Getting to Know the 880

I have canning class today so I spent yesterday morning cleaning the kitchen and gathering supplies. I listened to Nicole Sauce’s Friday homestead update podcast while I worked, and she mentioned making Salisbury steak for dinner. I decided that sounded really good, so I got out ground beef to thaw and washed potatoes for potato salad. I wanted to make zucchini bread, too, but ran out of steam after lunch. I spent a couple of hours playing with the 880, instead.

The 880 has some quirks. There is no getting around that. Let me say right off the bat, though, that I like this machine very much despite those quirks. I told the husband that it feels like someone gave me the keys to a BMW 7-series and sent me out to drive on the Autobahn. (I can dream.) However, there is a tension—no pun intended, sewists—between designing the sewing machine that exists in the imagination of a Bernina engineer and designing a machine that your average sewist is happy using. It’s similar to the tension that exists between automobile designers and end users. It’s possible to design a vehicle on a computer that makes engineers giddy with excitement; that same design may frustrate drivers and cause my husband to say lots of bad words when he has to work on the vehicle. (He’s not fond of architects, either.)

[My very first car was a 1988 Chevy Cavalier. The husband and I were not yet married when he helped me change the oil in it. The engineers had put the oil filter in an inaccessible area behind a partition. Imagine my horror when the first thing the husband did was get a pair of heavy shears and cut a wedge out of that partition so he could get to the oil filter. 😮]

Knowing all of that, I approached this machine with the mindset of an engineer and asked myself why the Bernina designers made the choices they did. I’ve sewn on—and inspected the guts of—many kinds of machines. There are lots of routes to the same destination. Much depends on what kind of journey you want.

I also watched several videos about threading and using the machine. Even so, I threaded it wrong the first time, which was unintentional but educational. Now I know what NOT to do. Threading it the second time was easier as a result. The 880 has a unique bobbin-and-hook system with a jumbo bobbin. This mechanism actually sits behind the needle rather than in front of or to the side of the needle. Opening the door to the bobbin area causes the whole assembly to swing down and forward.

Bernina machines have a lot of on-board assistance, although they also provide for the ability to override settings. That level of control is one of the differences between Bernina and BabyLock sergers, for instance. BabyLock went the route of making tension adjustments automatic on their higher-end sergers, with no way to override them. The Bernina sergers have default settings for each stitch, but the user can tweak them as needed. I liken it to the difference between driving a car with an automatic transmission and one with a manual transmission. Some sewists don’t want to have to tinker with settings, and for them, a machine that makes those decisions is a better choice. Until I become more familiar with the interface and the machine’s capabilities, I like that it lets me know what settings to use.

This is a machine I never dreamed of having, at a price I was comfortable paying, so I am willing to put up with some oddities. I am excited about having embroidery capabilities, although exploring that module is going to have to wait until later in the fall when canning season is over. I’ve also got a wishlist for a few additional presser feet. I suspect the 880 may do a better job of handling knit fabrics than the Janome 6600 did. More and more, I think the 6600 was designed for quilting and not so much for general sewing. I really disliked the zipper foot on that machine; most of my zipper insertions were done on the Necchi BF.

The Salisbury steak and potato salad made for an excellent dinner even without zucchini bread for dessert.

Rearranging the Sewing Area

That system that tore through Missoula Wednesday night brought us some rain yesterday morning. I was testing out the serger I bought in Spokane when I heard a huge clap of thunder and the heavens opened. The rain was lovely while it lasted.

That serger has found a home. The quilt store is hosting Krista Moser this week for a quilting workshop, and I knew the young woman who took my Déclic class Monday night would be in the workshop. I went into town after stopping at Thursday sewing and gave her the machine. She was very excited and I know she will put it to good use. She has already made a second Déclic top!

I also picked up the Bernina 880. In a lovely coincidence, the previous owner was another one of my students in Monday’s Déclic class. She took excellent care of it.

By the time I got home, I had to do chicken chores and work on dinner, so all I managed to do with the 880 was get it out of the luggage and into the table. And now I need to make a decision.

The 880 doesn’t fit perfectly into my existing table; the husband had to cut a piece of wood to put into the support tray to elevate the machine enough that I could put on the extension table that came with it. That works, sort of. I’m going to live with that setup for a few weeks and evaluate. I would prefer not to have to buy a new table. But I desperately need to rearrange my sewing space.

Currently, the cutting table is in DD#2’s old bedroom. The Bernina serger also lives in there. I removed the bed last summer to give me more room. Fabric is stored in bins in DD#1’s old bedroom (slightly larger), which has a full-size bed for visitors. That room also has a small table for my Accuquilt cutter. The coverstitch machine is in the spare bedroom which has a twin bed. My big sewing machine (now the 880), along with the Necchi BF and the ironing board, are in our bedroom.

The husband jokingly asked me last night if I were planning to kick him out of our bedroom. I admitted that I had thought about moving us into DD#1’s old room and making our bedroom into the main sewing area. That won’t work for a variety of reasons, but it was worth considering.

I need to start by removing the bed from the spare bedroom. Doing so will free up a considerable amount of space that can be better utilized with shelving. The goal would be to reorganize my stash—of everything—to the point where I can consolidate machines into one or two rooms.

I sew almost every day. We get visitors rarely. Having beds in all the rooms made sense when family was coming to visit several times a year, but it doesn’t make sense any longer. I’ll keep the bed in DD#1’s room just in case. I’m also trying to be cognizant of the fact that “stuff expands to fill the available space.” Part of me admires those people who live minimalist lifestyles but I am not one of them. I’m trying to find a balance.

I’m hoping to sew with the 880 today but we’ll see how things go. I need to prepare for tomorrow’s canning class and I also need to make a couple of batches of zucchini bread to put in the freezer.

