Pixie Dust

One of our homestead foundation fundraising committee members uses a phrase that I love. We were discussing, in our meeting last night, the fact that we have to limit registration for our kid activities because we don’t have enough adult helpers. She framed it as an opportunity to counter the belief that “Someone sprinkles pixie dust and things just happen.” We need to let parents know that if we had more adult helpers (parents), we could open up our kid activities to more children.

The pixie dust analogy applies to many situations these days. People expect that someone else will sprinkle pixie dust and poof!—things will happen.

Honestly, I don’t think most people understand that historically, life was hard. Even with all we do here at our place, we only get a small taste of that. If my crops fail, I can get food from the grocery store. If the husband forgets to load the wood boiler in the morning—or worse, doesn’t stack enough wood in the fall—our backup propane heat kicks in. A hundred years ago, a diagnosis of leukemia would have been a death sentence. Our lives are not difficult, all things considered.

Resilience has been lost, individually and socially. By removing obstacles and impediments from people’s lives, we’ve created a culture where people expect to be given everything with little to no effort. And that expectation causes many people to fold the moment things become tough.

I’ll fall off this soapbox soon, I promise.

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Montana PBS is airing a documentary right now on author Ivan Doig. (I believe it’s only available through PBS Passport, though, for PBS members.) I watched it last week. Ivan Doig’s books are near and dear to my heart. I was first introduced to them by my friend Kathy, back when we still lived in Pennsylvania. Kathy was reading Dancing at the Rascal Fair, the second book in Doig’s “Montana Trilogy.” (English Creek is the first, set in the 1930s. Rascal Fair is set in the late 1800s.) If you want a glimpse of what life as a sheepherder in northern Montana in the 1800s was like—and it was not for the faint of heart—Dancing at the Rascal Fair provides an excellent description. Doig’s trilogy is somewhat autobiographical, as he was raised by his sheepherding father and his grandmother in the part of Montana where the story takes place. To say that their way of life was tough is an understatement.

The third book in the trilogy is also special, and takes place in the 1980s:

DD#1 is named after one of the central characters, Mariah McCaskill. We chose that name while we were still back east—she was born in Baltimore—and practically no one had heard of it other than in association with the song “They Call the Wind Mariah.” When we moved out here, it seemed like every third little girl was named Mariah.

[Fun fact: The pass from Glacier Park over to the east side of the mountains is called Maria’s Pass, but Maria is pronounced like Mariah.]

Ivan Doig did a book signing in Kalispell some years ago and was kind enough to inscribe a copy of Ride With Me, Mariah Montana for DD#1. All together, he authored sixteen books before his death from multiple myeloma in 2015. If you can access the PBS documentary, I highly recommend it.

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I might be able to sneak in some sewing this morning—more class samples—before going out to the greenhouse this afternoon. I ought to start pruning fruit trees, too, but it is still hard to get around the yard with all the snow.

I sent an e-mail to the company in Seattle that sells industrial sewing machines. They have several used machines that would fit my needs and budget, so I will try to arrange a shopping trip there some time in the next couple of months. And the husband ordered a new piece of equipment this past weekend. We can’t take delivery until the fall, but at least the order is in.

A Shift in the Mood

I’ve worked a lot of Creston Auctions over the years. This weekend’s auction was different and I am trying to sort out why. The weather was awful, yes—cold, wind, and snow—but we’ve had successful sales even when the weather wasn’t great. We had lots of community support; one elderly lady who came to fill bags with trail mix told me she wasn’t sure she was contributing much, and I responded that to those of us who like to munch on trail mix all weekend, her efforts were greatly appreciated. Everyone pitches in and helps.

We didn’t have as much merchandise consigned to the equipment sale as in previous years. This was my view from the (enclosed and relatively warm) auction wagon:

That’s the husband on the right and our head auctioneer on the left. Amanda was manning the computer and I was up there to help her and provide a backup report of what sold.

The crowd seemed smaller and the auctioneers were having a hard time getting bids out of people. The mood has shifted. Pessimism would be one word for it. Grief might even be another—grief and sadness that something important has been lost with the influx of outsiders to this valley.

[I want to be clear that we came here from elsewhere, and we have lots of friends that came from elsewhere, but there is a huge difference between moving to a place and becoming part of the existing community and moving to a place and trying to change it into the place you left. We moved to Montana to live in Montana.]

We’ll have to see how the final numbers shake out. All funds raised will go toward the construction of our new fire station.

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I was approached over the weekend by a friend and asked if I would be open to considering a position on a volunteer board in the future. That request came out of the clear blue sky. I mentioned it to the husband, who asked me if he was supposed to hit me upside the head with a 2 x 4.

It is humbling that my name came up as a potential candidate for this position. The organization does important work for this community. However, I came home and looked at my calendar and reminded myself that I need to stop allowing the tail to wag the dog. I just finished four days at a fundraising auction. I have to chair a meeting for the homestead foundation fundraising committee this evening, which means organizing the agenda and getting reports sent out some time today. Susan and I need to copy and fold the quarterly homestead foundation newsletter this week—and it has to be done this week because I am teaching two serger classes next week. I have a few updates to make to the homestead foundation website. As soon as I sew the label on the quilt that the Ladies Club made for the annual homestead foundation raffle, I need to take it over to the church, hang it up, and take photos for the website.

And this is Holy Week and I have to play at our Maundy Thursday service.

I am the one who committed to these activities and I will follow through with them, but when I say that sometimes I feel like unpaid staff for these organizations, I am not kidding. I am handing off my auction duties. I plan to cut down my homestead foundation involvement next year to managing the website and being chairman of the plant sale. I only took over chairing the fundraising committee because our pastor, who retired last fall, also retired from his homestead foundation duties and I didn’t want us to lose the momentum we had built. I can’t keep spinning these plates, though, at the expense of shoving aside the things I want to do, like teach.

April is a wash, sewing-wise. I have to finish my class samples and bind the last baby quilt—which I finished quilting last week—but beyond that, not much else will be happening. Tomato seedlings are popping up and will need to be transplanted, and it’s time to start the next round of plants.

Sadly, I think our little deer got hit by a car. I saw a deer by the side of the road Thursday morning that had similar markings. She never went more than a day or two without coming by for a snack. I haven’t seen her since the middle of last week. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if she shows up, but I’m not holding out much hope.

The 57th Annual Creston Auction

We were fortunate enough to settle in an area that has a long tradition of community coming together to get things done. And not just little things, either. Some of our schools, fire stations, and even roads were built with donations and volunteer labor. Sadly, that community-driven mindset is disappearing as people now expect to be taken care of by the government.

This weekend is our fire department’s 57th annual Creston Auction. This event raises money for our department to buy gear and equipment. Whereas most fire districts go to their residents, hat in hand, our fire chief is committed to making as many improvements as possible without raising taxes. The auction is our big money-maker, but we also have smaller fundraisers throughout the year. We are raising money to build a new station.

The husband and I have been working at the auction since he joined the fire department in 1994. When the girls were little, my mother-in-law would come out and take care of them so he and I could have the week free. I started out helping my friend Pat, who ran the food section of the auction for many years. When I became treasurer of the firefighters’ association, I ran Finance, which was a huge job but one that I loved. (I really like keeping track of pennies.) The husband was head of Logistics for most of that time. A few years ago, he moved over to run the Sunday equipment sale, so I moved there to help him.

We snagged a young woman, Amanda, to help us at the equipment sale last year. She is part of the large family that helped start the Mennonite church here in 1913 and I’ve known her since she was a toddler because she and DD#2 took dance lessons together. She is a sharp cookie. I decided that 2023 would be my last year of being in charge of anything at the auction, so we’re training her to take over for me. Another young couple, Nick and Brittany, are also helping out. The husband would like Nick to take over for him, and Amanda and Brittany would run the administrative end of the sale.

