Flying Under the Radar

The husband is going down to Missoula tomorrow to get the trailer he purchased accidentally. (I am still laughing.) I would love to go with him, but I have too much work to do here. I know that a lot of people think that I am a lady of leisure because I don’t have a “real job,” but I do have a “real job.” Tomorrow will be dedicated to podcast production and getting ready for my thread class on Tuesday. Oh, and paperwork and bookkeeping for the construction company.

We’ve been discussing the increased amount of flak and criticism I’ve been taking lately. Yesterday, a random stranger on the internet took me to task over a grammatical error in a Facebook post. The husband pointed out that he doesn’t have these problems because he flies completely under the radar.

We found him on the internet, but you wouldn’t know it was the husband unless you recognized his clothing, his truck, or his tattoos. One of his suppliers recently started selling a product through Home Depot. This supplier told us to order through them from now on, so yesterday, the husband and I sat down at the computer to navigate the process. We were looking at the product page, which features a video, and when I played the video, the husband said, “Hey, that’s me!” We both recognized his boots.

This morning, I looked at that supplier’s main website and discovered a much longer video with him in it.

I don’t expect to skate through life without being criticized, but my response to that criticism is going to depend on how important I think it is.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
—Theodore Roosevelt

You don’t like what I am doing or how I am doing it? Feel free to do all the things I am doing but do them perfectly. I’ll be happy to cheer you on. 🎉

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The husband sorted out the heater issues in the greenhouse. We also took the shade cloth off the top—it was there because that was the easiest place to store it over the winter—and all of that, combined with yesterday’s abundant sunshine, made it nice and toasty inside. I expect seedlings to start popping up soon. The cucumber plants that Sarah gifted me are in there, as well as the Spokane Beauty apple tree I bought at the plant sale last year. It was still small enough that Susan said I should wait until this spring to plant it. I kept it in the garage all winter, which stays about 55F. Buds were starting to pop out, so I moved it to the greenhouse.

I am hoping to get some pruning time in this week. I don’t think I need to do much.

I cleaned the house yesterday. I think the massage, followed by all the moving and bending I did, helped my back considerably. Whatever muscles were seized up finally let go.

Fun With Knit Fabrics

I had such a great class yesterday. Five students and I spent the afternoon playing with all sorts of knit fabrics—learning about structure, fiber content, stretch, and how their machines handled each one. Three students had sergers and two had sewing machines. I was very proud of all of them, especially the lady who was unfamiliar with her serger (a Brother 1034) and hit some speed bumps on the way. She fell behind a bit and could have given up, but she didn’t, and by the time class was over, she was very familiar with her serger.

And how far we’ve come from Stretch & Sew! The two ladies with sewing machines brought late-model Berninas and were fearless about experimenting with the different kinds of stretch stitches and overcast stitches.

You know it’s a good class when the teacher is having fun, too—so much fun that I forgot to take pictures.

The quilt store just got this book in stock:

I didn’t buy it yesterday, but I’ll probably get it the next time I’m in there. I took a class from Angela a few years ago in Spokane and really enjoyed it. I like her approach to free motion quilting. It makes sense to my brain.

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I had a massage yesterday morning. I have something going on with my back; it is definitely muscular, not structural, and every so often it flares up. DD#1 was delivered via C-section and the surgeon did a low transverse incision that cut my abdominal muscles and destroyed my core strength, and now it is manifesting as back problems.

[That’s also known as a bikini incision, and if anyone had thought to ask me at the time, I would have said just do a vertical incision because I’ve never in my adult life worn bikinis, but oh, well.]

I have fewer issues over the summer when I am out working in the garden and moving around. The massage therapist said she could tell that whole area was inflamed. The massage helped, and I am taking ibuprofen, which is also helping, but I am going to have to be better about developing what core strength I have left. I’m going back another week so she can work on that spot again.

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We’re supposed to get a few days of really nice weather before dropping back to the mid-40s with rain. The house needs some serious attention, which it will get today. I’ve also got to decide what to talk about on next week’s podcast. I might discuss thread, because I am teaching a thread class on Tuesday, but I might go in a different direction.

I was going to start a curvy log cabin quilt with some scrappy red and white strips—I have two overflowing bags of them—but I discovered that I bought a plain 6" log cabin ruler in February instead of the curvy 6" log cabin ruler. Rookie mistake in not reading the label properly. I do have the 4" and 8" curvy log cabin rulers, but I am feeling like Goldilocks at the moment and neither of those is quite right.

Once the fire department auction is over next weekend, the schedule for the remainder of April eases up considerably, and if the weather improves, I’ll be doing a lot of work outside.

Love is in the Air

Watching the tom turkeys strut around attempting to impress the females is very entertaining. They puff up their chests and display their tail feathers and make lots of gobbling noises. The hens seem uninterested.

We have a mating pair of pileated woodpeckers in the yard. I heard them calling to each other a few days ago when I went out to get the mail, and then I spotted the two of them in the trees. I make the husband nuts because I insist that we leave a few dead trees in the woods for the woodpeckers (and the owls, who apparently nest in them as well), although we did lose the biggest woodpecker tree last year when it blew down in a storm.

I’ve also got a broody hen, although it remains to be seen if she will stay on her nest. She’s been there for a week now.

All the tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage have been planted. We just need some sunshine and warmer weather. I’ll put in the squash and cucumbers in about 10 days. They don’t take long to germinate and get big, and I don’t want them to get rootbound before the plant sale.

I did eighteen pints of beans yesterday morning:

Beans are easy except for the fact that they take 90 minutes to process, and that’s after the canner exhausts and gets up to pressure. All told, it takes about 2-1/2 hours. When they finished, I shut off the stove and ran up the road to our sewing group for a few minutes. Sarah had some cucumber plants for me—they went out to the greenhouse—and I had three chicken feed bags for her. She’s going to try making some tote bags out of them. I also picked up the raffle quilt. The Mountain Brook Ladies Club makes and donates a quilt every year that the Homestead Foundation raffles off to raise money. I’ll get a photo of the quilt soon; I usually take it to church and have someone hang it over the balcony so I can get a shot of the entire quilt.

I came home and prepped for the class I’m teaching this afternoon. I had requests for a class explaining the different kinds of knit fabrics—so people know what they are looking at when they shop the Walmart remnant rack—and I need samples of fabrics for students to practice sewing. I cut those up from my leftovers. Next Tuesday, I am teaching a class on threads. I am a Wonderfil educator and when I was at Sew Expo, I visited with their teacher coordinator about this class. She put together thread kits for each student. These are not glamorous classes, but I think they are important skill builders.

I also got an e-mail with my Backstitch access code. That’s the new app for sewists that is in beta testing:

I went ahead and signed up for a yearly subscription so I could get access to the premium features. I like what I am seeing so far. Jen, at Sewing Report LIVE, did a quick YouTube video about it yesterday. She also seems to be impressed with its potential.

And I put a guest form on the podcast website. Having a guest form was some excellent advice I got from Nicole Sauce at the Living Free in Tennessee podcast. Working with guests—and potential guests—is simultaneously fun and frustrating. I put up a notice in a couple of the Facebook sewing groups I belong to, encouraging anyone who had an interesting story to tell to fill out the guest form. I said I was looking for people with small businesses, people who are proficient in uncommon sewing techniques, etc., not just people talking about their sewing hobby. Almost immediately, several people posted in the comments that they would love to be guests on the podcast and described what they do that relates to sewing.