Blessedly Cooler

I had a great class in Missoula yesterday with four students. Robin went with me so she could learn more about her new machine and have it adjusted while I was teaching. The store owners are (understandably) frustrated that they can’t get people to sign up for classes. The store offers classes, customers indicate interest, but then the class ends up being canceled because no one commits. And then customers complain that the store isn’t offering enough classes.

We have the same problem up here. I gave up offering classes at the quilt store north of town because I scheduled half a dozen classes in 2023 and had ONE student. The quilt store where I teach regularly has—over the years—built up such a following that, as a teacher, it is hard for me to get onto the calendar sometimes due to the number of classes already scheduled. That didn’t happen accidentally, though.

All I can do is continue to offer classes at the store in Missoula and hope enough people sign up that the class doesn’t get canceled. And then hope that those customers rave about the class to other customers and the enthusiasm and interest builds. I can sympathize with the store owners’ frustration, though.

In other teaching news, the class coordinator for Sew Expo e-mailed teachers and said she would welcome a few more class proposals. The deadline is August 1. I’ve already submitted half a dozen proposals, but I may submit a few more.

After class ended, Robin and I went in search of lunch. We scored a parking spot right in front of The Confident Stitch downtown, and one of our favorite restaurants is a few blocks away. We went back to The Confident Stitch (of course), where I found a pretty remnant of cotton/modal fabric that will make a nice Déclic top. On the way out of town, we stopped at Vicki’s Down Under where Robin bought fabric for one of her projects and I picked up another piece of woven rayon for a top. (They are in the dryer at the moment, so no photos yet.)

About an hour south of us, on the way home from Missoula, is a small quilt store that is rapidly outgrowing its space. We stopped there, too, and I picked up some Tim Holtz yardage from his “Abandoned” line, including this print that I love love love:

I was home by 6 pm. A cold front did come through last night. Missoula got hammered with a strong thunderstorm and the airport clocked an 81 mph wind gust. I’m glad that weather waited until we left town. Our high today is only supposed to be 79F, which sounds wonderful after two weeks of 90+F temperatures.

I’m going to get a few things done around here this morning, stop at Thursday sewing for a bit, then run into town. My new-to-me Bernina 880 is supposed to be ready to pick up at the store.

A Breezy Top for Hot Days

I don’t often teach evening classes—that is not my best time of day and I prefer not to drive in the dark in the winter if I can help it—but evenings are best for some students. I try to schedule at least a couple of evening classes in the summer. After seeing my Déclic top, the store owner particularly requested an evening class so she could take it, too.

I promised the students that they would be able to complete their tops in a three-hour class (5-8 pm) and they did! We used sewing machines:

And sergers:

And each of them finished a top:

The fabrics were mostly rayon batiks. Only one of the students had sewn any clothing before this class. Having them start with rayon was a bit like tossing them into the deep end and asking them to swim, but I passed along my favorite tips and tricks for bossing around the fabric and they all did fine.

Tomorrow is my thread class in Missoula. Robin is going with me so she can take her mastery class on her new sewing machine. I’m glad I decided to take a week off from the podcast because I don’t know when I would have shoehorned that into the schedule.

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Only two more days of this heat. We’re supposed to be back down to a high of 82F on Thursday. I was able to get the grass mowed around the garden yesterday morning while it was still cool. The garden is looking great, as it always does around the middle of the summer. The herb garden is starting to fill in, too.

Today’s to-do includes prepping for tomorrow’s class. I’ve also got to go to town to see if I can find pickling cukes for my class on Saturday. I scheduled it thinking we’d have cucumbers coming out our ears like we did last year, but they aren’t quite ready yet. If the Hutterites don’t have any cukes at their food stand, I may have to adjust the class to can something else. We could make raspberry jam or zucchini pickles.

My friend Sunnie is offering an oil painting class at the community center next month, so I signed up. It’s been a while since I’ve tried anything like that. I think it will be good to stretch myself.

Harvest on the Horizon

I have a pepper!

The tag seems to have disappeared, though, so I have no idea what this is.

I picked enough raspberries yesterday morning to make a chocolate-raspberry pie for the husband. I also made a salad with lettuce and arugula from the garden. Unfortunately, the arugula is starting to bolt in this heat. I’m going to try to put in another row this week. The cool-weather crops really didn’t have much of a chance; we went from 31F in the middle of June to 90+F in the middle of July. 🫤 We’re supposed to get a break by the end of this week, with highs only in the low to mid-80s.

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On her podcast (A Quilting Life), Sherri McConnell sometimes mentions books she has read and found helpful. She recently recommended Uptime: A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing, by Laura Mae Martin.

The author is Google’s Productivity Expert and mother of three kids under the age of 4. I’m not much for self-help books, but I checked this one out of the library and have been reading it over the past couple of days.

My takeaways so far:

1. I should have thought about writing a book about how I get so much done. Oh, well. I’m glad somebody wrote one.

2. Her system is very similar to what I use, although mine is a bit less formal.

3. Apparently, a lot of people neglect to do any significant self-reflection on their personalities and schedules, or they’d see where to make the necessary changes. I suppose that’s why the world needs productivity coaches.

Right now, I am in the middle of the chapter about “power times” for getting work done. I’ve known this for years—being a morning person, I get the most work done between 4 am and noon.

There is always room for improvement, and I have gleaned several tips from the book that I want to implement, especially when it comes to meal planning. Martin also has some free scheduling templates on her website (under “Resources”) that look like they could be helpful.

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After lunch yesterday, I worked a bit on the FQ Fancy Star quilt. All the squares have been cut and paired—print with background—and stacked up next to the sewing machine. I’ll chain piece them as I have time. The upstairs of our house gets warm in this heat, though, so I think I might pull the projects that need to be sewn on the 1541. That machine is out in the old garage, which stays nice and cool during the day.

