The Chicks Venture Outside

The employees were here yesterday, waiting for the husband to get back from looking at a job, so they helped me plant the garden. We got the peppers, tomatoes (all 32), zucchini, pumpkins, and cucumbers in. After the guys went back to work, I started corn and beans in the greenhouse. Those won’t take long to germinate, and the extra few days will let the ground warm up a bit more. I could have direct-seeded them, but I am trying to outrun the ground squirrels and turkeys.

I still need to run my hose lines and plant the stuff that is left. I feel like I am behind, but everything should catch up within a few weeks. And after all this rain, I have a fair bit of weeding to do, too.

After lunch, I mowed the grass, stopping periodically to check on the chicks. The door to the chicken yard is open. Only one or two have been brave enough to venture outside:

I am sure it is terrifying. Not only have they not been outside yet, but there are all these big chickens out there staring at them.

I discovered another robin’s nest with babies in one of the front porch rafters. And this mama—she’s hard to see—built her nest on top of the electrical meter:

I couldn’t get any closer because daddy robin was making unhappy noises nearby. I’ve been dive-bombed before by protective bird parents, so I keep a respectful distance.

[I see that someone has been gored by a bison in Yellowstone already. That didn’t take long. 🙄]

No one signed up for the thread class in Missoula on Friday, so we cancelled it. I’m offering the same class at the end of July and several students have signed up, so it may just be that the timing wasn’t good.

I desperately need to do some sewing. If I spend mornings working on the garden, I should be able to devote afternoons to working on some projects. Let’s hope, because I am starting to get twitchy. I’ve been doing a bit of English paper piecing in the evenings, but I need to sink my sewing teeth into something.

Helping the Homestead Foundation

I did the official tally for the plant sale total yesterday and we made over $4000 for the Homestead Foundation. Not bad for a little community plant sale. The local food bank sent a van out yesterday to pick up the leftover plants. The driver made two trips, and reports are that by the time he got back with the second load, half the plants from the first load had already gone to new homes. The food bank will plant any that are left in their community garden and harvest the produce. I am glad that we are able to contribute in that way.

Our Homestead Foundation has an interesting history. For years, it was the school that served our community, which is known as Mountain Brook. The last classes were held there around 1996, the year before DD#1 entered kindergarten. Because Mountain Brook School had been annexed to the Cayuse Prairie school district—the elementary school my girls attended—the district maintained responsibility for the campus. The terms of the original deed stipulated that if it ever stopped being used as a school, the property would revert to the original owners, a local family by the name of Brown.

My friend Susan is the person who came up with the idea of turning the school into a community library, and the Mountain Brook Homestead Foundation was established as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit around 2000. When the Cayuse Prairie school district decided it no longer wanted responsibility for the campus, a search was undertaken to find the descendants of the original Brown family. They, in turn, donated the property to the Homestead Foundation.

It has taken several years to find our footing. The Homestead Foundation—of which I am a board member and the chairman of the fundraising committee—is now responsible for paying the bills. Just the cost of keeping the lights on and doors open is about $11,000 per year. That doesn’t begin to address the cost of capital improvements. There are two buildings on the one-acre campus. One is the 1927 schoolhouse, which is a darling building that could be used as a community center but needs a tremendous amount of work. The other is the 1950’s-era building currently being used as the Library and the meeting area for our Thursday sewing group. That building also needs some maintenance.

I am hoping that we will be able to recruit additional volunteers. One of the phrases I hear that frustrates me to no end is “Why don’t you [insert fundraising idea here]?” This is an all-volunteer organization. Fundraising and grant-writing for this organization could be a full-time job for me if I were willing to allow that. We don’t lack for ideas on how to make money. We lack the manpower. I know that community involvement is at an all-time low these days—our local volunteer fire department is struggling, too—but I am seeing more interest from our community in coming together to make the campus a vibrant and useful meeting place. I hope we can capitalize on that.

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The baby robins left the nest, but it looks like mama is gearing up for round two. She’s been tidying up the nest and now looks like she’s sitting on another clutch of eggs.

I think the rain has moved on. It looks like it will be at least partly sunny and warmer here for the next week, getting well up into the 70s and 80s. I’d like to get plants in today and tomorrow. After all this rain, the grass needs to be cut again, too.

Now to Plant My Own Garden (and Sew)

The plant sale went well. We hit our fundraising goal and then some, and I am satisfied. I am relieved that it’s over. This was a very challenging growing season, to say the least, and keeping baby plants alive is almost more challenging than keeping baby animals alive.

Now it’s time to plant my garden. I have a well-deserved massage scheduled for tomorrow morning and I need to record this week’s podcast tomorrow afternoon, but Tuesday and Wednesday will be devoted to getting plants into the ground. After that, I plan to spend some time sewing. I have put my projects on the back burner for too long.

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The husband has been working on the old Jeep. It got a new battery, an oil change, and a general tuneup. He also bought some sandblasting equipment so he can sandblast and repaint the trailer he accidentally bought a few months ago. I am excited about this because it means I can sandblast and repaint some sewing machines. We have been watching sandblasting videos on YouTube in the evenings.

The baby robins have been exploring the edges of the nest, which tells me they are almost ready to fledge:

Only two in this hatch; usually I see three. Once, we had a robin with four babies, and she was very busy keeping them fed.

The chicks are almost teenagers now. The husband will rig up the separate area in the chicken yard for them soon so they can be outside with the big chickens. The pigs are happily rooting up the pasture and doing pig things. They nap a lot, too.

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My sewing plans are to make more tops and blouses and finish a couple of bag projects. I need to get some patterns printed at the blueprint place; I was going to do it one day when I was in town last week, but I drove by and the parking lot was full. I’ll stop there this week on a day when everybody and his brother isn’t trying to get plans printed.

