The Clowns are Here

We have been entertained by the antics of the Stellar jays this weekend. I put some scratch grains out on the platform bird feeder by the chicken coop. Three of them were arguing over who owned that territory:

I saw a fourth one in the trees, but I think it was too intimidated to come down and eat. The jays are only here for a couple of weeks, although the husband opined that these three might get too fat to fly anywhere.

We butchered chickens yesterday morning. Butchering is never fun, but it has to be done, so we do it as efficiently as possible. The husband and I were up early getting everything in place. Our former pastor, Jeryl, came to help, as he always does. Tera’s husband brought five of their chickens. Elysian came over with eight of her birds. We did 14 of our own. It took us two hours to process all 27. We worked in a light drizzle, which was less than ideal, but better than working on a hot day.

Our chickens are resting in the fridge in the old garage. I follow Nicole Sauce’s advice to allow them to sit for a day or two before sealing them in freezer bags. That way, they go through rigor mortis and are much more tender when cooked.

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In this week’s episode of “Can You Fix This?” I had to repair a pocket on one of the husband’s hoodies:

I cut off what was left of this pocket and sewed on a replacement. The fix is not pretty, but it’s functional.

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People constantly ask me how I get so much done. The topic of productivity also came up in the homesteading chat group this week, so I’ve been pondering some thoughts while I work.

I have been allotted the same number of hours, minutes, and seconds in the day as everyone else. Believe me, I wish I had more—I could get more done. But here are my cheat codes. These work for me. Your mileage may vary.

• I am married to someone who likes to work. People ask me if he ever relaxes and I joke that he relaxes by watching other people work. I am also a bit competitive. He will tell you that it’s not a competition to see who gets more done, although I suspect that if I were married to someone slightly less ambitious, I might ratchet my production back a bit. I do not see this competition as a bad thing. I appreciate the motivation that comes with being married to someone who works hard.

• I live by the monthly color-coded calendar that sits on my desk right in front of my computer. I am always looking ahead—by a day, a week, a month—to see what is coming down the pike. I don’t want to be surprised when I suddenly remember, with two hours to go, that I offered to make soup for our dinner meeting at church. I took the sausage for the soup out of the freezer on Friday afternoon so it could thaw overnight in the fridge. I browned it yesterday morning while I was cooking breakfast, then put the soup together to simmer all afternoon once we were done with chickens. (It was very good soup, by the way.) I put beans to soak yesterday so they would be ready for canning this afternoon. I try to be as proactive with my schedule as I can.

• I multitask. I know there are “experts” out there who will tell you that multitasking is impossible, or that it consists of doing many things badly at the same time. I think all of those experts are men. I think women, by their natures, are constantly multitasking. The husband asked me yesterday morning how women can get together in a group and sew, like at a retreat. He wondered how anything gets done. I told him he doesn’t understand because he’s not a woman.

• Organize, organize, organize. Systems, systems, systems. I use my canning supplies all year, so they are kept in an easily-accessible location in the basement. If I’m avoiding a task because it takes too long to locate all the needed supplies or because of some other bottleneck, that’s a sure sign I need a better system. And I make lists. Lots of lists.

• This one is a not a cheat code I’d recommend, but almost dying (twice) does tend to put time into perspective. I am grateful for the time I have and I don’t want to waste it.

My work habits have been honed over a lifetime, so I don’t even think about them much anymore. Maybe it’s discipline. Maybe it’s enjoyment and satisfaction from seeing a job through to completion. Maybe it’s excess energy. Whatever it is, this is how I am and I don’t intend to change.

Atelier Janet

I started out Thursday morning like a house on fire. I cut out a Laundry Day Tee from another chunk of rayon spandex (Walmart), a Harper Cardigan from some black waffle knit (Walmart), a Burda 6315 from some French terry (Joann Fabrics), and another Burda 6329 from a double-brushed poly (Joann Fabrics).

The French terry from Joanns has languished in my stash for far too long. Every time I took it out to make something with it, I would get frustrated by how badly it was off grain and I would put it back. The other day, I took it out, stretched the living daylights out of it, got the grainline mostly straight, then let it relax for a couple of hours before I cut a Burda 6315 from it.

My stripe matching is on point 🔥

I suspect this one will get a lot of wear.

Somewhere along the line, I lost the black cardigan I bought at Target last year, so I’ve been wearing an older black cardigan that is past its pull date and needs to be retired. I decided that a Harper Cardigan from the black waffle knit would be a good replacement. The black waffle knit is identical to a dark green waffle knit that I also got at Walmart. This stuff is so cozy. I made a Patterns for Pirates Cocoon Cardigan from the green waffle knit. Although I like that pattern and the cocoon cardigan turned out well, I think it looks funny on me because it needs to be about 3” longer. I spotted some of the black waffle knit on the remnant rack at our Walmart about a month ago but didn’t buy it. (I am trying to show some restraint.) When I went back to get it, it was gone. However, on my trip through Spokane a few weeks ago, I found another chunk of it on a remnant rack there and bought it.

I am not an impulse buyer, even of fabric. There has been a three-yard chunk of navy blue and white striped ponte on the remnant rack at our Walmart for several weeks now. (It’s very similar to the French terry, above.) Every time I saw it, I thought what a nice cardigan or jacket it would make. I was in Walmart yesterday and it was still on the remnant rack, so I gave in and bought it. I am thinking of using it for an Alina Design Company Fulton Sweater Blazer.

I am getting closer to my goal of having a curated closet of clothing that fits me well, coordinates nicely, and features colors I like. In the process, I am teaching myself fitting and pattern alteration. I know it seems like I am making more clothing than one person needs, but I don’t know how else to learn these principles except by doing. Eventually, I’ll cull the collection to the pieces I truly love and reach for over and over.

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Our Joann Fabrics now has a sign on the door now stating that they will be closed on Sundays beginning this month. Our store, at least—if not the entire corporation—is circling the drain. I did get the end of a bolt of a dark purple bengaline for making a full pair of Linda pants with my altered pattern. I got a smidge less than two yards for $4.

The body shop called yesterday afternoon and said the BMW was ready to go. The husband was home early, so he ran me in. Not only did the body shop fix the car, they detailed the inside of it, too. I feel like I am driving a brand-new vehicle. I do love that car. It’s been fun driving the Acura because it’s a stick shift, but I am glad to be back in the Diva. I noticed, when I got it home, that one of the wheels was missing its BMW badge. The husband said it was like that when I came back from Seattle. That seems to happen every time I go to the big city, so the husband keeps a box of replacement badges—available in bulk on Amazon—on hand.

The washing machine is fixed. I can do laundry again. I made the husband a couple of pumpkin pies from the pumpkin I canned on Tuesday. My goodness, those Galeux d’Elysine pumpkins are sweet! The next time I make a pie, I’ll cut down the amount of sugar. Pie from home-grown pumpkins is nothing like the pie made from canned Libby’s pumpkin. (That is not really pumpkin anyway, but a different squash variety.) It’s like the difference between eating vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes and the styrofoam ones they sell in the grocery store.

Today is chicken butchering day. It’s not our favorite day of the year, but it has to be done. If we don’t butcher chickens who are too old to lay, we’re just feeding pets. Feed is expensive. There is rain in the forecast for this afternoon, but we should be done by noon.

I put a couple of handfuls of scratch grains out on the platform feeder by the chicken coop yesterday afternoon, and within minutes, there were three Stellar jays arguing over who got the bounty. The bunny is about 2/3 white now. I’ll try to get a picture the next time it’s in the yard.

A New Tried and True

Alliteration and rhyming today.