Yesterday was our intake day—people bring items from 7 am to 7 pm and consign them to the sale. The equipment sale requires having a notary on hand to inspect titles and notarize them if necessary. Linda, who was the secretary at the elementary school my kids attended, was our notary for the first half of the day. We had a new notary helping us yesterday afternoon—a friend of Elysian’s—and she and I discovered within the first five minutes that we had grown up a few miles from each other in Ohio.

[Cue It’s a Small World, After All]

I mostly supervised and served as institutional memory. Amanda and Brittany did a great job and I have no worries about them taking over next year.

Today is the general merchandise sale so we get a break. Tomorrow will be our big day.

These are the kinds of events that undergird a strong community. There was a lot of catching up happening yesterday as people emerged from their homes after a long winter—which is not over yet—and talked to neighbors and friends they hadn’t seen for a while.

We’ll have to see what the buying crowds are like today as the weather is supposed to be cold and windy. I’ll be all bundled up in my long underwear, wool pants, wool socks, and Carhartt jacket. (There is no such thing as bad weather, just poor clothing choices.) Maybe we’ll come home with some goodies.

Lunch With the Ladies

On Monday, six of us met at a local assisted living facility to have lunch with one of the women from our church who lives there now. We’re hoping to make this a monthly occurrence. We used to do this about 20 years ago—DD#2 was in kindergarten at the time—when a group of us met monthly at another facility to have lunch with the mother of one of our members. Margaret probably remembers, as she was part of that group. The assisted living centers are quite happy to accommodate us.

We had a lovely time. The facility set us up in a private dining room and for $5, each of us got to have lunch. We chose our menus ahead of time. I had glazed ham. We visited and caught up with each other. I love these women. They are a wealth of knowledge and encouragement and they are the ones who taught me to quilt.

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I spent most of yesterday morning working on Mountain Brook Homestead Foundation stuff. I had to add information to the website and also send out a few administrative-type e-mails. I am chairman of the plant sale that will be held in May. We have our spring pie social at the beginning of May, and Sunnie is coordinating the Community Yard Sale that will be held at the end of June.

For the past two years, the Homestead Foundation has hosted a Garden Tour fundraiser, but we were having trouble getting people to agree to participate in a third one. Not everyone is willing to have strangers tromping through their property. I suggested that we contact Kim and Dave, owners of a nearby property, to see if we could partner with them for an event. Kim—who has a wealth of nonprofit fundraising experience and is a delight to work with—responded enthusiastically. We are planning a “Picnic at the Plaid Swan” for August 5.

Locals may recognize Plaid Swan as the former Avalanche Ranch. The 60-acre property is located about half a mile up the road from us and has an interesting history. Back in 1999, the husband and his then-business partner got the contract to build a guest house, a caretaker’s house, two guest cabins, and a barn on the property. They worked on that job for almost two years. The main house was built by another contractor. A few years later, the owners divorced. The wife got the property as part of the settlement but had trouble maintaining it. It went onto the market for 26 million dollars, then sat. Eventually, everything down to the HVAC system was sold and the property reverted to the bank. I went there with Cathy and her husband and a real estate agent sometime in 2017 or so and saw first-hand how the property had deteriorated.

A few years ago, a woman called our number and said she and her husband were thinking about buying the property and could they ask some questions? They talked to the husband, who filled them in on the history. By then, the price had dropped considerably. That woman turned out to be Kim. She and her husband did indeed buy the property and have been working on it for about three years. They have brought it back to its former beauty and then some. Dave raises llamas and alpacas. The guest houses are rented out as Airbnbs.

We will be selling tickets for a picnic lunch and an afternoon at the Plaid Swan that will include the opportunity to stroll the many gardens—Kim planted 500 lavender plants last year (!)—pet the animals, enjoy demonstrations by our local spinner’s guild, shop vendor booths, and visit with local artists who will be set up throughout the property.

You can take a look at the properties and see some of the amazing transformation by visiting the websites at https://plaidswanranch.com and https://redryderllamas.com. We are very excited about this event and hope it becomes an annual tradition.

Symptoms of Decline

The husband had my car up on the lift Saturday to change the oil. He found this:

He said to me, “Did you run over something?”

No. I know exactly how this happened. (It’s a bit of a convoluted story, so bear with me.) Some years ago, all of our mail began being shipped to Missoula to be processed. This was explained to us as being “more efficient,” (?) and because we care about climate change, if I want to send a piece of mail to someone in Kalispell, that piece of mail now makes a 240-mile round trip to Missoula and back. The only way to avoid that nonsense is to take it town and deposit it in the “local mail” box at the post office on Meridian.

Ever since then, if I have local mail—and yes, I do pay bills online, but sometimes contractors need to send hard copies of items to each other—I will make a special trip to the local deposit box at the post office and put it in the box.

I’ve been going through that mailbox drive-through for 20+ years. A few weeks ago, I went through and deposited some mail, then maneuvered out to the street to continue on my way. Unbeknownst to me—I had to drive around the block and come back and look at it to see what had happened—the street has sunk to a level several inches below the drive-through lane.

My car rides low to the ground to begin with. That is rarely an issue, even with all the snow we get here. But that difference in road levels was enough of a precipice, at the correct angle, that I hit it. And I forgot to mention it to the husband.

He assures me it is not structural. Of course, no one would be accountable for the damage even if it were. An apartment complex went up across the street from that post office about four years ago. I wonder if in the process of building it, something happened that caused the road to sink. As the husband noted, that’s usually because water is flowing somewhere that it shouldn’t be.

And now you get a mini-sermon on the decline of empires—and the decline of the American empire, specifically. This sermon has been building for a while.

Nothing works anymore, including people. The economy is a house of cards waiting for a gust of wind. Stuff breaks much sooner than it should. Infrastructure is crumbling, literally. The entire government is corrupt—and don’t tell me that your side is holier than the other, because it isn’t. The president is obviously senile. No one is held accountable for anything. Kids aren’t learning how to read and write, and heaven help us when those kids become the adults in charge. The USPS, certainly no model of fiscal responsibility, thinks that sending our mail to another city to be processed is somehow more efficient than processing it here.

I am constantly surprised at the capacity of human beings to ignore what is right in front of them. (You would think I would have gotten over that surprise, but apparently not.)

Nelsonian Knowledge: The phrase, first referenced as ‘blind-eye knowledge,’ is attributable to Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté (better known simply as Lord Nelson) holding a telescope to his blind eye and claiming to see no ships. —Engineering News

All around me, people are claiming not to see any ships and it is absolutely maddening. Just because you choose to ignore something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist or isn’t happening. On the other hand, I understand that for many people, acknowledging the current state of affairs would send them around the bend. Denial is a coping mechanism.

The Self-Reliance Festival was held this past weekend in Camden, Tennessee. Nicole Sauce, who hosts the Living Free in Tennessee podcast, posted a clip from SRF on her channel. The speaker is CJ Kilmer, former college professor-turned podcaster. (His Dangerous History podcast is now his full-time means of support.) There is nothing inflammatory or subversive in this clip; he simply lays out historical parallels to what we are seeing now. His talk is about 30 minutes long and well worth watching.

And if you need me, I’ll be over here polishing my tinfoil hat and making sure I can see clearly out of my telescope, because I prefer to be prepared for what is coming at us.

A Couple of Fun Laundry Day Tees

Life is too short to wear boring clothes. These are two recent Laundry Day Tees. The first is my fruit and vegetable one:

The fabric is a rib-knit rayon blend from the Walmart mystery rack. I plan to wear this at the plant sale. I might take that neckband off, though, and re-do it. I made it wider and I’ve since decided I don’t like them that wide.

