How to Teach Knitting

According to the date stamp on my handouts, the last time I taught knitting classes—before Sew Expo—was way back around 2008. Much has happened since then. Although I would like to claim that I am not biased, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a tiny bit dogmatic about a few things. Let’s just get it out there.

I’ve been knitting since I was 8 or so, although college was when I started knitting seriously. My mother taught me to knit with the yarn in my right hand. I also know how to knit with the yarn in my left hand, and the way that I do it is known as the Continental method. There are several methods of making a stitch with the yarn held in the left hand, and therein lies the rub.

The difference is in how the stitches sit on the knitting needle.

(Pardon my quick-and-dirty sketch.) In the upper part of the illustration, the stitches sit as they would when knitting with the yarn in the right hand (usually—there are always exceptions) or when knitting with the yarn in the left hand Continental style. The bottom part of the illustration shows the way the stitches sit on the needle when knitting with the yarn in the left hand using a method called Eastern. And just to make things slightly more complicated, there is a style of knitting known as Eastern Combined Uncrossed (or Eastern Uncrossed), which is an amalgamation of methods. This website has an excellent explanation of the different styles if you are curious.

In most cases, I don’t care how people do things if it gets them the result they want. That last part is the key.

My cabling class on Wednesday went very well. I had six students. (Seven registered but one had a conflict.) We spent four hours knitting cables. My Thursday class on charting had three students. I am glad the Sew Expo organizers did not cancel it, because it turned out to be a great class for those three students. On Friday—Friday afternoon, ugh, when everyone is tired—I had 12 students in a beginning lace class. That class had a few speed bumps.

Of the 12 students, I had three who came in and said right away that they were in the class because they had tried making lace and it didn’t look like they thought it should. One of those three said that she was picking up knitting after a long hiatus; she had quit knitting because it hurt her hands.

The first lace swatch in my handout is very simple, just stockinette stitch punctuated by regularly-spaced holes made by working a yarnover followed by a K2tog. And right away, the problems those three students were having surfaced.

I’ve seen this before, but I am wondering if YouTube is exacerbating the problem. (JC, feel free to weigh in with your experiences.) A lot of people, including me, teach themselves to do things using YouTube videos. However, no one is vetting what is on YouTube, and novices have no way to determine whether the information they are getting is legitimate or not. I no longer subscribe to certain YT channels because the fitting information put forth by those content creators was incorrect. I don’t know for sure that these students learned from YouTube videos, but however they learned, they weren’t getting all the information they needed.

All three of these students had stockinette stitch with twisted stitches. For the lady whose hands hurt, her hands hurt because those twisted stitches were so tight that she had to work really hard to get the needle into them. The other two both said that when they made lace, it didn’t have any holes in it. They did not realize that the twisted stitches were tightening up the holes made by the yarnovers. One poor woman—after seeing me demonstrate what was happening and what she needed to do to change it—said that she was going to go home and take out all 500 stitches of her current “lace” project and start over so that it actually looked like lace.

It comes down to how the knits and purls are made. These students weren’t “uncrossing” their knit stitches on the purl row—Eastern Uncrossed—which resulted in stockinette fabric with twisted stitches. Once I showed them how to uncross the stitches, they were able to produce stockinette fabric with untwisted stitches (and actual holes).

I don’t mind demonstrating these different styles of knitting and letting students decide what works for them. The problem is that this was a lace knitting class, and I had to spend a good chunk of time helping three students decode their knitting styles while leaving the rest of the class to fend for themselves on the handout swatches. I didn’t completely abandon the rest of the class, but it was a lot of me bopping around to make sure everyone was being successful with at least a couple of techniques.

I think that next year, I’m going to offer a class on knitting styles and ask that it be held early in the week. The trick will be to make the class description enticing enough that the people who desperately need it will recognize that fact and sign up for it. Otherwise, this will continue to happen, and I don’t think it’s fair to the people who sign up to learn specific techniques.

I have other thoughts about Sew Expo, in general, but I’ll leave those for the next post. I will say that I gave the class organizers very specific class supply lists. This is not my first rodeo and I did not want people to come to class trying to knit swatches with navy blue sock yarn on size 2 needles. That did happen once. However, the only supply information given to the students was to bring “yarn and knitting needles.” Next time, I am going to insist that students be told to bring smooth worsted-weight yarn and size 8 needles, because many of them came with smaller needles and thinner yarn, including slub and novelty yarns.

********

I scored big at Half-Price Books on this trip. I found a couple of blacksmithing books for the husband—he is dabbling with blacksmithing in his spare time—and several nice fitting books for myself:

I got my desk cleared off yesterday morning—although most of that involved moving items to various lists that have to be tackled today—and unpacked and did laundry. I haven’t sewn for almost two weeks now and to say that I am itching to get back to it would be an understatement.

Now I Play Catch-Up

I am back in Montana after being gone for 10 days. I left last Friday and drove to Spokane, where I spent the night. One of my stops in Spokane was the small quilt store where I have been teaching. The owner has decided to sell off her stock of quilt fabrics and notions in favor of focusing on machines and longarm quilting. She is a Juki dealer. She’ll continue to have a brick-and-mortar store, although it will only be half the size. And she still wants me to come teach serger classes for her.

I drove to Seattle on Saturday, sneaking in between snowstorms. I’m glad I went when I did. The drive was easy and traffic light. I was not able to get the fantastic Airbnb that I had at Thanksgiving, but I did get another one nearby that was almost as nice. DD#2 had friends visiting from out of town, so I didn’t see her until Sunday evening when we all went out to dinner. On Sunday morning, I drove up to Anacortes, Washington, which is about 90 minutes north of Seattle, to visit my friend, Joan.

Joan and her husband moved to Montana (with his job) around the same time we did, in 1993. She and I met at our church’s Moms group. We both had little girls the same age. Joan is also a cancer survivor. We bonded and spent a lot of fun times together. Unfortunately, her husband’s company decided to leave Kalispell, so they moved back to Seattle. When I had to go to Seattle for my bone marrow harvest in January of 1995, I stayed with her and her husband.

We lost touch over the years, but Joan e-mailed me a few months ago and said she had taken up knitting again and was thinking about me, which was funny because I had been thinking that I should look her up on one of my visits there. We made plans to meet up last Sunday in Anacortes, where she and her husband live now.

I wish I had remembered to take a picture of the two of us. I am so bad at that. We walked downtown for lunch. She took me to a beautiful little knitting store that had a yarn-bombed seating area out front:

It was raining, so we didn’t linger. We had such a good time catching up with each other, and now I have someone else to visit in Washington.

On Monday, I did some shopping and ran errands for DD#2. She doesn’t have a Costco membership, so I usually go and get her a few things. On Tuesday morning, I left the Airbnb and headed south to Puyallup. The husband had asked me to stop at Allied Body to pick up some lights that came off the new truck back in December when Allied put the flatbed on it. Pacific Fabrics just happened to be on the way:

I’ll do a roundup of my sewing purchases later this week, but I am glad I went with a list.