Thelma and Louise and Louise

A couple of years ago, I had the bright idea that a group of us should have a “retreat” in Spokane. Theoretically, we would use our retreat time to work on sewing projects, but in reality, we all knew that we would be shopping at fabric stores and thrift stores, eating out, and relaxing with adult beverages. We couldn’t make the scheduling work, but I never abandoned the idea. Several weeks ago, I put it to Sunnie and Robin again and they enthusiastically agreed. We set a date for mid-July, and I found an Airbnb to rent.

The three of us left Wednesday morning. There are two ways to get to Spokane. Usually, I drive south, pick up I-90, and travel over two mountain passes and through Coeur d’Alene. The northern route takes a bit longer—even though the two routes only differ in length by a few miles—because the roads are narrower and pass through several towns. That route, though, features some fun antique and vintage shops. I haven’t been that way in over a year. We had plenty of time, so I pointed the Jeep in that direction.

Sunnie is a nationally-known artist and likes to visit thrift stores to find frames for her paintings. Robin and I always check out the sewing areas to see if there are any treasures to be had. We stopped at a couple of stores in Bonners Ferry where Sunnie bought two frames. In Sandpoint, Idaho, we tried to have lunch at one restaurant, but they were horribly short-staffed and ignored their seated customers for more than half an hour in favor of filling all their take-out orders. (No one cooks anymore.) Sunnie complained politely and we got our drinks for free—I had a wonderful huckleberry lemonade—before we left and moved on to another restaurant.

We made our way down to Coeur d’Alene, where we stopped at Joanns and also at Becky’s Sewing Center. Becky’s is the Bernina dealer in that area. Robin is very organized and brings her projects with her to match fabrics. I fly by the seat of my pants and purchase whatever strikes my fancy. I bought a yard of orange Grunge. If it works for the project I have in mind, that will be wonderful. Otherwise, I will add it to my Grunge collection.

Because it was getting late in the day, I decided we would wait until Thursday to visit The Quilting Bee in Spokane Valley even though it was on the way to the Airbnb. A person really needs to be fresh while shopping there—hopefully with a list—or it is too easy to get overwhelmed. We checked in to the Airbnb (lovely), had a so-so dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant, and turned in.

On Thursday morning, after a breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausage cooked by yours truly, we headed out. It was early enough that I knew most stores wouldn’t be open, so I took Sunnie and Robin on a tour of downtown Spokane before heading over to The Quilting Bee.

Robin was able to find most of what she needed there. Sunnie took a shopping cart and disappeared, and when next I saw her, the cart was full of bolts of rabbit fabric:

Sunnie doesn’t sew. She is, however, skilled at talking those of us who do sew into making things for her. (She is generous in her compensation.) Robin agreed to make placemats and a table runner for Sunnie with some of the fabric.

I bought two fat quarter bundles of fabric from Tim Holtz’s new line “Laboratory.” Do I have a plan for them? No, but I love Tim Holtz fabric.

After The Quilting Bee, we stopped in at Value Village. This is a Washington state chain of thrift stores and one of the places where I find Janome sewing machines to use when I teach at the community center. I think I squealed loudly when Robin and I walked over to the electronics section, because there on a shelf was this beauty:

This model—which is still available—retails for $399. The price on it was $13.99. I grabbed it and put it in the cart. Do I need another serger? No, but at that price, I can pass it on to some young person who shows up in one of my serger classes and can’t afford a new machine.

Sunnie snagged a full, uncut bolt of Alexander Henry fabric at that same store and gifted it to me. The fabric is beige with vintage cowboy faces on it. We think it would make fun aprons to sell at market.

The thrill of the hunt is what keeps us going. We hit another couple of thrift stores, but didn’t find anything as fun. We relaxed for a bit in the late afternoon before having dinner at Luna. My girls discovered Luna when they were in Spokane and it has been a favorite restaurant ever since. Our meal there was lovely.

We left yesterday morning and meandered home via the I-90 route. I was surprised—and delighted—that traffic was light even thought it was a Friday in mid-July. We didn’t get stuck behind a single RV.

I enjoyed having a few days away. Now I have to get back to gardening and lawn maintenance. I hope we can do this again next summer. Sunnie and Robin both want to go back to Sandpoint to explore a bit more.

A Gift From a Guest

Yesterday included a morning of office work—scheduling appointments, making and returning phone calls, filling out forms, and other miscellaneous tasks. I was able to cross everything off the list and then some. I find that the best way to do that is just to put it all in a pile, start at the top, and deal with each item as I come to it. I am not allowed to set anything aside.

John Willis of Special Operations Equipment wore this shirt a few weeks ago during one of his sewing livestreams.

I like this definition, although I don’t hate paperwork. I prefer a clean desk, so I’m usually motivated to keep things from piling up on it.

I also cleaned the grill so we could use it—mice like to spend the winter inside—and I recorded today’s podcast. I’m going to take a mid-year break and skip next week’s episode. The schedule is really full for the next couple of days and I am teaching three classes next week, including one in Missoula.

The mail brought a lovely package from one of my podcast guests. Cheryl Espinosa of Aunt Honey’s Estate said she wanted to send me some vintage patterns as a thank-you for having her on the podcast. When she asked what I liked, I requested Stretch-and-Sew patterns:

A bonanza! There are some really nice ones in here.

In a funny coincidence, the same day she sent me that e-mail and asked what patterns I would like, I had stopped at one of the thrift stores in town and found a dozen vintage sewing patterns in their sewing section. I bought them, of course, and they are now on their way to Cheryl.

I spotted another ground squirrel while I was making dinner, this time in the backyard. I got my .22 and was going to shoot it from the bathroom window, but it heard me removing the window screen and ran back under cover. This morning when I got up, I heard a pack of coyotes howling in a nearby meadow. It would be lovely if they would come over here and have ground squirrels for breakfast.