This second one is my favorite:

I prefer that narrower neckband. This fabric is a double-brushed polyester, also from the Walmart mystery rack. The lighting washed out the green; it is even more intense than it appears here.

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I spent a couple of hours out in the greenhouse yesterday afternoon and got the rest of the tomatoes and peppers planted, as well as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. I’ll start the cucumbers and squash after the auction. Seedlings have popped up in the tray of tomatoes I planted last week. The trays have plastic covers, and I laid some boards on top just to make sure that no mice could get into them. We have a heater running and a backup heater just in case.

I also made up another prototype for one of my classes this summer and it turned out very well. I need to pick up some thread at the quilt store today because I want to try a few variations.

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I’m not sure what it is this year, but I am feeling weight of responsibility more than usual. I said to the husband last night that I know I am overwhelmed when I fantasize about running away—taking a road trip—and ignoring all the demands on my time for a while.

One of my friends came up to me after church and said that she wanted to thank me for playing the piano. We’ve had more than the usual amount of music in our services recently, including some new songs that require extra work on my part to learn. I was touched that she noticed and said something to me. The song leader also thanked me before the service, but I suspect that to most people, I’m mostly invisible unless something goes horribly wrong.

I’m working on divesting myself of some obligations. I’ve said no to several recent requests for help. I’m training someone to take over my responsibilities for the equipment sale at the fire department auction so I can retire after this year. We’re going to have to find a few more people to head up some of the homestead foundation fundraising events. This is a process, though, and right now, I just need to get through the month of April.

[I recently ran across the phrase performance punishment. In a nutshell, it’s when people who do a good job tend to get loaded down with even more work while everyone else skates. I think it’s why the phrase, “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it” annoys me so much. I see this happening a bit with my girls—those apples did not fall far from the tree—and I’d like to help them avoid it.]

The husband changed the oil in the BMW yesterday. It’s also throwing another fault code. I have to call Kevin this morning because the issue might be related to the part they replaced last fall and thus under warranty. The husband also fixed a brake light issue. The car has some damage underneath, and I’m a bit more than irritated about it because the damage wasn’t my fault. I’ll get the picture he took from his phone and post it tomorrow. He assures me the damage is not structural (it’s a “battle scar”), but it annoys me nonetheless.

A Baby Shower and Another Sunbonnet Sue

One of the young families in our church is about to welcome their second child. We had a baby shower for them yesterday. Jessica, who organized the event, had the Sunbonnet Sue quilt made by her grandmother on display:

This is a different setting than the one I used; each block is bordered by one of the fabrics that is in the appliqué, and each Sunbonnet Sue is outlined in blanket stitch in black thread. I love the two off-kilter blocks at the bottom.

The shower was lovely. We haven’t had families with kids in our congregation for a long time, and now we have almost a dozen littles running around. I love the chaos. It reminds me of growing up with all of my cousins.

My shower gift was one of the bear paw quilts.

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After several days of sunny weather and temps in the high 40s, we got 4” of heavy, wet snow on Friday and flurries again yesterday. The new snow melted quickly, but I haven’t been back out to the greenhouse. I’m going to try again this afternoon. I’m not panicking yet, but I do need to get the rest of the tomatoes and peppers planted this week. Everything else can wait until after the fire department auction.

The chicks are starting to get their big chicken feathers and are eating like there is no tomorrow. For the first week, they were on a probiotic solution—which helps considerably—but it has a lot of sugar in it. I’ve been cutting back the concentration and they’ll be on plain water starting today.

I worked on class samples all day Friday and ran up three tops yesterday. I made two Laundry Day Tees and another Lark Tee. Before I cut them out, I compared my bodice sloper to each and re-traced the front pieces so I could adjust the position of the boob bump slightly. I’ll post pictures of the tops tomorrow.

Itch to Stitch released a new pattern this week, the Zakopane Top:

This is a knot-front top, one of my favorite styles, but I am undecided about buying the pattern. I’ve got three knot-front top patterns, two of which I reverse engineered from favorite Liz Claiborne tops. I don’t know that this pattern is going to provide anything I don’t already have. I’d also have to lengthen it right off the bat as it is drafted for a shorter person.

Karina, at Lifting Pins and Needles, did a nice video recap of the two tops she made from the Zakopane pattern.

I may have solved the industrial sewing machine dilemma. The sew & vac store in Kalispell—which I do not frequent for a variety of reasons—has a used Consew 118 for sale. (I was in there last week to get binding fabric for one of the bear paw quilts.) The 118 is a walking foot machine and will handle the heavier UV-coated fabric that the husband likes for generator covers. I did some research to determine a reasonable asking price, because I know from previous dealings with this store that I will have to bargain hard. This store tends to overprice used machines and push customers toward buying new, but I am trying to avoid spending lots of money on a machine I likely won’t use that often.

As the husband says, the key to successful negotiation is being willing to walk away.

More Serger Classes, Please

I will be sewing today. I have spent most of this week attending to other projects and I need a day alone, in my sewing room, to process and plan. I stopped in at the quilt store north of town yesterday morning and was asked by a customer when I was going to offer more serger classes there. I had classes on the schedule in January, February, and March, but none of them filled. I told the staff person that I would look at my calendar and schedule additional classes.

I am working hard to keep boundaries in place. My volunteer activities are important, but I have learned over the years that if I am not vigilant, some of these organizations will begin to treat me as unpaid staff, and I don’t want the road to hell to turn into an eight-lane expressway. Teaching sewing is what I am doing these days and that needs to be my focus.

Part of our Starlink order arrived yesterday:

I think the box with the mounting hardware will be delivered today. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to install it this weekend or not. We’ll need to use the forklift and we still have quite a bit of snow in the yard. I am sure the husband has this all planned out, though. Being married to the man who built the house has its advantages.

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I’ve been meaning to mention this book, which I read the week Tera and I were at Sew Expo:

This is the story of Jenny Doan’s life and how Missouri Star Quilt Company came into being. I had trouble putting this down. I knew the basic history, but to hear Jenny talk about growing up in California and everything in her life that led to the founding of one of the most successful quilting businesses in the country was riveting. I was lucky enough to see her in person in 2021 at the Garden of Quilts in Salt Lake City (another trip with Tera). Five stars, highly recommend.

I got fabric yesterday for the binding on the third bear paw quilt. I’d love to start quilting the fourth one—I am still hoping to meet my self-imposed deadline of finishing all of these by the end of March—but I had to order thread and that order hasn’t come yet. If the thread doesn’t arrive by Monday, quilting the last bear paw top will have to wait until after the fire department auction.

Friends Are Special

My college roommate sent me a large envelope full of goodies. I told her I did not want to be paid to finish her grandmother’s quilt, so she gave me a gift card to Spoonflower and sent a few other gifts with a long note. Everything was tucked into this fun pouch:

One can never have enough zipper pouches.

She also does cross-stitch, and included these:

The quilt square one had been stitched by her grandmother, but she added the lettering around the outside. I will hang these near my sewing machine.

And she included a couple of these “bonnets,” which she said her grandmother was fond of making. She thinks they were sold at a local craft sale. I tried the bigger one out on a jar of my tomato sauce.

It fits perfectly!

Friends are special. I love all of mine.

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The greenhouse got a thorough cleaning yesterday. I went through all the pots, now organized by size, and tossed any supplies that were beyond repair. The sun was shining and it was warm enough inside that I had to open the doors.

The husband put the diesel heater out there after dinner last night. We have a propane heater hooked up to the tank outside, but that heater has the unfortunate tendency to turn itself off unexpectedly. We almost lost a whole season’s worth of seedlings a few years ago, so we don’t rely on it until later in the spring. The diesel heater is bigger but it has a thermostat.