“Great, would you please fill out the form?”

The form is there as a way for me to 1) Decide if a guest is a good fit for the podcast and 2) Keep all the contact information organized in a database on the back end of the website. I am not going to chase people down. If someone wants to be on the podcast, he or she can fill out a form. Also, it lets me know who is capable of following directions. 😉

I’ve received several submissions and I’m in the process of scheduling interviews.

Spring Went on Vacation

Yesterday was a crummy weather day. The temperature hovered around 30F all day with periodic snow showers. I planted two flats of cabbages in six-packs and gave up because the greenhouse was so gloomy. The husband and the crew knocked off work early because it was snowing even harder where they were.

[Everything is breaking down this week. The forklift blew a hydraulic hose, but he was able to get a replacement hose in town yesterday afternoon. The propane heaters in the greenhouse need new thermocouples. Thank goodness for the diesel heater. The BMW hasn’t broken down only because I’m not driving it anywhere.]

And then, around 3 pm, the skies cleared, the sun came out, and it warmed up to 48F. 😕

Instead of planting, I made an apron.

This is for the son of a friend of mine. He asked for an Avengers apron and our Joanns just happened to have the fabric.

He also wanted the wrap-around style. This one has buttons on the front with adjustable straps. I used the Mary Mulari Little Sister and Brother Apron pattern:

I had to get out the manual to figure out how to make buttonholes on my machine because I do it so rarely.

I am going to hope for better weather today. I have an appointment in town this morning but I’ll be back out in the greenhouse this afternoon.

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The husband accidentally bought a trailer last week. We have to go down to Missoula to pick it up. I was watering the lettuce in the indoor system last Thursday evening and he was reading his e-mail when I heard him say, ”Ooops, I bought a trailer.” He had bid on it, not thinking he would get it, but he ended up being the high bidder.

[The CFO of the construction company is not fond of surprises, but after 37 years, nothing surprises me anymore. And he has an idea for another side hustle involving this trailer, so we’ll see what new adventures that brings. This is how I ended up raising chickens in Montana.]

I don’t have to go with him to get the trailer—we paid for it via wire transfer so he just needs to present the paperwork—but I might go along for the ride anyway. I can knit while he drives.

Planting Week in the Greenhouse

Temps haven’t warmed quite as much as predicted. We struggled to get out of the 30s yesterday, but I went out to the greenhouse anyway and planted seven flats of tomatoes. The propane heater is hooked up, the tank is full, and the husband brought in a diesel heater as a backup. The propane heater has the unfortunate tendency to turn itself off in the middle of the night. We learned that lesson the hard way a few years ago. The diesel heater is on a thermostat and will kick on if the temperature drops.

For planting, I use molded trays that hold eighteen 3-1/2" pots. It works best to plant two tomato seeds per pot, then transplant to one per pot after they get their true leaves. If most of the seeds germinate, I should have approximately 250 tomato plants. Some will be for us and some for the sale.

I planted:

Oregon Star Paste
Russian Purple Paste
Aunt Ruby’s Green
Weisnicht’s Ukrainian
Indian Stripe
Cherokee Purple
Abe Lincoln
Dirty Girl
Blue Boar Berry
Dave’s Atomic Grape
Indigo Rose

Other gardeners have also signed up to grow some of these varieties, too, but it never hurts to have backups. All of the pots get individual labels. I never trust myself to know what is planted where. Surprises are fine in my garden, but not when we’re selling plants.

Today, I’ll plant the cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. I’m going to start the peppers on the lettuce growing system downstairs where I think they will have a better chance of germinating. We’re swimming in lettuce right now, but some of the plants will only give one more cutting before they are spent. At that point, lettuce production will move to the greenhouse and eventually the garden.

The greenhouse is a lovely place to spend a quiet afternoon. I also went out to inspect fence damage:

I was standing in the pig pasture when I took this picture. The fence is bent (hard to see), but that is easily repaired.

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Still no sewing. When I do sit down, I’ve been working on a prayer shawl and also knocking out some knitted cotton dishcloths. Those can always find homes. Once everything is established in the greenhouse and the garden has been cleaned up, I should have time to sew again.

Taxes are done and filed. We’re getting a refund, but I always have that applied to the current year.

And what a disaster!—the collapse of the Key Bridge in Baltimore. That was the first thing I saw when I got on the computer this morning. I worked in Baltimore for a couple of years before we moved to Montana, although not in that specific area.

An Owl in the Chicken Coop

Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo. The husband went to close up the chicken coop Saturday night and discovered a little owl sitting on top of the dispenser that holds the oyster shells. It had a mouse in its talons. He thinks it must have found its way in through an opening at the top of the wire that covers the chicken yard. Dave was not happy. Dave runs a tight ship out there and owls are not chickens. The husband opened the door to the coop and coaxed the owl to fly out.

We thought perhaps it might return to the mouse smorgasbord yesterday—in which case I would try to get a picture so I could determine out what kind of owl it was—but its presence in the coop likely was a one-time event.

He assumed it was a baby owl because of its size, but I am wondering if it was a Northern Pygmy Owl.

When I was growing up in Ohio, baby screech owls used to fall out of trees in our yard. The Metroparks people told us to put the baby owl in a box on top of a car in the driveway. Eventually, the mama would come and retrieve it. They also told us to feed the baby owl some chopped up bologna.

‘Tis the season for the wild animals to invade the yard. I saw a report this morning that someone spotted a bear a few miles south of us, too.

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I decided to take the Kenneth D. King trouser drafting class in October. The timing works and I don’t want to miss this opportunity. The owner of the Sewing and Design School in Tacoma—from whom I took a class last Thanksgiving—sent me an e-mail right away and said she was excited to see that I was signed up.

I gave Susan the little boys’ shirts after church yesterday. They and their parents weren’t in church yesterday because they were traveling. Sundays are the furthest thing from a day of rest for me, so I’ve been trying to make a habit of coming home after church and doing nothing for at least a couple of hours. Yesterday, I read a book.

I’ve been perusing the Joann Fabrics subreddit—Reddit is a discussion board—and found some interesting comments. I didn’t have to dig deep—these are all from the first page:

—Joanns seemed to have staked a claim on fleece and I think that really is very limited in appeal that it may once have had. There are only so many fleece things that anyone wants and all of those huge fleece blankets I think have had their day and are in decline, for good reason, in my personal opinion.
A good serious fabric is harder to source and they have been out of the business of good fabric for most of this century. The cheap craft market likely has a higher profit margin. Even a Linder chocolate ball may have a fifty percent profit on it. That was true years ago when I worked for Borders. That is why you see them at checkouts, even at a bookstore.
I dont hold out hope for a better selection of serious quality garment fabrics if they do survive. There is more profit in cheap.

—They put most of the independent fabric stores out of business. Then they refocused on crafts and crap, and cut back on the fabric choices. Now they can't make it based on selling crafts and crap. No one at the top understands we would actually spend more if they had good fabric choices.