[Yes, I was driving all over western Washington. The Diva mostly behaved, although the check engine light came on mid-week. Diesel fuel in Washington contains a small percentage of biodiesel. My Dodge pickups always ran very nicely on biodiesel, but the Jetta hated it. Whenever I filled the Jetta in Washington, the engine sounded like it was full of loose bolts. The BMW doesn’t run rough, but I do notice that putting biodiesel in it usually causes the check engine light to go on.]

My Airbnb in Puyallup was lovely and only five minutes from the Washington State fairgrounds. This was the main reason for my trip:

I taught three knitting classes, one each on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons. I’ll do a roundup of those, too, later this week.

For now, though, I need to unpack, do laundry, and play catch-up. More tomorrow.

On Safari

The pile of supplies has been stacking up in the living room:

One bin has supplies and samples for my cabling class and the other for my lace class. I am also taking my rolling cart because I will have to transport those bins from the parking lot to the classroom. The InstaCrate (best thing ever—I keep two in the car) holds food for the road and a pair of Carhartt pants for DD#2’s boyfriend. I’ll take a cooler with eggs, cheese, and butter so I can cook breakfast. Trader Joe’s is only a couple of blocks from my Airbnb and I can pick up anything else I need there.

Roughly 80% of the clothing in my suitcase has been made by me. I also added a few new pieces—I stopped in at Kohls the other day and bought a pair of navy blue chinos and a pair of the most gorgeous wide-leg, high-rise Vera Wang black dress pants. I have decided that if I find high-rise pants that fit well, I am going to buy them as insurance. I suffered through more than a decade of skinny-leg, low-rise pants and I won’t allow that to happen again. Yes, I can make my own pants now, but if I don’t have to, I won’t.

[I’m enjoying a bit of schadenfreude imagining the frustration of people who don’t like high-rise pants having to suffer through the current trend. Too bad, so sad.]

The weather looks good for tomorrow and Saturday before a system comes down from Alaska bringing a whole lot of snow with it. This may help to alleviate our current snow deficit. The SNOTEL at Noisy Basin, which is up in the mountains just above our house, is at 95%, but other stations around northwest Montana are showing lesser amounts.

I am glad the weather is going to be chilly for a bit longer, because I am not quite ready to break out the spring wardrobe.

I altered Simplicity 9469—the bug blouse—to incorporate (horizontal) bust darts. It fits well without the darts, but I want to see if I can refine the fit even further. I also did a broad back adjustment on this one. I’ll play around with this when I get back.

I have a modest shopping list for Sew Expo. I do want to hit Billie’s Designer Fabrics and Amanda’s Bundles, because they always have fabrics that I can’t find anywhere else. I’m also looking for lingerie elastic for an upcoming underwear-making marathon. I need some Wonderfil thread that neither of the stores here carry. That’s it. I don’t need quilting fabric and I certainly don’t need any kits.

Nostalgia and Tea

We have a small room in the basement that has always been referred to as “the yarn room.” That room is home to a giant rack holding about two dozen Rubbermaid bins, and those bins are filled with yarn, swatches, and items I’ve knit. (My canning supplies also live in that room.) I went through there the other day in search of my class samples. The bins are labeled, but the lids were dusty and needed a good wipedown. In the process, I took a peek inside each bin to make sure all was well.

I said to the husband that if anything happens to me, he and the girls are not to take those bins to the nearest thrift store. There is some valuable yarn in those bins that could be sold for a nice profit on eBay, including Alice Starmore Bainin and two enormous Rubbermaid bins full of Brunswick Germantown. I should get some of that out and knit with it.

Retrieving those class samples was a bit of an archaeological dig and a bit more laden with emotion than I expected. I am revisiting an important part of my life with these Sew Expo classes and seeing those yarns brought back a lot of wonderful memories.

*********

If you haven’t yet downloaded and listened to this week’s podcast episode—and if you are so inclined—I think you’ll enjoy it. My guest is Kira Hartley, author of the book Fabric Wars: The Hunt for Vintage Fabric with Etsy’s DodOddity. We had such a fun visit over Zoom last week. Finding these fascinating people to interview is absolutely the best part of hosting a podcast. Lots of podcasts out there have interviews with sewing celebrities; I want to find the people who aren’t as well known and hear their stories. Kira is working on a second book and I will be sure to have her back for a visit when that one is released.

The podcast also has a YouTube channel now. I don’t have any current plans to do video, but it’s another place to listen to the podcast. And if by some miracle I start producing video content for the podcast, it will have a place to go.

*********

Our friends, Tom and Marcie, are potters. And artists. They own Mountain Brook Studio and their work is featured all over Montana, including in the gift shops in Glacier Park and Yellowstone. My dinnerware set is from their studio. Tom used to be on the fire department with the husband. The husband has been stopping by their place on the way home from plowing out our fire station to plow out the berm left by the county plow. They wanted to make him something as a thank-you. He suggested they make me a teapot. Isn’t this gorgeous?

The photo doesn’t do justice to the depth of color in the glaze. This is a work of art and I am sure my tea will taste even better for having been steeped in such a beautiful piece.

Tom and Marcie’s son, Matt, is also an extremely talented potter. Check out his Instagram account to see some of the pieces he has produced.

*********

I am hoping to do some blogging from the road now that I have the new laptop. While I’m in Seattle, I am going to visit a friend of mine from long ago. We knew each other when the husband and I first moved to Kalispell. She and her husband had come here from Seattle around the same time but moved back a few years later. We lost touch, and just when I was thinking that I should look her up on one of my trips over there, she e-mailed me. A gift from the universe.

The Fall of Western Civilization

The husband and I have a theory. We’re pretty sure that the fall of western civilization is going to be caused by computer programmers. You all know how I feel about QuickBooks Online. Tasks that used to take me two mouse clicks and five seconds now require eight mouse clicks and 42 seconds.

Part of the reason I am resisting purchasing a new car is because I want to enjoy my drives, and I can’t do that seated in the cockpit of the space shuttle. I do not need a 12" display screen. I do not need my car to greet me by name when I get in. I don’t need assistance to drive. I want my car to move me from point A to point B with a minimum of fuss and that’s it.

After one of my blog readers commented on a recent post that the comments link for the podcast website wasn’t working—thank you, Heather—I went to the podcast website to see what was going on. I was pretty sure I had built the new podcast website with the same settings that I have on this website, although the podcast website uses a different template. In the control panel, there is a section for “blog and commenting” settings. Within that section are settings to toggle on and off. At the top is “enable commenting globally,” which was toggled on. Further down is a choice to allow anonymous commenting or not. I had that toggled off. My feeling is that if you’re going to comment on something, be an adult and don’t hide behind your keyboard.

After e-mailing tech support (in Ireland, of all places) with my question—why is commenting not working if I have it enabled?—a helpful tech support person responded that in order for commenting to work, I had to have both “enable commenting globally” and “allow anonymous commenting” toggled on.

🧐

That makes no sense. If “allow anonymous commenting” has to be toggled on in order for commenting to work, why offer the option to turn it off?

We’re quickly reaching the point of ridiculousness, where computer programmers have to think up reasons to keep themselves employed, and do it badly in the process. Not everything has to have code associated with it.