I finished cutting background units for the Fat Quarter Fancy Star quilt. I may not start the sewing for a few weeks yet, but at least the fabric is cut and prepped.

Procraftinating

I am about ready to tear apart my sewing space and rearrange it. Everything is spread out over four bedrooms. I get a lot of steps in while I am working, but it’s not as efficient as it could be and it’s driving me nuts.

Yesterday afternoon—as a way to keep myself from beginning that project and creating a huge mess without a clear plan—I cut fabric for a quilt I started a few months ago. The pattern is the Fat Quarter Fancy Star from the Sew Can She website:

I cut the print fabrics from a collection of greens. Green is one of my favorite colors:

Rather than do a solid white background, though, I am using a variety of white and off-white fabrics. I got about half of them cut yesterday. As soon as I get the rest cut, I’ll put everything by the sewing machine and begin the process of making half-square triangles. HSTs are so versatile. They can be made into so many different patterns.

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It is summer. It is hot. Overnight temps are still getting down into the 50s, so we’re sleeping comfortably with just the fan running. I turn the water on in the garden around 6 am and shut it off a few hours later. The tomatoes, squash and cucumbers are loving this weather; the peas, not so much. The hollyhocks are blooming:

Ripe currants need to be harvested and I ate a few raspberries yesterday. I’ll do some work out in the garden this morning, but after that, I need to tie myself to my office chair and tackle a pile of paperwork.

Sewcializing

Our sewing group meets on Thursday at the community center up the road, but this week, we had our annual birthday potluck at the home of one of our members. She has a lovely house with plenty of seating. The food—as usual—was awesome. One of the women made strawberry Jello pretzel dessert and I had two helpings. So good.

The husband is baffled by this kind of socializing. Men don’t do this. He knows that the quilt store hosts “open sew” on Thursdays and that a group of women spends the day there. Some of them even keep a machine at the store so they don’t have to lug one back and forth. He wonders how much sewing gets done. I was at the quilt store Thursday morning before heading to the potluck and a group of women was getting ready for “Quilt ‘Til You Wilt” weekend, which is open sew on steroids and lasts for three days. I mentioned the husband’s observation to my friend Nancy, and she said, “If I wanted to sit and sew in silence, I could do that at home.”

And that sums it up in a nutshell.

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I weeded the garden for a few hours yesterday morning. This little bug was hanging out on the potatoes:

I call these ladybugs but I know they might actually be Asian lady beetles. I am not particular as long as they eat the aphids.

I watered all the apple trees. The Lodi has a bumper crop this year, although it’s a bit hard to tell from the photo:

These will all get made into pie filling. The other apple trees are taking a year off.

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I’m still puttering in the sewing room and have nothing to show for my efforts. I might, in another day or two.

Today is the national launch party for the Bernina 990. Bernina dealers all over the US are hosting events in their stores. Our dealer is also having a party, although I’m not going. I’ve been in town too many times this week and have no desire to battle tourist traffic on a Saturday. I’ll work in the garden some this morning, then come in and sew.

Coasting

We’ve reached that time of the season when all the hard work of planting the garden is done but nothing is quite ready for harvesting yet. My irrigation system is all laid out and working well. The potatoes have been mulched. The garter snakes are doing a stellar job of keeping the bugs under control. I reached into one of the big lavender plants yesterday morning to pull out a weed and noticed a snake curled up at the roots.

The brassicas look great (mulched with grass clippings):

And so do the tomatoes:

Pig manure is a wonderful soil amendment, and black plastic makes the more tender plants happy. The herb garden beds are planted and starting to fill in, too.

The pigs look nice and healthy and are gaining weight appropriately. When it’s hot like this, I give them some spa time every afternoon, which means I stand there with the hose and spray them with water. They have a nice wallow, too, where they can roll around and cover themselves with mud. Pigs do not sweat, so they have to find creative ways to stay cool.

The husband put the shade cloth up over the chicken yard on Sunday and took down the fence separating the chicks from the big chickens. Everyone is together now.

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I’ve been spending time this week trying to get social media under control. Social media is a monster continually demanding to be fed, and with regard to the podcast, I’m not doing such a good job. I hate Instagram, mostly because I don’t like working from my phone. I’ve got Apple developer tools installed on my desktop, which allows me to fool the desktop into thinking it’s an iPhone so I can post to IG from here, but that’s kind of clunky.

I’ve got multiple accounts on all platforms because I don’t want to mix up my personal accounts with podcast or knitting accounts. I also have to monitor and post to the social media accounts for the homestead foundation. At Nicole Sauce’s recommendation, I subscribed to an app called Metricool. It’s very powerful and has the potential to streamline a lot of this work. I just need to go up the learning curve and figure out how to use it. This week, I set aside a block of time to watch some YouTube videos and begin playing around with different features. Theoretically, I can create one post in Metricool that will post to all of my linked social media accounts, including IG (yay). I hope to be able to do that for next week’s episode.

I’m making progress, slowly. If anyone reading this is subscribed to the social media accounts for the podcast and sees any of the posts, feel free to send me feedback about what works and what doesn’t.

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Am I sewing? Yes, little bits here and there. I’ve been making a few quilted pouches in an attempt to use up smaller remnants and leftover batting. I’m waiting for some supplies to arrive so I can finish the Haralson bags. (I’m making two.) I could knock out a few more Déclic tops and rayon tees because wear those constantly in this hot weather. Or I could rearrange and organize. I have no shortage of projects.

Lots of Nope Ropes

I mowed the grass around the big garden yesterday morning so I could re-lay my hose lines. I’ll need to water every day now that it’s getting hot. I spotted four (!) garter snakes while I was out there, including this one:

Some people in our homesteading group refer to snakes as “nope ropes.” Amy Dingmann of the Farmish Kind of Life podcast calls them “dragon noodles,” which is far more poetic.