This commenter, below, is a financial analyst and also sews:

—I read more & feel more confident that the chain has a fighting chance, even if store closures are imminent. The fact that existing creditors were willing to accept equity (that means ownership of Joann’s) in exchange for discharging half a billion dollars of debt AND chipping in 100M+ cash is a strong signal that the creditors believe that Joann’s debt burden was the biggest obstacle to it’s solvency. In layman’s terms, it means the creditors (who we know have complete knowledge of the state of the business) feel confident enough that the company is going to get WAY more valuable now that the debt will be halved, that they are collectively betting hundreds of millions of dollars on that outcome.
I’m speculating here - but reading between the lines of their statement I would guess the plan is to dramatically improve the in-store experience in the stores they choose to keep open, win back marketshare by getting back customers lost to HL and Michael’s. They plan to have higher prices than the competition, but justified by having higher-end, higher-quality selection.

—Maybe if my local Joann’s didn’t invest in almost entirely polar fleece they would be doing better.

—Last time I was in there, all they had for fabric was cheap costuming, fleece, and quilting cotton. There was almost not a single bolt of anything I would make decent clothing with. I say almost, because there were a couple bolts of linen. They’ve always been low-end, but they’ve lost their way, completely. If I want clothing made of crap fabric, I can go to a discount store and buy it pre-made.

One can only hope that Joann’s management is listening to what its customers want, which seems to be “less fleece and plastic crap from China and more options for high-quality garment fabric.” Maybe more people would sew their own clothes if they had access to excellent materials. And classes.

One More Round of Snow and Cold

I tied myself to my office chair yesterday morning and finished all the tax prep. The construction company is a partnership and those returns were due March 15. We also have two LLCs—my knitting/sewing/teaching business and the rental house—and the accountant can’t finish our personal return until those are done. I wanted all of that off my desk and over to his.

I pride myself on the fact that we rarely have to file for an extension. I think the accountant appreciates that, too.

I was ruthless in canceling several of those “software as a subscription” programs in 2023. Companies are being greedy and I refuse to participate. I will go back to keeping records in Excel before I pay $720 per year per company to use QuickBooks Online. Those subscription programs are also insidious. Companies steadily raise rates hoping that no one notices.

I also canned up eight quarts of chicken stock and chopped up the meat for use later.

Our chickens are egg layers, not meat birds, so they’re always a bit on the skinny side, but I’m not going to waste anything. I’ll do a couple of canner loads of beans this week while I have everything out.

We got about an inch of snow yesterday. The low overnight tonight is supposed to be 16F before we get back up into the mid-40s this week and possibly even mid-50s next week. I’ve got all the seed packets out and ready to start planting tomorrow afternoon.

My sewing time likely will be nonexistent for the next couple of weeks. I’ll be busy in the greenhouse for a few days, then teaching on Friday. Next week, we are getting ready for our fire department’s fundraising auction. I have retired from helping with the fire department side of things—the husband is still running the equipment sale but we’ve trained some young people to take over the job I used to do—and I will be cooking brats with the Mennonites. A group of us from church staff a food booth at the auction so I will still be there, just in a different capacity.

After the auction, it will be time to get chicks. And clean up the garden. Yesterday, the husband cut up the tree that fell on the garden fence and got it out of the way.

Ah, spring.

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I have heard rumors of a new sewing app called Backstitch. Think Ravelry, but for sewists and stitchers. (I’m hoping it will come without all of the associated drama and BS that wrecked Ravelry.) Backstitch is in beta testing and I had to sign up to be on the waiting list. It’s also only web-based at the moment. A regular account is free but there is an option to pay for premium features. We’ll see how it plays out.

The Sewing and Design School in Tacoma has scheduled three fall classes with Kenneth D. King: Moulage Drafting, Trouser Drafting, and Building a Custom Dress Form. I am so tempted to sign up for the trouser drafting class. Just to be able to take a class from Kenneth King would be amazing. Maybe I can get Tera to go with me.

And WonderFil has some new products available, including their Rinse Away Design Sheet and some new colors of DecoBob thread. Their YouTube videos are always very educational.

T-Shirts for Little Boys

I finally located my stash of black knit ribbing—hiding underneath something else—and finished some little boys’ T-shirts yesterday afternoon.

I used the Oliver + S School Bus T-Shirt pattern, which I think fits well and is easy to make.

Yes, I also question the wisdom of white shirts for active little boys, but that fabric had fire trucks on it. I made them matching shirts in both fabrics so there would be no arguing over who got what. I still have another four cuts of fabric for a few more shirts.

And don’t active little boys also need some cute and practical rain pants? Peek-A-Boo Patterns just released this one:

We’ll see. Maybe for next fall.

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I stopped in at our Joann Fabrics on the way home from picking up my rubber floor mats and getting chicken feed yesterday morning. How sad to see such a formerly vibrant store circling the drain. I know Joanns management said no stores would close, but I doubt they can keep that promise. Stock that has sold out has not been replaced. There were only two (very subdued) employees working. Clearance is marked down to 80% off and the sales were deeper than I’ve seen them for a long time.

I also popped in to Thursday sewing at the community center and got to see Sarah. She has been busy making bags and brought several for show and tell. She’s been experimenting with different designs and styles. I told her she has way more tolerance for research and development than I do. Most days, I just want to make a pattern where someone else has done all the math for me, LOL.

I have been in town every single day this week and I am looking forward to a day at home by myself. We are running low on a few pantry items and I need to make some chicken stock and can beans.

Our bunny was in the yard yesterday morning. We haven’t seen it since last fall, when we watched it turn from brown to white. It is still white. I’ll try to get a photo.

A Nathalie Cowl Class

I taught a class yesterday on making the Jalie Nathalie cowl top. Only two students signed up, but we had such a good time. The best part was that both of them finished their tops, which fit perfectly. I got a photo of one of my students, and with her permission, I am sharing it here:

This student has been in a couple of my classes. Last fall, she made a Harper Cardigan that she wore on a trip to Europe. Her kids told her it looked “very professionally done.” This is her Nathalie, made from a midweight ribbed knit from the WalMart remnant rack.

[That classroom is huge. I love teaching at this store.]

My other student made her Nathalie from some black rayon sweatshirt knit from Joanns. She was still hemming hers at the very end of class so I didn’t get a photo, but I was so proud of her. She hadn’t made a lot of garments before. She also had some fitting adjustments to make but jumped in fearlessly after I showed her what to do. Her top looked great on her. Now she has a pattern that she can use to make more.

I know how I felt the first couple of times I made something that actually fit me. I love to see that happening for my students.

I also got a sneak peak at the Amanda Murphy serger quilt store sample. This is part of the top. It hasn’t been quilted yet.

Barb—who works at the store and has been in many of my serger classes—made this sample. She’s another one of my students who came in knowing absolutely nothing about sergers and about her L890 but now tackles even the most challenging projects.

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I was flipping through my YouTube feed early yesterday morning and ran across a video about Sew Expo 2024. I think the universe put that video in my feed for a reason (besides the algorithm). Interestingly, I had walked from the parking lot to the show grounds behind the two women who were the subjects of the video, and I remember that because one of them was wearing a beautiful tweed coat. I tapped her on the shoulder and asked her if she had made it—she had—and complimented her on how nice it looked.

Both ladies had taken a fitting class at Sew Expo and were shocked by the behavior of the teacher. Apparently, this teacher was a bit intrusive in her fitting methods and also made some inappropriate comments about students’ body shapes. I took a class from that same teacher at Sew Expo last year and had quite a few criticisms of my own, so I wasn’t surprised to hear their complaints. (I am being deliberately vague about all of this for a reason.)