In any case, the comment function now should work on the podcast website, although I have to allow anonymous commenting. Also, get off my lawn.

**********

We have several active 4-H groups here in the valley. Elsyian’s son, WS, belongs to our local group and has picked up some great skills in the last year. He is working on a quilt to enter in the fair in August. Elysian asked me if I could help him work on getting a good quarter-inch seam. He came over with the machine yesterday afternoon so I could take a look.

Elysian bought him a very nice little machine:

This is Singer’s attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the Featherweight. This model is called the Featherweight Plus. It is actually a great machine for a kid just starting out. It is solidly built, has a minimum of features, and can be set at a slower speed.

The only drawback to this machine is that the default needle position is left, not center. WS had picked up on that even before I said anything. (He’s a smart kid.) I had several shanks for interchangeable snap-on feet. I also had eight or ten different snap-on quarter-inch feet. However, we couldn’t find a combination of shank and foot where the needle didn’t hit the side of the opening in the foot. All of the openings in the feet were small round holes, which is what you want for a nice straight stitch, but the needle has got to enter that hole dead-center or you risk breaking a needle or messing up the timing. That left needle position was a problem and there was no way to adjust it to center. Finally, I located a quarter-inch foot with an oval opening instead of a round one and that one worked. It also had a blade on the side, which I thought would help him in getting a consistent seam. I think he’ll be fine after some practice and the little motivational speech I gave him.

**********

Today’s to-do list consists of editing the podcast for posting tomorrow and collecting all my teaching supplies. I have a master list of things I need to remember to take with me, which includes not only my teaching supplies, but also items requested by DD#2 and a box of books from our community library. I am taking the box of books to Half-Price Books to see what they will give us for them. We have a volunteer librarian who has identified some books in our collection that may have some value. This is a test to see if we could generate income from selling them. (Yes, we’d probably get more on eBay, but that requires a bit more time and effort and someone willing to coordinate that.) I’ve spent enough time at Half-Price Books to be comfortable going this route.

I Have a Party Dress

After much agonizing and back-and-forth with myself, I settled on a pattern and made a dress:

The fabric is Minerva’s crush velvet in the Celestial Motion print. (I made a Nathalie top out of this same print on their French terry fabric.) So luxurious. I had ordered three meters of this back in the fall to make myself a Christmas dress and ran out of time. This fabric was the lead contender for a party dress, but I have been waiting to see if I could get some idea of what the weather will be like when I am at Sew Expo, because a crush velvet dress wouldn’t be appropriate if temps were going to be on the warm side. As it turns out, it looks like winter will be hanging on in the Pacific Northwest. It is supposed to be chilly that week.

It’s hard to tell on the dress form, but the pattern is the 5 Out of 4 Patterns Nancy Raglan. I made the A-line dress version. The Nancy Raglan is one of the first patterns I bought when I began making clothing for myself and it remains a favorite. The cowl neck is perfect, not too large, and it lies beautifully when I’m wearing the dress.

I had exactly enough fabric. The raglan seams were stabilized with knit stay tape before serging them, because the fabric has enough weight that I didn’t want the dress to stretch in that area. I love the way it looks and fits. I’m also ahead of the game (for once) because this will probably end up being this year’s Christmas dress.

Crush velvet has a reputation of being difficult to work with, but the biggest problem I had with this fabric was the amount of lint it left behind. I had to vacuum out my serger several times along the way.

************

I am wrestling with a fitting question and I cannot find an answer to it anywhere. My bodice sloper—the one I made in Joe Vechiarelli’s class at Sew Expo last year—has a horizontal bust dart. Most of the patterns I see have bust darts that angle upwards. I’ve used that bodice sloper many times over the past year to make sure that the bust darts in commercial patterns were at the correct level and ended in the right spot, but the fact that the bust dart is horizontal went completely over my head until a few days ago.

When someone with Joe Vechiarelli’s level of knowledge and experience says the bust dart on your bodice sloper should be positioned a certain way, there has to be a reason for it. So I went looking for further information. I searched on “bust dart angle” and “horizontal versus angled bust darts” and nothing came up—nothing substantive. I got a lot of results that discuss the location and placement of bust darts, but nothing that indicates why one would choose an angled versus a horizontal bust dart. I found one Threads video where the designer mentioned that angled darts are better for “mature figures,” but didn’t explain why.

I have a theory, but I can’t believe that I am the first person to recognize the difference. The husband says that maybe this is one of those situations that is so obvious that no one feels the need to elucidate it.

My theory is that a bust dart that angles upward places the 3-D tent of fabric such that it provides the most room at the bottom of the tent. This would make sense if one thinks of the bust as needing more room at the base and less room at the top. A horizontal bust dart, on the other hand, swings the positioning of that tent vertically to provide an more equitable distribution of fabric over the bust.

I needed to test this theory. Admittedly, this is a rather crude way of doing it, but I think I am on the right track. I made two bodice pieces out of Pellon Easy-Pattern. One has an angled bust dart and one is copied from my sloper, with the horizontal dart. Both darts are otherwise identical. I hung them from hangers and took a photo from the side:

I think there is a difference. I also suspect I would get a better fit if I actually used horizontal bust darts instead of angled ones. An angled bust dart provides the necessary extra room (even though it may not look like it from this photo), but it also results in the area below the bust dart looking like a maternity top.

Argggh. Now I think I need to go back through all my patterns and reposition my bust darts. I’m itching to play around with this idea, but it’s going to have to wait until after Sew Expo. Joe is going to be at Sew Expo again this year, so if I have the opportunity to ask him about bust darts, I will.

And not one of my fitting books has a single sentence about this.

************

The husband ordered a new motor for the furnace fan. Our house is 28 years old, so stuff is failing right on schedule. Amazingly, my original Amana dryer is still going strong, although the husband has replaced a few parts. The husband probably has a list of home improvement projects to work on while I am in Seattle. He likes to tackle those when I am not around to interfere or provide commentary. 😇

Oh, The Pressure

Yesterday was a (much-needed) sewing day, but the first thing I did was to pull everything out of my closet and try it on. I wanted to reassess everything with a fresh eye. I organized fabric and formulated a plan of attack. And then I sewed. I made myself a pair of Linda pull-on pants with some black stretch twill. I made another Toaster Sweater #1 in the cabled rayon sweater knit fabric from Joanns, this time in navy blue. I put together outfits for teaching and I think I have settled on what to wear to the party on the last evening of Sew Expo, although I still have to make it. That’s on the schedule for today.

[Let me just note that there is a tremendous amount of pressure associated with dressing for an event focused on sewing (and other fiber arts). I will be surrounded by people with much more fitting and sewing experience than I have. I don’t want to show up looking like I have no clue what I’m doing.]

Some of this would be easier if I were back on the regular teaching circuit. I wouldn’t be spending an entire month getting ready for one teaching gig. This event is special, although I have to banish any thoughts I might have about getting back on the regular teaching circuit. I have promised the husband that I will not be gadding about the country like I used to do. As long as I get to take a road trip every six weeks or so, I’ll be good.