I’m trying something slightly different with the tomatoes. I usually direct seed them into 3” pots, but I am planting them into nine-packs in trays and putting them downstairs on the lettuce system until they sprout. Once the seedlings get their true leaves, I’ll transplant them. I also bought clear plastic covers for our trays in hopes that we can avoid having to booby trap the entire greenhouse with mousetraps.

The chicks are doing very well. I had one escapee yesterday, who flew out when I lifted up the lid to put their waterer back in. She landed on the table next to the brooder box and froze, so I scooped her up and put her back. Leghorns are so flighty.

And even though I know I’ll have to do it again once mud season starts in earnest, I cleaned the kitchen on Tuesday. I couldn’t stand it any longer. The floor was a mess. I moved everything, vacuumed, mopped, wiped down baseboards, washed the curtains and the wallhanging over the table, and washed the windows and French doors. The laundry room needs the same treatment soon.

‘Tis that time of year. I’m not getting a lot of sewing done this week, although I did finish bear paw quilt #3 yesterday. I need to check in town for the color Kona I need for the binding because—shockingly—I did not have it in my stash.

I’m trying to reconcile myself to the fact that there may not be any (clothing) sewing in April. How ironic, just when I feel like I’ve cracked the code with my bodice sloper. Next month’s schedule is nuts, to put it mildly, and class samples for my summer classes are at the top of the to-do list when I do get time to sew. Maybe I can get a few things cut out and stacked up next to the serger this weekend.

Time to Plant

We’re going to be off to the races here shortly. The fire department auction is next weekend and will consume four days of our time. The husband and I are in charge of the equipment sale. It is not as involved as running all of Finance—which I did for several years—but it is still a big responsibility as it brings in most of the revenue.

The week after the auction is Holy Week and Easter and that’s always a busy time for church pianists. And Susan and I have to produce the homestead foundation newsletter that week, too.

I had WS here yesterday. After lunch, we went out to assess the situation in the garden. There is still at least a foot of snow on the ground:

I have to use all of my imagination to envision what it’s going to look like in another month or so:

We’ll get there.

WS helped me sort through the pots to see what we need.

Some of the trays are falling apart after 12 years so I put in an order for new ones. The husband brought home six bags of potting soil and I will get tomatoes and peppers planted this week. Not only am I planting what we need, I am also planting inventory for the fundraising plant sale in May.

The greenhouse is a bit of a mess. We store a lot of supplies in there over the winter and also collect boxes and cardboard and other items we’ll need. WS and I put the tomato cages out in the garden. Yesterday was overcast, so it wasn’t exactly toasty inside, but it was warm enough that we could work in shirtsleeves. I plan to spend this afternoon out there doing more cleaning and organizing.

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I finished messing around with the Butterick 6754 shell pattern. I am happy with my third and final muslin. There are no egregious wrinkles, the sleeves hang perfectly (I had to adjust the sleeve cap shaping slightly), the side seams are straight, and the darts are where they are supposed to be. Zede Donahue cautions against “overfitting”—trying to eliminate all wrinkles—so I am stopping with what looks good to me. And my personal yardstick has always been, “Does this look better than what’s coming out of China?”

I knew I had issues with tops and blouses being too short, but seeing the differences between commercial patterns and my bodice sloper has been an eye-opener for me. From now on, the first step in tracing anything will be to see how the pattern compares to my bodice sloper. The information in that Threads article was so helpful, as was the bodice sloper class we took at Sew Expo.

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The husband—the man who never met a tool he didn’t like—told me the other day that I should buy myself a good heavy-duty industrial sewing machine. My Necchi industrial is really a lighter tailoring machine and balks at sewing Sunbrella. He says I could sell plenty of generator covers (all made in my copious spare time, of course). I’ve been looking for a good used vintage industrial machine for several years, but those are hard to come by in our part of the country.

I talked to our friend Tommy, who does auto upholstery. He said I was welcome to use his machines any time. We’ll see. I am still in the research phase. I’ve narrowed my choices down to the Sailrite Fabricator, a Juki 1541, or a Consew 206. They are all about the same price and have similar features. C.H. Holderby is an industrial sewing machine supplier in Seattle, so if I could find a time to get over there and try sewing on a few different models, that would be helpful. They might also have a nice used machine.

Sunbonnet Sue Safe and Sound

My college roommate messaged me on Friday afternoon that the quilt had made it to her house in Maryland:

It fits the bed perfectly. That was a happy accident, LOL.

I had a worship team meeting at church yesterday morning. Afterward, I headed into town to run a few errands. The husband was at a concrete cutting job with his crew and planned to work most of the day.

I remembered why I don’t go to town on Saturdays. Ugh. I stopped at Joann Fabrics to pick up a few items, then headed to Hobby Lobby. I am still working on class samples and I also needed to do some research. I get tons of ideas just walking around the store.

After leaving Hobby Lobby, I went to the quilt store south of town to pick up some thread. I need some 50wt thread in a baby pink color for one of the bear paw quilts. The quilt store north of town did not have the correct shade of Aurifil. I found some Wonderfil at the quilt store south of town. The store was quite busy. While waiting to check out, I visited with one of the students from my January serger class on presser feet. She has a Bernina L460 and brought it in to the store for some warranty work. She also thought some presser feet had been ordered for her after the class, but they hadn’t come in yet and there was some confusion about the correct feet for her model. The owner’s son—who is the sewing machine tech—came out to the floor and the three of us figured out what feet she needed and got them onto the list for the next order.

I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and was delighted to find that ground beef was on sale for $1.98 a pound. (It’s been running $4.98 a pound.) I offered to make some of the chili for our spring pie social in May, so I bought everything I needed yesterday. I’ll make up a roaster pan of chili today and put it in ice cream buckets in the freezer.

It was 2:00 pm by the time I got home. I checked on chicks, fed the big chickens, fed the deer, sorted through a bag of potatoes that was starting to go south, and finished binding the second bear paw quilt. The third one is on the Q20 right now and I’ve been working on it here and there.

I’m hoping to put some time in on my bodice fitting issues again today. I ran across this fantastic Threads article about comparing a bodice sloper to commercial pattern and it has been very helpful. I’m comparing my bodice sloper to the Butterick 6754 basic shell pattern. I did widen the back bodice piece slightly and now I am tweaking the front bodice piece. After watching this Minvera YouTube video, I dropped the darts another 1/2”. I also dropped the waistline. I wasn’t kidding when I said I had a long torso. When I compared my bodice sloper from the Sew Expo class to the Butterick pattern, I realized I had to drop the waistline by almost 2”. This is why I never buy ready-to-wear clothing with waist ties or belts.

[I hate that it has taken me so long, and so much work, to solve my clothing-fitting issues, but it’s nice to know that I might be able to make some of the things I see in stores that have never fit me properly. I’m also starting to feel more prepared to tackle an Upton Dress.]

Once I get all these tweaks done, I’ll make up one more—hopefully the last?—muslin and see how close I am.

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We are supposed to get close to 50 degrees today. It has been warm and sunny lately and the snow is starting to melt, but at our house, at least, the snow will be here for a while. I’m always happy when the day comes that the driveway is clear and I don’t need my ice cleats to get back and forth to the garage.

I have WS with me tomorrow—his mom is working and he doesn’t have school. I think it will be a good day for the two of us to go out to the greenhouse and assess the situation. It is time to get tomatoes and peppers started.

Goodbye, CenturyLink

I came downstairs this morning to find a very welcome e-mail in my inbox—our Starlink order is ready! I confirmed the invoice and ordered the additional hardware that the husband said we needed for the installation. Hopefully, we should be able to tell CenturyLink to go pound sand soon. After that debacle at Christmas when we were without internet for two weeks, I am ready to be done with them.

