Surprises in the Garden

After the rain we’ve gotten, the yard and garden needed some attention. I mowed on Wednesday and trimmed with the weed whacker yesterday morning. I found a few surprises while I worked. A couple of my grapevines have produced grapes!

Those grapevines are driving me nuts. The upper vines all looked dead well past the time they should have been leafing out. I cut everything back to the new growth at the ground, intending to train up new central trunks. I lost track of what the vines were doing—they are obscured by the jungle of tomatoes—and in the interim, they have decided to take over the world. Ironically, these bunches of grapes are on the vines that have always been the least productive. Go figure.

The UPS driver complimented me yesterday on how good the grapes looked. He drives by the big garden on his way to the neighbor’s house and we compare notes on our crops every summer. He also has grapevines and said that his were very slow in leafing out this year.

That whole section of berries is getting a major overhaul next year. I have to move the elderberry bush and I’d like to put in more blueberry bushes.

********

I did a wonderful interview on Wednesday with a young man in Canada who has a sewing YouTube channel. If I get the file edited today, that will be next week’s podcast. Toward the end of the interview, he asked if he could ask me a few questions, and that turned out to be a lot of fun. He wanted to know how drafting knitting patterns compared to drafting sewing patterns. The two processes are alike in some ways but very different in others. Because knitting is a numbers-based process, most of my knitting pattern grading was done using spreadsheets. Most sewing pattern grading is done flat or with some kind of CAD program.

I am going to work on a two community projects this morning, one of which is compiling the list of volunteer tasks for next month’s homestead foundation pie social. I said that I would chair the upcoming pie social and create a handbook for it, but after this one, someone else needs to take over chairing it. I am chairman of the plant sale (and the fundraising committee) but I refuse to be chairman of all three of the foundation’s major fundraising events. (We host a spring and fall pie social.) Other people in this community need to step up and start taking some responsibility. Everyone wants the fun but no one wants the work. I’m getting tired of shoving my business to the side because the homestead foundation needs so much help. It could be a full-time job if I let it.

The other project is working on the craft co-op website, but the bones of that are in place and that project shouldn’t take too much time.

After that, the rest of today and tomorrow will be devoted to sewing. I can’t have a podcast about sewing if I never get to sew. I might make a few more zipper pouches but I really want to make that Haralson bag. The edgestitch foot I ordered for my Bernina came in and I’d like to try that out, too.

I had a hair appointment yesterday afternoon in town, so I stopped at the quilt store on my way. Two of my students were there with their new 990s. The 990 is quite the machine. Both of them were setting up their embroidery units and they told me that now that I have an 880 with an embroidery module, I need to come and take embroidery classes with them. I probably will. Sometimes it’s fun to be the student instead of the teacher.

********

The National Weather Service confirmed four tornadoes touched down in northeast Ohio on Tuesday, including the one near my mother’s house. As of last night, over 5000 residents in Avon, where I grew up, still didn’t have electricity because the power companies can’t restore the lines until they cut up and remove all the downed trees. It’s a mess, and now they are getting rain from Debby.

I Pay Attention to the Weather

The husband teases me about watching livestreams of the weather, but I make no apologies. I like to know what’s happening. I was baking a batch of zucchini bread yesterday afternoon and had the Fox weather channel playing on YouTube so I could listen to the coverage of Tropical Storm Debby. All of a sudden, they broke to the Fox affiliate in Cleveland and noted that a tornado warning had been issued for Lorain and Cuyahoga counties. Lorain county (specifically Avon) is where I grew up. Cleveland is in Cuyahoga county. I switched over to the Max Velocity livestream and he noted that a tornado had possibly touched down in Bay Village, where one of my aunts lives.

It was about 2:00 pm here and I knew that it was about time for my mother to be getting home from work, so I called her house. No answer. I called her cell phone. No answer. A few minutes later, she called back from her cell phone but I could barely make out what she was saying. She said she would let me know when she got home. A few minutes after that, she called from the house phone and said she was was okay. She was on driving home on I-90 when she saw the storm just ahead of her. She got home safely and was heading down to the basement.

I’m seeing photos and reports of lots of damage in that area. My mother said there were branches down all over her yard and a tree had fallen across her street.

We had a few rumbles of thunder overnight and some rain, but nothing like what ripped through northeast Ohio yesterday.