When I get back from Sew Expo, I want to revisit this pattern:

This was one of the tops I tried on yesterday. Last year, I made View A in some woven rayon that I got at Hobby Lobby. The fabric has bugs on it:

I really like that top. It fits well and looks cute, although it is a bit tight across my shoulder blades. I got out my Jan Minott fitting book and made the broad back adjustment to the pattern piece. The top fits very well at the shoulders, so I didn’t want to mess with that area. I am curious to see what kind of difference the broad back adjustment makes to the fit because I still need nice blouses for warmer weather and have a ton of rayon wovens in the stash that would work well.

Stuff has decided to break down this week. The plow truck is out of commission with a hydraulic issue on the plow. It has been leaving drops of pink hydraulic fluid in its wake, which makes the driveway look like a wounded animal has been crawling across it. A few days ago, the plow stopped working entirely. And last night, the husband was up until midnight trying to figure out why the fan motor on the furnace sounds like a dying animal. (Suspected bad bearing.)

I am praying that the check engine light doesn’t come on in the BMW. If that happens, I’ll be out shopping for a new car.

**********

I discovered a new sewing podcast this week. Johanna Lundstrom and Malena Hjerpe, authors of the recently-released book Fit For Knits, are the hosts of Stitching Tales. They’ve done two episodes so far.

I listened to both episodes and enjoyed them very much. I have great admiration for people who host a podcast in a language that is not their native tongue. I’ve been a fan of Johanna’s for a long time and have several of her books.

Nothing Blogworthy

I have not had a lot to blog about this week. Class handouts are done. I interviewed a fun podcast guest on Tuesday and enjoyed that very much. For all that I am a confirmed introvert, I do enjoy getting to know people one-on-one. I worked on the baby quilt a bit Tuesday afternoon; otherwise, there has been a lot of paperwork and no sewing. Tomorrow and Saturday will be devoted to 1) my party dress and 2) making up a few last-minute items so I can start packing for Sew Expo.

I am keeping an eye on the weather forecast. As of right now, it doesn’t look like I will have any issues getting over Snoqualmie Pass. I have some slop built into the schedule in case I need to adjust my itinerary. The BMW is driving beautifully, but we are down a snowplow at the moment. The plow has been leaking hydraulic fluid for a couple of months now. The hydraulic fluid is pink, so it looks like drops of blood on the driveway when the husband plows. He thought he fixed the problem, but now the plow isn’t working at all. I’m sure he’ll get it sorted out.

The podcast analytics remain strong and continue to improve. I find it interesting that I am getting virtually no feedback. I still have only five (all 5-star) reviews on Apple Podcasts. I’ve gotten a couple of e-mails. No comments. I guess no news is good news. Perhaps my audience is satisfied and has no reason to complain.

We are swimming in lettuce:

The hard part is getting the plants established, but once they are up, I can keep cutting from them for a couple of months. Theoretically, this should keep us in lettuce until I can get some started in the greenhouse. The husband much prefers our lettuce to what comes from the store. Ours is much more tender and flavorful. The variety is “Ruby,” which I’ve been growing for years because it’s my favorite.

March is coming on—we will be almost a week into it by the time I get home from Sew Expo. I usually start seeds toward the end of March. We are under an El Nino weather pattern—although it appears we may flip back to a La Nina pattern by summer or fall—and El Nino usually means an earlier and warmer spring. We’ll see. The last 3-4 spring seasons have been fairly cold.

And that’s all I have for today. I am hoping to get back into my sewing room soon.

I Will Fix That Dress Pattern

I took an hour yesterday afternoon, after cleaning up my sewing area, to try on that T-shirt dress again and assess the shaping at the waist and hips. I think I am on the right track. I allowed the bottom half of the dress to ride up to where it fit and looked good. I marked that spot on the dress and then transferred the shaping there to the pattern by taping a piece of Pellon Easy-Pattern underneath the original pattern and drawing in a new side seam:

I then re-traced the entire pattern, front and back, smoothing out the seams with my dressmaker curve, and “walked” the side seams to make sure they matched.

That adjustment adds almost an inch to each side at the high hip, which should be enough. Now I need to test my theory by making up another muslin, hopefully later this week.

Clearly, working with knits adds another layer of complexity to fitting. Had this been a woven dress, it would have been obvious from the start that it didn’t fit properly in that area, but knits—ponte, in this case—stretch. That’s why we like wearing them. But I am of the opinion that knits should skim, not cling, and they most certainly shouldn’t stretch to the point of distortion.

The husband gets pulled into assistant dressmaker duties because I have no one else to help me. I ordered a pair of pants in a size tall that need to be hemmed and he had to pin them up for me.

I wore an entirely me-made outfit to church yesterday—pants and top—and he asked me if I had labels for my clothes. I should order some, if only so I don’t put things on backward. I told him that if I do order some, they are going to say, “IT FINALLY FITS.”

It only took me 40+ years to get here.

***********

Some of this falls under the category of “you don’t know what you don’t know,” but it’s frustrating. The biggest complaint I hear in my classes is that people don’t know how to get commercial patterns to fit them properly, and it’s no wonder. If I hadn’t run across that article on “8” body shapes, I wouldn’t have known about high hip curves.

Threads has an article on its website from the October/November 1999 issue entitled “Fitting a High Hip vs. a Sway Back,” by Judith Rasland. The full article is behind a paywall. My mother subscribed to Threads from the very beginning and I have all of her issues as well as some from my own subscription back when they were still covering more than just sewing. However, I don’t have that issue. I might do a monthly subscription so I can read the article, because I think it probably has additional insights.

***********

Today is a paperwork and computer day. I am tying myself to my computer chair until everything is done. I’ve got a podcast interview tomorrow morning, but after that’s done, the rest of my week is (thus far) free and I plan to keep it that way.

Wonderfil’s teacher coordinator e-mailed me last week to let me know that she would be at Sew Expo. She saw that I was teaching and wanted to make sure we connected there. I haven’t met her in person yet because she wasn’t at Sew Expo last year.

I’ve got business cards for the podcast because I expect to do a fair bit of networking while I am there. I know that Whitney of TomKat Stitchery is also planning to attend. She mentioned that in one of her recent videos.

Some years ago, I went to Portland to teach at a Stitches or TKGA event—I can’t remember specifically because I did that a couple of times—and spent several days as a mildly famous knitting celebrity, after which I came home and people wanted to know what we were having for dinner and was there any clean underwear? I am vain enough to want to go be a mildly famous knitting celebrity again for a few days. 😇

Running in the Background

The husband looked at me yesterday morning while I was making breakfast and said, “Are you alright?” I knew why he was asking—I was physically present, frying bacon, but my brain was occupied with taking apart a problem and putting it back together again. I told him that was what I was doing and he nodded. I’ve seen that look on his face, too, when he’s wrestling with some mechanical issue on the BMW or a piece of equipment.

We are a pair.

My brain was busy revisiting that Pamela’s Patterns Classic T-Shirt Dress:

I made a muslin of this last year. (I made several, actually.) At the time, I could not figure out why I couldn’t get it to fit. I used my measurements and checked the pattern against my bodice sloper, but when I donned the muslin, the entire top of the dress pushed up. Did I lengthen the bodice too much? Was the armscye too deep?