That video was a good reminder, though, to respect students’ comfort levels and to ask if they mind me getting up close and personal before I charge in with a tape measure. Also, no teacher wants to end up as the subject of a negative YouTube video.

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We are under a winter weather advisory from midnight tonight until noon tomorrow, with a back door cold front bringing northeasterly winds and a few inches of snow. By Tuesday, we’re supposed to be back up in the mid-40s with rain. I ordered rubber Weather Tech floor mats for the Jeep and the dealer called yesterday and said they had come in. I’ll run up to Whitefish this morning to get them, do a chicken feed resupply, and probably won’t go anywhere else for the rest of the weekend.

Feeding the Social Media Monster

A theme has popped up among several of the content creators I follow. It fascinates me because it’s a form of groupthink that emerges independently but simultaneously. Johanna Lundstrom and Malena Hjerpe discussed it at length in this week’s episode of their podcast, Stitching Tales. Those of us who call ourselves content creators are all struggling with marketing and the need to feed the social media monster.

I hate Instagram. I may have to have DD#2 sit down with me for an hour or two and show me what to do. It doesn’t help that 1) I don’t like doing anything on my phone and 2) almost every time I try to look at IG, it thinks I am a bot and makes me go through an annoying verification process. There is a way to trick IG into thinking my desktop computer is a phone—I installed the developer tools plug-in—but I still don’t know what I am doing.

The people who seem to have a strong social media presence either hire staff or have children who are part of their businesses. I said to the husband that we should have had more kids. He asked me if this was the modern equivalent of not having enough labor to help with farm chores. (Yes.) Sherri McConnell’s son, Billy, does all of their YouTube videos, and her daughter Chelsi—who also has a quilting business—does the bulk of their fabric line design work. Kate McIvor, owner of The Confident Stitch and the guest on this week’s podcast, has an employee with a side hustle theatre company.

I don’t want to fall into the trap of spending so much time feeding the social media monster that I don’t have time to be creative. Social media posting can be a form of creativity, but it’s not one that interests me. If the podcast keeps growing at its current rate, I think I may have to hire help.

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Of note, all of the commercial pattern company patterns have disappeared from the Joann Fabrics website. I’m teaching a class in town today and may stop in at our Joanns store on my way home just to see if anything there has changed.

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I get so discombobulated at this time of year. Other people struggle with the gloom of winter; I struggle with the transition to a different routine and more demands on my time. And this rollercoaster of weather doesn’t help, either. Preparing for winter is much easier than preparing for summer, even with all of the harvesting and food storage work.

Right now, I am frustrated by a bottleneck in my sewing workflow. I want to work on that Portsmith Tote, but I’ve been waiting for the tension assembly part for the Necchi BV. (It is supposed to arrive today.) Yesterday afternoon, I made T-shirts for two little boys. I’ve been collecting knit fabrics featuring trains, fire engines, and construction equipment—all things that bring joy to Susan’s grandsons—and I thought that getting started on some T-shirts would be a good, quick project. It was, until I couldn’t locate any black knit ribbing fabric for the neckbands. I know I have several pieces, because I buy the remnants at Joanns when I see them. All of my garment fabrics are sorted into labeled bins. I found the white ribbing fabric, but the black ribbing fabric is MIA.

Four T-shirts are waiting for neckbands. I’ll either have to get some ribbing at Joanns or wait until the black ribbing resurfaces. (I don’t want to make self-fabric neckbands because I want these to be stretchy enough to get over little heads.) I may go ahead and make the rest of the T-shirts and do all the neckbands in one fell swoop.

I do much better when my routine is settled and I can be productive. Now is not that time of year and it is driving me nuts.

A Case Study in How to Go Broke

Joann Fabrics filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday. My prediction was off by one business day—I told the husband last week that I thought it would happen on Friday, but Joanns waited until Monday morning.

The best reporting on this has been done by The Sewing Report LIVE channel, on YouTube. Jen has been covering Joanns for many months now and has done a thorough examination of the private equity firm that currently owns and controls the company. I’m not even going to try to explain the mess that this former icon has become, other than to make some general observations. If you want the details, watch some of The Sewing Report LIVE videos.

• My first observation is that the pandemic handed Joann Fabrics a golden opportunity to ride a wave of renewed interest in sewing and crafting, and they squandered it. Not only were more people taking up sewing (making masks), more of them were also staying home and working on creative projects. Capitalizing on that should have been their prime focus.

• Mistake number two was not finding a way to offer classes. If you want future customers, you have to create them. Young people aren’t being taught by mothers and grandmothers or in home ec classes anymore. Quilt/fabric/craft stores with full-to-bursting class schedules tend to do really well. We have one here in Kalispell (Quilt Gallery). The Quilting Bee in Spokane is another. Classes get people into the store, introduce them to new projects, and encourage them to buy supplies. Online classes are great, but I am hearing from more and more people that they would prefer to have in-person instruction.

• Mistake number three was putting people in charge at the corporate level who have zero experience in the crafting sector. I see evidence of this in the way Joanns tried to push customers to buy online. They pushed hard. Sewists, especially, prefer to be able to look at and touch fabric in person, and requiring a minimum two-yard cut of fabric when ordering online is insane! That might work for garments and home dec, but quilters deal in fat quarters and half-yard cuts at most, unless they need a quilt back.

• Mistake number four was turning every Joanns into a glorified Dollar Store full of cheap Chinese merchandise. Instead of trying to become like Hobby Lobby, they should have been doing everything they could to differentiate themselves from Hobby Lobby.

• Mistake number five—and probably the most egregious—was the appalling way they treated their employees, cutting former full-time staff to part-time and asking them to take pay cuts to minimum wage. The Sewing Report LIVE noted that Joanns has just given its Chief Financial Officer, Scott Sekella, a $400,000 bonus if he agrees to stay on board for another six months.

I could go on, but that covers the worst of it. The Washington Post article included this quote, which sums it up:

Though Joann is still a force to be reckoned with in the fabrics and textiles space, “it has lost customers to rivals over recent years,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, a business research and analytics firm. “Weakening store standards and declining customer service levels, partly because of staffing cuts, have made stores less desirable.”

I think people are sick and tired of this race to the bottom. Remember my astonishment at shopping at the Walmart in Puyallup that was so clean and organized? If retailers want to stay afloat, they need to provide a positive in-store shopping experience. And that means paying employees well, training excellent store management, and offering products people want to buy.

Joanns has an ambitious plan to exit Chapter 11 within a month and become a privately-owned company. Its stock was delisted from the Nasdaq, having plummeted to $0.18 a share. According to an article at Yahoo Finance, Spinrite Corp is the largest unsecured creditor. Spinrite manufactures Red Heart, Patons, and Bernat yarns, to name a few. Now I know why the yarn racks at most Joanns stores have been empty. Claims of supply chain disruptions may, in reality, have been manufacturers refusing to fill orders because they were worried that they wouldn’t get paid.

We shall see what happens. Hopefully, the corporate management of whatever entity emerges from this restructuring will make a sincere effort to learn from these mistakes and also listen to customers when they provide feedback about what they want. But I’m not holding my breath.

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My gut has been telling me to wait until next week to start planting. We’ve had several beautiful days of sunshine and temps in the low 60s, but the forecast is still predicting a high of 29F on Saturday with snow. I see no reason to plant now, because all we’re going to be doing is using a lot of propane to heat the greenhouse, and the extra few days are not going to give the plants any kind of head start.