I’m also more than a bit annoyed with Intuit, which is forcing me into QuickBooks Online as of May, to the tune of $1000 a year. This whole “software as a service” business model is a greedy scam. I’m already paying $600 a year for Adobe Creative Suite. (Yes, I know there are open source models out there, but either they don’t work as well or they are not backward-compatible.) I’m also not thrilled about having my financial information in the cloud.

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The peeps are doing well. They are busy running around the brooder box and stuffing themselves full of food. The little deer shows up every afternoon for its ration of sweet feed, usually when I am out in the chicken coop. I wait to feed her until I see her so the turkeys don’t swoop in and hoover up the snacks.

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I made up another muslin yesterday. I still can’t figure out exactly what fitting issue I am having. The front of the muslin fits well. The darts are positioned properly, the sleeve seamlines sit where they should, I’ve got plenty of fabric over my chest, and there are no odd wrinkles, but something is off. I’m wondering, now, if the fit of the back is the issue. I looked at that fitting book, which was helpful, but I really need a comprehensive set of accurate measurements so I know exactly where mine deviate from average. The husband, for all that he knows how to lay out foundations and build houses, doesn’t know enough about clothing construction to know what measurements I need him to take or how to take them. Maybe Tera and I can get together some time for a fitting session. Or I’ll take my tape measure and book with me the next time I visit DD#1’s in-laws, because DSIL’s mom has a lot of sewing and fitting experience.

The easy way out would be to stick to sewing with knits. I’ve got half a dozen tried and true patterns that fit me well, but I’m too stubborn to let this go and I’m so close. I might adjust the back pattern piece for the muslin I made yesterday and run up another one this afternoon if I get time.

Raglans seem to be a trend this spring. I’m seeing lots of raglans with gathered necklines, Gathers at the neckline effectively do the same thing as bust darts—they provide extra room on the front of the garment. That old See & Sew raglan pattern fits me well for a similar reason, but instead of gathers, it has a pleat at the center front. Gathers at the shoulders work, too. The trick is finding styles that don’t end up looking like maternity tops. I really wish I had bought that too-short blouse at Kohls in Spokane. It fit me well. I could have reverse-engineered it and made it longer. (I checked the website and it’s no longer available.)

I bought this book at the quilt store yesterday:

I love books like this that have all the math done for lots of different blocks in a range of sizes. I’m not averse to doing math, but if someone has already done it for me, so much the better.

Playing the Peep Lottery

The farm store puts out a chick schedule every February. The schedule lists all of the chicken breeds they expect to get from the hatchery, by week and number of chicks. I always grab a copy of the schedule as soon as it comes out so I will be able to time my chick purchases. Historically, getting chicks has not been an issue. In 2020, however, when everyone and his brother decided to take up farming, chicks were selling out within a few minutes of arriving at the store, so I bought an incubator. I incubated 25 eggs that year. Of the 25 eggs, 17 hatched, and we ended up with eight hens and nine roosters. If it weren’t for the excess roosters, I’d do that every year, but having that many teenage roosters hassling the hens by the time fall rolls around is a major pain.

[Dave came from that 2020 hatch. At some point, I will have to incubate some eggs because I’ll have to replace him and I want to keep his genetics. He is a stellar rooster.]

I used to have a system where I would get a different breed of chicken every year. I would know which hens belonged to which year, and the oldest ones would get butchered in the fall, on a three-year rotation. My 2020 chicks were all mixed breeds. The next year, I had to do half of one breed and half of another because I couldn’t get enough of the same breed. The husband also brought home some cast-off hens from a customer of his who raises show chickens. Thus, my tracking system has been completely shot to hell. I am trying to get it back in place. I think we’re feeding a lot of chickens who are no longer laying. We usually butcher in the fall, but I suggested to the husband that we might do some this spring if we can find a time.

Because of egg prices, and because everyone thinks that it’s possible to go from 0 to 60 in one farming season, the farm stores have been selling out of chicks quickly again. Tera’s husband had to wait in line a few weeks ago, so I knew I had to be at the store early. I arrived yesterday at 7:20. The store didn’t officially open until 7:30, but just as I pulled up, a couple of employees were unlocking the door. All of us in the parking lot jumped out of our cars and went inside. The woman handling the chick sales was handing out cards with numbers. Initially, I got #6, but she came back a few minutes later and said her numbers were messed up. She traded me #4 for #6.

We had to wait another half an hour for them to start selling the chicks, but that gave me time to check out the available breeds and eavesdrop on the conversations around me. (This is serious business. You bet I am going to gather intelligence.) The guy at the head of the line was there to get chicks for his daughter. He had a “Beginning Poultry Kit” in his cart. Given that and the number of questions he was firing at the employee, it was obvious this was his first rodeo.

Also ahead of me was a couple about my age and a father with a young boy. The father and son looked at every single breed of chicken and debated the merits of each. I had my eye on the Pearl White Leghorns, not because I like them—Leghorns are absolute divas in the chicken department—but because I wanted either a white breed or a red breed and there were no red ones. I also checked to make sure the store hadn’t put limits on sales.

At 8:00 am, the young woman in charge invited the first guy in line to choose his chicks. He took five. The next couple got two. (I suspect all of those chickens are going to be pets, not livestock.) The father and son took 10 of the Leghorns. The store only got 25 in the shipment, so that left 15. I took those. I would have liked 20, but I was happy to get the ones I got.

The husband had turned on the heat lamp before he left so the brooder box would be warm when I got home. The chicks moved right in:

I checked on them several times during the day yesterday. The brooder box is in the old garage, and it’s much easier to raise chicks in there than in the coop like we used to do.

I am glad to have that off the list.

After the chicks were settled, I finished quilting bear paw baby quilt #2 of 4. It’s trimmed and awaiting binding. I redid the top zipper on the Ravenwood bag—the one I screwed up last week—and added the D-rings to the side gussets. I also traced the Allie Olson Coram Top:

I’ve had this pattern for over a year. I thought I had already traced it, but apparently not. The Allie Olson patterns come in cup sizes. I want to see how this compares to the Burda raglan top I made a muslin for a few weeks ago. I am no fan of the hi-lo hem, however, and I need the additional length, so I extended the front to be the same length as the back.

I also talked to the class coordinator at the quilt store south of town. We’ve got dates on the calendar through the end of 2023. Now I need to make up all my class samples and put together supply lists for the website.

Beans and Bear Paws

I’ve cleared a pile of stuff off my desk this week and that feels so good. The taxes are all done and filed, both construction company and personal. I am caught up on website work for the homestead foundation. All of my class ideas for the summer have been submitted. I did a big Costco run yesterday. The farm store did not have chicks on Monday but I am going to try again today. If dealing with excess roosters weren’t such a hassle—I suspect Dave would go on a murdering rampage and pick them off one by one—I’d pop two dozen eggs into the incubator and hatch chicks out here.

I canned up 19 pints of white beans yesterday afternoon:

They started out as a five-pound bag of dry beans from Azure Standard. My All-American canner holds 19 pints, so this amount works out perfectly. Beans need 90 minutes of processing at 15 pounds pressure here. I need to can up some batches of red beans and black beans, too. If I do them this week and next, we should have enough beans for a couple of months.

I tore down and washed all the jars from the indoor lettuce-growing operation. I’ll plant one more run of lettuce and that should keep us supplied until it’s warm enough to grow some out in the greenhouse or in the garden.

While the beans were processing, I worked on another Bear Paw Baby quilt.

These are fun to quilt. The light beige section has some free motion swirls. Everything else is done with rulers. I’ve got a little bit more quilting to finish up and then I can attach the binding. I’ve got two more waiting to be quilted.

I want to spend some time over the next couple of days cutting out patterns. I have three or four new ones that need muslins. I struggle with what appears on the surface to be excess clothing production—I don’t need twenty tops and fifteen pairs of pants—but I have to remember that I am teaching myself fitting and sewing techniques and in order to do that, I have to make clothing. I do finish as many of my muslins as I can. If I don’t wear them, I put them in the pile to donate.