I have a new theory about why it didn’t fit. Can you see how gradually that hip curves out? I was so busy trying to get the top of the pattern to fit that I was ignoring the bottom half of the dress. And now that I know that the widest part of my hips is just below my waist, I am pretty sure that what was happening was that the bottom half of the dress was riding up in an attempt to get enough fabric around that area. A-line skirts do the same thing. The muslin is still hanging in my closet. I am going to try it on to see if I’m right.

This is a prime example of seeing a fitting issue but not knowing where the problem originates, and if you don’t know where it originates, you don’t know how to fix it. Someone with more experience likely could have identified it immediately, but I wasn’t at that point. I probably need a good skirt/pants sloper to go with my bodice sloper.

I am itching to get that pattern out, make the needed adjustments, and run up another muslin. If I have time to perfect the pattern before Sew Expo, I have some sparkly Robert Kaufman ponte in the stash that would make a great party dress. I have it in hot pink and a lovely periwinkle blue.

We’ll see. The first priority is getting class materials ready.

************

We had a Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference meeting yesterday morning. Our conference includes 24 churches in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. In the past, we’ve had this meeting in person, usually in Portland. (Some of my most harrowing driving experiences have been on the trip home from that meeting.) Since the pandemic, though, this meeting has been held on Zoom.

I offered to host a get-together for the meeting in my living room. I connected my laptop to the TV along with a microphone and a Bose speaker. I have to rig up a similar system for the homestead foundation board meeting tomorrow night so yesterday’s meeting was a good test run. Six of us gathered for the meeting and lunch. Four of us knitted our way through it. I made sausage and lentil soup, Miriam—our transitional pastor—brought rolls and fresh pineapple, and Elaine brought cookies.

My sewing area looks like a tornado went through there. I have class supplies strewn from one end to the other. I’ll clean it up this afternoon so that if I get some time later in the week, I can work on my party outfit.

Tools Show Up When You Need Them

I am in that place I land in just before a big teaching trip where I am so worried about preparing for my classes that I can’t do any sewing. This also happens to coincide with me wanting to make something to wear to the Bernina party scheduled for the Saturday evening of Sew Expo. If I get my handouts and class supplies organized early next week, I will allow myself to relax a bit and think about making something to wear to the party. (I have some ideas.) Otherwise, I’ll save one of my favorite me-made outfits for that evening. No doubt, there will be some over-the-top creations on display.

I joined the Cashmerette Club this month because I wanted the Wyman Sloper pattern:

I started watching Jenny’s video yesterday about how to use the Wyman Sloper, and I am looking forward to finally being able to create a dress for myself that fits. I’m starting to recognize that tools show up when I need them and—more importantly—when I am ready for them. I have had the Upton Dress pattern for over a year and thought I would start with that one, but I’m glad I didn’t. I think that would have been an exercise in frustration. I needed that bodice sloper class with Joe Vechiarelli last year at Sew Expo. I needed to learn that I have to lengthen a typical bodice pattern by 2-3". I needed to figure out where to place the bust darts. I needed to realize that I have a high hip curve. I needed all that information, and I needed to synthesize it, before I could start something like this.

I also needed the failures. The failures have taught me as much, or more, than the successes. But now I have that information, and this pattern and the process make so much more sense to me now.

This is the part I love most about teaching—helping students get over all the hurdles they would encounter trying to teach themselves something and getting them on the fast track to that “A-ha!” moment when it all comes together. I know how excited I get when I arrive at that place, and I want others to know that same excitement.

**********

I picked up my new glasses yesterday afternoon. Wow. I have had an ongoing problem ever since I got progressive lenses. I don’t need correction for my close-up vision, but the ophthalmologist kept insisting that there wasn’t anything he could do about that, so if I needed to read or do close-up work, I’d have to take off my glasses.

The husband and I lucked out with the optician who was helping us choose our new frames. When I told him that the doctor said there was no recourse for solving my close-up vision issue, he offered to tweak the prescription a tiny bit. I put on my new glasses yesterday and he handed me something to read and I didn’t have to remove my glasses. (Why isn’t he the doctor?) Last night, after dinner, I attached the fringe to a prayer shawl and watched TV with the husband and wore my glasses the entire time with no issues.

I still look like a nerdy librarian with my glasses on, but at least I am a nerdy librarian who can see properly.

We Made Some Cardigans

I don’t always remember to take photos in my classes, but I did yesterday. I had three students in my Harper Cardigan class. One of the ladies finished her cardigan in class:

I had to promise to crop out her face and that’s okay. Not everyone wants to be plastered all over the internet. The cardigan is lovely, although she wasn’t entirely pleased with the fabric. It was a cotton French terry and was a bit on the stiff side. It might soften up with washing. The manufacturer digitally prints their fabrics and I think they must use some kind of sizing on the substrate.

[This is the same lady who is going to be my guinea pig for some pants-fitting experiments whenever we can get our schedules coordinated.]

Marci, who is one of the employees at the store, stayed after class to put the front band on her cardigan. (I borrowed the photo from the store’s Facebook page.)

Marci used a fabric from the Walmart remnant rack. I love that she fussy cut the cuffs and band. The fit is perfect. Marci used to work in LA as a patternmaker and she is comfortable grading between sizes and making adjustments. She shortened the sleeves by a couple of inches.

My third student struggled a bit. She doesn’t have a lot of experience making clothing, and although she has a serger, it isn’t here in Kalispell. She asked me ahead of time if she could make this on her sewing machine. I told her that yes, she absolutely could—and she did—but I should have vetted her fabric choice before we got started. She used a minky-style fabric. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, because minky is a knit and most of them have a fair bit of stretch. This minky did not. I have all my students try on the class samples to help them decide what size to make. She went with the same size I had made, but the cardigan ended up being too small on her because the fabric wasn’t stretchy enough. She said she would finish it anyway and give it to a friend.

Marci mentioned that she and some of the other students had talked about having me do a class about fabrics, specifically knit fabrics. That would help those who want to make clothing know what to choose when they go shopping. I think that’s a great idea and I hope we can get one on the schedule. A couple of years ago, I took DD#2 on a tour of a Joanns store in Seattle and explained the different kinds of fabric to her so she would recognize them in her job at Nordstrom.

Speaking of children, DD#1 sent me one of her Smartwool sweaters that needs to be mended. She included some coffee and this cute pincushion in the box:

The house needs a good cleaning before our get-together here on Saturday, and I need to hook up the laptop to the TV and make sure we’ll be able to attend the Zoom meeting from the living room.

Nifty Gadgets

This has been a week and it’s only Wednesday. On Monday, I recorded this week’s podcast, finally untangled the issue we were having with the title on the new truck and formulated a plan of attack, then went to town to run errands. Came home, made dinner, and hosted the monthly Zoom meeting for our homestead foundation fundraising committee.

Yesterday morning I got up (at 4 am) and was sipping my coffee and working on loading the podcast episode when the power went out. Oh, joy. A few moments later, the pager went off for our fire department for a tree on a line on our road. The husband got up and went out to start the generator. I was running through Plans B, C, and and X in my head because I was supposed to leave at 7 am to teach a serger mastery class in Missoula. He assured me that even if the power was still out, I could go and the generator could run all day. I uploaded the podcast episode but didn’t have time to add the show notes, so that’s task #1 for this morning.