I made up Burda 6329 a few weeks ago but I did not like the fact that the sleeve pattern piece had a shoulder dart in it. That pattern is designed for knit fabrics. I thought the dart was unnecessary and unattractive, so I re-drafted the top of the sleeve without it. Yesterday morning, I ran up a quick muslin to check the fit.

Close, but not quite. I had pulling at the shoulders. I generally like raglan tops because I have broad shoulders, but these sleeves needed more breathing room. I did a broad shoulder adjustment according to this tutorial on the 5 out of 4 Patterns website, then ran up another muslin out of some double-brushed poly from the Walmart remnant rack. I wasn’t crazy about the print—it was intended for use as a muslin all along—but now that the top is done, I like it very much.

It fits beautifully. I could live in Laundry Day Tees, but some of the fabrics in my stash are only two-yard lengths. The LDT needs about 2-1/2 yards because of the width of the front and back pieces that create the swing. I can get Burda 6329 out of two yards, and it’s dressier than a plain T-shirt thanks to those pleats at the front neckline.

Speaking of LDTs, I hemmed two more yesterday, as well. I’ve never been much for tie-dye, but I love these colors and this rayon spandex has a lovely feel and drape:

This black floral print is also rayon spandex, but in a lighter weight. It’s also a Walmart remnant rack find. It doesn’t feel like a very good fabric to me, to be honest—certainly not as nice as the tie-dye fabric—but I liked the print.

So that’s three tops added to the closet and another pattern added to the tried-and-true pile. I’ll probably run up a couple more using Burda 6329. I have two lengths of knits with chickens on them that are begging to be made into tops.

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I did my first podcast interview yesterday. It is destined for next week’s episode. I asked my friend JC Briar if she would be my first victim interviewee. JC was my tech editor for my Twists and Turns cable newsletter and my Aran and cable books. She is also a teacher and designer in her own right, as well as the author of Charts Made Simple and the mastermind behind Stitch-Maps charting software. Like many of us during the pandemic, JC turned to sewing, and now does the most fascinating improv quilting. You can follow her on Instagram at JC.Briar. (Make sure you include that period in her name.) I thought it would be fun to talk to her and I knew she would be understanding if things went sideways.

The recording went off without a hitch. It’s about 30 minutes long. We could have gone on gabbing—and I am hoping we can get together in person next summer—but I thought that was a good first effort. I can always have her back on the podcast. And now I feel more confident about asking other people to be guests.

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I got quite a bit done yesterday. I have got to figure out how to organize my schedule so I have more days to devote to sewing. I get a lot done when I can put my head down and work without interruptions. Besides making the Burda top and hemming it and the other two, I also ran up my second muslin of the Linda pants pattern (another bike shorts version). The smaller size fits better, at least in the bengaline, which is pretty stretchy. A stretch poplin may not have as much give.

I canned pumpkin Tuesday. I cut up one of the Galeux d’Eysine pumpkins—the variety with warts on it—and that yielded nine quarts. I promised to make a pumpkin pie for the husband today.

It’s raining. I don’t have to go anywhere so I am hoping for another productive sewing day. I finished the second of my Squash Squad blocks and need to get the third one ready to embroider. I’m also trying to decide what project to take on my next trip. I am going to be gone long enough that my little Janome sewing machine will come with me. I’ll probably take some simple scrap quilting project that doesn’t require a lot of thinking or cutting.

Apples and Aprons

We are practicing alliteration this week. 😊

My friend Susan and I, along with our pastor, were invited to lunch with two members of our congregation who are in an assisted living facility in Kalispell. I picked Susan up yesterday morning and we drove in to meet them there at noon. We had an excellent meal and visited with them for a couple of hours. Susan and I also ran our errands while we were out and about.

Susan has a large orchard of about 40 fruit trees, mostly apples. She loves heritage apple varieties and has grafted quite a few. Because she has run out of room in her own orchard, I am now the beneficiary of her grafting experiments and have half a dozen trees from her nursery. One of them is Westfield Seek-No-Further, which I asked her to graft specifically for me because it appears in a series of books I love by Sara Donati. (The Wilderness Series.) I’ve also got several Duchess of Oldenburg trees—my favorite pie apple—a Liberty, and a Spokane Beauty. She will have more for us to plant here next spring.

Susan and her husband went over to Sandpoint, Idaho, a few weeks ago for an apple tasting. The tasting was hosted by the Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center, part of the University of Idaho. Susan has also gotten scion wood for grafting from SOAC. She said she got to try about 30 different varieties of apples. SOAC hosts a free monthly webinar series on apples—breeding, growing, and harvesting—and Susan says they are very well done.

Apparently the museum there had an exhibit on aprons. Susan knows I love aprons, so she took some pictures for me. The first photo she took, though, was of the sign on the library:

How appropriate.

And the aprons!

I love this style, below. I don’t look that good when I’m ironing, though.

So elegant:

I might try to get over to Sandpoint next year for the apple tasting. It sounds like it was a lot of fun.

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I have to get my teeth cleaned this morning and then I am coming home to try to get some things done. I ought to can up the pumpkins because I want some on hand for making pies. I need to revisit that Linda pants pattern, too. And I have to figure out what is going on with the BMW and when I’ll be able to have it back.

Cooking and Canning and Copying

I added nine quarts of really nice chicken stock to the pantry yesterday:

Next up is another batch of ham stock. I’ve got quite a few bags of scraps and bones in the freezer.

We are butchering chickens on Saturday. Our church’s former pastor, Jeryl, is coming to help as he always does. (He lives up the road.) He usually brings chickens of his own, although I give him some of ours, too, as a thank-you for helping. He and the husband and I have an efficient system and can do several dozen birds in a morning. I think Elysian is coming over, and Tera’s husband wants to bring some of their chickens and learn the process, too. We should have a good group. I see showers in the forecast, but I can put up our pop-up tent. And the forecast probably will change between now and then.

After this, we should be back on our usual rotation of chicken breeds. Things got messed up during the pandemic when I couldn’t get chicks. I hatched out my own chicks that year, but they were Heinz 57 chickens. The next year, I had to get half of one variety and half of another. We also had some that the husband brought home from one of his customers. By next week, we should be back down to Barred Rocks, White Leghorns, and Dave. Dave is getting up there—roosters typically don’t last more than 4 or 5 years and he’s 3—so I might incubate half a dozen eggs in the spring and hope he fathers a replacement. He such a great rooster, though. I’ll be sad when he’s gone.

The mice are lining up to get caught in our traps. They are coming in on the south side of the house and the traps in the laundry room and in my office have been busy. Ugh. Hopefully this will be over in another couple of weeks. The two feral cats have been parked outside the chicken coop, but they aren’t catching everything.

Such is life in the woods.

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I’d love to get out of pattern alteration land. I’ve got Burda 6329—a pleated-front raglan tee shirt—on my cutting table so I can frankenpattern it with the Nancy Raglan. I like that Burda tee shirt except for the fact that the sleeves have darts. I don’t understand why, as that pattern is designed for knit tops. I usually only see darts in raglan sleeves for wovens. I think they distort the sleeve, so I want to take them out. I compared the two patterns and I should be able to make the sleeve for the Burda pattern look more like the Nancy Raglan.

Pattern alterations involve a lot of tracing, taping, and labelling. Sometimes I have the patience for that and sometimes I just want to sew.

I’ve also got to get started on some kind of Christmas outfit. I don’t want to leave that for the last minute.

I Found the Missing Fabric

The husband and I hit it hard yesterday. After a breakfast of bacon and eggs (ours, of course), he took apart the washing machine to see what was going on. It was throwing an error code because the drum wasn’t filling with water quickly enough. He thought that cleaning the filters would help, but after putting the machine back together, we determined that it still wasn’t functioning properly. The valve needs to be replaced. He ordered one and it should arrive next week. In the meantime, I can wash clothes if I add a few gallons of water to the drum and make the washer think that it has filled to the proper water level.

