A Bit of a Breather Now

Our church conference this past weekend was wonderful. We were at the Lutheran camp on Flathead Lake. I realized this morning that I spent two days staring out at the amazing scenery and never took a picture. I live here, so sometimes I forget to stop and appreciate it.

I finished knitting a prayer shawl while I was in delegate sessions and seminars and began putting the fringe on it last night. The yarn is Fleece Lite, from Hobby Lobby. I like it.

My supply of Lion Brand Homespun ran out with the previous prayer shawl. I would have bought more but Joanns seemed to be out of it for most of the past year. This Fleece Lite makes a reasonable substitute.

We keep a quilt stand with prayer shawls on it in the foyer of our church. Anyone is welcome to take one, either for themselves or to give away.

I also played piano and sang with the group. The singing was amazing. Our closing song during our worship service Friday night was The Canticle of the Turning, set to a familiar folk tune, and it’s a favorite among our congregations. I was on piano, our song leader was on guitar, our retired pastor was on guitar, and another woman played the flute. And, of course, we had 75 very talented singers in the room. There is a synergy that happens when a group of musicians is in sync and communicates almost without speaking. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it’s a beautiful thing.

Megan Ramer, pastor of Seattle Mennonite Church, was in charge of planning the hymn sing and worship services and I thought she did a stellar job. I found out that there is an organization in their neighborhood called Refugee Artisan Initiative that teaches language and sewing skills to refugee and immigrant women to help them to integrate into the community, to work and provide for their families. I am hoping to interview someone from RAI for the podcast.

Another attendee was the director of Camp CAMREC, near Leavenworth, WA, and when she found out I teach sewing classes, she asked if I would be willing to come teach at one of their quilting retreats in the spring and fall. Of course!

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The husband told me last night that he heard from our next-door neighbor yesterday that a grizzly bear broke into their chicken coop and killed 27 chickens. I saw a photo of some of the carnage. I know there has been a bear (or two) wandering around, but we haven’t seen any. The husband said he would take the shotgun with him when he makes his rounds at night. I will carry bear spray and look around very carefully before I head out to the garden. It might be time to put up a game camera.

******

I’m staying home today. It is still raining and a bit chilly—Missoula was under a frost warning last night!—so I plan to stay inside and cut out three woven tops. I will assembly-line the production.

Make It Modern

I worked on my Place for Everything Tote yesterday afternoon. I am reasonably good at binding, but binding these byAnnie bags is not easy. The Bernina 880 has zero trouble handling the extra bulk. It’s just tricky to make the binding look nice. I ended up making my binding 2-1/2" wide instead of the 2-1/4" wide called for in the pattern. Part of that was because I cut bias strips on my Accuquilt cutter and part of it was because that extra 1/4" makes a difference.

[I am not a fan of machine-sewn binding. I prefer sewing down binding by hand. On this project, though, there is no good way to hand sew binding to clear vinyl. Interestingly, all of us who made jackets for BU sewed down the binding by hand, so I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way.]

The pages are done:

I am hoping the rest of the bag comes together quickly.

I’ve got a few free days next week (finally) and my plan is to cut out three woven tops and sew them together. I want to wear me-mades at Bernina University.

[On Wednesday, I wore one of my woven tops and a pair of denim wide-leg crop pants that I bought at Kohls. Several people asked me if I had made my pants. I just had to laugh. I wanted to say, “No, I made my top! Ask me about my top!”]

During class on Wednesday, Ashlee and I talked about marketing my learn-to-sew pillowcase class that is scheduled for the end of July. She asked me to make some store samples and gave me fabric from a new line called Groove, by Emily Van Hoff for Moda. Modern is not really my vibe, but every so often, it’s fun to sew with something I wouldn’t choose. We did a positive/negative with the pillowcases and I love how they turned out:

That pop of yellow in the flange is fun.

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Today is payday for the employees. I am now on my third pay period without a functioning payroll module in QuickBooks. Heads need to begin rolling.

Our church conference kicked off last night with an Anabaptism At 500 hymn sing. I wish I had recorded it. We had 75 people in a room together, all of whom know how to and love to sing, and the sound was amazing. I accompanied some of the songs, we had additional instruments on some of the songs, and some of the songs we sang a capella. (So I also got to sing a bit.) I expect to be a bit sleep deprived this weekend, but it will be worth it.