The power came back on around 6:30 am—thank you, Flathead Electric—and I left for Missoula.

This is the issue we ran into with the truck title: Most of the counties in the state of Montana levy an additional tax on vehicles titled under LLCs. Flathead County does not, so in the past several years, there has been a flood of people establishing LLCs in Flathead County to avoid paying that additional tax. The county motor vehicle department was so overwhelmed that they stopped processing title applications and farmed them out to a company called MVDExpress. However, the only MVDExpress offices are in Missoula, Bozeman, Billings, and Great Falls. There is no MVDExpress office in the county that is no longer processing title applications.

Let’s all roll our eyes together, shall we?

When we purchased the new work truck in February of 2022, the dealer sent the paperwork to the county, who sent it to MVDExpress in Billings, where it was promptly misplaced. That took several weeks to straighten out. This time, the dealer gave us some of the paperwork and sent some of it via FexEd, but we had no instructions about what to do with any of it. I was reluctant to send anything to Billings again. E-mails and phone calls went unanswered.

I took all the paperwork with me to Missoula and told the husband that I would go to the MVDExpress office after my class, hope they took walk-in appointments, and hope all the paperwork was in order.

Class was a lot of fun. I had four students with L890 sergers. All had previous serging experience, so I was able to skip over some of the basics and walk them through more advanced techniques. The store recently finished off its classroom space; previously, I had been teaching on the sales floor, which was not ideal. The classroom space is very nice and I look forward to teaching there again.

One of the benefits of teaching is that I always pick up new tips and tricks from students or store staff. One of the store employees showed us this adapter tip for a glue stick (click on the picture for a link to purchase):

An individual tip is $12.00, so they aren’t cheap, but if you do a lot of English paper piecing, I could see where this would be extremely useful.

I was done teaching at 2 pm. I know my way around Missoula well enough that I knew exactly where the MVDExpress office was located, and—lucky for me—they took walk-in appointments. After a half-hour wait, a very pleasant young man looked over the paperwork, had me sign a few things, and by 3:30 pm, I was walking out with a title and plates for the new truck. Hallelujah.

I made a quick stop at Joann Fabrics before heading home. They did not have the New Look pattern for the dress with the French dart in stock. I’ll have to order it. That Joanns is almost as awful as ours. I did check out two Walmart remnant racks yesterday, but neither had anything interesting.

The drive down and back was uneventful, although extremely foggy. The BMW is purring nicely. The husband still has to replace the thermostat, but I’ve been driving that car without heat all winter, so that fix wasn’t as critical as the transmission solenoids.

Today, I am teaching the Harper Cardigan class at the quilt store here in town. And tonight, after dinner, I going to sit in my recliner, watch YouTube videos with the husband, and work on something relaxing.

Interesting Business Decisions

When it comes to sewing machines, I am not a fangirl for any one brand (except maybe Necchi). I have a Juki industrial serger, a Juki industrial sewing machine, and a Juki domestic serger, all excellent machines. I have a Bernina L860 serger and a Bernina Q20 longarm in a table. I have a Janome 6600P as my daily driver. I don’t own any BabyLock machines, but I have taught for stores who sell them and know enough to be able to say that they are also excellent machines. I teach Bernina serger mastery classes and have been very impressed with the design and quality of the Bernina L860 and L890 machines. (The L890 is a combo serger/coverstitch machine.) I love my L860 and would hate to give it up.

Bernina has a new machine, the L890 Quilter’s Edition.

I’m scratching my head a bit over this one. Quilting and serging are not two activities I think of together, although there here are occasions when a serger does come in handy on a quilt. Serging around the outside edge of a finished quilt top helps keep the edges neat and tidy, especially if the top is going to be hung up for display. And it is possible to attach binding with fusible thread in the lower looper such that the binding—or any hem, for that matter—can be folded over and ironed down as part of a neat finish.

When domestic sergers first became popular, in the late 80s and early 90s, some designers tried using them to piece quilts. You can find Eleanor Burns using a serger to piece quilts in some of her older videos. I think that sergers fell out of favor for quilt piecing due to the amount of thread in the seams—thread that added a considerable amount of extra weight to the top even before it was quilted. Even a three-thread narrow serger stitch is going to add two looper threads to the seam.

But technology advances. Today’s sergers have gone leaps and bounds beyond the three-thread Bernette machines of the late 1980s. The variety of threads available has expanded, too, and now includes some very fine threads—“fine” in terms of diameter as well as quality. Those may alleviate some of the weight issues in terms of piecing. The L890 has the distinction of being an excellent combo machine with coverstitch capabilities. Coverstitch machines are best known for making a hem on knitted garments which looks like a twin-needle stitch on the public side with a looper stitch covering (get it?) the raw edge of the hem on the inside. But coverstitch machines can also be used for many different kinds of surface design effects. Gail Yellen has several great videos demonstrating these techniques on her YouTube channel. Combining those stitches with a variety of decorative threads opens up a world of creative possibilities.

With the release of the L890 Quilter’s Edition, Bernina seems to be trying to entice some of their loyal quilting customers to add a serger to their stable of machines. Almost all of my serger students also quilt, but the reverse is not automatically true. I question how eager the average quilter would be to purchase a serger, especially at the L890 price point. Most sewists think of sergers in conjunction with clothing construction and that may be a difficult prejudice to overcome. I think the L890QE is going to appeal most to those quilters who want to add surface design capabilities to their quilt projects. (Bernina did not release an L860 Quilter’s Edition because that model can’t do those kinds of stitches.) I am also curious to know if any of the software has changed and if those changes will be available to current L890 owners as an upgrade.

I’m reserving final judgment until I know more about the specific features of this edition. I wonder about it as a business decision, but it’s also possible that Bernina received requests for this kind of a machine from its customers. I’m sure I’ll learn more about it at Sew Expo, too.

************

I drove the BMW to church yesterday. That’s only a four-mile trip on country roads, but the car seems to be driving nicely. We’ll see how it does when I run errands in town today. I do have a good mechanic.

This is a busy week, with classes tomorrow and Wednesday. I am not sure there will be much fondling of fabric, but a break isn’t a bad thing. I’m hosting a group here on Saturday for a denominational Zoom meeting, and that will be a good reason to clean the house Friday.

For fun, I leave you this sweet potato, which decided to sprout on my counter a few weeks ago.

I’m going to pop the end of it into a mason jar full of water and put it downstairs with the lettuce.

Making Pillowcases

I taught nine people how to sew yesterday. We made pillowcases using the burrito method, which is always a bit magical.

I simplify this pattern for the class and leave off the narrow flange. I prepped combinations of print fabrics and Kona solids and each student got to choose. Four of my students were tweens/teens and five were adult women.

They all asked for more classes—specifically an apron class—so I will look at the schedule and see what I can arrange. Free Saturdays are a precious commodity. A few of them also asked about knitting classes. One of the mothers said the local homeschool group would love to have someone teach knitting, and that can be done during the week.