[I have a washing machine and a husband who knows how to fix it. I will manage.]

He went outside to work on some equipment-related projects. I did the rest of the laundry and tidied up the house. I started two trays of lettuce in the indoor growing system and set the chicken stock to cook down. I also froze containers of chili for the husband to eat while I am traveling. Our neighbor, Anna, brought us a big pot of chili left over from one of her catering events. We ate some for dinner the other night but there was a lot of it.

After lunch, I made a top:

I am planning to wear this to church with my hot pink corduroys. The fabric is a fine-gauge sweater knit from the Walmart remnant rack. It has a bit of shine to it so I think it must have some rayon in it. The pattern is the Nancy Raglan from 5 Out of 4. I love this pattern. It was one of the first ones I tried when I started making my own clothes, and comes in top, tunic, and dress lengths. I’ve made several from sweatshirt fleece; this is the first time I’ve tried a sweater knit. The entire top took two hours, start to finish. I did stabilize the raglan seams with some knit stay tape.

I also located my missing bin of fabric. It was in the closet; I just hadn’t dug deeply enough. I want to check the fit of the smaller size Linda pants with another quick bike short muslin, and if I’m satisfied, I’ll make a pair of pants with the Hobby Lobby bengaline. I’ll remember to cut them on the crosswise grain this time, because bengaline stretches down the length of the fabric, not across the width.

I wish I had started making my own clothes a long time ago. I could have avoided decades of muddy earth tones, sad pastels, and ill-fitting garments.

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Our congregation is getting ready to host our annual International Gift Festival, November 9-11. This sale features handmade items from artisans all over the world. We’ll also be serving soup and homemade pies in our Village Cafe.

We can always use more volunteers (the oft-heard refrain), so if anyone local would like to come and help, we would love to have you join us. Those of us working at the sale always have a good time. We also need donations of homemade pies for the Village Cafe. (Just not pumpkin—every year we get a ton of pumpkin pies and it’s nice to have a wider selection.) The Crown of the Continent Choir will present a concert on Friday evening at 7 pm.

This year, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Heart Locker and Sparrow’s Nest, two nonprofits here in the Flathead Valley.

Come to Class

I traveled to Missoula yesterday to teach a serger mastery class. This is a free-to-students class for owners of Bernina sergers. (I get paid to teach it.) I left a bit early because I wasn’t sure what the roads would be like. As it turns out, the areas south of here got more snow than we did. Traffic was minimal, but I wasn’t traveling at my usual speed.

My class was at A Clean Stitch. The store has been in this strip mall for a couple of years, but it quickly outgrew its original location. Last spring, it moved down a few spots to a much larger space. The owners still have another 5000 square feet to organize and renovate into a service area and classroom space, so my class was in the main store area. Fortunately, it was a quiet day in the store.

Five students registered. Four came to class; the fifth decided not to travel because of the roads. One student thought that class ended at noon instead of 2 pm and had to leave for an appointment. Another student thought class ended at 1 pm and also had to leave. I crammed as much information into those two hours as I could for them, but we didn’t cover everything.

I don’t know what to think about these classes. Students sign up and don’t come, or come and leave early. I tell myself that as long as I am getting paid to teach the class, it’s not big deal for me, but the students are losing out. Maybe if they had to pay for a serger mastery class, they would be a bit more careful about getting their money’s worth. Or not. Sometimes that doesn’t seem to make a difference.

I’m scheduled to teach two more classes at this store—one in November and one in December—so we’ll see what happens with those.

I checked out the two Walmart stores on my route and both still had full remnant racks, which was gratifying.

We need a photo for the blog today, so here is one of the banners hanging up at church:

Isn’t that lovely? Ginger, who is in charge of visuals for our sanctuary, is so creative. I love walking into that space every Sunday morning and seeing what’s she done.

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I need to spend some time today on housekeeping. I’m going to start a roaster pan of chicken stock to cook down this morning. I’ll can it tomorrow afternoon. The husband is going to look at the washing machine (a Speed Queen) because it’s throwing an error code and stopping mid-cycle. He thinks the filter screen is plugged up. I have a few mountains of laundry to wash when that’s sorted.

The body shop called yesterday. The car would have been done yesterday afternoon, but they tried to put the new bumper on and realized that it was the wrong part. The attachment clips didn’t line up. They ordered the correct bumper, but it’ll be another week and a half before it gets here. In the meantime, they will repaint the old bumper and put it back on. The car should be ready Monday or Tuesday. I am not thrilled about having to take it back in a second time, but it is what it is.

My hot pink wide wale corduroys from Macy’s arrived this week. They fit nicely. I plan to wear them to church on Sunday and blind everyone. The bizarre thing is that the tag on the pants is in US sizing, so why they were posted with the weird 25-36 size range on the website is beyond me.

I have lost some fabric. I have a bin of wovens somewhere, but it is eluding my attempts to find it. I can even picture what fabrics are inside. I am pretty sure that it contains some Hobby Lobby bengaline, and now that I have this Linda pants pattern under control, I’d like to make a pair with that fabric. Part of me says that this is an indication that I have too much fabric, but the other part argues that I just need to label bins more clearly.

Pants and Socks and Other Clothes

I ran up another muslin for the Style Arc Linda Pants—incorporating the changes to the rise—and they fit so much better! The wrinkles are gone. I am going to drop down a size, though. I seem to be erring on the larger side of some of these patterns. I think that once I have this pattern dialed in, these pants will become a wardrobe staple. I do get tired of jeans.

I also finished the second LDT and took in that sleeve/armscye seam on the Sadie top. Those are waiting to be hemmed.

And I went through every single one of my patterns and divided them into three piles: 1) don’t like; 2) definite keepers; 3) still want to try or re-try. Now I just need to prioritize that third category.

I taught my serger sock class last night. A few days ago, when I checked, I had four students registered. One didn’t come because of the weather, another had to cancel for a family emergency, and a third forgot about the class. (We called her, but she lives too far away to have gotten there in time.) The store owner decided to take the class, though, so the three of us spent a very pleasant couple of hours visiting and making socks.

I provided the fabric for this class. I don’t usually do that, but I wanted something specific, and I knew that if I had trouble sourcing it, the students certainly would. I ordered an athletic knit, but what I got wasn’t the same as the sample fabric I had on hand. I defaulted to some swimwear knit. That worked, but I’d still like to find more of this brushed athletic knit.

[Why do I like shopping the Walmart remnant rack? Because I can see and feel the fabric and don’t have to order blindly.]

The second fabric I wanted was some microfleece. Again, I had a sample that had come from Joanns, but every Joanns between here and Spokane was sold out. On my way to Seattle a few weeks ago, I stopped at the Joanns in Moses Lake, Washington, and they had a bolt of that microfleece on the clearance rack so I bought what was left. Joanns still has it listed on their website. I might order more in case I want to teach this class again, although the store owner is trying to find a supplier for it.

[These are first-world problems. I am aware of that.]

The socks turned out very cute. This is the swimwear fabric:

And this is the microfleece. The store owner liked her microfleece socks so much that she wore them home.

I’ve got a serger mastery class in Missoula tomorrow. I pulled out one of my Nancy Raglans (5 Out of 4 Patterns) to wear to class last night. I do like that top. If I have time, I’d like to make up another one today that I can wear tomorrow.