When I got to the Lutheran camp last night, I noticed all the ground squirrels running around. Tons of them. It was a target-rich environment. 😛

Making Pants

I had two students in my Free Range Slacks class yesterday and we had a lot of fun. One student was my friend, Jenny, who is also on the board of the Mountain Brook Homestead Foundation. She has taken several classes from me. The other was the store owner’s daughter, Ashlee—now the operations manager of the store—who is about the same age as DD#2 and a lot of fun. Two students was plenty for the first time teaching that class. Ashlee says we should offer it again in the fall. She is working very hard to attract younger sewists as well as garment sewists, but it’s a process. Most people don’t associate quilt stores with garment fabrics.

Here is Ashlee cutting out her pattern:

She’s very interested in setting up a projector in her personal sewing space to avoid having to deal with paper/tissue patterns. I am old school and need to be able to hold a pattern piece in my hand. I doubt I will ever set up a projector, but I know some sewists love them.

Jenny finished her pants just before the end of class. I suggested both students use muslin rather than fashion fabric in case we needed to make any adjustments. Jenny is about the same height as me, so she’ll need to lengthen her next pair, but her first draft fit perfectly. Ashlee had no previous garment-sewing experience, but she gamely kept up and had assembled her pants by the end of class. She just needed to sew down the casing for the elastic and insert it, which she said she would do at home. She will need to lengthen her next pair as well.

That pattern was a good choice for first-time pants. The elastic waist let us concentrate on construction techniques rather than worrying excessively about fitting.

I need to run up a quick project for the quilt store this morning before getting ready to head to the Lutheran camp. The weather forecast is now calling for a possible 4" of snow as low as 4000' Saturday night. We’re at 3250'. That’s a bit too close for comfort. The husband and I may have to put row cover or tarps out on the plants after all. I don’t want to lose everything.

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I am watching this Michael’s/Joanns “merger”—I don’t know what else to call it—with interest. I suspected that either Hobby Lobby or Michael’s would up its game after Joanns went out of business, if only because some of those larger yarn and fabric producers would be looking for a new national outlet through which to sell their products. I stopped at our Michael’s store a few days ago but the sewing section is still limited to one aisle in the back corner of the store. I think that Deana and I will stop at one of the larger Michael’s stores on our fabric shopping trip in Seattle because I know some of them are carrying fabric.

Hobby Lobby completely skipped the spring/summer fabric season. I see that they are now starting to stock some fall and Christmas fabric but no apparel fabric.

Baby Birds, New Fabric, and Some Turkeys

It feels like May and June have been one big event after another after another. Our congregation is hosting the annual meeting for our denomination’s regional conference this weekend. I was only tangentially involved in the planning; however, I am the pianist for the whole weekend—a hymn sing Thursday night, services Friday and Saturday evening, and a service Sunday morning. I enjoy playing, but some of the songs are new to me and have required practice. I spent time yesterday organizing music into folders so I know what I am playing when.

“How to Be a Church Pianist” was not one of the skills I learned when I took piano lessons as a kid at the Koch School of Music in Rocky River, Ohio.

I had hoped to do some sewing yesterday but it didn’t happen. Now that the jacket is done, the Place for Everything Tote is back at the top of the queue. I’m at the stage where I need to make a few miles of bias binding. I haven’t decided if I am going to take sewing or knitting with me to the conference this weekend. I am a delegate and will be sitting through several delegate sessions. At last year’s conference, the pastor from Menno Mennonite, in Ritzville, WA, brought her English paper piecing project—carried in her Place for Everything Tote—and we compared notes.

We have had such absolutely gorgeous weather since the first of May, but it is going to be cold and rainy this weekend. The high on Saturday may struggle to reach 50F. I sincerely hope we don’t get a frost, because I don’t have time to cover everything. Our conference is being held at the Lutheran camp on the west shore of Flathead Lake. 😩

My shipment of teal fabric from Tim Holtz’s Palette line arrived on Monday:

I’ve avoided teal for a few years because I was sick of it. Teal is one of the few jewel tones I can reliably find in the sea of muddy earth-toned ready-to-wear and I got tired of having so much teal (and black) in my closet. Obviously, I am coming back to it—the BU jacket has a teal background and I think this teal collection is my favorite so far of the new Tim Holtz line. (The photo doesn’t do it justice.)

The new appliances for the rental house were delivered yesterday so that’s been crossed off the list. And the zipper for my jacket is on the way, so I am reasonably certain I can get it sewn in before we leave for SLC.

