cruises cruise—that’s the same company that hosted the Alaskan cruise that JC Briar and I taught on in 2009. (So long ago!) I really enjoyed that cruise, but I am not sure I could do an entire month.