*******

I spoke with the teacher coordinator for Sew Expo yesterday and we settled on a slate of classes. I am teaching six: an all day sweater-drafting class, a couple of 2-1/2 hour knitting classes—including one on helping knitters learn to “read” their knitting and correct mistakes—a 90-minute lecture on writing and publishing knitting patterns, and my thread class. The teacher coordinator suggested I talk to Wonderfil about setting up in their booth to do some demos after my class.

I am fine with teaching knitting rather than sewing. She said that only two applicants had submitted proposals for knitting classes and she wished she had more. (JC? I sent you an e-mail.)

I need to complete the submissions for the classes that were approved, but I’ll have less prep work than I did last year because most of them are ones I’ve taught before.

*******

The husband and one of our employees moved the new sewing table upstairs for me before they left for work yesterday morning. It fits perfectly into the same space as the old table. The new table did not come with an acrylic insert; I checked with the previous owner of the table and she said that she had it set up so that when the machine was on the hydraulic lift, the extension table that came with the machine was almost flush with the surface of the table. I set mine up the same way and it is working well, so I may skip getting an insert for it. I do prefer sewing on a flatbed.

I hemmed a denim skirt yesterday:

The skirt was the right length, but the bottom was raw. I guess that’s the trend. I prefer a more polished look, so I turned up a hem and sewed it using the jeans foot and the dual-feed mechanism. So slick.

I also knocked out another quilted zipper pouch:

I’ve been interfacing the linings with SF101 but I think I may switch to a lighter interfacing with the next one. The SF101 is a little too beefy.

Presser Feet and Pouches

This week’s podcast episode is part 1 of an overview of sewing machine presser feet. When I am not doing an interview, the topic of the podcast tends to be whatever happens to be relevant in my sewing life, and this week, it was presser feet. I’ll have to finish part 2 in a future episode, and presser feet for sergers and coverstitch machines will be yet another episode.

I stopped in at the quilt store yesterday morning and discovered that not only do they sell used machines, sometimes they have used furniture for sale. I was able to get a table for my 880 that fits perfectly into the existing space, at a deep discount off what something similar would cost me if I purchased new. I can sew with the machine set up in my current table, but I can’t use the knee lift and that was beginning to drive me nuts. Buying used is a win-win for everyone.

Our renters have a thriving graphic design business. They occasionally run into bottlenecks getting items produced locally. A few weeks ago, they mentioned they were thinking about buying an embroidery machine. I asked Tera if she were willing to sell hers—and she was—so I put them in touch with her. It sounds like they’ll be buying her machine and learning to embroider some of their own merchandise.

I didn’t have a lot of time to sew yesterday, but I managed to knock out a quilted pouch:

This is one of the Rosie Caldwell quilted pouches. I quilt a piece of yardage—usually a remnant—on the Q20, then cut out the pattern pieces. That is far easier than quilting each individual pattern piece. These will probably end up at market in September. If I keep a stack of them by the machine, I can knock them out in odd bits of time here and there.

I am itching to start some bag patterns. I really want to get back to the Haralson bag, and I have plans for a few others. I ordered more of that bonded nylon from Wonderground Fabrics because I love the way it feels. I adore this print:

This will probably end up being some kind of fun sewing accessories bag for me. I’m looking at the byAnnie A Place for Everything pattern.

We are still getting periodic rain showers. I’m hoping to work in the garden this morning before the predicted thunderstorms come in this afternoon. I know the grass will need to be cut again soon and I am sure the weeds are coming back with a vengeance.

The chicks are running fearlessly all over the coop and chicken yard—the husband observed that they are probably a lot more resilient than we think. They get right in there with the crowd when I toss out scratch grains.

A Cousin Comes to Visit

My cousin Darlene and her fiancé are here in Montana this week (from Houston). They are getting married tomorrow evening in Glacier Park. We made arrangements to have dinner together last night at our favorite steakhouse in Kalispell, Mercantile Steak. Darlene and Charlie came to our house, first, so we could show them around, and the four of us went into town together.

[The chicks figured out how to escape the chicken yard despite my attempts to childproof it, so we spent some time before we left for dinner getting them reunited with a frantic mama and closing up the hole. Toddlers of all species have an uncanny ability to find the weaknesses in the system.]