I am teaching the Free Range Slacks pattern today. This should be a fun class. When I get back from BU/Seattle, I absolutely have to work on class submissions for Sew Expo and for the stores this fall.

We’ve had three older male turkeys hanging around the house. When a group of hens wanders through, it’s funny to see them puff up their chests, hoist their tail feathers, and start gobbling. They seem to have added up a couple of juvenile toms to their posse. Yesterday, the whole group was chilling in the front yard:

The baby robins have flown the nest. Three of the four left Monday afternoon. One baby didn’t want to leave and spent Monday night alone in the nest cheeping pitifully. I wondered if I was going to have to get up there and help it, but mama came back early yesterday morning and convinced it to fly.

Crisis Averted

Assembling the jacket was accomplished easily yesterday afternoon. Making the bias binding and attaching it took a bit longer, but I sat outside on the porch and watched mama robin feed the babies while I sewed it down. And I am thrilled with how it turned out:

Truly, what saved this project from disaster was the fact that I was able to cut the correct front pieces out of the back pieces. The shape of the armscye wasn’t quite the same as the original, but the sleeve cap fit into it without issues. This is a quilted jacket, not a tailored one, so no one will know. The front jacket pieces are narrower than planned because each one was half the width of the back, but that just means they won’t overlap. I kicked around a couple of ideas for closures, including large hooks and eyes or frog closures, but it occurred to me that a zipper might be the best option. I found and ordered a teal parka zipper from Zipper Shipper on Etsy. Hopefully, it arrives before we leave, even if I have to sew the zipper in by hand on the flight down to SLC. If it doesn’t, I’ll use the large hooks and eyes as a temporary fix.

I am glad I went with the teal binding. I think it lets the piecing shine. And I am glad I used the McCall’s 8560 pattern because the length is perfect.

Now I can move on to something else. I’d like to make a couple of tops to wear at BU.

*******

I did more planting and weeding yesterday morning before it got hot. I still have a few things to put in the herb garden, but the big garden is well underway. The nope ropes were out in full force. The big snake was in its usual spot, along with a second one:

And a third one was a few feet away:

I was telling the husband about them and he said to me, “You are a rare woman,” and I said, “Sarah likes snakes, too,” and he said, “Sarah is also a rare woman.” LOL. The snakes in the garden have never bothered me. I take them as a sign of a healthy ecosystem and as long as they are out there, I won’t have issues with some of the common insect pests.

The husband was getting supplies ready for a new job yesterday, so the rental house work will happen this afternoon.

Not Quite There Yet

I have not yet sewn the jacket together to determine if I have been able to avoid disaster. I spent yesterday morning weeding potatoes and laying out soaker hose, after which I made a pass through the strawberry bed and brought in another two gallons. A pair of opinionated robins—how dare I take their berries!—kept me company. (These were not the nesting robins, who do not have time to heckle the gardener because they are busy feeding babies.) The rest of the morning was spent making phone calls. I am working on something for the husband which requires calling people, but most of that time is spent navigating stupid phone menus trying to get connected to a human being with the answer to my question. It is absolutely maddening.

The weather has been showery all week. I am grateful for the rain and happy I don’t have to start the supplemental watering just yet. The hoses are all laid out, though, and ready to go. And I thought we had a lot of strawberries until I looked at the raspberry canes. We are going to have a tsunami of raspberries this year. (Deana, bring all your best recipes for using them.) I suspected that might happen after I ruthlessly pruned them the year before last.

Anyway . . . after lunch, while it rained, I finished all the edges of the jacket pieces on the serger in anticipation of assembling the jacket. I used a teal thread in the upper looper to match the teal background:

And a black thread in the lower looper to match the charcoal background.

Anything worth doing is worth doing in excess. No one is going to see the inside of the jacket, but this makes me happy.

I also spent some time cleaning up my sewing room. I had been dumping all of my stock-up-before-Joanns-goes-under purchases from last month on every empty horizontal surface and they needed to be put away. I can only work in clutter for so long.

The husband and I are going to work over in the rental house today, although I’d like to spend another couple of hours in the garden, first. The weeds don’t wait for anyone. If I have time this afternoon—or if it rains—I’ll see about sewing the jacket together.

Summer is so vastly different from winter, and not just because of the weather. The daily routine is different, the flow of the weeks is different—even what I cook for dinner is different. (No soups and stews again until the fall.) It’s almost like being set down on a different planet for a few months.