The store owner threw out the idea of having a serger retreat. She has frequent retreats for quilters and embroiderers and they almost always sell out. She holds them at the church camp on Flathead Lake where the husband and I were in the deck collapse in 2017. I haven’t been back there since. You can be sure, though, that I won’t be going out on that deck again.

We’ll see. That would take some planning, but it would be fun—a whole weekend of nothing but serging and someone else cooking all the meals.

Falling Off the Cliff Into Winter

We got about 2" of snow yesterday, followed by a back door cold front. It’s 20 degrees right now with gusty northeast winds. Temps are supposed to warm up into the low 40s next week, but I think we can safely say that the seasons have changed. I am not unhappy about this. I like the slower pace of winter, and dark and gloomy doesn’t bother me like it does some people. I also have more time to sew.

Our resident bunny is getting whiter and whiter:

I had to run into town for an appointment yesterday morning, so I put on my peacoat with my new lambswool scarf. Isn’t it pretty?

The scarf was a gift from my neighbor, Theresa, from her trip to Ireland last spring. It is so soft and warm.

When I got home from town, I put together a long-sleeve Laundry Day Tee and a Seamwork Sadie. I made a Sadie last year. The pattern didn’t immediately make it to the tried-and-true list because I was undecided about the fit. It is billed as a “structured sweatshirt,” although it feels oversized and slouchy to me, especially in the shoulders. The description indicates dropped shoulders. I’ve noticed some discrepancies between sewing and knitting terminology. My definition of dropped shoulders is a rectangular body with no sleeve cap shaping. (Think Alice Starmore.) Sadie has both armscye and sleeve cap shaping. What it feels like is that the upper bodice just isn’t drafted well. I pinned out the excess in the sleeve and armscye after making this version, and the effect of pulling up those shoulders to where the seam should sit was dramatic. I’ll re-sew that sleeve seam today. I also changed the pattern in case I decide to make it again, but honestly, I think I like Burda 6315 better. We’ll see.

I am re-making some of these patterns I’ve made before even though I was ambivalent about them the first time. I know more now than I did a year ago, so I want to revisit some patterns to see if I can adjust them to fit better.

I sewed up a second LDT yesterday that needs either a neckband or a cowl. After that, the next one in the queue will be a Juniper Cardigan in some navy blue hacci sweater knit. A navy blue cardigan never goes amiss. And I still need to do the second muslin of the Linda pants.

The Socks on the Serger class is tonight. I think it will be a fun one.

A Winter Storm Approaches

I think the universe knew I needed a break after my travels. Early yesterday morning, I dropped the car off at the body shop. While I was waiting for the husband to come pick me up, I got a call from the dentist’s office. Could they reschedule my cleaning? The hygienist was out with a sick child. That freed up my scheduled for the afternoon. I went back into town—driving DD#1’s Acura—and stopped at the quilt store north of town to see if I had any students for today’s class. Nope! That freed up today’s schedule.

I did a Costco run, then came home and moved the squash from the greenhouse to the old garage. This is the forecast for this week as of 4 am:

It will be chilly. How much snow we get depends on how far down the snow levels drop. I am glad I got my snow tires put on before my trip. The husband fired up the wood boiler over the weekend, so the house is nice and toasty. We were sitting in the living room last night, watching YouTube, when I heard a trap go off. Sure enough, a mouse had met a sad end in the laundry room. I expect a few more of them to try to get in this week. ‘Tis the season.

I don’t think there will be any problems with my Wednesday evening class. The storm will have moved out of here by then.

I cut out two Laundry Day Tees yesterday afternoon. Fabric does me no earthly good sitting in the stash. I have fabric set aside for three more. At least one or two of them will have the cowl neckline instead of the plain scoop. I got the Juniper Cardigan printed while I was in town yesterday and may cut that one out, too. I am feeling the need for some cozy tops and sweaters and I have a pile of patterns waiting:

• Sew House Seven Toaster Sweater

• Burda 6315 (hacked to make it long enough for me, with a turtleneck mod)

• Juniper Cardigan

• Harper Cardigan

• Nancy Raglan

• New Look 6771

• Seamwork Sadie

• A few others picked up along the way

I’ve also got a nice stash of sweater knits and lengths of French terry that I’ve been collecting over the past year. I reach for my Burda 6315 and Nancy Raglan tops over and over because they fit so well, but I’d like to add a few more to the tried and true pile.

I also adjusted the front and back rises on the StyleArc Linda pants. I’ll run up another bike short muslin to see how close I am. Just to put it in perspective, the crotch seam on the Linda pants pattern measures 28". The crotch seam on my work pants measures 31". (That’s the crotch seam, not the inseam.) When I talk about the rise on most pants being too short for me, I am not kidding. My body measurements are just far enough outside the average that I’ve got to make adjustments.

Pants—The Continuing Saga

I ran up a muslin of the StyleArc Linda pants using the stretch cotton I bought at Hobby Lobby. The bad news is that the pattern needs some adjustments to fit me properly. The good news is that I am getting better at figuring out exactly what I have to fix. I had the husband take a photo of the front and back of the pants while I was wearing them. Based on the wedgie I was getting, I suspected the rise was too short. The photos showed the wrinkles. I checked the photos against the wrinkle chart in one of my fitting books and that confirmed my hunch.

Here are the Linda pants next to my favorite Noble Outfitters work pants. I love the way these fit. The difference is obvious:

I considered adjusting the crotch seam on the Linda pants—the white chalk line—but looking at these pants next to each other, I think I need a more drastic revision. I am going to enlist the husband’s help in getting an accurate set of measurements before I try again.

It’s no wonder I hate low rise pants. I feel like the poster child for why ready-to-wear looks so awful on most women.

I signed up for a two-hour private lesson at the Sewing and Design School in Tacoma a few days before Thanksgiving. That’s where Kenneth D. King teaches, although my class is with one of the other instructors. The private class can be anything I want, so I asked for help with drafting a pants sloper for myself.

Some day, when I make my way out of this pants maze, I’d like to get back to making more sweaters and tops. I have that Stretch & Sew pattern for the saddle-shoulder sweater, but I’m also kicking around making a Juniper Cardigan by Jennifer Lauren Handmade:

This cardigan has a saddle shoulder detail, as well, and comes in two lengths.

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We had stellar weather yesterday, so I worked out in the garden. We finally got a frost, I think, but it wasn’t hard enough to kill the tomatoes completely. The Blue Boar Berry cherry tomato plant is still churning out ripe ones. Go figure. I brought in a bucket full of the last of the tomatillos and tomatoes. I cut the cabbages and made “egg roll in a bowl” in the Instant Pot with one of them for dinner.

I’ve been watching Michael Snyder’s Pacific Northwest Weather Watch channel for the past week. It’s been a battle of computer models. The GFS (North American) model has been steadfast in its prediction that we will get cold air from Canada mid-week that will bring snow. The European model had the cold air staying above the border—and no snow—but it capitulated yesterday and is now in agreement with the GFS.

The husband replaced the mixing valve on the hot water heater yesterday and fired up the wood boiler. I will hang up the rest of the insulated curtains today and we will wait to see what the weather throws at us this week.

All Coverstitch, All Day

I finished my class sample for the coverstitch class yesterday morning, and then I recorded next week’s podcast—the topic, of course, being coverstitch machines. I seem to have fallen into a pattern of using whatever I’m working on as the main topic for the podcast. The subject material is fresh in my mind and easy to talk about. I didn’t think I could blather on about coverstitch machines for 30+ minutes, but I did.

(I have a bit more to say about the podcast later on in this post.)