In particular, I want to compare my bodice sloper to some of the blouse patterns I’ve earmarked. I think I know what adjustments I need to make and I’d like to have a few more patterns for wovens. Sewing with knits would be the easy way out, because they require a lot less fitting, but nice rayon challis and rayon batik fabrics are seductive.

[I watch a YouTuber who insists on pronouncing “challis” as chalice rather than shallee and it drives me absolutely up a wall.]

As I suspected might happen, more warm-weather fabrics are beginning to show up on the Walmart mystery remnant rack. I picked up three yards of a white rayon woven with a surface texture of white thread yesterday. I don’t normally wear a lot of white—it doesn’t stay white around here for very long—but I bought that one because I liked the fabric so much. It’s going to be one of my muslins, I think.

We’re supposed to have weather in the 40s for the next couple of days. Things are beginning to melt, albeit slowly. I am going to be optimistic and plan to start seeds in the greenhouse next week.

Waiting for Spring, 2023 Edition

The husband cleared a path to the greenhouse for me on Saturday. He also cleared a path from the greenhouse to the frost free faucet about 50 feet away. Until it warms up enough to hook up the water line, I’ll have to haul water from the faucet to the greenhouse to water seedlings.

I am just not ready to start planting yet, not when I look outside and see this:

We had a cold spring last year and it looks like we’ll have a cold spring again this year. But we have a plant sale scheduled for the third weekend in May and I need to get the tomatoes and peppers started soon.

I’ve also got to try to get chicks this week.

I struggle with transitions, and the transition from winter to spring is especially difficult. My brain maintains a schedule of things that have to happen this time of year, but the reality I see outside isn’t lining up. That dissonance is making me cranky right now.

I will get it figured out—I always do—but there is a reason March is my least favorite month in Montana. (August is a close second.) We’re supposed to warm up into the high 30s and low 40s this week, so hopefully some of this will start to melt.

The husband requested a cover for the generator that powers the house when the electricity is out. The current cover is over 10 years old and starting to fall apart from being out in the weather. The reason I make covers for the equipment is because we got tired of spending money on cheap ones from the manufacturers. They disintegrate with even minimal use. We took the measurements of the existing cover over the weekend. I’ll order some heavy Cordura from Seattle Fabrics and run one up. He keeps telling me that I could have more business than I know what to do with if I would make custom generator covers and sell them, but first I have to figure out how to alter the laws of physics to cram 24 more hours in the day.

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I assembled the last baby quilt on Saturday. The goal is to get all three of them quilted by the end of the month. I worked on the Ravenwood Bag but had to take out what I did because I put the zipper lining in wrong. Oh, well. The only way to avoid sewing mistakes is not to sew.

This arrived over the weekend:

One of the authors was Tera’s instructor for the pattern alteration class she took at Expo. I looked at this book while we were there and ordered it from Amazon when we got home. (I used some of my reward points.) I like that it is comprehensive without being overwhelming.

I’ve got some administrative stuff to get done this week, including finishing the tax prep. Most of it is done—the construction company returns are the biggest part of that—but I need to corral a few more pieces of information for the accountant. I also need to can up a couple of batches of beans. We’re running low. And there will be sewing, of course. I’ll check today to see if anyone signed up for tomorrow’s serger class. If not, I’ll work on making more samples for upcoming classes.

Planning My Summer Classes

I’ve been prepping class samples for the past couple of days. It’s time to start scheduling classes for the summer and early fall and I need to make supply lists for the stores. I was planning to teach in Spokane at the end of the month, but the store is having trouble getting copies of the Lark Tee pattern, so we’ve pushed that out a few months. Although most of the supply chain issues have improved, odd shortages are still happening here and there.

I made up a new sample for my flatlock pillow class:

I am supposed to teach project this at the quilt store north of town on Tuesday, but classes aren’t filling there. It is possible that I may have saturated that market. The two stores in town are very different—different machines, different fabric lines, different student interests. Some customers will only patronize one store or the other. Some shop at both. I try not to teach the same topics/projects at both stores. The flatlock pillow pattern is from the BabyLock website, so I am teaching it at the store that sells BabyLock machines.

The design and sales strategies adopted by various companies fascinate me. BabyLock pioneered air threading on sergers, which was a game changer. However, they went on to make their machines so idiot-proof that it’s almost impossible to override any settings. I liken it to driving an automatic versus a manual transmission. Given the choice, I would much rather be able to control the machine than to have the machine make decisions for me, but some people like being able to sew without having to tweak a bunch of settings.

The other pattern I made up this week is from the Bernina dealer website. I can’t show it to you yet, but it’s very cute. I was able to use some of the Bernina sewing-themed ribbon that Cathy gifted me. Bernina has specific requirements of its dealers that include offering a certain number of classes every year. Their dealer website, though, has robust support for making that happen, including classes with lesson plans already prepared. That’s less prep work I have do.

I also worked a bit on the Ravenwood Messenger bag. I really love these projects that are broken down into manageable steps. I feel like I’ve accomplished something if I finish one page of instructions. I made the back panel of the bag yesterday:

Those two zippers underneath the flap slide down to reveal an internal zippered mesh pocket. I didn’t do the mesh pocket on the first version because mesh can be kind of fiddly. This time, though, I included it.

The next step will be to add the zippered gusset (so many zippers), and then this will start to look like an actual bag.

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I created a website for our homestead foundation last year. One of the features I’m trying to add now is accepting credit cards through Stripe. The president (Susan) and treasurer (Sandy) of the organization came to my house for a few hours on Wednesday so we could take care of some of these administrative and financial issues. Stripe required us to upload a copy of the IRS letter identifying us as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Unfortunately, Stripe keeps sending me notices that the document is not an official IRS document. It appears to me that they are using optical character recognition software, and our document is so old that it doesn’t have the keywords the OCR software wanted to see.

I called customer support yesterday morning and had a surprisingly pleasant experience. The rep spoke understandable English, which I appreciated. As soon as I explained what was happening, she said she would kick the case up a level and have the document reviewed manually. We have lots of exciting events coming up this spring and summer and being able to take online registrations and payments is huge for us.

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I ordered some raincoat fabric swatches from Seattle Fabrics. They arrived this week. Unfortunately, the fabric I loved the most is $37 a yard and I need six yards. That puts this project firmly in the “You could buy a ready-made raincoat for that price” category. I am aware that people sew clothing for reasons other than to save money. In fact, that reason is probably close to the bottom of the list given the ready availability of fast fashion. Still, I have to sit with that idea for a bit. This particular fabric comes in a dozen colors, so I could make something really fun.

The Sew Expo Adventure, Part 4

We ended our week at Sew Expo on a high note, with an excellent Saturday morning class on sewing machine needles. The teacher was a Schmetz educator and knew her stuff. (Schmetz needles are the ones I use.) Each student received a goodie bag:

This was better than Christmas. We got thread:

Fabric swatches:

A luggage tag with the fabulous Schmetz color-coding system on it:

And about 10 packs of needles, some of which we used in class. That classroom had Viking sewing machines.

The class was laid out in such a way that we were able to sew with different types of needles on many different kinds of fabrics. By the end of class—which went by too quickly!—we all had a good understanding of what needles were best for what applications. Even more importantly, we understood when it was possible, or even desirable, to bend the rules a bit.

After class, Tera and I loaded our stuff into the car and hit the road back to Spokane. We could have stayed through Saturday and driven back Sunday, but at the end of a busy week like that, I knew it would be better if we broke up the drive. I also had plenty of hotel points to use up. We checked in to the hotel when we got to Spokane, did a bit of shopping, and finished off with a dinner at Luna, one of our favorite Spokane restaurants.