I Made a Mistake

All of the pieces of the BU jacket have been quilted and cut out. I am ready to begin the assembly. However, I made a mistake. I do not want to confess it until I know if the fix I came up with works. I was talking about it with the husband last night and his first question was, “Do you have more fabric?” I do, but what I don’t have right now is time.

The truth is that sometimes creativity—like weeds—flourishes in those places where it’s up against a rock and a hard place. In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a disaster. I am fairly sure it’s fixable. Also, mistakes will be the subject of next week’s podcast episode because it’s important to make lemonade when handed a bag full of lemons.

Today is National Sewing Machine Day, for those of you who track those important dates. I love my sewing machines. I wish I could find time to go out to the garage and tinker with some of my vintage ones. Maybe next month. The garage is a lovely cool place when it’s 90F+ outside.

This morning, though, I absolutely have to get out and work in the garden. I need to bring in the rest of the strawberries. The potatoes desperately need weeding. The hemp mulch works nicely, but lamb's quarter still manages to spring up right next to the potato plants. Fortunately, lamb’s quarter is one of the easiest weeds to pull, especially after it rains.

[I am sure that the more enlightened gardeners out there will point out that lamb’s quarter makes a fine salad green, but I’m having enough trouble harvesting the stuff I planted deliberately without also having to worry about harvesting weeds.]

Those four baby robins are so demanding that papa robin has been drafted to help feed them. The photo isn’t great, but both mama and papa robin have been bringing bugs and worms to the babies:

I think this same mama robin has been building a nest in this spot for several years. She doesn’t get startled and fly away if I walk past the nest—or worse, strafe me for getting too close. (Papa robin, however, is still skittish.) I talk to all the animals. Even Bunny has stopped hopping away when it sees me. Now it just sits there, calmly munching on dandelion stems, while I tell it my plans for the day.

The husband found the little lame chick dead in the coop a few nights ago. That made me sad, but sick and lame animals get culled on farms—either naturally or deliberately—for a reason. I’ve had lame chickens before and they rarely do well. I was already starting to obsess about what I was going to do if that chick got outside, because I knew it wouldn’t be able to get back up the ramp into the coop.

I See the Finish Line

I knew that once the piecing was done, the quilting and assembly of the Bernina University jacket wouldn’t take long. Thankfully, I remembered—just in time—that I needed to reverse the piecing of the sleeves to make them mirror images of each other. It wouldn’t have been a catastrophe if I hadn’t, but better not to have to punt.

The silk batting was a good choice. I like the weight and drape it gives to the jacket. The quilting is allover loops, because I am at the “get it done” stage of this project and because I like loops. This is the back:

The fronts also have been quilted and cut out. I still need to quilt the sleeve pieces but ran out of time yesterday afternoon. Once those are done, I will serge the edges of each piece before assembling the jacket. I don’t intend for this to be a reversible jacket, so I am not going to take the time to bind the inside seams.

I am dithering about what color binding to use on the front edges. My choices are black, the charcoal that I used for the lining fabric, or the teal. I am leaning toward the teal. I’d like to finish this by early next week.

*******

I rearranged my travel plans for BU. I’ll fly down to Salt Lake City with the group from the store, but I fly to Seattle after BU instead of coming home. We’re on Delta from Kalispell. I could have stayed on Delta and just changed the flight from SLC to Seattle instead of Kalispell, but I didn’t like the timing of the flights. Either I would have to miss my last BU class to get the airport on time or I’d be flying into Seattle at 11:00 pm (ugh). Alaska Airlines had a flight at a better time and I had enough airline miles to pay for that ticket. I had had the foresight to get a refundable ticket on Delta, so I was able to cancel the original reservation and re-book as a one-way flight. I am all set. Robert and Deana are working on lodging.

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I was in the garden again at 6:30 am yesterday. This will be my routine for the rest of the summer unless it’s raining. I moved a piece of black plastic from one side of the garden to the other and surprised a nope rope:

I suggested it visit its cousin on the other side of the garden, the big snake that lives under the sage bush.

The strawberries are producing like crazy. I picked almost two gallons yesterday and that was only half the bed. I cleaned them and put them in the freezer on trays. It’s raining this morning so I may not get the rest of them until this afternoon.

Four Hungry Babies

I am attempting to establish some kind of routine for the summer. Yesterday morning, I cut the grass in the garden—at 6:30 am, while it was still cool out there—then did a podcast interview. That took a couple of hours to record and edit, and then I made a bunch of phone calls, including one to the person who ghosted us on Friday afternoon. She had left the office early without checking her calendar. After apologizing profusely, she helped me take care of what needed to be done.