I’ve had a yard of rayon sitting on my cutting table for a week earmarked for yet another Déclic top. That has turned out to be a favorite tried-and-true pattern, especially when our temperatures get up into the 90s. I knocked it out yesterday afternoon in time to wear it to dinner. I love this print. This is a Moda rayon:

The more I use that 880, the more I love it. I have always been of the opinion that skills matter more than the equipment—a talented pianist can coax lovely music out of the most humble instrument—but a high-end machine makes sewing so much easier and more enjoyable.

We enjoyed a perfect Montana evening. Dinner was excellent and Darlene and I got to spend some time reminiscing and laughing together. Our mothers are sisters, we grew up in the same town, and we were in the same class together in high school.

The fires in Oregon and Washington have provided some spectacular sunsets recently. Darlene sent this picture she took on their way back to the Airbnb:

It’s raining again this morning. I had my coffee out on the porch so I could sit and enjoy the cool air.

Summer Mornings in the Garden

This will always be my favorite time of day, no matter the season:

I especially love summer mornings in the garden. I snapped this shot at around 7:30 am from the middle of the potato patch.

The squash and cukes are doing great. (They were also planted on pig manure.) We will have a bumper crop of pumpkins. I hauled in enough zucchini yesterday to give some to my neighbor, Theresa. I know her family loves them. The peas Anna brought me yielded eight pints for the freezer after shelling and blanching. Those will be wonderful in soups this winter.

It has been a good gardening year, once we got past the 30-degree lows in mid-June.

I finally decided on garden furniture for the herb garden. I will wait until next spring to get it unless there is a sale. Stutzman’s Amish Furniture in Polson makes tables and chairs out of recycled poly lumber. They had some on display at the Amish store when Robin and I stopped for ice cream last week.

*********

The one-year anniversary of the podcast is coming up in September. I’ve enjoyed hosting it and plan to continue, but I am frustrated by the lack of e-mail etiquette I’m encountering. Some of my guests come to me through the guest form on the website. Others, I e-mail directly because they may not know the podcast exists. I have reached out to half a dozen people about being guests on the podcast. I am very specific in my requests. I explain who I am and what the podcast is about. I offer to interview them over Zoom at their convenience. I suggest/ask for potential dates and let them know I am happy to work around their schedules.

It is like pulling teeth. I will get an affirmative response with no other details. ("Sure, I'll be on the podcast," and that's it.) Followup e-mails about scheduling go unanswered.

I get that I am not Joe Rogan, but if you express interest in being on the podcast, I expect you to meet me halfway. I now send one followup e-mail, but that's it. My time is valuable and I am not in the business of making people feel super special by pursuing them.

I see a huge divide between people who are successful and people who are just muddling along, and it isn’t always because of lack of opportunity. The people who operate at a high level and get things done are the ones who answer my professional e-mail inquiries with a professional response, even if it’s a “No, thank you.” (I’ve received a couple of those.) Being on a podcast is free publicity, which makes this even more of a head-scratcher. Why wouldn’t you want to get the word out about what you’re doing?

*********

A few months ago, I accidentally broke the tension stud on my Necchi industrial. Of course, there are no donor machines of that model and I could not find a suitable replacement stud among any of my machine parts. I took the stud to a machine shop here in town, which kept it for several weeks before telling me they couldn’t replicate it.

I did an internet search for machine shops in Spokane and one popped up that looked promising. I called the shop yesterday morning and explained what I needed. The guy on the other end of the phone said, “Text me a photo,” so I did. After a few minutes, he texted back and said that he thought he could replicate the part. He also gave me an estimate of the cost. (See what I mean about being professional?) I’m going to drop off the broken part the next time I’m in Spokane, and hopefully I can have that machine up and running again before long.

Here Comes the Produce

My friend Anna gifted me with a huge bag of shelling peas. This really is a gift because mine did not produce. The heat did them in.

I’ll shell and blanch these today and get them into the freezer.

I spent a couple of hours in the garden yesterday morning while it was still cool and (relatively) bugless. The corn and beans needed weeding, so I tackled that first. I also pulled up the arugula that had bolted and gave it to the chickens. I re-seeded that row with more arugula. I’m hoping that after Sunday, we will be done with the excessive heat. When I was done in the big garden, I came back here and weeded the herb garden.