I made a sampler of what I want to teach in the coverstitch class:

From bottom to top:

• A rolled-edge ruffle—the rolled edge was done on the serger—gathered with a chainstitch on the coverstitch machine and then stitched down to the background fabric with a two-needle narrow coverstitch over 3/8'' satin ribbon. I keep looking at that and thinking it would make a nice detail on the lower edge of an apron . . .

• A two-needle wide coverstitch, looper side up, using 12wt Wonderfil Spagetti in the looper.

• A stacked coverstitch—a la Gail Yellen—done by first making a two-needle wide coverstitch with 12wt Spagetti, then going over it with a different color Spagetti using a two-needle narrow coverstitch. A third pass could be added using a chain stitch (one needle).

• Jumbo rickrack attached with a chainstitch using 12wt variegated thread in the looper.

• Zipper insertion featuring, on the bottom, a decorative two-needle narrow coverstitch, looper side up. I had a little hiccup getting around the zipper pull because the coverstitch machine doesn’t have a true zipper foot. The top is a triple coverstitch (three needles), needle side up.

The sampler isn’t perfect, and it isn’t an actual project, but it gets the point across. If I have some time between now and the class next month, I would like to design some kind of zipper pouch to incorporate and show off these techniques. As it was, I was trying some of them for the first time. I have run into situations where class proposals require that the student make a project as part of learning a technique. I have mixed feelings about that. While it’s nice for students to be able to show off an item they have made, working on a “project” in class brings added pressure. Students tend to compare their projects and focus more on perfection than learning. This is an evening class and we may not even be able to get through all the techniques on the sampler, let alone make a zipper pouch. My goal is to introduce the techniques and inspire students to think about creative ways to use them. I know my students. They won’t disappoint me.

Class prep is a lot of work. That’s part of why I am happy to be teaching some of these classes at the stores in Missoula and Spokane, because if I am going to spend a day making class samples, I’d like to use them more than once. But now that I know what I want to teach in the class, I can make up the supply list and the handout.

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The podcast is having some (not unexpected) growing pains. Yesterday’s recording will be episode 8. I am happy with the analytics so far but I need to start recording some interviews. A podcast that consists of me blathering on for half an hour may not be sustainable.

I listened to an excellent podcast episode on the way to Seattle. The host was Toolman Tim Cook of Workshop Radio, who was also at the Self-Reliance Festival. Tim and his wife live in Alberta, which makes us almost neighbors. Tim has a great story and gives a talk at events about escaping the “poverty mindset.” He is also an all-around Nice Guy and a terrific podcast host. The topic of that episode was “content creation”—that’s the new buzzword—and his guests were Nicole Sauce (Living Free in Tennessee podcast), Brian Aleskivich from the LOTS Project, and Kyle Perrault of Backwoods Butcher. (Kyle did a pig butchering demo at SRF.)

My big takeaways from that content creator roundtable discussion were 1) consistency is huge and 2) it may take a couple dozen episodes before things really gel for a podcast. Nicole laughs about the fact that her first podcast episode had 87 downloads and the second episode had 14—of which she and her mother were two. That was eight years ago and now she’s hosting big events and being asked to present at conferences around the country. I have no such ambitions but the trajectory her life has taken is fascinating.

I do need to give some attention to my social media links for the podcast and get them organized such that posts automatically go up for each new episode. Even with as much frontloading as I did, I haven’t covered everything yet. I keep telling myself Rome wasn’t built in a day. This is a process. I am having fun with it and that’s the important part.

Overly Ambitious Class Plans

Today will be a day of sewing. I have to get my decorative coverstitch store samples done so they can be put up on display. Some students will sign up just because it’s a serger/coverstitch class—even without knowing what they are going to learn—but others want to be able to see and touch an example of what we’ll be doing in class.

It’s a three-hour evening class, so there won’t be a ton of time. I sketched out a class plan with ambitious goals, but soon realized that if I want to teach everything on my list, we would be having a sleepover at the quilt store. Fun, but probably not what the owner imagined.

I’ll see where I am at the end of today. We might have to have an advanced coverstitch class after the holidays. It’s about time to be planning spring classes anyway. I have two students who want a Harper Cardigan class—they couldn’t take the one I did last month—and I talked to another woman yesterday who also would take it if I offer it again.

Quilting on the cream-and-white Scrapper’s Delight top has reached the halfway point:

I worked on it yesterday afternoon. I need to can up a few more items for the pantry for winter, so I ran 15 pints of red beans through the canner while I quilted. Beans take 90 minutes to process at 15 pounds of pressure:

I still need to do some white beans and pintos. The beans that have been drying in the greenhouse also have to be brought back to the house so I can shell them in the evenings. And we need more chicken stock.

It is slow going on that quilt top. It’s a king-sized top, and the table is 6' wide when the extensions are up, but quilts are surprisingly heavy. Moving the quilt around to quilt the pattern I’ve chosen—circles with a ruler—takes a bit of effort. I have to roll the quilt and make sure the edges aren’t hanging off the sides of the table. I do have the Horn table with the hydraulic lift, which has been a godsend. I brought in one of the tall chairs from our kitchen table and raised the table so the quilt won’t drag on the floor.

Slow and steady wins the race. Two hours here and two hours there and it’ll get done eventually. Loops would have been faster and easier. Ruler work always takes longer than free motion quilting. I’m trying to expand my horizons, though, and I do like the way this pattern looks.

If I get the coverstitch samples done today, I will move on to the Linda pants from Style Arc. (So far, we’ve had the Linda Top by Sinclair Patterns and now the Linda Pants by Style Arc, which is not confusing at all.)

I also picked up this New Look pattern on my travels last week:

I have no idea when I will get to it, but I like both the top and the pants. Both would lend themselves well to some decorative coverstitching on the seamlines.

Next week is ridiculously busy. I really need to have a talk with the person who manages my schedule. The Diva goes in Monday morning for body work on the damage from the accident last spring. (Yes, it took this long to get an appointment.) I will be driving DD#1’s Acura for at least a week. Monday afternoon is a dental appointment for a cleaning. I am scheduled to teach a class at the quilt store north of town on Tuesday, and I have the Socks on the Serger class Wednesday evening at the quilt store south of town. Thursday is open—for the moment, at least—and then it’s a day trip to Missoula on Friday to teach a serger mastery class. November is going to be a marathon, too. I had to let the music teacher know that I wouldn’t be available to play piano for her concert this year, much as I would love to, because I know better than to try and shoehorn anything else into the schedule.

Treasures From the Trip

At the Quilting Bee, the large quilt store in Spokane, I bought myself something nice with some of my profits from the craft co-op sale. I have been wanting one of these custom seam ripper/stilettos:

Each end pulls out and flips around to reveal either the seam ripper or stiletto. The tool has a nice weight to it, as well, and I think it will make ripping seams less tedious. I am learning to appreciate a really sharp seam ripper.

I picked up this serger pattern:

This might make a good class. I’ll make one up and see if the quilt store can order the pattern. Most everyone in my classes at the quilt store south of town has an L890 and thus has coverstitch capabilities. My big quibble with some of these patterns is that they say “serger” on them but you have to read the fine print to realize that they require coverstitch settings for some of the stitches. Not all sergers can coverstitch.

This is the blue damask—Joanns labeleled it “Delft” on the bolt—ponte fabric I picked up at the Alderwood Joanns.

Technically, I think it should be labelled a doubleknit, not a jersey knit. I categorize knits based on their structure, as you might expect a former knitting designer to do. This Threads article on identifying knits is very helpful, although I also think—splitting hairs, here—that doubleknit and interlock knits are really the same thing; doubleknits sometimes have a jacquard appearance to them, with different patterns on the two sides of the fabric. The term “doubleknit” carries that unfortunate taint of 1970’s polyester with it, however.