Plant Sale Prep

I had one student in class on Tuesday. Two had registered, but only one showed, so she got a private lesson on using her serger. She had a Bernina 1300MC, which is a model I didn’t know very well. (I know it better now.) It’s one of the early serger/coverstitch combo machines, and after using it, I understand why those machines had mixed reviews. Converting from serger to coverstitch and back is fussy. It has a chain looper that threads almost exactly the same way the chain looper threads on my industrial serger. By the end of class, we were able to get the machine to make a chain stitch, but not a five-thread chain/overlock combo stitch. She was going to take it home and watch some videos and see what she could get it to do.

Getting ready for the plant sale has taken much of the rest of my time this week. Sarah came over on Wednesday and helped me organize trays. We have a lot of plants and some things had gotten moved around and mixed up.

Yesterday, I pulled the plants I started for my own garden and set them aside. I still haven’t planted anything. We were under a frost advisory last night and indeed, it’s 31F now as I type this. A week from now, we are supposed to be well into the 80s. I’ll push hard to get everything planted next week. I’m teaching a thread class in Missoula next Friday.

I have a mix of old favorites and a couple of new varieties of plants this year. These are the tomato varieties I am putting in:

• Oregon Star—this has long been my favorite paste tomato. I’ve gotten fruits off these plants that weigh up to a pound. They are the backbone of my salsa and tomato sauce.

• Purple Russian paste—I also like these, although they are smaller than the Oregon Star.

• Northern Ruby paste—a new one I am trying this year. We’ll see how it does.

• Cherokee Purple—long a favorite of mine, I have planted it every year for over a decade.

• Indian Stripe—another favorite.

• Weisnicht’s Ukranian—this is one I got from Susan, and it’s a good all-around tomato.

• Dirty Girl—the open-pollinated version of Early Girl. I generally stick to heirloom or open-pollinated plants in my garden.

• Aunt Ruby’s Green—I am doing this one again this year, although I have mixed feelings about it. The taste is great, but knowing when to harvest is tricky as it doesn’t turn red. Still, I think it adds something to my tomato sauce recipe, such as it is.

• Black Krim—I succumbed to the description on the seed packet.

• Raspberry Lyanna—I succumbed to the description on the seed packet.

• Dwarf Saucy Mary—Sarah loves the dwarf and micro-dwarf varieties and this one looked interesting to me.

• Brad’s Atomic Grape—I am not normally a fan of grape or cherry tomatoes, but they are popular at the sale. I’m growing this one just to see how it does.

• Blue Boar Berry—the one cherry tomato I do like. I forgot to save seeds last fall, but I went out to the garden in March and picked one up off the ground, opened it, and planted the seeds. They germinated.

I have room for 32 tomato plants and I think this list exhausts that space.

Susan and I will put tarps down in the community center this morning. A group of volunteers is meeting here at 3:30 this afternoon to transport plants from the greenhouse to the community center to sit overnight. We set up at 8:30 tomorrow morning and the sale opens at 10 am. I’ll be making up signs and price lists this afternoon and making sure we have all the supplies we need. I think it’s going to be a great sale!

You're Not the Boss of Me

Despite being married for 34 years, the husband and I do not work well together. After butting heads over a project in the garden yesterday morning, I said to him, “Why do we have such a hard time working together?” He thought about it for a moment and said, “We both have a very large streak of You’re not the boss of me.”

A healthy dose of humor helps. Eventually, we come to an understanding and the project gets done.

He tilled in the last bit of pig manure. The tomatoes will go in that spot and I expect them to do very well. I weeded the strawberry bed; we are going to be inundated with strawberries this year if I can keep marauding turkeys and ground squirrels away. I prepped the row underneath the pea trellis for planting and discovered a ground squirrel hole right in the middle of the row. No doubt the little jerk has been wondering why the smorgasbord isn’t ready yet.

I’m trying not to think about being behind on gardening this year. I’m okay as long as I look at the weather and not the calendar. Next week, though, is going to have to be a push to get everything planted. I remind myself that everyone else is in the same boat. The people who planted a few weeks ago when we had that streak of warm weather lost all of their plants and will have to replant them.

We are supposed to get some wicked thunderstorms, wind, and possibly hail this afternoon. My class is from 10-1 and I’m coming home right after it’s done. I realized, when the husband was away last week, that I did not know how to start the new generator. He replaced our gas generator with a larger diesel one last fall. I had a cheat sheet for starting the old generator but hadn’t had a lesson on starting the new one. We went over that on Sunday and I took notes and pictures.

I made a sign for the plant sale:

Susan has this sandwich board to advertise events at the community center, so I made up two posterboard sheets to go on each side. They aren’t fancy, but they work. I also sewed up a clear vinyl cover to slip over the board to protect it from rain. I thought that was very clever of me. Susan’s house is right across the street from the community center and we put the sandwich board on her property.

I cut out another Simplicity 9469 top yesterday afternoon and finished all the edges on the serger. I just have to sew it together and hem it. I think I may lengthen that pattern into a dress and use the Fableism fabric I got at Pacific Fabrics.

Sussing Out Sleeves

I like the New Look 6344 pleated-front blouse pattern, but you may remember that I had a terrible time setting in the sleeves. Contrast that to Simplicity 9469—fast becoming a favorite of mine to wear—where the sleeves went in smoothly and fit beautifully. Why the difference?

I find it’s helpful to lay out the pattern pieces as if they have been sewn together and look at the shape of the armscye. Here is Simplicity 9469:

This, to me, looks like a beautiful, well-shaped armscye.

This is the armscye for New Look 6344. I flipped the photo so that the front piece would be on the left, as it is in the photo above:

What the heck happened here? Someone’s first day on the job?

I want to note two things: First, the length of these armscyes is the same at 19-1/2". Second, the sleeve cap shaping on both patterns is identical. I have no explanation for this weirdly-shaped armscye other than bad pattern drafting. Am I missing something?