We’ve already decided to go back again next year. We will have a better idea what to expect, having experienced it once. I’ll pay closer attention to teacher names, definitely, and try to choose classes on other brands of machines.

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I had eight women in my Coverstitch Basics class last night. Four were on Bernina L890s, two were on Bernette Funlocks, one was on a Bernina MDC, and one was on a Janome 2000cpx. I took my Janome 1000cpx—my first coverstitch machine—to use for demos. That’s the machine that had so many quality control issues. I had to take it apart and put it back together to get it to work properly. I keep it to use in classes.

I took lots of fabric scraps with me and by the end of class, each student was making beautiful coverstitch hems on a variety of fabrics, from thin rayon knits all the way up to ponte.

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The husband is going to set the brooder box up for me this weekend. I will make at least a couple of attempts to get chicks from the farm store next week, but if I am unsuccessful, then I will probably go ahead and just incubate eggs.

The little deer had a growth spurt while I was gone and is not quite so little anymore. Of course, a steady diet of sweet feed over the winter probably didn’t hurt.

The Sew Expo Adventure, Part 3

I have certain expectations when I take a class. I want the teacher to communicate exactly what we’re going to learn and how we’re going to learn it. Handouts should be presented in an organized format. If there is a project, it needs to do a good job of illustrating the technique(s) and be able to be completed in the allotted time. My Friday classes fell short of those expectations.

The morning class was Serging for the Home. The teacher was Pam Damour. I did not recognize her name when I signed up for the class, but she introduced herself as one of the authors of this book, which I own:

Not only did she introduce herself as the author, but she boasted that it was “probably the best serger book ever written.” I rolled my eyes at that. This book was a disappointment to me. It really should have been marketed as a coverstitch book, not a serger book. If you don’t have a serger with coverstitch capabilities, you can only do about a third of the techniques and projects included in the book.

Personality conflicts happen. I am aware that I am not everyone’s cup of tea. However, the teacher can do much to set the tone of the class, and I could tell we were going to have problems right from the beginning. She came across as disorganized and rude. At one point, she stopped the class and yelled at a student to put her cell phone away. The woman had stepped to the back of the classroom to take an emergency call from her husband (he couldn’t find his keys). I didn’t even know this woman was on her phone until the teacher stopped the class. That could have been handled much differently. She also made several jokes that I thought were unprofessional and inappropriate.

We were given a kit that included enough supplies to make a placemat with decorative flatlock stitches and a couple of rolled edge napkins. Most of the women in this class, however, had never seen or used these top-of-the line Bernina sergers. Flatlock and rolled edge are not basic stitches, but they require some practice. The placemat pattern was far too complicated, even with the handout. We were instructed to cut a piece off the side of the placemat, then sew it back on with a second piece of fabric to form a pocket. That was unnecessarily fussy. Once the pocket was done, we were supposed to draw guide lines for the flatlock stitching at 60-degree angles across the fabric. The handout indicated to space them 2” apart, but then we were told no, space them 3” apart. Straight vertical lines would have been far better for demonstrating the technique, especially because we had to be careful that the 60-degree lines didn’t cut across the pocket.

Because of the complexity of the project and the fact that there were 30 of us, the class never found a rhythm. We did not get to the rolled edge napkins because we ran out of time to change the threading and settings on the machines. I came home and took my placemat apart and repurposed the fabric.

The afternoon class was only marginally better. The teacher was a Bernina Educator and the class was Cozy Socks on the Overlocker. This class had no handout, because—as the teacher explained—we were supposed to “be creative” and “use our imaginations.”

Yeah, no. Here was a room full of women with that deer-in-the-headlights look—because most of them had never seen these machines before—who were being thrown into the deep end and expected to swim. Right off the bat, we had problems. The teacher told everyone to take the scrap piece of fabric next to the machine and test the stitch. I could tell immediately that my machine wasn’t set up correctly, but that’s because I’ve used this model. The machines had been in coverstitch mode for a previous class and one of the knobs needed to be turned back to a default setting. I fixed my machine and the machines of two women sitting nearby.

The teacher had one illustration on the flipboard at the front of the room, but it made no sense because we had no context. Thus, she had to come around and explain, in detail, exactly what she wanted us to do. All of that could have been helped considerably by a handout with a detailed line drawing and/or photos and a list of the measurements we needed to take. Some people had problems with the fabric in their kits not having been cut on grain. Half the students had microfleece from Joanns and half had an athletic knit fabric from an indie fabric supplier.

Eventually, I figured out what she wanted us to do and I went ahead and made my socks.

The idea has potential. I’m going to play around with it a bit more. I’d like to try making a pair in some compression-knit fabric.

It was after these two classes that I decided that perhaps I should apply to teach at Expo next year. I have the background and expertise and I know I could provide a better class experience than the ones I had. In addition to sewing classes, Expo also offers quite a few knitting classes. I could dust off some of my shorter knitting classes and submit proposals for them.

We’ll see. I keep saying I have no desire to get back on the teaching circuit like that—even regionally—but the temptation is great.

The Sew Expo Adventure, Part 2

I know enough about these kinds of events not to schedule myself into four days of back-to-back classes. Thursday was my light day, which turned out to be a good thing given the stomach issue of the day before. (I hadn’t been able to take my thyroid meds Wednesday morning and by Thursday afternoon, when I finally remembered to take them, I was dragging a bit.)

On Thursday morning, Tera and I took “Put Your Best Foot Forward,” taught by Bernina Educator Sylvain Bergeron.

We got to sew on the Kaffe Fassett 770 edition machines:

Let me just say that if I had been in the market for a new sewing machine, I would have plunked down the cash for this one without hesitation. I am turning into quite the Bernina fangirl and this is one sweet machine. I don’t need Yet Another Sewing Machine—and there is nothing wrong with my Janome 6600P—so I enjoyed the experience of sewing on this one and moved on.

This was an excellent class. Sylvain is an engaging and entertaining teacher. We tried out almost a dozen different presser feet. Bernina has a dizzying array of presser feet for all their machines and this class helped to demystify the differences. And we laughed a lot.

Tera had a class at 2 pm and my second one wasn’t until 3:30 pm, so we grabbed a quick lunch and went shopping. I found it interesting that although there were not very many quilting classes on the roster, quilting suppliers made up the bulk of the vendors. Every longarm machine company had a booth and just about every quilt store in the PNW was there.

We were mostly interested in garment fabrics, not quilting fabrics. Tera found an armful of knits at Billie’s Designer Fabrics. I was on the hunt for some raincoat fabric. Billie’s had a gorgeous navy blue cotton poplin with a nylon backing—Ryan Roberts deadstock—that would have been perfect, but there were only three yards left on the bolt and I need six. And it’s deadstock, so she can’t reorder. Splash Fabrics, from Seattle, also had a booth. Splash makes a laminated cotton, but it’s not quite what I am looking for in a raincoat fabric. I’ve made aprons from it.

The other garment fabric vendor was Amanda’s Bundles, from southern California. This is where I did most of my damage. The booth consisted of Rubbermaid totes full of two-yard packages of fabrics, mostly knits. I bought some beautiful seafoam green rayon ponte as well as this chicken-themed ITY knit:

ITY stands for Interlock Twist Yarn. ITY knits are very interesting. This one doesn’t have a lot of stretch, but it’s drapey and polished. I’ve never sewn with an ITY knit before and I’m eager to see how it sews up. I think it will work best as a simple knit tunic.