The tomato plants are an absolute jungle. Pig manure is a wonderful soil amendment. I’m expecting ripe tomatoes in another week or two. Some of my Pixie cabbage are almost ready to harvest—that is a variety that produces softball-sized heads of cabbage. I brought in a bunch of zucchini and have been baking zucchini bread every afternoon to go into the freezer.

********

The need to rearrange and organize and finish projects seems to be hitting other people, too. In today’s e-mail from Cheryl Arkison—one of the authors of Sunday Morning Quilts—she notes that she has suspended work on anything new until she clears out her scrap bin, finishes some existing projects, and organizes her workspace.

I feel so much more productive working in a neatly-organized area. I shouldn’t have waited so long to rearrange my setup. I’ve got a pile of works-in-progress and I am drilling my way down through them. Yesterday, I finished making the units for the English paper piecing project from my Garden of Quilts class (three years ago!). A few more evenings of sewing and that one will be ready to quilt.

I stopped in at the quilt store on Wednesday to buy feet for the 880. They will have to order an edgestitch foot for me, but I bought a piecing foot, a Teflon foot, and a specialty zipper foot that rides the zipper teeth for perfect topstitching. Bernina has multiple options for most of their feet—regular feet, dual-feed feet, etc.—which can be overwhelming, but our store owner always has good advice and is more than willing to demo the feet before the customer purchases anything.

Bernina of Naperville also has an excellent YouTube channel where they feature different presser feet on “Footloose Friday.”

Brother is getting ready to release their top-of-the-line machine, the Aveneer, in a little over two weeks. That model reportedly also has a price tag of $20K. I really wonder about these expensive machines as a business strategy. I guess we will find out. And if it weren’t for sewists trading in and trading up, I wouldn’t have an 880, but how sustainable is that?

A friend of mine sent me a video about this new release, the Bernette B08.

She has been kicking around the idea of getting an industrial machine. This one is very impressive! It has many of the same features as my Juki 1541, but scaled down in size. And it can sew through 16 layers of canvas. The engineer who came up with the idea for this model is brilliant—this machine will appeal to those sewists who want to make bags but don’t need the speed and power of something like a 1541.

Tough Babies

Hens hatching their own chicks is infinitely easier than buying and raising chicks from the farm store. I am a nervous wreck with three-day-old chicks in a brooder box, while mama has hers out in the chicken yard:

Dave is very protective of the babies. He let me know yesterday that I was not welcome to get too close. (I was trying to get a look at their wings to see if I could tell if they were male or female.) And he makes sure none of the other hens hassle them:

We should know within the week if anyone else is going to hatch any babies.

I need to check the chicken yard today to make sure there are no openings big enough to allow chicks to escape.

*********

My sewing area is mostly back together and the workflow is much better. It rained off and on all day yesterday, so I worked on the Fat Quarter Fancy Star quilt. I am not feeling the love for that one. I’m going to finish sewing the blocks, I think, but not the quilt. I’ve decided to package up and donate some of my UFOs to the Ritzville relief sale in October. In addition to the quilt auction, they have a “yard sale” area with craft supplies and fabric. My friend Margaret used to buy half-finished quilts there, finish them, then donate them back to the auction the following year. I haven’t devoted the time to making quilts for the auction, but I can donate my languishing UFOs. Someone may come along and decide that’s the perfect project.

If nothing else, making quilt blocks has given me time to get to know the 880. I’ve also watched several Bernina videos about that model and they’ve been very helpful. Yesterday afternoon, I went through a video about using and manipulating the decorative stitches. That machine is so powerful, with so many features. I think it’s unfortunate that it got something of a reputation for being difficult to use. Some of that can be attributed to a lack of communication between Bernina and its customers. The bobbin threading is a perfect example. The accessories kit includes a dental mirror because the threading path for the bobbin is underneath the bobbin race and impossible to see without using the mirror. Owners were told to use the mirror to look underneath the bobbin race to determine if the thread was seated correctly. I watched a video hosted by one of the Bernina educators and she said that there was no need to use the mirror if the sewist pulled the thread up and to the left about 12", which makes the bobbin rotate twice and automatically seats the thread where it needs to be. And yes, that works, because I tried it several times. 🤯

[I like those videos because that educator thinks like an engineer and explains the “why” for everything.]