I’ve been gardening here for 30 years. I trust my gut.

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We had choir practice after church on Sunday. I’ve discovered a wonderful resource for our church in Amidon Community Music. Peter Amidon is responsible for that stunning arrangement of “Crossing the Bar”—the Laudate Mennonite Ensemble video I posted last week—and he and his wife have created a repertoire of acapella pieces for small choirs that are perfect for us. We have a mix of strong musicians and people who love to sing but have no formal training. Finding music suitable for our choir has been a challenge. Also, I love to sing almost more than I love to play the piano, and not having to be the accompanist allows to me to do that.

On Easter Sunday, we will be singing “The Angel Rolled the Stone Away”—my gift to the basses—and “Joy Shall Come in the Morning.”

Leicester Longwool Sheep

We had a meeting at church yesterday morning, after which I headed to town for a quick trip to the grocery store. A large herd of elk was grazing in the field off the highway; unfortunately, that meant there were a lot of people stopped to gawk in a spot that is notorious for vehicle accidents. A grizzly bear was in that same area last fall and caused a huge traffic jam. I maneuvered myself through the mess and continued on my way.

I try not to go to town on weekends but we needed a few things. The day was absolutely gorgeous, and as I headed for home, I decided to stop at Tera’s to see the sheep and get a tour of their new woolen mill. A few years ago, they bought a flock of Leicester Longwool sheep. They added five Shetland sheep a few weeks ago. (A woman in our community had to downsize and sell her flock.) Tera’s husband, Kurt, is a retired physician and has taken up spinning, weaving, and farming. The two of them have been talking about buying the equipment for a woolen mill for a couple of years now, but equipment in good working order is hard to come by. They were able to locate some and had it installed on their property last fall.

Right now, the flock consists of two rams, two wethers, and 13 ewes. (I think I have my math right.) One of the rams—whose name is Uncle Ricky—came trotting right over for some head scratches, although Kurt warned me that if I were on the other side of the fence, Uncle Ricky would happily butt me from one side of the pasture to the other.

I adore sheep. Sheep grow wool, wool makes yarn, and yarn makes knitted fabric. What is not to love?

A couple of the ewes are pregnant and due in a few weeks. Leicesters are typically white, although some carry genes for dark wool, as well, and one of the wethers is the most gorgeous gray color. I can’t wait to see his wool spun into yarn.

We went into the workshop where I got to see the machinery and was able to touch and feel the end product in the form of batting, roving, and yarn. It’s gorgeous. I am hoping to convince Kurt and Tera to be on the podcast in the future so we can hear all about this new venture, because it is absolutely fascinating. And I have no doubt that once the mill is fully operational, they will have more business than they know what to do with. Good woolen mills are few and far between. Kurt and Tera have a Facebook page at Blaine View Farm and you can follow their progress there.

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I spent another couple of hours in the greenhouse yesterday afternoon. I’m trying not to get too ambitious about planting everything just yet; the weather forecast for next Saturday is a high of 33F with snow. This nice weather is a head fake. Still, I got trays and pots organized and set out. The husband brought me eight bags of potting soil. That will get mixed 50/50 with aged chicken manure for seed starting.

The husband went and looked at the downed tree and says it needs five minutes with a chain saw.

We went to town for date night and to give the husband an opportunity to ride in the Jeep. It was 63F as we were driving into town. This is most definitely an El Nino spring, and it feels good after several years of cold La Nina springs that lasted well into May. We could use more moisture, though.

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This is a busy week, with two classes scheduled at the quilt store and a couple of appointments. Tuesday’s podcast episode will be my interview with Kate McIvor, owner of The Confident Stitch down in Missoula. I am very pleased with how that one turned out. That was the first one I did in a mobile situation. The audio isn’t quite as nice as it is when I record here, but it’s acceptable.

Hints of Spring

I’ve always said that spring in Montana happens slowly, then all at once. This year is no exception. We’re having a string of mild days here with temps in the 50s. I spent some time in the greenhouse yesterday afternoon, organizing and cleaning. I’ll be back out there this afternoon. Fruit trees will need to be pruned. And there is this mess to clear:

Infrastructure is always at the top of the spring to-do list. The husband will cut up the tree, stack logs to dry out, and replace the fencing.

I sorted potatoes—the ones in the root cellar have started sprouting—and will get more seed potatoes in town soon. I’ve got four classes scheduled to happen in the next three weeks. Easter is coming. Choir will practice after the service on Sunday. (I think the basses will like the song I chose for Easter Sunday. 😇 ) Our fire department auction is the first weekend in April. Literally every Saturday between now and Memorial Day has something scheduled.

This transition happens every year when we wake up from winter. Settling into a new routine takes some getting used to, and it almost always involves putting sewing on the back burner, at least for a few weeks. I am waiting for that tension assembly part for the Necchi BV to arrive, so the Portsmith Tote is on hold. I don’t want to start anything else. I’m going to put away the cold-weather fabrics and get out my tote of woven fabrics. The break from making clothing has been good, but I still need some blouses for summer.

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The podcast continues to grow. According to my download and listening stats, mine is in the top 25% of podcasts. It has all five-star ratings on iTunes and Spotify. I have gotten many nice e-mails from listeners. With one glaring exception, every podcast guest has been a joy to work with. (That person never made it to the recording stage.) I think the interviews are the best part—searching out interesting people, getting to know them as creative human beings, and introducing them to the audience. I do wish I could get a handle on Instagram; it frustrates me to no end. I might need to take some lessons.

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I dipped my toe into the world of AI (artificial intelligence) this week. I am not sure how I feel about it. Nicole Sauce of the Living Free in Tennessee Podcast and Jack Spirko of The Survival Podcast have been talking up AI for months now—mostly about how content creators can take advantage of it—so I signed up for a ChatGPT account. I asked it to write a description for last week’s podcast. The description was so good it was scary. Full disclosure: I did not use the AI description. I wrote one myself. I can see why educators hate AI. And I admit to wondering, as I was deep in sermon prep, what kind of sermon ChatGPT might write for me. Like many things, the quality of the output depends on the input. Asking detailed, coherent questions of ChatGPT results in better responses.

I have mixed feelings about AI. Just because humans can do something doesn’t mean they should, and I have zero faith in humanity’s ability to use technology responsibly. (Because kids in school will default to the path of least resistance.) I’ll probably continue to play around with it here and there, but I enjoy the challenge of writing too much to rely on ChatGPT regularly. I also suspect you’d be able to tell immediately if I posted an AI-generated blog post.

And you all know how I feel about excess technology in general. A writer named Amanda Fortini posted this on Twitter/X: The amount of persistence and grit one needs these days to get what were formerly minor tasks accomplished is kind of unreal. Like you need two of you.

Preach, sister.

A Midweek Trip to Missoula

The Jeep and I went to Missoula yesterday. I said to the husband that I feel a bit disloyal to the BMW, but I really enjoy driving the Jeep. I couldn’t find one thing on it that I would change (except perhaps the gas mileage). The seating is incredibly comfortable. We used to joke that driving DD#2’s Crown Victoria police cruiser was like driving a couch, and this isn’t far off. I know I’m going to appreciate that on trips to Seattle. The Jeep is not as nimble as the BMW, which takes a bit of getting used to, but the 3.6L V6 engine has plenty of power. In some ways, it reminds me of driving my Dodge MegaCab. The dash layout is clean and uncluttered. All in all, I am very happy with it, and the husband is happy that I am happy.