I will check my Sandra Betzina fabric book and see what she has to say.

Moving on . . . DD#2 suggested that I listen to this episode of the Glossy podcast, which is an interview with the Chief Merchandising Office of Macy’s, Nata Dvir. Macy’s has stopped carrying the Charter Club brand—at least in stores—and replaced it with a new women’s apparel house brand called On 34th.

This interview was fascinating. Dvir explained that Macy’s realized that they were underserving the 30-year-old to 50-year-old market (duh) and embarked on a project to find out what those women wanted when shopping for clothing.

[What a novel concept—asking customers what they want. How odd. /<sarcasm>]

They surveyed women, held focus groups, tested products, and finally came up with this new brand. I went to their website yesterday morning and checked it out. I like what I see. I especially liked these pants and ordered a pair, which made DD#2 remark that they got their target customer right:

I am withholding judgment until I see how they fit. The sizing for these pants was bizarre. The sizes ran from 24 to 36, which I understand can be similar to European sizing, but there was no way to correlate that—even by body measurements—with US sizing. I finally broke down and had an online chat with one of their stylists to figure out that a size 12 in US pants corresponded to a size 32 in the sizes listed.

[I am being rather pedantic today, aren’t I? Did you miss me?]

I do like that top, too, although I didn’t order one because I could tell by the specs given that the tops in the On 34th brand will be too short on me. Oh well. I can make one in a similar color.

Macy’s seems to be pulling out of the nosedive it has been in for a few years. Perhaps they should offer a master class to Joann’s corporate staff and suggest the same strategy of listening to customers.

I can’t believe that even has to be a thing. 🤦‍♀️

I am itching to start a quilt but I need to finish the one on the Q20, first. I worked on it yesterday afternoon. I used Warm and White batting—not Warm and Natural as I usually do—and I am finding it very irritating to my eyes. The bleach? I can only work on that quilt in two-hour stretches. I am almost to the halfway point, though. And I need to get my decorative coverstitch class sample made.

Spinning at SRF

I have had a whirlwind week, but it was great fun. I left last Tuesday morning to drive to Spokane, stopping at the small quilt store there to drop off two pairs of pants—one Jalie Renee and one New Look 6689—and talk to the owner about next month’s pants class. I visited one of the three Joann Fabrics stores. (Eh.) I checked out three Walmart remnant racks. One had been eliminated completely since my visit in August. Another had been scaled back to half the size. The third one was still there but didn’t have much inventory. I picked up a salad for dinner at Fred Meyer and checked into my hotel.

Early Wednesday morning, I headed for Seattle. The town of Moses Lake sits about halfway between Spokane and Seattle and is a good place to stop and stretch my legs. Moses Lake also has a Walmart and Joann Fabrics close to each other. I found two remnants at Walmart—a double-brushed poly and a rayon spandex—and spent an hour wandering Joanns. That location has only been open for about six or seven years. Their remnant rack is always full to bursting. Their clearance rack is well stocked, too. I scored some microfleece—I need some for my serger sock class next week and every store in Missoula, Kalispell, and Spokane is out—and got three cuts of Christmas fabric at 40% off. I also found some of the rayon sweatshirt fabric from two years ago. That was a really nice fabric—muddy earth tones notwithstanding—and I couldn’t figure out why they didn’t continue to carry it.

[Who am I kidding? No one is making rational decisions at that company.]

I continued on to Seattle, arriving in enough time to visit the mall where DD#2 worked when she first moved there. I needed new shoes and was able to find two pair at Nordstrom. I checked in at Half-Price Books and found a blacksmithing book for the husband. (We established early on in our relationship that I am good at hunting down reading material for him, so I make a point of checking bookstores when I travel.) I visited the Joann Fabrics nearby and was shocked to see a large selection of new fall apparel fabrics. Granted, most of it was in muddy earth tones again (sigh), but I did find a beautiful bolt of ponte in a blue Delft pattern. That is destined to become a dress.

I am unreasonably annoyed by the fact that our Joanns has nothing. Either our store is no longer getting shipments of fabric or there are boxes upon boxes of new stock languishing in the back room, sitting unopened due to lack of staff. Either way, it irritates me. Our store might as well just shut down.

I had dinner with DD#2, then spent the night at another hotel—I love reward points—and flew to Nashville Thursday morning. I arrived around 4:30 pm and was met by my ride to the little town of Camden, Tennessee.

This is why I went to Tennessee:

Nicole Sauce, whose Living Free in Tennessee podcast I have listened to for eight years, co-hosts the Self-Reliance Festival twice a year with John and Amanda Willis, who own Special Operations Equipment in Camden. I attended Nicole’s Spring Workshop in April, and we arranged that I would come back to do spinning demonstrations at the fall Self-Reliance Festival.

SRF is held on the grounds of Special Operations Equipment. SOE is a sewing factory. Can you imagine????? I visited with John about the industrial machines—over 50 of them—and looked at a Red Eye (Singer 66) treadle that Amanda recently purchased at auction.

The tag line for SRF is “Find Your Tribe.” Oh, these people are my tribe and then some. My friend from high school—Bob—and his girlfriend, Deana, drove over from their home on the east side of Tennessee to attend SRF, too. Deana had a vendor booth selling her handmade aprons and shawls and bowl cozies:

Nicole brought her Ashford Traditional spinning wheel along for me to demo on. A few people took me up on my offer to try spinning. I find that it works best if I do the treadling for them. A newbie spinner has enough to worry about just getting his or her hands organized.

The highlight of the fall SRF was a keynote presentation and chicken processing workshop by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms. The husband and I have been fans of his for many years, so getting to meet him in person was truly amazing.

If his keynote address gets posted on YouTube, I’ll make sure to link to it. The chicken workshop was Monday and I flew home Monday morning, but I am sure that those who attended got a lot of value from it.

I arrived back in Seattle around noon local time on Monday, picked up my luggage and the car, and drove back to Spokane. I spent the night in Yet Another Hotel—a theme for this trip—and drove home yesterday morning. I’ve got a podcast to knock out today and some paperwork to clear off my desk. I’ve also got to get back on a decent eating plan. I did fine at SRF because we had lots of keto/carnivore options, but I wasn’t so disciplined on the trip home and I am feeling it. I’ll show off my fabric purchases in tomorrow’s post.

A Twist Top, Potatoes, and Date Night

The narrow coverstitch hem on the neckline of the Linda Twist Top worked beautifully:

I will use that technique again in the future. It wasn’t as tricky as I thought it might be. The only change I would make is to use knit stay tape at the shoulders instead of organza ribbon. I use 1/4" organza ribbon to stabilize the shoulders of all my knit tops, but the hem was a bit bulky in those places. The shoulders have to be sewn before hemming the neckline. I prefer the ribbon over the stay tape, but I would use stay tape in this situation.

The top itself was fun to make and turned out well (still needs hemming).

Construction requires both a sewing machine and a serger. Both the center front seam and the topstitching around the opening for the knot have to be done on the sewing machine.

This version, unfortunately, is a bit too big. I was between sizes according to my bust measurement and went up when I should have gone down. I try to adhere to Zede Donohue’s admonition that “knits should skim, not cling,” but that can be a moving target depending on the pattern and fabric. This pattern does indicate negative ease at the bust, which is appropriate for knits, but the entire upper bodice is just a bit too loose and tends to slide around. I will go down a size—and possibly move that V-neck up a tad—when I make the next one. I don’t wear a lot of V-necks precisely because most of them are too low and too wide.

I finished the top just as the husband got back from a concrete-cutting job. He tends to fit those in on evenings and weekends because they are small jobs that don’t take very long. Our weather has been gorgeous, so we decided to go out and dig up potatoes after lunch.