And then, after lunch, I sewed! (Cue angels singing.) I finished putting together the second front of the jacket, then moved on to the sleeves. These are two-part sleeves. I assembled the front part of both sleeves and made the last Sawtooth Star for the back portion of one of them. Putting together the back sleeves is on the schedule for this afternoon. They have an elbow dart, so the piecing is going to be a bit trickier because I don’t want to be making a dart in a spot that has a star in it. I also dug into the stash and found the silk batting, so once all of these sections are assembled, I can make quilt sandwiches out of them and quilt them.

I can see the finish line. Yay. After the jacket is done, I’ll get back to working on the Place for Everything Tote.

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I am working on adjusting my trip to Bernina University. My friends, Robert and Deana, are coming out here in July to spend a couple of weeks. They were here last September and liked it so much they decided to escape the July heat of Tennessee and come back. Robert is a very accomplished musician. He and I have been friends since I was 14 and he was 16—that’s 45 years if anyone is counting—because we sat next to each other in the trombone section of our high school band. He is doing some consulting this summer with the San Francisco Mandarins drum corps. The drum corps is touring, and one of their stops is just north of Seattle. That date happens to coincide nicely with their arrival out here. They are flying into Spokane and will drive to Seattle on the same day that I am supposed to fly back from Salt Lake City, so I am going to try to change my flight to go to Seattle, instead. I’ll meet them there, Deana and I will do some fabric shopping (she sews), and we’ll attend the drum corps performance before driving back here.

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The poor husband is pouring a slab at 6 am today and the jobsite is an hour away. He left at 3:45 am. Early morning is not his best time of day. I, on the other hand, do my best work between 4 and 6 am.

The baby robins spend most of their time like this:

I feel for the mama robin. She is constantly flying back and forth with food for them.

Etiquette Classes Should Make a Comeback

One of my fervent wishes is that we would return to a time when people behaved out of basic consideration for their fellow human beings. I am tired of being walked into by people who are so busy looking down at their cell phones that they aren’t watching where they are going—and no, I don’t think I should be the one to move out of their way. I can’t even begin to tell you the kind of stupid driving I’m seeing, especially now that tourist season has started. And the husband and I were supposed to have a phone meeting with someone Friday afternoon—a meeting that required the husband to rearrange his work schedule—and were ghosted by the other party with no explanation.

I don’t think common courtesy is too much to ask, but apparently, it is. Get off my lawn.

And still nothing from QuickBooks.

We had a congregational meeting at church yesterday, a workshop for which we brought in an outside consultant. That was the last big item on my schedule and now things should ease up a bit. I’d really like to finish the BU quilted jacket this week. At this rate, summer will be over before I can get make any warm-weather tops. Mostly, though, I would like to get into some kind of routine. I don’t do well being pulled hither and yon for weeks at a time.

The rental house needs some attention, too, but at this point, we’re just making lists. The husband isn’t going to have time to work on anything until the fall and winter. Our tenants kept the place very clean. The repairs are to address normal wear and tear that happens over time.

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The mama robin hatched out four babies this week. I haven’t had a chance to get a photo, but I’ve been watching their hungry little mouths peeking over the edge of the nest. I have a great view of the nest from the kitchen window.

The chicks we got a few months ago are now teenagers. They can go in and out of the coop but they are still separated from the big chickens. One of the chicks from WS is lame—she had curled toes when I got her but I didn’t realize she also had a splayed leg. She is a bit smaller than the other chicks. She doesn’t move around much, preferring to find a spot and sit there and watch the other chicks run in and out, but she is able to get food and water and the other chicks leave her alone. I said to the husband that she may end up being a pet chicken because I pick her up every day and stroke her head for a few minutes.

It is strawberry season and we have another bumper crop.

They make for great snacking in the garden.

More Upheaval in the Sewing World

Two pieces of news caught my eye yesterday. The first is that Michaels, the craft chain, purchased some of Joann’s intellectual property:

Joann’s future a mystery as Michaels snaps up IP, private labels

The article states:

The spokesperson declined to disclose the purchase price and didn’t address questions about how it might use Joann’s logo or other trademarks, except to say it will be developing Joann private brands Big Twist Value Plus, Big Twist Twinkle, Big Twist Posh and Big Twist Baby Bear.

This article on the Craft Industry Alliance website has some additional information. I have no idea if any of this is related to the teaser that has been posted on Joann’s website.