After comparing the shape of the armscyes, I wanted to know how the front and back pieces differed. If the armscye was shaped differently because of the pleating on the front, one would expect the fronts to be shaped differently. Nope. Here they are, laid one on top of the other (9469 on top):

Where they differ is on the back pattern pieces (again, 9469 on top):

Why? What am I missing? I don’t know what I don’t know, which is frustrating sometimes.

I re-traced New Look 6344 with the armscyes from Simplicity 9469. We’ll see if that fixes the issue.

When I see this kind of stuff, I understand why people don’t sew clothing for themselves. I have enough knowledge to at least begin looking for the problem. If I were a rank beginner, I’d be baffled and frustrated.

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While I’m griping, lol . . . one of the things I notice when watching sewing videos is people’s bad sewing habits. Yesterday, I watched someone make a dress while sewing over pins. Ack! She will stop doing that as soon as she hits a pin and throws the timing off in her machine, necessitating a trip to the repair shop. The other habit that grinds my gears is watching people with one hand in front and one hand in back pulling or pushing the fabric through the machine. That is almost guaranteed to deflect the needle and cause it to strike the needle plate, which is another great method for throwing a machine out of time. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I was doing a serger demo one time when a lady sat down to try out the machine and serged by pulling the fabric through. (I stopped her as soon as I saw what she was doing.) I don’t know who teaches these kinds of habits, but they are more prevalent than I expected. All I can do is correct these habits when I see them in my classes, and demonstrate good techniques. My serger students know that if I see them serging with pins instead of clips, they are likely to get a lecture. Pins and serger knives do not mix.

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The weather looks to improve and dry out a bit this week. I’ll be working on plant sale stuff and mowing the grass. Conventional wisdom here in Montana is that we don’t plant our gardens until Memorial Day weekend or until the snow is gone from the mountains. There is still snow on the mountains, and I won’t be planting anything except maybe peas and brassicas, because the soil hasn’t warmed up yet. This has been a weird spring.

34 Years and Counting

Today is our 34th wedding anniversary. We’ve been together for 37 years. I wonder where the time went, because in my mind, the husband and I are still in our 20s. LOL.

Class submissions are open for Sew Expo 2025. I love that they changed the submission process for this year. Instead of requiring teachers to submit fully-developed class proposals—with no guarantee that a class will be chosen—they are asking teachers to submit high-level class ideas for review. After a class is selected, the teacher is responsible for submitting a complete proposal. I can’t tell you how much that simplifies things on the teacher’s end. I’ll be submitting quite a few more class ideas now that I don’t have to do all that extra work. Proposals aren’t due until August 1, so I have time to think about what I’d like to teach. I’ll submit more knitting class proposals, definitely, but I might also screw up the courage to submit some sewing class proposals.

I ran errands in town on Friday and stopped at Joann Fabrics on the way home. I haven’t been in there in several weeks. I know Joanns said they wouldn’t close any stores as part of the bankruptcy reorganization, but our store is well on its way to being out of business. Shelves are empty. The home dec section only has about half the stock, and the rolls that are left are down to a few yards. The employees look like they are at a funeral. I won’t be the least bit surprised to see a “Store Closing” sign in the window before the end of the summer. They are rapidly running out of anything to sell.

The commercial pattern companies have released their summer lines and so far, I am underwhelmed. That’s not a bad thing as I am not lacking for projects. The only pattern I might get is this McCall’s apron pattern:

I don’t have any apron patterns in this style.

The husband is home from Colorado. It rained again yesterday, so I cleaned our bedroom and ran the air scrubber for a few hours while waiting for him to arrive. I am glad to have him home. Keeping all these animals (and plants in the greenhouse) alive, dry, fed, and watered is a lot of work.

Susan had to make an unplanned trip to Oregon to help care for aging parents, so I’ll have a few extra tasks on my plate this week for the plant sale. I will manage. She will be back in time for the sale next Saturday. The weather is supposed to be lovely. I have a Serger 101 class scheduled for Tuesday but I need to check to see if anyone is registered.

I took some time yesterday afternoon to clean up and organize my sewing area (again) while watching weather coverage. The husband laughs about my channel watching habits, but I don’t think they are any weirder than his channel watching habits. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I pulled out the patterns I want to make soon and put them with a stack of fabric. I am starting to feel like I am getting near the end of my closet makeover. What’s hanging in there now is certainly much more colorful—and fits better—than what was hanging in there two years ago. I am conscious of the fact that I don’t want to switch out fast fashion for fast sewing. I know it doesn’t sound like it sometimes, but I have cut back on fabric acquisition quite a bit.

My friend Christi, who lives in California, has been taking some sewing classes locally. She sends me periodic updates and photos of her projects. I am blown away. She just finished this shirt for her husband. Look how well it fits!

I love to see people being creative.

Farmer Girl

The husband has been in Colorado this week visiting his dad. He’s on his way home today. His absence was a big motivation for me to clean the house. It’s easier to do when he’s not here, and it stays cleaner longer. On Wednesday, I tore apart and cleaned the living room, then swept out the old garage. Yesterday, I cleaned the kitchen and two bathrooms. The sun came out yesterday morning, so I also mowed the grass after lunch. (It’s raining again now.) I’m taking a break today to run errands and record next week’s podcast episode. Cleaning our bedroom can wait until tomorrow.

I’ve also been responsible for animals. I handle the routine chicken chores most days, but the husband takes care of the pigs. Before he left, he made sure that there were some bags of food in a garbage can in the chicken coop so I wouldn’t have to haul 40-pound bags of feed over from the garage. We don’t usually keep feed inside the coop because it encourages mice. For the pigs, he gets a 1000-pound tote of feed every couple of weeks from the farm store. The tote sits on a pallet next to the piggy palace, surrounded by hot wire so any hungry bears passing through won’t be tempted to gorge themselves. The feed gets scooped from the tote into feeders on the wall of the piggy palace. There is also an automatic watering system with nipples so the pigs have constant fresh water.

The husband is all about efficient infrastructure.