That section of black plastic appears to be home to a family of snakes. The plastic is over a couple of rotting tree stumps so there aren’t any plants in that spot. These look like western terrestrial garter snakes.

Yes, I have snakes in my garden. What I don’t have are tomato hornworms, potato beetles, cabbage moths, or slugs. I’ll take the snakes. They don’t bother me, although sometimes they surprise me if I forget they are there.

It’s all one big happy ecosystem.

The strawberry bed is about done producing. We are awaiting the raspberry tsunami.

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I think I need to reorganize my sewing space. The workflow is not flowing and my sew-jo is suffering.

I did pull and cut fabric for this pattern yesterday:

I think it will be useful with all of the English paper piecing I do in the evenings. The bonus is that it’s a quick win.

No sewing today, though; I am teaching a serger mastery class this afternoon and I am going to try to run all my errands before class starts.

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I ran my genetic data through Seeking Health’s StrateGene program a few weeks ago. My girls also did theirs. It’s been eight years since the first report and I thought it was time for an update. The MTHFR mutation runs rampant on both sides of my family and has caused all sorts of health problems, including blood clots. I have a folate deficiency and my mother has a B12 deficiency. DD#2 is struggling with food intolerances and other issues and I wanted to see if could narrow down the causes. The reports turned out to contain quite a lot of useful information. DD#2 does have a significant genetic predisposition for histamine intolerance. And it was helpful for me to be able to compare our genetic profiles side-by-side to see what the girls got from me and what they got from their father.

I know that many people are uncomfortable having their genetic data analyzed like that, but for me, the benefits have far outweighed the risks. I’ve been able to address my own health issues without having to shotgun a lot of solutions. And if we can mediate these problems through diet and lifestyle changes, then we’ll go that route first.

Don't Read This Post

Something about yesterday’s blog post triggered Facebook’s censorship bots and it was taken down. Who knows?—perhaps I’m now on some list and this one will get removed, too. The only explanation I received was that my post looked like misleading clickbait. Yes, my intention was to lure you all in by posting a photo of my serger foot and then try to sell you dietary supplements. 🙄

Somehow, this is not where I thought we would be in 2024.

I spent a few hours out in the garden yesterday morning mulching the potatoes. We are trying something new this year by using hemp waste instead of straw. Hemp is grown without pesticides or chemicals, so I feel more comfortable using it. Thus far, I am pleased:

It may take longer than straw to break down, and we were warned not to try to till this ground for a couple of years because the fibers that are left will wrap around the tiller tines. This mulch is mostly made up of the outer bark, but there are some fibers mixed in. Having spun hemp—and knowing that it doesn’t rot quickly—I was aware of that going in. I prefer no-till gardening as much as possible because it really does keep the weeds down.

You don’t know until you try.

After mulching, I cut the grass in the yard. The baby robins left their nest yesterday; I spotted one out in the new herb garden looking a bit dazed and confused. In years past, the mama robins had a habit of coaxing the babies out to the herb garden because they were safe from the dogs there while they got their bearings.

I was planning to cut the grass around the big garden this morning but it’s raining. Rain wasn’t in the forecast. Oh well, less watering I have to do.

Afternoons are for sewing, but I could not get inspired to work on anything. I cleaned and organized my sewing area, instead. I hate when my sew-jo takes a holiday, but I also know it won’t last forever. Part of the problem is that I have too many stalled projects in the queue. When that happens, I lose focus. Starting a new project is not the answer. Figuring out how to move some of these projects along is.

My collection of hexie units is coming along nicely (pardon the mess).

I’ve been working on these in the evening. I found a bag of 250 pre-cut hexies in the clearance bin at Gossypium Quilts, in Issaquah, WA. The fabric is from one of Sherri McConnell and Chelsi Stratton’s lines. I’ve been basting the pre-cut hexies around cardstock forms, then sewing them into hexie flowers. I’ve done glue basting on some of my hexie projects, but I’d just as soon baste with thread.

Fun With Serger Feet

My class proposals for Sew Expo have been submitted. I should know something by the end of August. They will be offering four-hour and all-day classes next year, which is wonderful. The 2-1/2 hour time slots aren’t long enough, especially when half the students in class need individual help. I also need to work on paring down some of my handouts, because I do tend to pack a lot into them.

Sarah and I were the only ones who thought we had sewing yesterday. (Yes, we knew it was a holiday but we like the Thursday get-togethers.) Both of us went to the community center and realized no one else was there. She was already halfway to my house at that point so she delivered some lettuce starts and summer savory plants to me. We walked around the herb garden and the big garden and she showed me some bags she had made for market. Sarah is very clever at repurposing things and some of her bags were made from thrift store finds.

After Sarah left, I finished re-covering my sleeve board with new covers. The cording foot on my serger worked splendidly:

And now the sleeve board has nice new covers:

I spent the rest of the afternoon reprinting patterns and taping them together. I discovered that even though I set the Brother laser printer to print at 106%—in order to get the one-inch calibration box on the pattern to print at the correct size—the printer was not resizing the rest of the pattern proportionally. The measurements for the actual pattern pieces were still off. I printed everything on the Epson inkjet printer on the husband’s computer and the patterns came out perfect at 100%. Note to self.

I’m not sure what I will work on next. I did buy the hardware for the Haralson bags, so I ought to finish them. At least now I know everything should be the correct size.

The garden has reached the point where it doesn’t need a lot of work. I plan to go out early this morning and weed the potatoes. We got a round bale of hemp waste from our farmer friend who is growing hemp now. I’m trying that for mulch instead of straw. I’ve already put some down around the potatoes and it seems to be working well. And after all the rain we’ve had, I’ll have to cut the grass.