I submitted three additional class proposals to Sew Expo yesterday. The teacher coordinator specifically asked for more fitting classes, serger classes, and knitting/crochet classes. I’ve already submitted proposals for six knitting classes, so the second batch of three class proposals were for my thread class (I got the okay from Wonderfil), a serger class on using the cording foot, and a class on basic pattern fitting adjustments for newbies. I added a note that I feel like something of a poser submitting a class on fitting because I have no formal training, but I know what skills I had to learn to fit myself and I think there is a real need for a class that introduces new garment sewists to basic adjustments so they don’t get overwhelmed by all of the technical information. Sometimes learning from someone else who isn’t an “expert” is helpful, because experts often forget what it’s like to be a newbie.

I’ve got an appointment to visit with the teacher coordinator by phone next Tuesday, so I should know by then what classes she’d like to have me teach.

Dave is a Proud Papa

I’ve had some broody Black Australorps sitting on eggs for the past few weeks, but I didn’t think much of it. No hen has managed to close the deal and hatch any chicks for years. They will get broody and sit long enough for me to get my hopes up, then abandon the nests. Still, I left these hens alone just to see what would happen.

Yesterday afternoon, when I walked into the coop to get eggs, I heard “cheep cheep cheep.” One of the Black Australorps was on the floor with two chicks next to her. She seems to have adequate maternal instincts because she scooted them underneath her as soon as she saw me. I did get this picture, though:

I’m hoping one of the chicks is a rooster. Dave is 4-1/2 years old and getting up there in rooster years. I’d rather train up one of his offspring than start over with a strange rooster. Dave has one eye on the chicks and one eye on anyone who comes into the coop. He is a good papa.

I’m waiting a few more days to see if anyone else manages to hatch out chicks.

*********

I have been motivated to clean and reorganize my sewing area—I want to sew—and that task was on the schedule for yesterday. It is amazing what a couple of shelving units can do. This was about halfway through the process:

All of my supplies are out where I can see them, neatly organized, and labeled. I still need a few more bins, but like items are grouped together and easy to access. My class supplies, in particular, needed to be corralled. I hate wasting time looking for things I know I have. Now I can find what I need quickly and easily. This should streamline my sewing process.

I went to a party last night. Sunnie always hosts the July meeting of the Mountain Brook Ladies Club and it’s always a themed party. This year’s theme was Zodiac. I am not a member of Ladies Club but I know everyone because most of them are also in the Thursday sewing group. As usual, there was much laughter. We sat outside in Sunnie’s yard and enjoyed a perfect Montana summer evening.

Rain moved in overnight and it’s raining hard right now. This is supposed to last all day, which will be wonderful. I’m going to stay inside, make zucchini bread, and sew. Weeding is on the schedule for tomorrow.

Peopled Out

The past couple of weeks have been busy and fun, but I need some downtime. Alone. After church today, I plan to spend a few hours in my sewing room, either playing with the 880 or doing some more organizing. I started taking apart the spare bedroom and there is plenty to do in that room.

[I discovered one feature of the 880 that I truly love. It shows the time of day on the display. No more pulling out my phone or craning my neck to look at the clock next to the bed. What a simple little feature and yet how useful.]

Canning classes went well. While I was teaching the morning session, the husband picked a couple of gallons of raspberries. Those went into the freezer. I really need to get out and weed this week. Another system is supposed to come through on Tuesday bringing rain. (Yay!) The tomatoes plants have set fruit and look great. We have watermelons:

Now that the lavender buds have opened, the lavender hedge is a mass of buzzing pollinators:

Keeping the wildlife happy is my job.

*********

I’m still working my way through the book Uptime. There is much to think about and digest. I really like the concept of “future you.” The goal is to think about those tasks that would make life easier for future you if you did them now—so you do them. This does require a fair bit of discipline (sorely lacking in society these days, unfortunately). Making it into a game helps.

More and more, I am beginning to think that impulse control/delayed gratification is one of the greatest gifts you can give children. Otherwise, they grow up with unreasonable expectations about how life works. (Get off my lawn.) We told our girls that if they buckled down in high school and earned a full International Baccalaureate diploma, they would see the benefits when they went to college. Both girls received hefty merit scholarships and both went in as sophomores, which gave them more freedom in choosing what classes to take. And each of them has carried that discipline over into their working lives.

Here endeth today’s sermon. 😉

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.

*********

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.

********

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.

********

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.

*********

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.

**********

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.

**********

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.

********

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.

********

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.

**********

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.

**********

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.