The second piece of news is a bit more troubling, although not entirely a surprise:

Parent Company of the Big 4 Sewing Pattern Brands Sold to a Liquidator

From the article:

The brands were owned by IG Design Group, a leading manufacturer and distributor of stationery, crafts, party, and gift products based in the UK. On Friday, the company announced it had sold its US division, IG Design Group Americas (DGA), which owns the sewing pattern brands, to Hilco Capital, a liquidation firm. DGA also owns other craft brands, including Boye needles, Wrights trim, and Perler fusible beads, among others. Hilco has also been involved with liquidating Joann’s assets after it filed for bankruptcy in January.

IG Design Group cited the impact of tariffs imposed by the US as a factor. Over 50% of DGA’s products are manufactured in China, although the sewing patterns are made in the US. The company also mentioned a softening market over the last several years, as well as the bankruptcy of Joann, as factors in the sale.

I say it’s not a surprise because the Big 4/Big 7 (add in New Look, KnowMe, and Burda) have faced a lot of pressure from indie designers in the past several years. Indie designers have been much more inclusive in their sizing and offered options like copyshop and projector versions of their patterns. The Big4/Big 7 only began offering PDF options in the last year or so for patterns purchased from their website.

Several YouTube content creators have complained recently that the new-season pattern releases are rehashes of existing patterns.

Some of you may also remember that the McCall’s tissue-printing facility in Manhattan Kansas, was down for a few months in the fall of 2020. This is the only tissue-printing facility in the United States. It is owned by IG Design Group and (presumably) part of the liquidation. A few indie designers may be impacted by this as they contracted with this facility to print their patterns.

I’ve had a number of people say to me that, “No one sews anymore,” although I find that comment difficult to reconcile with the billion-dollar quilting industry. I might be willing to admit that fewer people sew their own garments anymore. There seem to be enough garment sewists to keep indie designers in business, however.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see how the market adjusts to these changes. I don’t know, either, how this will affect Burda, KnowMe, and New Look patterns, as it’s unclear to me whether they are part of the sale.

******

I planted squash and tomatoes yesterday morning.

The pigs and the garter snake kept me company. I asked the snake if it has relatives, but it declined to comment.

I only planted 29 tomato plants this year. (“Only,” LOL). I went heavy on the paste tomatoes because we’re almost out of sauce.

After some consideration, I think I’m only going to start tomatoes for me next spring and concentrate on starting more squash and cucumbers. Sarah does a stellar job with tomatoes for the plant sale but we always run out of cucurbits. I’ll also start more flowers and herbs, because those sell well, too.

The poppies are spectacular:

After planting, I drove to town to buy a stove for the rental house. The salesman who helped me with the washer and dryer purchase on Wednesday gave me the sale price on the stove even though the sale ended on Tuesday. Everything will be delivered on the same day, and for $10, they will haul away the old stove. We buy all our appliances at Fred’s Appliance, which is a northwest chain, because we’ve had such great service from them.

More Than One Kind of Drought

I have no sewing to show you. The only sewing I’ve done this week has been to hem a shower curtain for our rental house. Our tenants moved out as of June 1 and I am working on getting things set up over there for family. Yesterday, I went shopping for a washer and dryer. Last night, I found out that the stove hasn’t been working. We decided to replace it as I am sure it is over 20 years old and the husband doesn’t have time to figure out what is wrong with it. If I order a new one today, I think the appliance store will be able to deliver all three appliances on the same day.

The husband and I both are on our respective hamster wheels at the moment. Things flow more smoothly when only one of us is on a hamster wheel at a time, but it is what it is. My schedule, at least, should loosen up a bit next week.

I met my friend Tera for coffee yesterday morning. She and her husband are leaving next week on a three-year mission trip. I wanted to see her and say good-bye. This is an exciting opportunity for them, but I will miss my sewing partner in crime.

Planting is on the schedule for this morning. I doubt we will have any more frosts, and the plants need to get into the ground. The greenhouse is very empty. The husband and the crew will put the shade cloth back on it for the summer. The grass in the garden needs to be cut again, too, but that may have to wait until next week.

I’m tackling what is most urgent right now. This is why I am not a fan of summers in Montana. 🫤 This is the time of year when everything is urgent.

*******

Tim Holtz has released his newest Palette collection. I am waiting for notification from Fat Quarter Shop that it is in stock so I can order some. I love this one:

I think it might be my favorite so far and I haven’t even seen it in person yet.