[One of the many things I appreciate about living in Montana is how many parents homeschool their kids. Every homeschooled child I’ve encountered has been intelligent, thoughtful, and accomplished. These parents are committed to making sure that each child has a whole arsenal of skills, and those skills aren’t broken down by gender. Plenty of boys sew and plenty of girls know small engine repair. We have a strong local 4-H group, too, that plays a big part in getting these kids ready to head out into the world.]

I’ve got to watch that I don’t overschedule myself, though. I had a massage Friday morning and played for the funeral Friday afternoon, then taught all day yesterday. I play at church this morning. Tuesday is my serger mastery class in Missoula and Wednesday is a cardigan class here in Kalispell. I am trying to maintain a good balance between being out in public doing stuff and keeping everything here running smoothly.

I am on my third massage therapist. The first one I had—for many, many years—moved to a different state. The second one, who worked at a local spa, is no longer at the spa and I haven’t been able to find out where she’s working now. The one I went to on Friday is young but she’s good and I am going to attempt to see her regularly. Massages might sound like a luxury, but I don’t get them for relaxation. I get them to help keep my body limber so I can stay active as I get older. I consider it money well spent if it helps me to avoid problems down the road. And this young woman has a good appreciation for alternative therapies. We all know how much I dislike the medical establishment, and I will do whatever I have to in order to avoid doctors’ offices.

While I was teaching yesterday, the husband worked on the BMW. Here we see him in his natural habitat:

I will be glad to have my station wagon operational again. I miss it.

Do I Remember How to Knit?

I spent a good chunk of time yesterday morning editing handouts for my Sew Expo classes. This would be a much larger job were I making handouts from scratch, but I’ve got years of teaching material on my computer. The handout for my lace class needed only minor tweaks. All that’s left for that one is to pull samples from my Giant Bin of Swatches and make sure they are all labeled.

I got about halfway through editing my handout for the cabling class. I already had one, but I’ve changed a few things about the way I plan to teach it. The cabling class is scheduled for Wednesday, which is the day before Sew Expo officially opens and is something of a “boot camp” class day. My other two classes are three hours each. Cabling is four hours.

The last knitting class I taught was in 2010. I hadn’t realized that so much time has elapsed. This is very much like riding a bicycle, though, and I am comfortable swimming in these waters again. And depending on how this event goes, I have lots of ideas for class proposals I would like to submit next year.

I decided not to take any classes at Sew Expo. I am going to have my hands full being a teacher and I want that to be my focus.

************

My reward for progress on class handouts was to sew up a Toaster Sweater for myself.

This is the Toaster Sweater #1 (there are two versions), lengthened by 3". The fabric is a rayon cabled sweater knit from Joanns. It is a lovely fabric and I only wish it came in some nicer colors. (Other choices are a rusty burgundy and an olive green, ugh.) I don’t avoid pastels completely, but they have to be clear pastels, not muddy or brownish ones. (Think icy.) I have a pair of teal corduroys that needed something to wear with them, and this works perfectly. I know this fabric also comes in black, and a black Toaster Sweater would solve a lot of my wardrobe issues. Unfortunately, our Joanns is out of it. The Joanns in Missoula supposedly has some in stock. I’ll check next week; otherwise, I will order it.

I’m trying to put together outfits to wear at Sew Expo because I want to wear at least one article of clothing every day that is something I’ve made. My final choices will depend on the weather forecast for that week. Last year, it was cold and rainy while we were there. It’s been in the low 60s in Seattle recently, though, so it’s anybody’s guess what it will be like in another three weeks.

I have to hit the ground running this morning. I have a massage scheduled for 9 am and I need to be at the church no later than 12:30 pm to play for the funeral. We had a sound check late yesterday afternoon. This church uses a worship band for their Sunday services, so I’ll be playing on a keyboard rather than a piano. It’s a nice keyboard, but I play on a 111-year-old Bosendorfer grand at our church every Sunday, and the difference is noticeable.

[The Bosendorfer belonged to Susan’s mother. Susan did not have room for it at her house when she inherited it, so it is currently living at our church and I have the privilege of playing it every week.]

I keep a binder full of arrangements that are suitable for funerals and other somber occasions. They can be prepared at a moment’s notice and tailored for the amount of time I’ve been asked to play. For this service, I’ll play 15 minutes of prelude, accompany two congregational songs, and a play a recessional.

Darting Hither and Yon

I stopped in at the blueprint shop yesterday and had three patterns printed—the Varda Dress, the French Dart Shift, and the Dove Blouse. When I got home, I compared them. The quality of the photos aren’t great because it’s February in my badly-lit house, but hopefully they will get the point across.

This is the Varda dress. This looks like a curved French dart, starting at the waistline and angling up:

This is the French Dart Shift, which is very similar, although not curved:

And this is the Dove Blouse. You are going to have a hard time convincing me this isn’t a plain ol’ bust dart:

I’m inclined to make up the Varda dress, first, although I still want to check out that New Look pattern. Our Joanns doesn’t have it. I am teaching a serger mastery class in Missoula on Tuesday, so I’ll see if the Joanns there has it in stock.

I picked up enough of this rayon/linen blend fabric at Hobby Lobby for a (hopefully wearable) muslin of the Varda dress.

I don’t wear a lot of red because I have to be careful it doesn’t lean orange, but this has a decidedly rosy tint to it.

In any case, I know I am going to need to lengthen the bodice and adjust the dart placement of whatever pattern I choose. And none of this is going to happen any time soon. February has a lot going on and prepping for my Sew Expo classes is a priority. I know, however, that at some point, I will need to begin sewing some warmer-weather items.

I ordered my new glasses and sunglasses yesterday. When we were there last week, the husband was assisted by a very helpful optician, and I asked him to help me when I came in. The last time I had to get glasses, the woman who was helping me kept trying to offer me cat-eye frames and other styles I did not find flattering. This gentleman was very good and I am pleased with the two frame styles he suggested.

The solenoid kit for the BMW is supposed to arrive today. 🫰🏻

Hurray for Hemp

We have a farmer friend here—he recently purchased the husband’s 2008 work truck—who used to grow wheat. He supplies the round bales of straw we use in the chicken coop and pig palace. A year or two ago, this guy switched over some of his acreage to growing hemp commercially. The husband went to get a couple of round bales over the weekend, so I asked him to check with our friend about getting waste from the hemp growing operation for me to use in the garden.

The husband brought home some of the hemp waste so I could check it out:

If you look closely, you can see some of the individual fibers.

I think this will make nice mulch for the garden. It is grown without chemicals. The husband will go back later in the spring to get some for me.

Hemp is probably my most favorite fiber, after wool, for spinning. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when I was doing most of my spinning, hemp was hard to find. I had to order it from China. Hemp is similar to flax (for linen) in its cultivation and preparation. For some reason, though, I enjoyed spinning hemp more than I enjoyed spinning flax. I spun up some hemp and knit a vest out of it, and a woman in Kalispell tried to buy that vest off my back. I declined.