The hardest part was getting the animals onto my schedule for the week. He normally does a walkaround before he comes to bed and tucks everyone in. I don’t stay up that late and I wasn’t going to alter my schedule for livestock. I also didn’t want to be wandering around by myself in the dark. The first night, I coaxed the pigs in earlier using marshmallows. They learn quickly and I haven’t had a problem since. The chickens, given the option, would stay out partying all night in the chicken yard (and Dave would start crowing at 3 am). I don’t give them scratch grains until I’m ready to close up the coop, so they have to come in if they want their treat.

It has been a mostly uneventful week. Sarah brought a few more trays of plants to the greenhouse. She’s going to come over next week and help me organize what goes to the plant sale and what stays here for my garden.

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I would have liked to have had some sewing time this week, but I also like having a clean house. Part of the reason I swept out the garage was so I could work on the Juki 1541 now that I have the motor issue sorted. I have a stack of bag projects that need to be finished as well as some of the husband’s pants to mend.

One of the topics that comes up frequently at sewing is ideas for new items to make and sell. If I had time, I would make up some of these cute zipper pouches:

Moda has a whole Pouch Club with patterns for various kinds of zipper pouches. (coughSarahcough) These would be great for using up scraps.

I can’t get my sewing projects under control, though, so all I may have to sell this year is a stack of potholders. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Things might slow down in June once the garden is in. We’ll see. I scored a nice chunk of royal blue stretch poplin at Walmart the other day (for $4!) and that’s going to become a pair of Style Arc Linda pants.

Greenery

The greenhouse is a very oxygen-rich place these days:

Despite all the hiccups with this year’s plant sale, I am happy with the amount of inventory—and this isn’t even all of it. Elysian and Susan and Sarah have more plants in their houses. And I still have two trays of tomato seedlings to transplant into bigger pots. We should be in great shape by the end of next week. It’s raining now, but next week is supposed to be warmer and sunnier.

I bought metal racks to increase the amount of horizontal surface area and that has worked very well. I do rotate the plants every couple of days because the ones underneath don’t get as much sun. Still, the extra space has made a big difference.

The weed barrier for the herb garden arrived Monday. We are waiting on the last raised bed to be delivered, but as soon as it is, that project will move forward.

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I went to Missoula yesterday to teach a serger mastery class. I gave myself three hours of travel time, which was good because I ran into a lot of road construction and lumbering RVs. ‘Tis the season.

I had three ladies in my class and we had a good time. All of them are interested in fitting and clothing classes, so I told them to let the store owner know and we would try to get a few classes on the schedule. I think it makes a bigger difference when students ask for a class than when I suggest something.

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The rain means that today is a cleaning day, although I am warring with myself about it. I would much rather spend the day sewing. However, I am nothing if not disciplined. This morning will be spent tearing apart and cleaning the living room. If I have any energy left this afternoon, I’ll reward myself by cutting out a blouse. Tomorrow, I’ll attack the kitchen.

New Look 6344 Is a Winner

I carved out some time on Saturday to make a wearable muslin of New Look 6344. This pattern is heading straight for the tried-and-true pile:

The fabric is a Kaffe Fassett wideback. In general, I don’t make clothing from quilting cottons, but this is a lightweight cotton sateen-type fabric and it worked well. I wouldn’t go much heavier than this, though. (And those Kaffe Fasset prints are right up my alley.) I almost wore this to church yesterday morning but opted for the one I made from Simplicity 9469, instead. I prefer the armscye and sleeve shaping on the Simplicity top. I may frankenpattern those onto this one. I had a lot of trouble setting in the sleeves on this top and remember that they went in quite easily on the Simplicity pattern.

In any case, I’ve got two patterns for the summer, which is a start. I also have plenty of fabric. Now I just need to sew.

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I am glad we didn’t have the plant sale on Saturday. It was 45 degrees and raining—we wouldn’t have sold anything anyway. The plants in the greenhouse have perked up and are looking much better than they were a couple of weeks ago. I transplanted a couple of trays of tomatoes yesterday afternoon.

We’re supposed to stay in this cool, rainy pattern all week, so I am going to clean the house. The industrial air scrubber is ready to go. I will tear down a room at a time and dust, wash, and mop everything thoroughly. I can’t stand that gritty dust that settles on all the surfaces. The air scrubber has been a big help in filtering it out, but I have to keep on top of it.

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We got our pre-renewal notice for our homeowner’s insurance policy (through USAA) this week. In May 2023, our six-month premium was $1000. In November 2023, it went up to $1200. Our new six-month premium has jumped from $1200 to $2000.

The guy who deliberately started a wildfire south of here in July 2021 was sentenced this week to 30 years in prison. That fire burned 14 homes. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that our homeowner’s insurance premiums are skyrocketing.

John Michael Greer has written a great series on his blog recently. He’s been exploring what he has dubbed “lenocracy”—leno being the Latin word for pimp—or a system that consists solely of people holding their hands out for their cut of the proceeds. Nothing productive is actually being created; this is a system of parasites. I think it’s an apt description.

T-Shirts Are a Gateway Drug

The moment that you realize you can do something amazing like making yourself a piece of clothing is a heady one, indeed—at least it was for me. I think a young lady has also had that epiphany. My friend Cassie dropped her 11 year-old daughter off here yesterday morning and the two of us got to work. We went through my collection of patterns and chose one, then dove into my stash of fabric. This Pop! juvenile print from Joanns was just waiting to be turned into a darling T-shirt:

I demonstrated each step—everything from tracing the pattern to cutting it out to serging the seams—then had this young lady try it herself. She jumped in fearlessly. I found out that despite being in 4-H and having done some sewing, she had never used a rotary cutter. Their 4-H leader cuts out all their projects and threads their machines for them. I understand the need for such caution—no one wants a room full of little kids indiscriminately brandishing sharp objects—but I am of the opinion that young people are more capable than we think they are. I taught WS to use a rotary cutter a few years ago. He is making a quilt for his 4-H project this year.