The BMW and that Dodge MegaCab remain at the top of the list of my favorite vehicles ever, but the Jeep is a strong contender.

I went to Missoula on a business trip. My first stop was A Clean Stitch, the Bernina/Janome dealer. I sat down with the owner and we looked at our calendars and scheduled a few more classes. Their classroom space is finished now and they are working hard to line up teachers and classes. I also picked up the acrylic insert for Robin’s sewing table. She bought a new Janome sewing machine from them in January but needed a different insert for her table. When they tried to mail the insert to her, the post office informed them that her address was not valid, despite the fact that she gets all her mail delivered there. Rather than risk the insert getting lost, I brought it home with me.

[The US postal service appears ready to make another sweeping move in the name of efficiency and saving the planet. About 10 years ago, they stopped sorting the mail here in Kalispell and began sending it to Missoula before bringing it back here to deliver. It looks like our mail will now be transported to Spokane—four hours and 250 miles away in another state—to be sorted before bringing it back here to be delivered. With each passing day, the movie “Idiocracy” starts to feel more like a documentary than a parody.]

After lunch, I stopped in at The Confident Stitch to interview the owner, Kate McIvor, for the podcast. The Confident Stitch is a rarity these days—a successful fabric store offering both modern quilting fabrics and apparel fabrics—and I wanted to find out more about Kate’s business philosophy. We had a good chat and that interview will be next week’s episode. The store is in downtown Missoula, which gave me another opportunity to practice driving and parking in close quarters.

The Jeep does not have snow tires on it—and won’t get any until next fall—so I have to pay close attention to the road conditions. I hit a couple of heavy snow squalls coming out of Missoula. They didn’t last long, but the road was wet and it was 31F, which are perfect conditions for the road to ice over. Once I got past those squalls, though, the weather improved considerably.

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The time change has been a stark reminder that winter is over, at least “winter” as I define it. With more daylight in the evenings, the husband is less inclined to come in and relax after dinner. I’m planning to spend Saturday afternoon cleaning up the greenhouse so I can start planting next week. Soon it will be time for chicks. And all of the spring activities are gearing up. The older I get, the longer I wish winter would last, because that’s really the prime time for sewing.

The baby quilt arrived at its destination. I forgot to take a picture before I sent it, but my cousin took one:

This was a fun pattern and I really liked the bit of free motion quilting I did within the blocks. I also did ribbon candy in the borders using the Amanda Murphy ruler.

I worked a bit on the Portsmith Tote the other day, but the tension assembly on my Necchi BV broke. I am waiting for a replacement part to arrive. Original parts aren’t available, but that machine shares so much in common with the Singer 31-15 that I am pretty sure the same part for the Singer will work on the Necchi. We’ll find out. I could finish this on the Juki 1541 if I get time to work on it.

I Made a Decision (Finally)

The husband has observed and commented on my inability to decide on a new car. He often says that the next model year will be out by the time I choose something. Part of the issue is that I am trying to make both of us happy. He will say that it’s my choice, but he has some definite opinions about vehicles. He likes to drive big trucks (Dodge Ram), he likes to work on big trucks (Dodge Ram), and he thinks I would be safer in a big truck (like a Dodge Ram). And fixing the BMW’s endless issues has tried his patience. If it were up to him, he’d buy me a diesel Jeep Gladiator, which is a truck. He campaigned pretty hard for me to consider that as my new vehicle. Nope.

When I started looking in earnest, last fall, I did not realize third-row seating was an option until I test drove the VW Atlas (in Seattle). Being able to transport seven people would be very useful, and I really did like that about the Atlas. It was roomy but still drove like a car. I tried out the Jeep Grand Cherokee with third-row seating, but that felt to me like driving a truck, and I knew it would be hard to maneuver around the city.

[If you’ve never been to Seattle, it’s not like other large metropolitan areas. I get very claustrophobic there, because the streets are narrow, there is zero off-street parking, and everything is crammed tightly together. Roads go every which way and it’s easy to get stuck in a tight spot. Also, there are lots of hills and steep inclines. It’s a city perfect for Fiats and tiny Smart Cars.]

The electronics system on the Atlas—where everything is controlled from the touchscreen—was the dealbreaker. The husband says that I am a saleperson’s worst nightmare. The gentleman helping me with the Atlas was very excited about the electronic controls and wanted to demonstrate adaptive cruise control and similar features. I listened patiently as he waxed exuberantly about them and then I asked if I could turn all of it off. I want to drive my car. I do not want my car to drive me. And if the electronic touchscreen goes out, the vehicle is no longer driveable.

Last Friday, I called the salesman at the dealer where I had test driven the Grand Cherokee and said that I was going to have to take third-row seating off my want list and did he have anything else I could try? He said he would look over their inventory and have a few things ready for me on Monday morning. I tried the Grand Cherokee with two-row seating—the wheelbase is 11" shorter than the one with seating for seven—the Compass, and the Pacifica minivan. (I was trying to be thorough.)

In the end, I settled on the smaller Grand Cherokee. This is a stock photo, but mine is similar.

The salesman and I drove it to downtown Whitefish—which isn’t Seattle, but it’s not a cow pasture, either—so I could try parallel parking it. I am confident I can get around Seattle in this vehicle. And while it has a touchscreen and electronic controls, it also still has knobs and dials to control everything. I liked driving it and it ticked all the boxes and then some. The price was right.

Ironically, the BMW officially turned over 150,000 miles on my way home.

We’re not trading in the BMW. It will stay here as my backup car. (We never get rid of our vehicles, which is why we currently have three trucks and three cars for two licensed drivers, although one of the cars belongs to DD#1.) The husband is going to take me up to the dealer this morning so I can pick up the Grand Cherokee.

Now I can move on to other things, like writing my sermon for Sunday.

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I spent all day yesterday on this car purchase and thus had no time to work on the Portsmith Tote. I probably won’t get back to it until Thursday or Friday. Tomorrow, I’m headed to Missoula. I’m going to interview the owner of The Confident Stitch, the fabric store downtown, which has distinguished itself with its inventory of apparel fabric and patterns. I’ll also stop in at the store where I teach serger classes and get some spring and summer classes on the schedule.

Making a Portsmith Tote

This is why I keep the equivalent of a small Joann Fabrics store in my house: When I get hit with the urge to make something, I don’t want to have to search hither and yon for needed supplies. I wish I had picked up a few (minor) supplies from the Klum House booth at Sew Expo, but I can make do.

I started working on the Portsmith Tote yesterday afternoon. I need a break from garments and fitting.

I’m making the original pattern and adding the zipper and lining extensions because I want this to be a fairly beefy tote. The outer fabric is Klum House waxed canvas in burgundy with a black base. The lining is a black-and-white abstract print that I’ve interfaced with SF101.

I love the look of my Necchi BV’s stitching—so straight and perfect! (I used one of my compensating feet for the edgestitching.)

The pattern says total time for making is 1-2 hours. That’s accurate, perhaps, for the original pattern, but adding the zipper and lining increases the production time. I spent an entire hour just cutting and interfacing the lining pieces. (The pattern doesn’t call for interfacing the lining, but I like the added structure provided by the interfacing.)

Klum House patterns are well done, with lots of thoughtful touches in the design.

The baby quilt is heading off in the mail today. I may start cutting fabric for a new quilt this week.