Target began carrying linen sheets a few years ago. I’ve been buying sheets at Target for years now, because they are actually of reasonably high quality. (Anything that can withstand use and abuse by the husband gets deemed “high quality” by me.) One of our sets of linen sheets has worn out—it developed a few holes, so it has been repurposed—and I needed to replace it. Target no longer has the linen sheets, but they do have hemp sheets. I bought a set. I can report that they are very comfortable.

**********

Today’s podcast guest is John Willis of Special Operations Equipment in Camden, TN. Some of you may remember that I went to Tennessee twice last year: in April, to attend Nicole Sauce’s Living Free in Tennessee Spring Workshop, and again in October, to attend and present at the Self-Reliance Festival. SRF is held at Special Operations Equipment. When not being used to host events, SOE is a sewing factory making high-end tactical gear.

John and Amanda Willis are amazing people, and John graciously spent two hours last week visiting with me over Zoom. The story of Special Operations Equipment is fascinating and one that I thought podcast listeners would enjoy hearing. And John is a great storyteller.

Because our conversation lasted longer than a usual podcast interview, I’ve posted two versions of this week’s episode. The “short” version is about the length of a regular podcast episode and covers the sewing part of our conversation. The “extended play” version is the entire two hours and gets into more of John’s personal experiences and observations about life. There was so much wisdom in that part of the conversation that I felt it needed to be shared even if it veered off the topic of sewing a bit. Note that it is marked “explicit” for some language, but we’re all adults and I expect people to make the appropriate choice for themselves. Either way, I hope you enjoy the episode.

**********

I made another boring top yesterday after frankenpatterning the LC tunic with Burda 6329. I’ve made that Burda top before. It’s a raglan with pleats at the center front neckline. I wear those two versions frequently, but I wanted to see how that neckline looked paired with the longer tunic length. I used some navy blue fabric from the Walmart remnant rack. I think it’s a rayon/poly blend. The top turned out well. I’ll post a picture in the next blog post.

This Semester's Class

I am making a formal study of French darts. I bought the Megan Nielsen Dove Blouse pattern:

The Maven Patterns French Dart Shift (I had to buy it through their Etsy store because of the VAT tax, so if you’re in the US, be aware of that):

And the Christine Haynes Varda Dress:

Karina of the Lifting Pins and Needles YouTube channel made and reviewed the Varda Dress. Karina and I are of similar height and shape, so if something looks good on her, I know it has a good chance of being flattering on me, too.

I still have to get the New Look pattern. Will I make each of these? Probably not right away, but comparing different patterns is the best way to get this information into my brain. I’ll likely start by making the Dove blouse. I’m not a huge fan of either curved or hi-lo hems, so I might change that, but maybe I’ll make it according to the pattern. The tricky part with any pattern is going to be making sure the dart is in the correct location for my body.

************

I worked on quilting the baby quilt yesterday afternoon. Of course, it took me an hour to decide how to quilt it; I wanted to use rulers but did not have one that was the correct size. I knew I did not want to do an edge-to-edge design, either. In the end, I settled on a free motion pattern within the hourglass blocks that is simple and delicate. I like it. I wish I had more confidence in my FMQ skills, but I also know that the way to become confident is to do it.

The husband notes that the solenoid replacement kit he ordered for the BMW has shipped and should be here this week. He already got the parts to fix the heater. I suspect the BMW will be spending next weekend in his shop.

The end of this week will be busy. I am playing piano for the funeral of one of our neighbors—who also happens to be a cousin to Elaine—on Friday. Elaine’s brother, Ken, will be the song leader. I would have attended the funeral in any case, but am glad it worked out for me to help with the service. And I moved my sewing class from a few weeks ago to this Saturday. The original class was scheduled for that weekend when it was -30F and no one wanted to be out and about.

Today is podcast editing day. I expect this episode to take additional time to edit because it was a two-hour interview. I am sticking to my plan to offer a short version focusing on sewing as well as the longer version. Listeners can choose their own adventure.

Open the Floodgates

Episodes of annoying mental blocks are always followed by bursts of insight and creativity, and this one was no exception. While organizing my patterns last week, I ran across one that I had copied several years ago from a beloved Liz Claiborne tunic. I looked it over yesterday, compared it to some of the patterns I have used more recently, and made up a version with some rayon spandex from my stash. Then I made a second one. More on that in a moment.

As I worked, I watched a Sew Sew Lounge episode on YouTube. I haven’t watched one of Toni’s videos in a few weeks. When she popped up on the screen, I looked at her and thought to myself, “Wow, she’s a figure 8 and she has hip dips.” The subject of the video was a review of several New Look patterns she had just purchased. She talked about the patterns she had bought and why she chose them, referring to her body shape and the kinds of silhouettes she prefers. Unlike me, she likes low-rise jeans because she doesn’t like the feel of anything tight around her waist. However, we both share a preference for tops and dresses that skim past that area of our bodies. I loved every single New Look pattern she chose, and as soon as they hit our Joanns, I’ll probably get most of them.

One of the dress patterns she chose had French darts. That’s a style line I haven’t tried yet, but now I’m itching to do so. A French dart starts lower on the side seam and angles up toward the bust apex. Sometimes it is curved. Because it essentially combines a bust dart and a waist dart, it can provide some subtle waist shaping.

The French Dart Shift by Maven Patterns is a hugely popular pattern in the sewing world. New Look 6145 is very similar:

I am sure I will have to make a full bust adjustment no matter which pattern I choose, so I’ll probably try the New Look pattern first. Megan Nielsen has a blog post on doing an FBA on a French dart.

Back to the Liz Claiborne tunic: There has been a method to my madness when shopping for clothes all these years; I just didn’t have the language for it. I liked that tunic because it angled out slightly under the bust and skimmed past my waist. I think that is also why I like the Laundry Day Tee, although the LDT is more of a swing top because it gets wider faster. I am wondering, now, if I would do okay with an empire waist style, although I’d have to do a full bust adjustment for that, too; otherwise the waistline would try to ride up.

I made up that Liz Claiborne tunic pattern in a floral print:

After tweaking a few parts of the pattern, I made it again in black rayon spandex. (I am in desperate need of some basic black, white, and navy tops. Boring to sew, but necessary.) The sleeves on the original tunic were 3/4 length, and I’ve kept them that way. They could be lengthened or shortened as needed.

The sleeve shaping on this pattern is interesting. I think that original Liz Claiborne tunic was purchased during the period of time when Isaac Mizrahi was designing for the label. (I’ve been buying Liz Claiborne for decades, and kept some of my pieces long past their pull dates because they fit so well.) The sleeve cap is much taller and narrower than any sleeve caps I’ve seen on other knit garments. I like the fit very much and may frankenpattern that into other tops.

You’ll probably never find me in a wrap dress or a shirtwaist style, and that’s okay. I am going to avoid silhouettes with obvious waist shaping from now on, although I really do want to try making something with a French dart.

**********

February is a busy month. I’ve got a couple of local classes early on, and I’ll be getting ready for my Sew Expo classes at the end of the month.

The husband ordered a solenoid kit for the BMW. He says either the solenoids are bad or the seals are leaking; either way, he’ll get in there and fix the problem. He’s also got the parts to fix the climate control system as I haven’t had heat in that car since October or so. I should have an entirely rebuilt car before long.