I miss my sewing machines.

Rising From the Ashes?

I am fascinated by how the demise of Joanns is reshaping the sewing and craft industry. I was at Hobby Lobby yesterday and noticed that their McCall’s patterns were $2.99 (previously $4.99). The Simplicity website is also running 75% off sales on patterns. I don’t think the market will bear $15-30 for a Big 7 pattern, not after Joanns discounted them to $1.99 each (or $5.99 for Vogue) on a regular basis, and not when many high-quality indie patterns are available in the $10-12 range.

As for Joann Fabrics, this is on their website:

It states, “We’re stitching something new behind the scenes and we can’t wait to share what’s next.”

If “what’s next” is an online-only store, I think that’s going to miss the mark. The June issue of Craft Industry Insider arrived in my e-mail box yesterday morning. This is a publication of Craft Industry Alliance and is a great way to keep up on current events in the sewing and crafting industry. The lead article noted that an industry research paper presented at the recent h+h Americas trade show in Chicago found that customers are showing a marked preference for shopping in person at brick-and-mortar stores as opposed to shopping online.

Dispatches From the Desk of the Obvious, indeed. Some things, like fabric, are best shopped for in person. Joanns corporate—in whatever form is still exists—is going to have to learn to listen to what customers want if it wants to be successful.

And, of course, this is a great opportunity for independent fabric stores to seize some of the market share if they are willing to make the effort.

Speaking of McCall’s patterns, I snagged this one at Hobby Lobby yesterday.

I found myself reaching for my half-zip and quarter-zip tops a lot last winter.

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I haven’t gotten plants into the ground yet, mostly due to lack of time and waiting for my foot to heal a bit more, but that turned out to be a good thing. The temp this morning, as I write this, is 30F. It has been hard to plan my week because the forecast changes every time I look at it. Tomorrow may be a good day to plant. After that, it is supposed to warm up again.

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Still no word from QuickBooks, and my mother e-mailed me yesterday that she was having issues. She was trying to do an update to her payroll module and the system crashed. The support rep told her the system crashed due to all the new subscribers.

This is my skeptical face. 🧐

QuickBooks is quickly becoming something that needs to be burned down and rebuilt. (Rather like Joann Fabrics, actually.)

On to the Next Thing

We had a successful plant sale on Saturday. I am happy with the results. Mostly, I am happy it’s over, although I don’t get to rest quite yet. June is a full month with a lot of church-related events on the schedule, beginning with a meeting yesterday afternoon. I should have a bit more time now to work on the quilted BU jacket, though, once I get the garden planted. Planting is on the schedule for this week.

My eye feels much better and the foot is healing. I need to make another batch of comfrey salve.

Still nothing from QuickBooks. I have to do payroll again this week so I hope they resolve the issue soon.

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A forest fire broke out Saturday afternoon on the route I take to get to I-90 when I am heading west. Within a few hours, it had grown to 200 acres and officials temporarily closed that road. That is unusual fire behavior for the end of May/beginning of June, although that area of Montana is much drier than normal. It’s still a good reminder to be careful about fires this summer.

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The Long Thread Podcast has a wonderful interview episode with Tom Knisely. I listened to it on the way down to Missoula last week. I know Tom because he used to be the weaving instructor at The Mannings, which was located in East Berlin, PA. When the husband and I lived in Pennsylvania (32 years ago), we were only about 40 minutes from East Berlin. I used to visit The Mannings frequently and taught a knitting class there just before they closed. I enjoyed hearing him talk about how he learned to spin and weave and his 37-year career at The Mannings.

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Once I get the BU jacket done and the Place for Everything Tote finished, I’d like to make the Kandou Patterns Retro Sling Bag:

I want to sew some projects on the 1541 and this looks like a fun and challenging make. The 1541 is in the (cool) garage and it’s nice to work in there when it’s too hot to be outside.

Walking Wounded

I have had a bit of a rough week. On Wednesday afternoon, I felt like I had something in my right eye. I liberally doused my eye with Systane drops (for dry eyes) and it improved a bit, but I still had discomfort in that eye when I woke up yesterday morning. The doctor’s office was able to get me in an hour after I called. I have a scratched cornea. I got a prescription for some antibiotic drops and the doctor said my eye should heal up within a few days.