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I would love to go see this exhibit at the Butte-Silver Bow Archives:

The Butte-Silver Bow Public Archives is proud to present “Sew Butte,” showcasing Virgil Sargent’s collection of sewing machines, beautiful textiles provided by Rediscoveries, and intricately crafted quilts from the Quilting Guild. Items will be on display until May 17th. 

Maybe I can squeak in a trip sometime in April. It’s a 3-1/2 hour trip down, and I could do that in one day if I leave early enough. Or make an overnight of it. I don’t travel east of the mountains much and it would be nice to take a leisurely tour.

Virgil Sargent, and the exhibit with his collection of machines, was profiled on a recent “Montana Moment” on the NBC affiliate here.

Garden Design

The husband and I had a meeting over breakfast yesterday morning to discuss the upcoming farming season. We decided to take a year off from doing pigs. I am not busted up about that given all the processor problems we had last year.

The big project this year is going to be rebuilding the herb garden. It sat all last year covered in billboard tarp to kill everything underneath. It also doubled in size because the husband took down the fencing between the herb garden and the old vegetable garden. The plan is to put down some kind of weed barrier, install raised beds, and put gravel around them. The old herb garden had beds edged in logs with gravel paths. I really liked that design, but over the years, the logs rotted and weeds grew up through the gravel and it became an overgrown wilderness. Also, I am not as young and flexible as I used to be. I do enough crawling around on the ground in the big garden; I like the idea of raised beds in the herb garden so I don’t have to bend over so much. The garden space will also be big enough to have some seating and a birdbath.

The trick is going to be maintaining control of this project. The husband is sometimes very much his mother’s son. My MIL, whom I loved very much, was a master gardener. She was also a bit of a steamroller and had a tendency to take over and implement her ideas over objections. The husband began voicing opinions about the herb garden design during our discussion and I had to remind him that I have a vision of what I want.

Our relationship has too many generals and not enough foot soldiers. 🤪

It will get done. We need to go out and do some measuring and sketching soon. I mostly want to get the infrastructure in place. The actual planting can happen at a more leisurely pace.

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I finished the Malva Tee:

The fabric is a Walmart remnant. I suspect it’s a rayon/poly blend because it was a bit of a pain to hem on the coverstitch machine. Some fabrics go through like butter; this one had all sorts of issues. Double-brushed poly tends to be that way, too.

The baby quilt has been bound and will be sent off this week. I printed the Portsmith Tote pattern and pulled fabric for it. I’ve got two podcast interviews scheduled for this week, one of which involves a trip to Missoula. I’m also giving the sermon next Sunday, and that has to be written. The weather forecast is for cold and rain this week before warming up into the mid-50s next week, and the greenhouse needs to be ready for planting when the weather improves. I have no shortage of projects on the to-do list.

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I watched a wonderful documentary the other day called Nancy Zieman: Extraordinary Grace, produced by Wisconsin Public Television in 2020. I had read her autobiography, Seams Extraordinary, a few years ago. She truly was a pioneer in the sewing industry, having launched the first TV sewing program. And those episodes are timeless.

Patterns, Patterns Everywhere, and Some Music

I mentioned a few weeks ago that Johanna Lundstrom and Malena Hjerpe, authors of the book Fit For Knits—a must-have if you sew any knit garments—started a podcast called Stitching Tales. Malena has a website at Hazelhen Patterns, and if you sign up for her newsletter, you get a free pattern for the Malva Tee.

Malena commented, on the most recent podcast, that she is very particular about T-shirt patterns. (She used to be a patternmaker for H&M.) I am always looking for good T-shirt patterns, so I traced this and made one yesterday. I still have to put the neckband on and hem it, but I like it very much. I did have to lengthen it by 3"—which is now a standard adjustment on any pattern—and I also graded out one size at the hips. I have learned that grading out at the hips is also a standard adjustment I have to make, not because my hips are that much larger (they aren’t), but because of my high hip curve. If I don’t grade out, that area of the top gets caught on my hipbones. I think that’s why this style of T-shirt suits me. It fits closely at the shoulders and bust and flares gently below the waist (as long as the waist is in the correct position).

[While we were in Seattle, the girls and I determined that neither of them inherited the shape of my pelvis—or at least not to the same extent—which is good.]

I have been looking through my pattern stash. I think I will scratch the bag itch by making a Klum House Portsmith Tote with the zipper top. I’ve got all the supplies.

This looks like a great size and shape of tote bag and should be a quick make.

I am kicking around picking up a pattern for a pair of high-rise, wide-leg pants. Tilly and the Buttons just released the Thea Trousers:

I don’t know that I would rush to make these, but I feel like I should have a pattern on hand in case we circle back to low-rise pants and I am forced to start making pants that actually fit me.

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For you music nerds out there, I offer this:

I have been a bit obsessed with this video this week. This group’s musical director is Ken Nafziger, retired professor at Eastern Mennonite University. They recently released their fourth album and it included this gem. The amazing thing is that they said they recorded this on impulse at the end of a day of video recording. The group decided to sing this song one last time and someone caught it on a smartphone.

If you’ve done any ensemble singing (or playing), you understand the difficulty in getting a group to sync this tightly together. It requires a high level of commitment to listening to each other and to the whole. Doing so in an acappella group is even more difficult as the tendency is to go flatter in key.

[If you truly are a music nerd, may I suggest this Bluecoats Brass podcast episode on intonation? One of the guests is a guy named Bob Higgins, who just happened to sit next to me in the trombone section in high school for two years. We are still good friends 44 years later. Bob was the low brass instructor for the Akron Bluecoats and he explains intonation and temperament very well in this episode.]

The technical excellence of the Laudate Mennonite Ensemble does not surprise me. Several of us from our congregation attended a worship music workshop at Portland Mennonite some years ago, and Ken Nafziger was one of the presenters. He took a group of 30 or so people who had never sung together before—and of varying musical abilities—and had us singing together as if we had been doing so for years. It is rare and beautiful when it happens and I treasure those moments.

The song is beautiful. The arrangement is beautiful. The acoustics in this building are amazing. Enjoy.

Fifteen Minutes and Then Some

The owner of our local quilt store does a Facebook Live every Wednesday where she talks about new products and upcoming classes. I was out running around yesterday morning—more on that in a moment—so I didn’t see the video until later, but she mentioned my upcoming classes (Nathalie and Laundry Day Tee) and also gave a shoutout to the podcast.

And yesterday afternoon, I hopped on to Nicole Sauce’s Living Free in Tennessee livestream. Her scheduled guest cancelled 15 minutes before airtime, so she put out a call for participation from the community. I make an appearance about 18 minutes into the video. The livestream ended up being a discussion between me, Nicole, and Kerry Brown, who was my interview guest on my podcast just before Christmas. His grandmother taught him how to sew. Nicole showed off a hat made from the yarn I spun during Self-Reliance Festival in October. Her mother—Mama Sauce—knit the yarn into a hat and they are going to use it as a raffle prize or fundraiser at the spring SRF in a few weeks. So cool!

The husband just shakes his head at my gadding about.

I spent most of yesterday morning test-driving cars. Ugh. The husband knows one of the salesmen at the Dodge dealer in Whitefish. He happened to be talking to him the other day when this salesman mentioned that they had gotten in a 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee. The husband thought I should try it out, so I drove up yesterday morning to take a look. Someone got there before me and scooped it up (the price was really good), but I drove a 2024 model because I had gone all that way to look at one.