The only sewing I did was to attach the neckband and hem the body and sleeves on the coverstitch machine. I turned the speed down on the serger so it wasn’t running away from her. When we were done, we took some of the leftover knit fabric and made a matching headband. I suggested that she think about making something to enter into the fair this summer and said that I would help her with it. Cassie has a serger.

[Cassie also has cows and is selling milk from them. I’m going to get a couple of gallons of milk next week and try making some cheese. I need another hobby like I need a hole in my head, but cheesemaking could be fun. We eat a lot of cheese here.]

That was a lovely way to spend a rainy Friday.

Just before dinner, a group of us met at the elementary school to load the leftovers from their plant sale into our vehicles to bring them back to my greenhouse. We’ve done this for a couple of years now. The school has a plant sale and donates what they don’t sell to the Homestead Foundation plant sale. We will have plenty of cucumbers and squash for this year’s sale.

Yesterday felt more like October than May. I am glad we moved the plant sale to June 1, although there is no guarantee of good weather that day. Still, the seedlings get an extra two weeks to grow.

I may need to run to town this morning for chicken feed, but I’ve earmarked the rest of the day for working on summer blouse patterns.

Done With Christmas Stockings

The grass has been cut and trimmed and now we wait for the next break in the rain to do it all again. At least I can walk through the garden. I am hoping to get peas in tomorrow. The strawberry bed also needs weeding, and I have a bit more pruning to do in the raspberry patch.

My friend Anna, who lives across the road, texted me yesterday afternoon and asked if I wanted to come over for tea and a chat. She and her husband go to California for several months during the winter and we haven’t had a chance to catch up since they got back. I toodled over in the golf cart, which made me feel like an old fart, but I am glad we have it for running around the neighborhood. The husband put a new battery in it a few weeks ago.

I may add “new golf cart seat cover” to the to-do list for this summer. It’s not exactly falling apart, but it could stand to be replaced. Thanks to help from some of the members of the Facebook vintage industrial sewing machine group, I was able to adjust the servo motor on the Juki 1541 so that the machine isn’t sewing at 200 mph. Owners of industrial machines are always touting the superiority of servo motors over clutch motors because servo motors can be adjusted for slower sewing. I don’t know—I have a clutch motor on my industrial serger and I have no trouble sewing on that machine, but I’m also used to driving a stick shift. The feeling is not dissimilar.

[One very un-helpful guy in that group told me that the machine was intended to go fast and I should suck it up and learn to control it through the foot pedal. Trolls are everywhere.]

I finished the fourth Christmas stocking yesterday afternoon:

I’ll take this and the serger version with me next week when I teach in Missoula. On this one, I used a single layer of fabric for the ruffle and edged it with a three-thread rolled hem in wooly polyester thread. I like this ruffle best of all.

I am glad to have these done. Now I can get back to working on some summer blouses.

The husband started putting my raised beds together yesterday afternoon. I ordered them from Vego Garden. We can’t set or fill them until the weed barrier gets here, but I envisioned the herb garden renovation being mostly a June project. There is no rush to get it done. We were hoping to have the Homestead Foundation garden tour again this summer, but personal schedules got in the way and we had to cancel it. Our Homestead Foundation has a fundraising committee chaired by yours truly. I am proud of the fact that our committee raises several tens of thousands of dollars each year for the Foundation, but the committee is not large—there are only four of us. I continue to warn the board that if we have to do all the work, the committee members are going to burn out and quit. Everyone nods and agrees that we need more volunteers. However, I do not see volunteer recruitment and training as the responsibility of the fundraising committee. Our committee’s job is to plan fundraisers and bring in income. I have no doubt that we could raise upwards of $50,000 to $75,000 a year if we had the manpower. I have lots of experience running businesses and I know how to make money.

We are getting more interest in the Foundation from community members. We are in dire need of someone who can spearhead a volunteer recruitment committee, though, and I keep hoping someone will step up.

So Many Patterns

I mowed the grass around the garden yesterday and was rewarded with four bags of grass clippings to use as mulch for the potatoes. The grass was almost a foot high in places. If only the vegetables would grow as quickly as the weeds do. I need to get out this morning and run the string trimmer. I’m a bit sore from this uptick in physical activity, but it’s a good kind of sore.

The piglets watched me cut the grass in the garden yesterday before heading out to nap under the trees. I always forget how sociable pigs are. On the way back to the house, I had to skirt two male turkeys having an argument in the back yard. Turkeys aren’t typically aggressive, but I’m not taking any chances. The bunny was munching on dandelion stems.

After lunch, I worked on the last Christmas stocking store sample. This is destined for the store in Missoula. I’m teaching a serger mastery class there next week and want to take the two samples with me. This is another coverstitch version:

I switched from the Glamore 12wt metallic to Accent 12wt rayon in the coverstitch section in the middle and it worked much better. The effect isn’t quite as dramatic, but I’ll take it if it means not fighting with the machine.

I haven’t had a chance to adjust the servo motor on the Juki 1541 yet.

A whole slew of new indie patterns have come out recently. I’ve resisted all of them except the Algarve Top from Itch to Stitch:

I bought it because a) it was on sale; b) it is intended for knit fabrics; and c) I like this style. From what I’ve seen in the brand ambassador videos, it is also a quick make. I know I’ll have to lengthen it, but that’s not unusual. I am hoping for some sewing time next week as it is supposed to be cool and rainy again.

My friend Cassie posted on Facebook last week that she was having trouble finding nice clothes for her (tween-age) daughter, and asked for recommendations. Her kids are in 4-H and know how to sew. I offered to help her daughter sew up a couple of T-shirts, so this young lady is coming over tomorrow for a few hours. I completely understand what it’s like not to be able to find suitable clothing in stores.