The potato crop this year was a bit disappointing. That part of the garden needs some soil amendments. Next spring, I will put down a bunch of rotting straw and cover the whole area with black plastic. The area on the other side of the garden where we did that a few years ago is the spot that always produces a bumper crop of potatoes. We have enough for the two of us, though.

The husband needed new work boots, so he suggested we go to the Army-Navy store and then out to dinner. I dropped him off to do his boot shopping and went across the street to Joann Fabrics. This is the Butterick pattern that I want to use for my pants class—the one I thought was OOP because the Joanns website said it wasn’t in stock in Kalispell and wasn’t available to ship:

I checked the drawer anyway and found four copies—two in the smaller size range and two in the larger size range. (I should know better than to believe Joanns’ inventory system.) Butterick patterns are $1.99 each this weekend so I bought all four. I’m not thrilled with this pattern because it only comes in alphabet sizing instead of actual garment sizes, but at least I have it.

I think that I am going to bring copies of all these patterns to class and will decide in class which pattern will work best for which student. Each student can pay me for the pattern and take it home with her.

For dinner, we went to a different steak house between Kalispell and Whitefish. We’re trying to use up some gift cards. I had a chopped steak with bleu cheese on top and the husband had a Porterhouse. We finished off dinner with an amazing piece of caramel apple cheesecake.

And then it was off to Home Depot. The husband had a whole shopping list of things he needed:

We discussed cars over dinner. I want to drive the BMW for as long as I can, but I need a contingency plan. I told him to choose something for me because that Volvo station wagon is now out of the running. He knows cars better than I do. Also, he has to work on it, so it’s got to be something that isn’t going to cause him to throw wrenches around his shop. He is leaning toward the Acura MDX. These are my requirements for a new car:

• Station wagon or SUV

• All-wheel drive

• It has to be a color other than white. (White cars in a place that has snow six months out of the year is just stupid, IMO. You can’t see them on the road. Also, most of the time it actually would be light gray because of all the dirt.)

• Heated seats

• Sunroof

• A six-cylinder engine. (I have been driving a BMW for the past seven years and I don’t want to go back to something that plods along.)

I probably will do what I did with the BMW and keep checking the dealers in Seattle to find a two year-old lease turn-in. He suggested I test drive a few cars when I am there over Thanksgiving. I am not going to be happy about giving up the 40 mpg I get with the BMW—the MDX only gets 25 mpg—but I need something reliable.

The Pants Saga Continues

Butterick 6966, the Palmer/Pletsch pattern, will not work for the pants class. DSIL’s mom—an accomplished seamstress herself—noted that seamlines are useful places to make fitting adjustments. Having fewer seamlines is not always a good thing. I didn’t even bother to make a muslin of that pattern. I traced View D, the straight leg version, onto some Pellon Easy Pattern and did as suggested in the instructions, fitting one leg to my body using a piece of elastic at the waist. I had it hanging beautifully at the center, with the side dart perfectly positioned at the side of my body. (The pattern also had darts on the back and front.) However, that left a huge chunk of fabric billowing out at the hips and side leg. To make matters worse, the back rise was 2" too short.

A side seam would have been incredibly useful for fitting, but the pant leg was one wraparound piece of fabric. Add in that short back rise and it would have been faster for me to draft a pair of pants from scratch than to figure out how to get that pattern piece to look like the pants on the front of the envelope. Perhaps someone more experienced in tissue fitting could have made it work, but I have such lousy spatial perception skills that the whole idea was beyond me.

Back to the drawing board. I totally understand why people don’t like to make pants.

I pulled out this pattern:

Some of you may remember that I made the knot top from this pattern last year. (I liked it, but it was too short.) At the time, I also traced the pants pattern but never made them. I went stash diving through the bin of ponte for something suitable and came up with a three-yard length of black fabric that I think I found at the Walmart in Missoula in August. Robin was on that trip with me. The fabric looks and feels like a ponte on one side and a microfleece on the other.

Before I traced the pattern, I laid the Renee pant pieces over it to compare them. I should have done that with the Palmer/Pletsch pattern because I would have seen, right off the bat, that the back rise was going to be a problem. The Renee pant pieces looked very similar to the New Look pieces in that area, so I felt confident in going forward.

I cut out the pattern—20 minutes—and put it together on the serger—another 20 minutes. The pants fit me perfectly. They are long enough in the rise to come up to my natural waistline; in fact, I went back and scooped out about 1/2” in the front rise to make it sit slightly lower.

[I had a similar pair of Liz Claiborne pants that I finally donated to Goodwill, because the rise on them was just short enough that they constantly felt as if they were falling off my hips. It is lovely to have pants with a waistband that sits where it should.]

If I were going to make them in a ponte or interlock, which I will at some point, I probably would go down a size. That ponte/microfleece fabric is wonderful. If I could find out who manufactures it, I’d be tempted to buy a bolt.

This pattern will work for the pants class, yes? Maybe not. My one quibble with New Look patterns is their limited size range. The largest finished hip measurement on these pants is 43", so anyone with hips bigger than about 45" around is out of luck.

I’ve found one Butterick pattern that is very similar, and it has a shorts option, which is even better. When I teach the Renee pants class, I have everyone make a muslin in shorts length, because there is no sense wasting fabric on the pant legs until we get the top of the pants to fit properly. Of course, this Butterick pattern appears to be out of print, although I did find a copy on Etsy. (ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH)

I will figure out how to teach this pants class come hell or high water. We can always default to the Renee pants, although I really like that New Look pattern. I just know the New Look pattern is probably going to be too small for one of the women who wants to take this class. These are so quick and easy to make, though, that I suspect we could re-draft the pattern to fit her through a bit of trial and error. And the goal of this class isn’t to make a pair of tailored, well-fitting pants; the goal of this class is to introduce students to the agony joys of measuring crotch curves and rises and getting a forgiving pair of knit pants to fit reasonably well, because there is only so much I can do in a six-hour introductory pants class.

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I press on. After I finished the New Look pants, I got out the Linda twist top. I am not going to finish the neckline with the binding/facing as suggested in the pattern. I am going to make a coverstitch hem there, instead. That requires folding down 1/4" of fabric and using the narrow coverstitch hem on my machine. I got as far as pinning it in place yesterday afternoon:

We’ll see how this goes. I am really good at coverstitch hems, but this one is narrower than anything I’ve done before. In theory, it should work. I will test on some scrap fabric, first.

I don’t use those fine glass-head pins very often. They are great for situations like this, but I always manage to stab myself (multiple times) with them.

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In podcast news, I recorded episode 6 yesterday. It will be posted next Tuesday. The podcast has been a great deal of fun, even if I am the only person who is entertained by it. I also—finally!—figured out why it wasn’t posting to iTunes. There was a glitch in the RSS feed which was preventing it from being picked up. It is on iTunes now, however, so if you are feeling charitable and would like to leave a review, I would appreciate it.

Pants—What Have We Learned?

I got my summer tires changed over to snow tires yesterday morning. On the way in to town, one of my tire pressure monitors lit up (how timely). I let the guys know when I got there so they could check it out. It turned out to be a small screw stuck in the tire.

This tire place delivers service. I am only there twice a year, but as soon as I walked in the door, the owner pushed a piece of paper over to the guy next to him at the counter and said, “This is for Janet’s car—go get her tires started.” How he knows my name is beyond me, but he does. I usually sit in the waiting room with my iPad and some knitting while they change the tires. Typically, it takes about 45 minutes. One of their employees was an hour and a half late yesterday, so I was there for two and a half hours. They apologized profusely for making me wait, but they also found the screw in the tire and repaired it for free. I wasn’t going to complain. I go into that situation twice a year knowing that I might have to sit and knit for a while, or read a book, so I deal with it.