If I were only going to be driving around here, I’d consider the Grand Cherokee. It is nice and solid, but it drives like a truck. I know I would have trouble maneuvering it around Seattle. I wanted to compare it to the VW Atlas, which I tested at Thanksgiving, to see if I still liked the Atlas as much as I remembered. I stopped at the VW dealer and went out for a drive in the 2024 model. The Atlas is still at the top of my list. It has the same size wheelbase as the Grand Cherokee, but it drives like a car. The one thing I didn’t like was that everything in the Atlas—and I mean everything—is controlled from the touchscreen. The Grand Cherokee had regular knobs as well as touchscreen controls. I just wonder what happens if the whole touchscreen system breaks down? My Jetta’s sound system went out completely about a year before VW bought back the car, so the husband questions the quality of their electronics.

It’s all so stupid. The husband keeps telling me I don’t have to buy a new vehicle, but I said that even he, miracle worker that he is, cannot keep The Diva running forever.

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After the livestream, I finished quilting the baby quilt. I’ll bind it this morning and hopefully have it on its way by early next week. I need to make some lists and prioritize my projects. The last couple of weeks of March are going to be very busy and I also need to get the greenhouse ready for starting plants. This is the “all hell breaks loose” time of year for both the husband and me. I picked up a copy of the chick schedule at the farm store a few days ago. I’m hoping to get chicks the week of April 8, probably Buff Orpingtons or Rhode Island Reds.

I was sorry to miss the comforter tying party at our church, which happened the day I was driving to Seattle. A group of about 16 people tied six comforters, which were blessed during the service last Sunday. (Thank you, Valeri, for the photos):

These will be donated to Mennonite Central Committee.

I’m going to sewing today at the community center up the road. I haven’t been since the first of the year and they are going to forget who I am.

Thoughts on the State of the Sewing Industry

Living here in the sticks, as I do, does not give me a good sense of what is happening in the sewing and crafting industry much beyond quilting. We have a Joanns and a Hobby Lobby, but neither of them carries a wide selection of apparel fabric. I had the same issue when I was a knitting designer. By the time “new” yarns made it to our area, they were already out of date. It’s a frustrating position to be in when one’s business depends on knowing what is happening in the rest of the world.

Traveling to the big city (Seattle) gives me an opportunity to do a couple of things. One is to go shopping at Nordstrom, Macy’s, and in the Liz Claiborne department at Penneys. If DD#2 is with me, she provides a running commentary on current trends in fashion and fabrication. (She pointed out all the hot pink this spring and said, “Someone must be reading your blog.” 😂) I might not wear some of these items, like boiler suits, but I can appreciate the styling.

I also have a chance to visit the larger Joann Fabrics stores to see what current stock looks like, because our store is basically a glorified Dollar General at this point. The Joanns near Tacoma Mall is a good one for checking out apparel fabric. Not all of the stores carry a wide selection, but that one does, and the spring fabrics have arrived. I saw lots of bolts of double-brushed polyester. Someone needs to tell Joanns buyers that DBP has a soft hand, yes, but it is way too hot to be wearing in the spring and summer. It doesn’t breathe. I saw only a couple of bolts of rayon spandex knits, which are nicer for warm weather as rayon does breathe. There is more to choosing fabric than color and feel.

[I am hearing buzz that Joanns may declare bankruptcy soon. Their stock price is so low it may get them delisted from the stock exchange. Stay tuned.]

The Walmart remnant racks I visited along the way were disappointing. I fear Walmart has decided the racks don’t make economic sense because they are being eliminated or downsized in most stores. On a related note, I went to a Walmart near Puyallup that was so spotless and organized, you could have eaten off the floors. The employees were all smiling and pleasant. I felt like I had been transported to another planet. I commented to one of the floor managers that it was a pleasure to shop in that store, and she thanked me and said it was all due to their store managers fostering a sense of pride and high morale among the employees. Wow. How sad that I should be surprised by that.

Back to sewing. This is some of the fabric I did buy:

The fabric on the left is a rayon spandex from Joanns. On the right is the last of the chicken fabric from Amanda’s Bundles (at Sew Expo).

I also bought these two fabrics from Amanda’s Bundles:

The top fabric is a gorgeous sweatshirt fleece. They were selling this fabric in a dozen different prints and it was flying off the shelves. Mine is destined to be a hoodie of some sort. The bottom fabric is one of their “peached performance knits.” This one is textured and foiled. I also bought some PPK black and in navy blue. The PPK pairs well with their sweatshirt knits and they had several hoodies on display incorporating both. The PPK is also what I’ve used to make socks on the serger.

Some other observations from the show:

• The show seemed smaller than last year. Granted, I’ve only been to two, but there were definitely fewer vendors. Some vendors who were there last year were absent this year. I also heard from students that attendance was down. Show organizers did try a new system for classes this year. I don’t know if that had an impact or if the changes I saw were due to other factors. I suspect that, despite government assurances that there is no inflation, the economy kept a lot of people away this year. Traveling is not cheap.

• There were a lot of vendors selling what I would call “Asian textiles”—batiks, kimono fabrics, etc. The number of quilt fabric vendors was down. Vogue Fabrics, Billie’s Designer Fabrics, and Amanda’s Bundles were the only apparel fabric vendors.

• The bagmakers were having a day. Klum House was there, as well as Lauren Mormino (More Me Know). I was getting the itch to sew some bags just from walking around the vendor floor.

• The entire show felt much more subdued than last year. That could be due to the fact that the 2023 show was the first to be held in person after two years of being online only due to the pandemic. Or perhaps this year felt different to me being a teacher rather than a student.

My overall sense is that it is getting harder and harder to make these kinds of shows profitable, and that will continue to be the case going forward. (Knitter’s Magazine went out of business and took all of the Stitches events with it.) I’m also keeping one eye on what the machine manufacturers are doing, particularly Bernina. Bernina seems to be hitting this “use a serger for quilting” idea pretty hard—this video with Gail Yellen and Amanda Murphy came out yesterday—and just this morning, I saw a Bernina ad in my Facebook feed indicating that Bernina is now selling select machines ONLINE. That is a major departure from their current system of selling only through dealers and makes me wonder if they are feeling the pinch, too. What happens when you’ve saturated the market for expensive machines?

Are we at a tipping point? Part of me thinks that five years from now, we may be reminiscing about the days when we could buy a huge variety of fabric and sewing notions and travel to conferences to take classes. Maybe we’ll even be back to cutting up old clothing to make quilts.

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Joe Vechiarelli was at Sew Expo again this year, and he graciously spent a few minutes with me discussing bust darts. I was walking through the vendor hall on Wednesday as he and his employees were setting up the French European booth, so I stopped and asked my question. He confirmed my suspicions that the horizontal bust dart shapes the fabric differently; he said that a bust dart in that position provides the greatest amount of extra fabric for fuller busts. I will be retracing my patterns as I make them to adjust accordingly.

Also—laugh with me—I ended up being overdressed for the party on Saturday night. I was anticipating something like last year’s Bernina party and this one felt more like a dance in the high school gym. I stayed for a bit and chatted and ate snacks, but I ended up leaving before the fashion show started. (The fashion show featured items made from materials purchased at previous Sew Expo events, so I didn’t qualify.) Oh, well. I will wear my dress for Christmas.