Lawn Commander

As much as I love road trips, there is much to be said for coming home and settling back into my usual daily routine. The husband got the John Deere tractor and the push mower ready for me yesterday morning, so I worked on beating the yard into shape. Our lawn is no more manicured than my nails; I am satisfied just keeping the dandelions down to a dull roar. Given the choice between a magazine-worthy lawn chock full of chemicals and the barely-controlled chaos of a happy ecosystem, I will choose the happy ecosystem every time.

The pear trees in the front orchard look awful, which is odd considering the apple trees look great. One tree is dead and needs to come out. The other two are barely hanging on. I am trying to decide if we take them out and replace them with apple trees or give them a season to see if they recover. I may consult with Susan and see what she thinks. We aren’t huge fans of pears, so I’m not overly upset about this. Susan likely will be overjoyed as it will give her a reason to graft more apple trees for me.

I will mow the grass around the perimeter of the garden this morning as it’s getting to be quite a jungle out there. The potatoes are up:

Peas are going in this week, which means it’s also time to implement anti-ground squirrel measures.

The metal raised bed system for the herb garden was delivered on Monday. I’m waiting on the weed barrier material. Once that is down and the beds assembled, the husband will arrange for delivery of gravel to cover the weed barrier and dirt for the beds.

We are down to one bunny. We had two, but the husband said he found parts of one in the yard and thinks one of the feral cats might have gotten it. (Or coyotes, or a mountain lion—who knows?) The remaining bunny is living under the porch and is completely brown now. Mama robin is still sitting on eggs. The hummingbirds are here and two males fight daily over control of one of the feeders. The female eats from the other feeder.

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On my way through Spokane last week, I stopped in at the small quilt store where I’ve taught a couple of times. The owner downsized to half the space, sold off most of her quilt fabric, and has chosen to concentrate on custom longarming, embroidery, and continuing as a Juki dealer. She would like me to teach serger classes for her. While I was there, I bought this:

The package contains a piece of fabric printed with small embroidery designs. After embroidering the designs, you cut out the individual motifs and use them as the centers of hexie flowers. I think this will be next winter’s embroidery project.

Now that the chicks are out of the old garage, I’m going to clean up that area and get back to sewing on the Juki 1541. Thanks to help from some people on one of the Facebook sewing groups, I was able to obtain understandable instructions for adjusting the speed of the servo motor on that machine. The original instructions had been translated—badly—from Japanese and made no sense. I can sew on that machine, but it would be nice to slow it down so I have better control. One very unhelpful person told me I needed to learn how to control the speed by using the foot pedal, which would be good advice if the machine didn’t take off at top speed by depressing the foot pedal a mere half an inch . . . I’ll play around with some adjustments this afternoon and see what I can do.

Mother's Day in Seattle

I took the Jeep out for its inaugural road trip this past weekend. DD#2 moved into a new apartment last week and asked if I would come out and help her get settled. Her boyfriend’s mother also came for the weekend, so I got to spend some time getting to know her. She’s a lot of fun. DD#2’s boyfriend has an older brother who also lives in Seattle. In fact, the four kids—the boys and their girlfriends—now live in the same apartment building, one floor apart. We all had a great weekend together.

On Friday, the four ladies went shopping. We went to Bellevue Mall in the morning and had lunch at the Nordstrom Grill. I had a chance to see what was new in the fashion world for spring. Spoiler alert: We are back to lots of neutrals—ugh—although I did see some absolutely gorgeous Eileen Fisher linen pieces in this mallard green color:

The picture does not do this color justice. I love green anyway, and I like that this is not the bluish teal that is usually so prevalent.

I bought two Nordstrom label T-shirt dresses that are a relaxed princess seam style with pockets on the front seams. They are made from a beefy cotton interlock. Normally, I avoid cotton interlock because it has lousy recovery and looks baggy after a short time on the body. The Joanns cotton interlock is particularly awful. Most cotton interlock fabrics are either 100% cotton or 98% cotton/2% spandex. The Nordstrom dress was made from an interlock fabric that is 93% cotton/7% spandex. I wore one of the dresses over the weekend and it held its shape very well—

—which brings me to my current source of irritation. Why can’t home sewists find these kinds of quality fabrics? Why must we settle for cheap imitations? Yes, some stores carry deadstock fabrics—including Eileen Fisher deadstock—but those are entirely hit-and-miss in availability.

I’m still chewing on that. If someone can clue me in, please do.

After lunch, we headed over to University Village. The boyfriend’s mom wanted to do some furniture shopping and DD#2 wanted to see about getting some pillows for her new couch. I was tickled to see knitted items in Potter Barn and Crate and Barrel. This octopus was cute:

And this knitted pillow had some cabling on it:

I took a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon to run down to Pacific Fabrics. I could spend days (and lots of money) there, but I confined myself to three yards of a cotton woven from a new fabric manufacturer called Fableism Supply Company. From their website:

Hello there!  We are a small family owned manufacturing company called Fableism Supply Co.  We initially started Fableism because… if we’re honest… we are very picky with our colors.  We knew exactly what we wanted.  We wanted a range of desert inspired warm colors and a coastal inspired palette of cool colors.  After years of searching for just exactly what we wanted and coming up empty handed.  We decided to just go for it.  We took a giant leap of faith and decided to trust our Creator and trust ourselves with the vision He gave to us.  So we began.  We searched high and low for earthy colors.  The kind of colors you find in old book illustrations, and maps.  From the highlights and shadows of an acorn, to the sweeping colors that paint the sky at sunset, these are the colors that inspire us.  These are colors and textures we want to live in. 

Yes, emphasis on “earth tones” (what is the fascination?) although they do have some nice, saturated colors. I bought a green that is a bit lighter than the Eileen Fisher mallard color from the first photo in this post. (Fableism does have a color that is almost identical, but Pacific Fabrics did not have it in stock.) I think the fabric is destined to become View B of New Look 6344:

This is another $0.99 Hobby Lobby acquisition. I am eager to try this pattern, because I think it has definite possibilities. The longer length looks like it will be just about perfect. I’d leave off that collar, though, and make a plain neckline.

We finished off the weekend with a Mariners game on Sunday.