Attitude is everything.

I stopped at sewing on the way home. Our checks were all ready for us. Between teaching and the sale, last weekend was fairly lucrative.

I came home, had lunch, and got started on the Éléonore pants. About twenty minutes into them, I decided they won’t work for this class. The issue is that they are very fiddly. There are back yoke pieces, front mock pockets, a fake front fly, and everything has to be topstitched with two parallel lines of stitching. And that didn’t include the back pockets, which I left off this muslin. When I prep for a class, one of the yardsticks I use—no pun intended—is how long does it take me to make something? I time myself, then multiply that by at least three. This is an all-day pants class, yes, but the construction is going to take so long that I worry there won’t be time to address fitting issues. Also, this store has a tiny, tiny classroom area, so having everyone on both sergers and sewing machines is tricky.

[Conversation over dinner revolved around why anyone would have fake pockets on their pants. The husband thinks fake anything is a waste of time and wanted to know why there weren’t functional pockets in the pattern. Personally, I am not obsessed with pockets in clothing but I suppose he has a point.]

I finished the pants anyway. I’m not in love with them, but I am glad I made them so I could see how they went together.

It’s back to the drawing board. I am going to try this pattern today:

This one is dead simple: two pattern pieces and a length of elastic. It’s also a Palmer/Pletsch pattern, so it has fitting tips included. I’m going to make a quick muslin for myself, and if I like the way they fit, I’ll make up a pair in a nice ponte for the store to display. The waistband on these is similar to the Jalie Renee pants, with darts and elastic, although the waistband isn’t as deep. These can also be made entirely on the serger. The goal of this pants class is the same goal I have with my introductory T-shirt classes. I make sure that students understand that fitting is a process and that they are unlikely to nail it perfectly on the first try, but we have to start somewhere.

If this pattern fails, I will just go ahead and use the Renee pants pattern. I’ve taught that class here twice and it has gone over well both times.

Not an Alterations Shop

I had an amazingly productive day yesterday. I’d love to have a week of days where I can buckle down and work for six or eight hours straight.

After the husband left for work—he was pouring concrete at 8 am so he was out of here fairly early—I headed to my sewing room to clean and organize. Everything related to the sale had to be put away. I took advantage of some newly-emptied tubs to sort and store my knit fabrics. I earmarked a stack of fabrics to become either long-sleeved LDTs or possible Linda twist tops if I like that pattern. A muslin for the Linda top has been traced and cut out, but I haven’t had time to assemble it yet.

The next order of business was hemming a bridesmaid’s dress for a young woman at church. I have no desire to do alterations, but I will do small jobs here and there. She brought the dress and shoes to church on Sunday, and I pinned and marked a new hem. The dress is made from a gorgeous dark green stretch velvet. The skirt overlaps in front and is open to the hem. I hung it up in my sewing room and looked at it a couple of times to make sure I understood the construction before I started taking it apart. In the end, it was easier than I expected. The dress and the lining were sewn in a continuous circle with a coverstitch hem. I worked around and pinned up the entire circumference, then hung the dress from a hook on the wall over my coverstitch machine. I put the seam guide on the bed of the machine and very carefully stitched a new hem. Once I was sure that the new line of stitching looked good and was correct, I pressed the hem (on a towel), then went back with a pair of duckbill (appliqué) scissors and carefully cut off the excess fabric just above the new stitching line. That is not my preferred way of making coverstitch hems, but it’s a legitimate method. In this case, it was much easier and more accurate than first cutting the excess fabric, then folding up and stitching a hem.

I am happy with how it turned out. I’ll deliver the dress on Sunday.

After lunch and a phone visit with DD#1, I tackled the Jalie Éléonore pants.

I traced the pattern, then located the stretch poplin I bought on clearance at Joann Fabrics and cut them out. I went up a size from the Renee pants because those were ponte and these are poplin. This pair is being made straight from the pattern without alteration. I didn’t have to alter the Renee pants, so I want to check the fit on these before I start messing with them. Also, these are going to be a store display/class sample.

By then, it was time to start working on dinner. I changed the needles in the sewing machine and serger and rethreaded both with black thread so they would be ready to go today.

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From the “Where has common sense gone?” department, I logged into QuickBooks Online yesterday morning to write some checks and was met with a message that an update was available. I agreed to download and install the update. (I always wonder if something will break after the update and turn a two-minute task into a three-hour ordeal.) After the update, I was met with a splash screen letting me know that, Hey!—this update is intended to restore the appearance and function of QBO back to the Desktop version familiar to users!

Gee, maybe you should have left it that way from the get-go. 🤦‍♀️

Back in the olden days—get off my lawn—it seemed that companies were actually concerned with meeting customers’ needs. Build a better mousetrap, etc. More and more, it seems that companies are completely tone-deaf to what people want. Instead, companies bring the items to market that THEY want to sell (or are being incentivized to sell) and try to jam them down consumers’ throats. No one really wants to buy a car loaded with useless options that add 10K to the price tag. Joann Fabrics customers would like to buy fabric, not cheap Dollar Store crap from China. Everyone I know hates the software-as-a-service model that Adobe and Intuit have espoused, which is intended to bleed users slowly and continuously. (I did switch to Affinity, but I miss some things about Adobe Creative Suite.) And while I am sure that it kept a whole office building of software engineers busy, the QBO redesign slowed my workflow to a crawl because everything that used to require one mouse click now requires five.

I’m getting tired of being held hostage.

I was considering a Volvo station wagon as a replacement for The Diva when she finally wears out. The husband and I watched a video review of the Volvo the other night. The reviewer is a very sharp guy who owns a repair shop, and he went over that car with a fine-toothed comb. His recommendation? You don’t want this car in your life if you’re ever going to have to work on it. I thought the Germans were bad. The Swedes make the Germans look like kindergarteners when it comes to over-engineering. Halfway through the video, I looked at the husband and said, “I’m not getting this car, am I?” and he shook his head.

Honestly, I am about ready to go back to a Ram pickup, except that I don’t want to have to drive one in Seattle. I’ll keep looking.

Is This Too Loud?

I am still trying to catch up from last week. We had an unexpected emergency here this weekend—nothing major, but it required that I spend all of yesterday attending to it. And even though it disrupted the schedule, it may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. The situation is sorted now and I am working to get back on track. I haven’t even unloaded my car from this past weekend.

That also means that this week’s podcast might not get posted until later today. We’ll see how things go this morning and if I can get it done before I have to leave to teach my serger mastery class.

Have you seen the Minerva video highlighting the release of their new crush velvet fabric?

I’m trying to be good and not buy anything else until I sew up some of what I’ve got, but I will need a Christmas outfit and I want something luxe. The prints are absolutely gorgeous. This one caught my eye immediately:

I love love love it but I think it might be too loud for church. I may have to go with one of the more demure prints. I’m still thinking about it. This print also comes on some of their other substrates, like the viscose jersey.

I should have started sewing my own clothes a long time ago.

Other than trying to keep my schedule on an even footing, nothing momentous is happening this week. It is the first of the month, so I have a lot of paperwork to handle. (I still hate QuickBooks online, in case you were wondering.) DD#2 asked me yesterday about plans for Thanksgiving, so I need to get those in place. I think I’ll be going to Seattle. I am looking at taking a private class at the Sewing and Design School in Tacoma that week. I’m being very generous to myself with the birthday gifts this year. (My birthday is the day after Thanksgiving.) Taking some sewing classes is exactly what I want.