I’m getting a bit weary of the hyperbole about the weather. Every headline here is screaming about the “deadly heat wave” that is coming next week. It will be in the mid-90s for a couple of days. Hello? It’s summer. A few years ago, we had 90+ heat for most of the month of July. We’ve had years where the heat started in June. This June was cool and rainy, which is typical for Montana. If we were getting a 90-degree heat wave in March, I might be concerned.

It's About to Heat Up

This has not been as productive a week as I had hoped. I was working on the Haralson bag on Tuesday afternoon only to discover that my printer—a Brother laser printer—apparently does not understand the command to print at 100%. The Haralson bag units that were cut from the printed pattern pieces were smaller than they should have been. I didn’t bother to check when printing because I assumed that printing at 100% meant the pattern would have printed at 100%. Nope. In order to get the pattern to print at the correct size, I have to tell the printer to print the pages at 106%. 🙄

I am sure it’s a problem with the printer and not the pattern itself. Noodlehead patterns are some of the best out there and other people have made the Haralson bag with no issues. I rarely print patterns on my printer—I’ll either have the patterns printed in town or I’ll cut the units according to measurements given in the pattern—but this bag has some non-rectangular units.

Arrrgghhh. I still want to make this bag, but I am trying to muster up the motivation to go through the whole process of prepping the pattern and cutting the pieces again. I might have to put this project in time out for a few weeks.

Yesterday was even worse. I got a recall notice for the Jeep a few weeks ago (replacement fuel line fitting), so I called and made an appointment at the dealer for 9 am yesterday morning. I was told this was a 90-minute repair. I asked to have the oil changed, too, which added another 30 minutes. I get a couple of free oil changes so I thought I would use one. The dealer is 45 minutes away, in Whitefish. I took my knitting and my iPad and planned to sit and wait while they did the work.

Around 11 am, the service guy who checked in my Jeep came out to the waiting area. I was expecting him to tell me the car was done. Instead, he told me that it was taking a bit longer than expected and did I want to leave and come back? I said that I was 45 minutes from home and my husband was pouring concrete over an hour away. The service guy offered a ride to anywhere in Whitefish or—possibly—Kalispell. I said I would see what I could arrange.

[Kalispell peeps, that was the reason for the cryptic Facebook message.]

In the end, I decided it was too complicated to try to get to Kalispell and then have to get back to Whitefish, so I stayed and waited. I waited for a total of 5-1/2 hours. The service guy who was helping me finally confessed that when it came in, my Jeep was assigned to a tech who was already working on another car with a major problem, so my Jeep sat. When the service guy realized I was still waiting, he went to find out what was going on. He got a manager to reassign my car to another tech to do the work.

I finally got out of there at 2:30. Traffic was nuts, and I still had to stop at the grocery store—also nuts—to get a case of apples for the husband. It was 4 pm by the time I got home. What a complete waste of a day. Both the dealer and Jeep are going to get some pointed feedback from me about that. And the husband said that next time, he’ll just change the oil himself.

Today is a new day. I’m going to write up and submit my teaching proposals for Sew Expo 2025 this morning and then go to sewing.

It rained a bit overnight, but I think that’s the last of it for a while. We’re going to be under a ridge of high pressure with temps in the high 80s and low 90s for the next week. That should make the plants very happy. I’ll have to get my garden chores done early in the morning.

The baby robins are getting bigger and noisier. There are three—I counted open beaks during feeding time—but usually I only see two:

The poor parents spend most of their time getting worms and bugs to feed these hungry babies.

Plants in the Ground

Everything is planted except for a few little seedlings from Sarah that need another week or so in the greenhouse. I managed to get the last few plants into the new raised beds just before the heavens opened and more rain came down. I’m rather enjoying this weather and I’d love it if summer continued with periodic rain showers every few days.

Now we wait for everything to grow:

The six beds on the right side have veggies. The other beds have herbs and flowers. I’ve still got room for some seating and perhaps a few other pieces. I’ll add those when I find some I like.

I am glad this project is done. Puttering in my herb garden is a different type of gardening than growing row crops, and I have missed being able to putter. I’m sure the husband is also happy. This was a lot of work for him, but he gets lettuce out of the deal.

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I made T-shirts for two little boys yesterday afternoon. (It was raining. I sewed.)

One of them has a birthday this week and I have been invited to his train-themed birthday party. The invitation said “gifts not necessary,” but I claimed Auntie Janet privilege and made these for them. I’ve been collecting fun fabrics for little boys and this one was perfect. The pattern is the Oliver + S School Bus T-shirt.

I’ve got the pieces cut for new covers for my sleeve board. I just have to put them together.

I received some fabric in the mail yesterday that is destined for a project down the road. I have a travel tote that I bought over 30 years ago from Lands End or LL Bean. I love that bag. It has been on all my journeys. It’s made from some kind of smooth polyester or nylon and although it has held up beautifully, I know it won’t last forever. I’ve been hunting for a similar fabric. Seattle Fabrics carries a huge selection of bonded nylons, but they aren’t quite the same. I’ve been binging bagmaking videos from Jess of OklaRoots and one of her favorite suppliers is Wonderground Fabrics. They carry a bonded poly/nylon fabric, so I ordered some to see how I liked it:

This is very similar to the fabric in my tote bag. I’ll do a test run with the piece I ordered to see what I think.

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My sister-in-law called yesterday morning to tell me that my father-in-law had passed away. (I have two fathers-in-law; this FIL was the husband’s stepfather.) His passing was not unexpected. He had been in assisted living since my MIL died in March of 2020 and had steadily declined. We knew he missed my MIL very much. I got to catch up with my SIL for a bit during the phone call and I appreciated that.

Date Night in the (Old) Jeep

The ground squirrels have returned.

I happened to glance out my office window yesterday morning and spotted one in the front yard. The husband immediately went out onto the porch with the shotgun and took a shot at it but didn’t kill it. It disappeared down a hole. I am hoping he wounded it and it crawled away to die, because we didn’t see it again. Hopefully that served as a warning to others.