Truly, the weather was spectacular. I’ve made dozens of trips to Seattle and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it sunny and warm for three days in a row.

I drove home yesterday, getting stuck in a backup on I-90 going through Spokane, courtesy of THREE (!!!!) accidents along a two-mile stretch of highway. What is with people?

Now it’s back to work. The husband took care of all the plants in the greenhouse and they are doing much better after several days of warm, sunny weather. The piglets had fence training over the weekend and now are busy exploring the pasture. I’ve got to cut the grass. Hopefully we are done with snow for a while.

A Stocking Variation

If you haven’t listened yet, this week’s podcast is an interview with Whitney Luckenbill of TomKat Stitchery. We got to meet in person at Sew Expo and made arrangements for an interview in mid-April. She is so darn much fun and I am excited to see where her business goes this year. She has plans!

We’ve had some good soaking rain here. I’m expecting the potatoes to pop up soon if they haven’t already. I’ll have to mow the grass as soon as things dry out. The piglets have plenty of straw to burrow in. The chicks spend most of their time in a clump, although I think that’s a defensive maneuver against the phalanx of big chickens staring at them through the wire walls more than it is due to cold; the clump is not under the heat lamp, which it would be if they needed warmth. The big chickens have nothing else to occupy their time, apparently, than to stare at the chicks, because every time I go out to the coop, that is what they are doing.

I finished the third Christmas stocking, although clearly I missed a step. I must not have measured or trimmed properly, because the center section of this third stocking is longer than it is on the other two stockings. You wouldn’t know that I had already made two of these. 🫤

Oh, well. I’m not re-doing it. We’ll call it a design element. I was watching tornado coverage while I was sewing, so perhaps I was distracted.

I did a pleated cuff on this version, just for something different. I think I like it better than a gathered cuff.

[Just an aside here to say that although I love Starlink, it has an annoying tendency to lose its connection a couple of times a week, usually around 4 am when I am trying to get some work done. It also happens occasionally at night, according to the husband, and interrupts his YouTube viewing. Sometimes it is out for 45 minutes. As I am writing this, I am waiting for it to come back online. I can see Starlink’s status through the app on my phone.]

Gail Yellen’s patterns are pretty good, although I suspect she is one of those people who thinks globally rather than at the detail level. There are times when I scratch my head and have to read the instructions again to make sense of what she’s saying. I am one of those people who prefers bulleted or numbered instructions rather than narrative-style instructions.

Good tech editors are worth their weight in gold, let me tell you.

We are drowning in eggs, so I made two pumpkin pies and a large sausage-and-egg bake yesterday. I am planting more pumpkins plants this year than I did last year, because we’re almost out of canned pumpkin. Those of you who have never seen the husband eat a meal have no idea how many calories he requires. He’ll eat half a pumpkin pie in one evening. And he still wears the same size clothing he wore in college.

The check engine light came on in the Diva as I was leaving the dentist Monday. Whatever is throwing the code doesn’t seem to have affected its performance. I think I’ve put more miles on that car with the light on than off.

All the Baby Animals

The pie social was a success, although we are suffering from the usual problems of not enough help. I said to Susan that the 60- and 70-year olds should not be the people doing all of the heavy lifting for these events. If it weren’t for Susan and Sarah baking pies, we wouldn’t have had many pies to serve, and one of our older board members did all of the table setup and takedown. We are glad that everyone comes and enjoys themselves, but I wish that more people stopped to think about all of the work that goes in to putting on these “community” events.

I was at the information table and visited with people as they came in. We had quite a few new attendees and people new to the area along with the regulars. I also heard a lot of positive comments about the fact that we pushed back the date for the plant sale. I think we will keep the later date from now on.

The weather stayed nice until the pie social was over. Now we are getting more rain. Our employees were here working on their trucks yesterday, and one of them helped the husband move the chicks over to the coop while I was at church. The chicks are a bit shell-shocked, as they always are. All of a sudden they went from a little brooder box to a 5' x 5' room with a bunch of very big chickens staring at them through the wire. They’ll figure out soon enough that they are safe and can run around.

The piglets are settling in, too. They found the food right away:

These are a good size—about 25 pounds apiece. I have to ask our supplier what breed or cross these are.

The weekend was busy, but everything went (mostly) according to plan. I have a dentist appointment at 8 am this morning. I haven’t decided what the schedule will be for this week. I have to finish the Christmas stocking store samples, and I need to start knocking out some warmer-weather tops and dresses. This is an ongoing problem. When I have time to sew, in the winter, I am not thinking about making items to wear when it’s 80F. And when I need them, I don’t have time to make them.

If it keeps raining, though, maybe I can make a couple of Malva Tees or Laundry Day Tees.

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Joanns has come out of bankruptcy reorganization and I am curious to see what happens next. I hope that the people now steering that company have learned a few lessons. Customers want a fabric store, not a glorified Dollar Store carrying plastic crap from China. No one needs acres and acres of polyester fleece. And if you teach people the skills they need to buy and use your products, you’ll be creating a stable, ongoing customer base.

That may be too much to ask. We’ll see.

Pies and Piglets and Punch-Needle Embroidery

We went ahead and pushed the date of this year’s plant sale back by two weeks, to June 1. The snow we got on Wednesday was demoralizing. (We had 3" of snow one year on June 10, so this is not unusual, just demoralizing.) Yesterday was sunny and warmer. Today is supposed to be stellar, just in time for our community pie social this afternoon. Another system comes through at the start of the week, but at least it isn’t supposed to get so cold.

I made a roaster of chili for the pie social. I would prefer to stand behind a table and dish out chili, but Susan and I discussed personnel and I am better utilized at the information table. I made up a big posterboard display yesterday afternoon. I can schmooze and welcome people for three hours. It won’t kill me.