I also bought this double-brushed poly just because I loved the print. I may end up looking like my grandmother’s dinnerware, but I’ll have fun in the process:

As we were walking through one of the vendor buildings, I spotted Jen Stern sitting in her booth. I follow her YouTube channel—J Stern Designs—so we popped over to say hello. She had a pair of linen pants hanging in her booth that were from her latest set of videos. Jen designed the Sorcha Pants pattern to illustrate the top-down, center-out method of pants fitting. This method was first introduced by a woman named Ruth Collins in Threads magazine last year. Jen produced both the pattern and a waistband kit, which uses hook-and-loop tape for making the muslin of your pants. Tera and I each bought a set. This is probably going to be a project for next fall. The method makes a lot of sense to me. You start with the waistband placed on your body where you want it—no low-rise pants for me!—and fit the crotch and legs from there instead of making the pants and trying to figure out what you have to alter. I can follow along on Jen’s videos and she also offers Zoom fitting consultations.

My Thursday afternoon session was more of a lecture than a class, given by another Bernina educator. She used a Power Point presentation and passed around samples of decorative serger stitches using fancy threads. I came away with tons of ideas to develop into classes to teach here.

For dinner, I suggested we go to Mama Stortini’s, another local favorite from DD#1’s college days. We had her graduation dinner there. Tera ordered pasta and I ordered a cauliflower-crust mushroom and cheese pizza, but it took forever for our food to arrive. Apparently, they had burned my pizza and had to make me another one. The waitress offered us a free dessert, so we split the spiced pear in a snickerdoodle crust with vanilla ice cream. It was yummy. I joked that at the rate we were going, much of the food on our trip was going to be free.

Friday’s classes were my most disappointing ones of the week. More about them tomorrow.

The Sew Expo Adventure, Part 1

What an amazing week we had. The next few blog posts may be longer than normal just because I have so much to cover and I want to do it while everything is fresh in my mind.

The Sewing and Stitchery Expo—shortened to “Sew Expo” by most attendees—is an annual event sponsored by Washington State University. It is held at the state fairgrounds in Puyallup, Washington, near Tacoma. Attending Sew Expo has been on my bucket list for a couple of years. DD#1 is a 2014 graduate of Pacific Lutheran University, so I am familiar with that area. The Expo was held virtually in 2021 and 2022 because of the pandemic. When I found out it would be in person again at the fairgrounds this spring, I mentioned it to Tera, and of course she was all in. Everyone needs a friend like Tera.

We were able to get tickets and spots in our first-choice classes, made all the necessary travel arrangements, and waited impatiently for the end of February. We left for Puyallup last Tuesday morning. Getting out of Flathead County was a bit dicey as it was snowing heavily and the plows hadn’t been out yet. It took five hours instead of the usual four to get to Spokane, but around Ritzville, the weather cleared up nicely and we had a smooth drive the rest of the way. We arrived at the Airbnb, checked in, then headed to a local Indian restaurant for dinner. I’d eaten there several times when DD#1 was in college.

I was surprised to see how busy the restaurant was for a Tuesday evening. We had to wait about 20 minutes for a table, and the only dining option was a buffet. Tera did order some naan to go with the meal.

When it came time to pay for our meal, the restaurant only charged us for the naan and told us the buffet was free. Back at the car, Tera did some quick internet research and discovered that this restaurant offers a free buffet on the last Tuesday of every month in honor of health care workers, EMTs, law enforcement, military, and their families. Tera works at the hospital in Kalispell and the husband was an EMT for many years, so we didn’t feel too bad about taking advantage of the free meal. We headed back to the Airbnb and turned in for the night.

Unfortunately, I woke up Wednesday morning with a very upset stomach. I don’t think it was the Indian food—Tera ate exactly the same food I did—but I must have picked up a bug somewhere. (I do remember feeling a bit of indigestion after dinner, but I thought it was because I ate too much.) Wednesday was our big class day and I didn’t want to miss anything, so I sipped water and chewed peppermints and powered through.

Tera’s Wednesday morning class was Pattern Alteration Boot Camp. She said it was very good. My morning class was Serger Stitch Savvy. I went heavy on the serger classes because I wanted to identify (and close) the holes in my knowledge base. I thought I might also pick up some class ideas.

Next year, when I register, I will pay closer attention to the teacher names as well as the class topics. It turned out that our class was taught by Katrina Walker, author of this book:

This one is on my bookshelf and I refer to it often.

All machines are provided in class. Students need only bring basic sewing supplies. Local sewing machine dealers bring in the machines for students to use, then offer them at hefty discounts at the end of the show. (My Janome 6600P was a show machine when I bought it 10 years ago.) All of my serger classes ended up being on the Bernina L890, although I did not plan it that way. I have the Bernina L860. The only difference is that the L890 has coverstitch capabilities.

Katrina is an excellent teacher. Each student received a notebook full of pages—one for each stitch—complete with notes on suggested fabrics and usage. (I give my students a similar handout so that they can compile their own notebooks.)

We systematically went through all the serger stitches on the machine, made up samples, and pasted them into the notebook. Going in, I was still a bit weak on the two-thread serger stitches, so getting to work through those was very helpful. At the end of four hours, I had a notebook full of stitch samples.

I managed to keep down half a sandwich for lunch. Afterward, Tera and I went to our afternoon session on making and fitting a bodice sloper.

We hit the jackpot with our bodice sloper class. The woman who was supposed to teach the class had an emergency. Our substitute teacher turned out to be Joe Vechiarelli. (!!!!!!!) Joe works for ABC and Disney. He has done costuming and fitting for Dancing With the Stars and most recently dressed Rihanna for the Superbowl. He is a BIG NAME in the industry and he taught our class.

[Picture me fanning myself.]

Joe is such a nice guy. Not every teacher could have walked into a class of 30 women and done what he did. We submitted measurements ahead of time, so each of us had a draft sloper—courtesy of Garment Designer by Susan Lazear—waiting for us. He checked a couple of measurements on each of us and compared them to our slopers, then told us to trace a copy of the sloper to work from. (I had to lengthen my sloper by an inch right off the bat.)

Joe said that roughly 65% of the class needed a full bust adjustment, so he walked us through the process. I’ve done them before so this wasn’t entirely unfamiliar territory. I did the FBA and had him check it, then made the muslin to test the fit. He checked each of our muslins on us, marked adjustment lines, and had us re-sew them if necessary. We then transferred the changes to our slopers.

Here is Tera working on her sloper:

Late yesterday afternoon, after unpacking all my stuff, I re-traced my bodice sloper once more for a clean copy. And I had an epiphany.

Tera mentioned that one of her teachers had made a distinction between a “full bust” and a “prominent bust,” which has to do with how the breast tissue is distributed on the body. Whenever I have done an FBA on a pattern, I can get it to fit across my body, but I always have excess fabric at the upper sides and underarm and I’ve never known how to get rid of that. I’ve tried shortening the length of the armhole and/or pinching out a dart in the armscye, neither of which is a satisfactory fix.

I think I fall more into the prominent bust category. Most FBAs are intended for women with full busts. Those women need the extra fabric at the sides and underarms to cover their breast tissue. I don’t, so I get those goofy folds of extra fabric.

I looked at my bodice sloper after I re-traced it and it was staring me right in the face:

See the part I’ve circled in red? That angle and the resulting shape of the armhole—which is shorter and shallower—is the fix I think I needed. I will still get the coverage I require across the front, but there should be much less fabric at the sides and underarm. I’ll have to make up another muslin to test out my theory, but this is promising. What I needed was someone to help me fit a bodice properly and I got that with Joe. That class alone was worth the cost of the entire trip.

I still need to lengthen my sloper by another inch. Apparently, I have a very long torso, which is why tops are always too short for me.

We decided to swing through the Panera drive-through for dinner so I could get a bowl of chicken soup to take back to the Airbnb. Our Airbnb was very comfortable. It was about a mile from the fairgrounds in a small subdivision. We had use of the garage so I didn’t have to park on the street.

I’ll post about our Thursday classes tomorrow.