He finished assembling the rest of the raised beds in the garden yesterday and filled them with dirt. He’ll spread the remaining gravel around them today. While he was doing that, I planted the beds that were ready. I may end up moving things around after plants grow a bit and I have a better idea of how the overall layout looks, but for now, the plants are in the beds.

I was able to re-create some of my original herb garden because many of those plants had escaped into the yard and woods. I dug up yarrow, violets, sweet woodruff, lemon balm, columbines, and echinacea and moved them to the beds. I have horehound, catmint, salvia, and poppies over in the big garden and those will get moved as well.

Some of the beds he built yesterday will get lettuce and some will get the overflow of stock that never made it into the big garden because I ran out of room.

Guess who kept me company while I planted?

I think this is Chicken Coop Snake. It gets around. It hung out at the edge of the garden for a while. I left to get more plants from the nursery down the road, and the husband reported that while I was gone, he watched it move from this spot over to the compost bins.

I spotted Strawberry Bed Snake again and also a snake out in the woods. This seems to be a good year for snakes. I am not unhappy about this. I just wish they ate ground squirrels. We need some gopher snakes. They are native to Montana, although I have never seen one here.

Someone posted footage on social media of a smallish grizzly bear in our neighborhood. Too bad they don’t eat ground squirrels, either.

We decided at the last minute to go out for dinner, and by some amazing stroke of luck, we were able to get reservations for two at Mercantile Steak, which is our favorite place to eat in Kalispell. We are not the only people who like to eat there. Getting a reservation is sometimes difficult.

The husband drove us to town in his Jeep.

He brought it back on a trailer from his dad’s place in Colorado. It is the same age as DD#1 (she’s 31). The husband did some work on it and it’s running fine.

Dinner was awesome. Mercantile Steak always starts the meal with popovers with herb butter, which are not on my diet but I make an exception when we eat there. We like to get mushroom toast as an appetizer. The husband ordered smoked prime rib for his entree and I had the scallops with roasted vegetables. (I prefer seafood to steak.) We topped it off with huckleberry cheesecake for dessert.

Rain is in the forecast again for the next couple of days, and then things dry out and warm up toward the end of next week.

Stuck on Sleeves

I am in search of the perfect sleeve for these woven tees I’ve been making. I like the armscye from the New Look 6543 but I need to tweak the cap shaping a bit. I think it’s too high, for one thing, and tends to pouf out at the top. I read somewhere—but can’t find the link to save my life—that too much sleeve cap ease is often drafted into commercial patterns. Conventional wisdom is that for woven fabrics, 1" to 1.5" of ease is sufficient, meaning that the length of the sleeve cap should only be that much longer than the circumference of the armscye. Most patterns direct the sewist to sew a line of easing stitches along the cap, which are drawn up to ease the excess fabric of the cap into the armscye. Some of these commercial patterns have more ease than that, and it takes a lot of wrestling to set in the sleeve without wrinkles or pleats. This article on the Ikatbag website does a superb job of explaining the shape of the armscye and its relationship to the sleeve cap, and the author goes so far as to say that the length of the sleeve cap should be equal to the distance around the armscye. I am working on wrapping my head around that.

Getting flat fabric to fit around squishy, unique bodies is both art and science.

In the meantime, I’ve added another project to the queue. I decided that my sleeve board needs a new cover. The metallized fabric is dried out and cracking, and the padding underneath is in sad shape. (I bought the sleeve board at a thrift store.)

I need to get out my bin of utility fabrics and find a remnant of metallized ironing board fabric. I don’t use that fabric on my actual ironing board—I prefer a cotton twill cover—but I know I picked up a remnant or two of metallized fabric at Joanns just in case I needed it.

[I also see that it’s probably time to take off my ironing board cover and wash it . . . ]

In the process, I will get to use the cording foot on my serger to attach the drawstring in the same way it is on the existing cover:

We are supposed to get rain again at the beginning of the week, so I might tackle this project then.

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I think I will be getting a Bernina sewing machine. I am not getting the 990. I was talking to the quilt store owner on Wednesday and she mentioned that a lot of the 880s are coming in on trade from people buying the 990s. She’s selling the used 880s for even less than a new 5-series machine would cost, and I’ve been considering buying a 5-series for a while. (I am not an impulse buyer.) I’ve had my Janome 6600P for 12 years now and while it’s been a great machine, I am running up against some of its limitations.

The 880 was not a popular machine. When the Bernina tech was here in April to service my Q20, he and I talked about that model. He had a lot of positive things to say about the design and mechanics of the 880, and all of his comments were wholly unsolicited because he had no idea I was thinking about getting a new machine. After hearing his opinion of that model—and knowing that he’ll be available should I have any issues—I am comfortable with purchasing a used one. He thoroughly goes over any trade-in models before they are released for sale.

The 880 is more machine than I ever anticipated having, and it comes with an embroidery module, too. I don’t need another hobby, but there are occasions when having embroidery capabilities will come in handy.

Another Déclic Top

We had a glorious day of rain yesterday. I am glad I was able to get the grass cut when I did. And because it was raining, I was able to stay inside and sew. I took one of my Déclic tops to the quilt store on Wednesday to show the owner, because the fabric came from her store. I try to do what I can to encourage her to keep ordering a few garment fabrics in addition to quilting cottons. She thought the Déclic would make a good class and sent me home with another rayon challis for a store sample. I sewed that up yesterday and will drop it off this afternoon:

I like it. I made it a size larger than the one I made for myself so she could wear it.