Sarah and Susan are our resident pie-making experts. Sarah has been experimenting with adding natural coloring to her pie crusts and texted me some photos last night:

Isn’t that gorgeous? Sarah is so creative. I am not a baker. I did not get that gene. Gardening and sewing, yes, but cooking is my least favorite domestic activity.

One of the women in our sewing group, Beth, has been playing around with punch-needle embroidery, and she brought this to show on Thursday. She’s another maker with a fountain of creative ideas. This isn’t that large—maybe 4" x 4"?—but it’s adorable. Beth said this may end up as a journal cover.

Before the pie social today, the husband and I have to go pick up five piglets. The timing isn’t great, but it is what it is. The chicks also need to get moved to the coop soon so they have more room to run around.

I’ve been juggling about twenty different things this week consisting of a thousand tiny details. The schedule should ease up after this weekend—and having two extra weeks for the plant sale helps considerably—so I’ve been tackling some projects that don’t require a lot of mental energy. I cleaned out a couple of closets and made a pile of items to take to the thrift store. I hemmed two pairs of pants. I moved the inkjet printer upstairs to my computer because it needed a firmware update, so I did that and made sure it was operational. The husband uses it to print foundation plans and he gets cranky when tech stuff doesn’t work.

I messed around again with the coverstitch machine and the 12wt Wonderfil Glamore thread. The machine simply doesn’t like it. That thread is a metallic and it seems to be getting hung up along the thread path. I switched to a 12wt rayon thread (Wonderfil Accent) and had zero problems, so I ordered some spools of Accent to have on hand.

I am still having a great time with the podcast. There are so many interesting people to talk to out there in the sewing universe.

One Coverstitch Stocking

I only finished one Christmas stocking yesterday. I worked on the coverstitch version, which I hadn’t made before, and ran into a few problems along the way. I am working from the pattern version that came out with the online class. I need to get a copy of the printed pattern that was released to stores and compare the two.

In any case, it’s done, and the second version should go more quickly:

I’m going to change the order of operations slightly when I teach this. The pattern starts with the foot section. I’m going to start with that upper panel. The stitch, a two-thread flatlock, is the same in both sections; the stitch settings differ slightly.

I had a lot of issues trying to do the coverstitch section in the middle (the white fabric). My Janome coverstitch did not like the metallic Glamore thread. The pattern says to interface that piece of fabric before stitching. I used Pellon SF101 and I suspect I need to use something lighter. I’ll try a different interfacing on the next one. It’s either that or I’ll have to switch to something like a 12wt rayon thread for that area.

When Ryan was here last week servicing the Q20, we talked about classes. He taught a class last year on basic machine issues and how to fix them. He did a good job and I told him he should teach some additional classes. Like most of us who teach, though, he knows that the class prep takes a lot of time and can be tedious.

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The weather for the next couple of weeks is not looking promising. I am happy about the rain, but we’re spending a small fortune heating the greenhouse. And the plants need the sunshine, not just the heat. I am kicking around the idea of moving the plant sale to a later date next year. (Of course, if I do that, we’ll probably have the warmest April on record here.) There will be inventory for the sale, but it’s going to be on the small side. My experience is that even small plants catch up by the end of the season. Small plants just aren’t as appealing to buyers.

And it’s tough to have baby animals when the temps still get down to freezing at night. The chicks are going to have to move out of the brooder soon. We do have a heat lamp for them in the coop, but I am sure it will be a bit of a shock. We pick up piglets on Saturday. They’ll stay in the piggy palace for a few days. I think the husband can put a heat lamp out there, too, if necessary. With enough straw, they should be able to burrow down and stay warm.

When we were out planting apple trees in the cold and rain on Sunday, I said to the husband that I was reminded of all of the camping and field trips I went on when the girls were in school. (He is not much of a camper; he likes to sleep in his own bed.) Those trips all happened in April and May and the weather was usually crummy. The kids who didn’t dress properly were miserable. I once slept in a tent in Glacier Park when it got down to 32F overnight, but it is that cold rain that really does you in.

April Showers and Christmas Stockings

The husband and I planted apple trees on Sunday afternoon. It was cool and rainy and Susan assured me that it was a good time to plant, so I went to her house and brought back six grafted apple trees. Having a friend with a master’s degree in botany and a love of apple trees is wonderful.

Infrastructure improvements continue. The husband is going to install a gate in the pig pasture so he can get equipment and trailers in and out of there. While he was at the farm store getting the gate, he also bought wire panels for a new-and-improved pea trellis:

I could grow a lot of peas on this trellis. I think I may use half of it for some cucumber plants or loofah vines or something.

After much discussion and negotiation, we settled on a design for the herb garden. This process was difficult because the husband wants a fully-formed idea that he can measure and plot out, and I struggle with producing the required fully-formed idea. (You know, because I can’t see things in my head.) I tell him what I would like and he then gives me five reasons why what I want cannot be done. We’ve wrestled through enough projects together that we come to a consensus, eventually, but it takes some effort.

I need to order the raised beds and weed blocker, and the husband will arrange for gravel and dirt to be delivered. I think it will be lovely when it’s done. The beds probably won’t get planted until June, after the row crops are in.

It rained on and off yesterday; we need the moisture, but it would be nice if the temps got above 40F. The propane heater stayed on in the greenhouse all day.

I did a podcast interview just after lunch, then worked on some store samples. I am teaching Gail Yellen’s serger/coverstitch Christmas Stocking pattern at the store here and also in Missoula. Both stores need a stocking to display—having a display really does help to fill the class—but I only have one stocking made. The pattern includes two versions, so I thought I would make up one serger stocking and one coverstitch stocking for each store.

Truly, the hardest part of this pattern is cutting the pieces and keeping track of what goes where. Each stocking has two sides and I am making two stockings. The “feet” are made up of five pieces flatlocked together, and those five pieces have to go together a specific way. I used a lot of labels and made sure things were laid out properly before I serged them together:

The assembly should go much faster now that the feet are done. I’d like to finish these today. We are struggling to get out of this cool and rainy weather, so I’ll be inside again.