After I finished the top, I tried to work on some stalled projects, but they are stalled for a reason and I couldn’t get them restarted. I am missing my Necchi industrial and need to get the tension assembly fixed so I can use it again. My Janome 6600P isn’t quite up to sewing heavier fabrics. I need a machine of a size between it and the Juki 1541 and that was the niche the Necchi filled, quite nicely. I could pop one of my Singer 31 machines into the treadle table in its place—the Necchi BV and Singer 31 are almost identical in design—but I prefer the Necchi.

Instead, I cut out another New Look 6543. This one has a V-neck instead of a round neck. I did all the prep work of sewing bust darts, making the facing, and finishing the edges on the serger. All that is left is to assemble it and that won’t take long. The rain is still coming down, so I’ll do that this morning.

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After leaving the quilt store on Wednesday, I had a niggling feeling that I should stop at the Salvation Army thrift store. I don’t ignore those niggling feelings when I get them, because they almost always lead to something interesting. I wandered around the store until I got to the furniture department, where I spotted a card table—but not just any card table. It was a card table with a sewing machine cutout. I let out a small gasp of surprise and went over to check it out. Singer made card tables for the 300-, 400-, and 500-series machines. Based on the size of the cutout (although I haven’t measured it yet), I suspect this is a table for the longbed 301. The price was $14.99 so I folded up the table and hightailed it to the register. These tables sell for a pretty penny on eBay. I have another one in the basement that I got for $30. I probably should list them.

This particular thrift store used to have a really nice craft section, but they’ve stopped stocking it. They got rid of sewing patterns a few years ago and won’t take them now. I overheard one of the store managers talking to someone as I came in, and she said that they’re getting too many donations. The last time I took donations to them, I was told that they aren’t taking any “flat pieces of fabric,” including bedding or comforters. I can’t quite square “too many donations” with a store that doesn’t have as much inventory as it used to, so I’m not sure what is going on.

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I spotted another snake in the garden. It was in the strawberry patch. I know it is not the same one I saw by the cucumbers, because the cucumber snake was smaller and a darker gray. At least the snake is eating bugs and not strawberries. A squirrel got into the greenhouse and just about sent me into cardiac arrest because I didn’t see it until it ran past me and up one of the posts. We had a short conversation about what is and is not appropriate squirrel habitat and eventually it left.

I have to remind myself that I am just the groundskeeper. 😐

A Tiny Nest on the Ground

I headed out to the garden early yesterday morning so I could work before it got hot. I have very little heat tolerance, so anything above 70F is “hot” to me. I planted three rows of beans, mulched some potatoes, picked three gallons of strawberries (after kicking several robins out of the strawberry patch), and cut back the grapes. The trunks were dead almost all the way to the ground. I am not sure what happened—my friend the vineyard manager said that if there is a cold snap after the sap starts running, that can cause the trunks to burst. I did see a few places where it looked like that had happened. There is new growth coming up at the bases so the roots should be okay. In any case, we’re basically starting over with the grapes.

Some parts of gardening are a long game.

I came in and had some lunch, then went back outside and mowed the yard. I found this little nest on the ground:

So fun to see what materials went into it. I see chicken feathers and pine needles.

I did laundry when I got back from Bend and all my woven tops needed to be pressed, so I did that. Ironing clothing I have made is very satisfying.

I cleaned and hulled the strawberries and put them on a tray in the freezer. The chickens got the hulls, which they think are a special treat. Dave gets very excited when he sees them.

I am not going to work as hard today. I have a podcast interview this morning, and by the time it’s done, I probably won’t want to be out in the garden, although I might water the fruit trees. Temps cool off tomorrow. If it rains, I am going to sew.

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I bought this apron pattern in Bend:

It is the Six Corners Apron by Vanilla House Designs. This is a unique apron. I have a some remnants with large, bold prints that would showcase well in this style. Aprons are on the list of things to make, but they aren’t at the top of the list. I want a few more rayon tops and I’d like to get those Haralson bags made.

Plant Shopping

One of the nurseries in town is having a sale on plants—buy sixteen 4" pots of perennials and get 20% off. I stopped there yesterday to do some shopping:

This haul included both herbs and flowers. I am moving some plants to the herb garden from elsewhere on the property and getting donations from friends, but I had to buy a few, too. I do love primroses. We are supposed to have cooler, rainier weather this weekend, so getting these into the herb garden is on the schedule for Saturday.

I also got a container of praying mantis babies and let them loose in the big garden. The husband commented that it’s like an episode of “Wild Kingdom” out there. I’m glad, because it means that I have cultivated a healthy ecosystem.

Guess who is hanging out by the chicken coop again?

I am pretty sure this is the same one I relocated last week. It has returned to the all-you-can-eat mouse buffet. I just hope it doesn’t go into the chicken yard or coop and get attacked by chickens.

The mama robin has two new babies in the nest in the porch rafters.

While I was at the nursery, I looked at their selection of birdbaths. They cost more than I want to spend. I thought I might get one with a pump so I could have moving water, but I am not spending $500 on a spa for the robins. I have a few other ideas.

Today’s #1 task is getting the corn and beans in. Yes, it’s late, but I am hoping that having given them a head start in the greenhouse will make a difference. The rows of lettuce and arugula are up in the big garden.

The grapes still have not leafed out, although there is some new growth at the bases. I checked with a friend of mine who is a vineyard manager in North Carolina and she said I can cut everything back to the new growth and re-train new trunks, so I plan to do that. I also lost a few cucumber and melon plants to that cold snap. They looked okay initially, but it’s clear now that they didn’t make it.

We are still eating strawberries. I am going to start freezing what is coming in because the raspberry tsunami is on the horizon.

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I want to sew, but the garden requires my attention. I’m trying not to be too impatient about this. Gardening season won’t last forever and we’ll have snow again before we know it. And if we get a few days of rain this week, I’ll have a reason to stay inside. In the meantime, I have been sneaking into my sewing room occasionally and doing some prep work so the projects are ready when I get a chunk of time to work on them.