Last evening, Susan and I were setting up the library building to receive plants—putting tarps on the floor and moving tables—when I managed to drop the corner of a table onto my foot, just below my pinky toe. It hurt. A lot. Susan got me a bag of ice right away and I put my foot up. The husband had the brilliant idea to put comfrey salve on it and my foot feels much better this morning. I can walk mostly without limping and the swelling has gone down. I don’t think anything is broken because I can move my toes without pain.

[I make my own comfrey salve by chopping up the leaves and cooking them with coconut oil in the crockpot, on low heat, for eight hours. The stuff is amazing.]

I will be glad when this plant sale is over. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything that is going on right now.

I brought some lettuce in for salad yesterday and this little guy walked off one of the leaves:

It’s a baby praying mantis. I know I have mantises out in the big garden but it’s nice to get confirmation that they are reproducing. I put this one out in the herb garden.

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Someone asked a question in the Flathead 411 group on Facebook yesterday about where to get fabric now that Joanns has closed. The ensuing conversation bolstered my suspicion that this is an opportunity for our quilt store to attract new customers. A lot of people pointed out that we have three quilt stores in town. However, some of the commenters said they were looking for apparel fabric. I chimed in to let everyone know that the quilt store where I teach carries apparel fabric and also offers garment classes. And we’re going to offer a beginning sewing class in July. The response to that information made it clear to me that people weren’t thinking about a quilt store for apparel fabric and garment classes.

This is part of what makes me nuts about the “No one is sewing anymore” argument. I think people are sewing and want to sew. Just because something isn’t blatantly obvious doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. And this is at least one reason why Joanns went out of business. If you don’t pay attention to your customer base—and work on increasing your customer base—you won’t succeed as a business. I am so happy to work with a store that understands this and is willing to take steps to make it happen.

Maybe we can get back to the point where independent fabric stores carry a variety of fabrics and notions—not just quilting cottons—and are willing to train up the next generation of sewists. And some of this is going to require making an effort to let sewists know that quilt stores aren’t just for quilting.

Here endeth that sermon. I have others, don’t worry. 😉

Puzzle Pieces

It was too hot to work in the greenhouse yesterday afternoon so I came inside and sewed for a bit. The back and one of the fronts of the jacket are assembled and ready to quilt. I’ll work on the second front and the sleeves next:

These are two-part sleeves with an elbow dart in one of the pieces, so they likely will have more background fabric and fewer (and smaller) stars. I am beginning to love how the jacket is coming together and it feels like I am on the downhill side of this project. Yay.

I think I have gotten quilted jackets out of my system for a while. Once this jacket is finished, I need to make a few more warm-weather tops.

Sarah came over for a bit last evening and we worked on organizing plants for the sale. I pulled the ones I started for my garden and set them aside. It’s supposed to cool off to the low 70s on Sunday—the forecast high for the day of the plant sale is 87F, ugh—so I think I’ll wait until Sunday or Monday to start planting.

I did plant some flowers and herbs in the herb garden yesterday morning.

What do you see in this picture?

There is a spot in the garden at the edge of the black plastic where the snakes like to hang out. The plastic covers a pile of rotting stumps and the husband thinks that serves as a snake condominium. I saw this snake out there yesterday morning. It was not small. The snakes usually disappear under the plastic as soon as they see me. I think this one was sleeping because I was able to get a decent photo.

My apologies to those of you who do not share my love of reptiles, but I’d rather have snakes in the garden than have to deal with potato beetles or tomato hornworms on my plants. I think snakes in the garden are the sign of a healthy ecosystem.

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The Sew Expo organizers sent out an e-mail yesterday reminding teachers that our Sew Expo proposals have to be submitted by August 1. I haven’t even thought about what I might teach next year. I’d like to teach my thread class again and maybe add one or two additional sewing classes. I just think it’s getting harder (and more expensive) to get people to take classes in person when they can take them online. But online classes don’t offer the best teaching setting for everything.

I’ll have to set aside a day in the next couple of weeks to work on class proposals for Sew Expo and for the quilt stores.

The Nope Ropes are Here

It must be summer. The snakes have arrived:

This one was stretched out on the path over to the garden, sunning itself. This is the skinniest garter snake I’ve ever seen. Once it bulks up, it’s going to be a respectable specimen—it was a good two feet long—but I mistook it for a stick and almost stepped over it. I said hello and walked around it instead.

[I have a friend who calls snakes “nope ropes” and another who refers to them as “dragon noodles.” I’m just happy they are in my garden and eat bugs.]

All the forest animals.

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I am trying something I saw on Pinterest. My plant labels always fade and become illegible by the end of the summer—no matter what I use to write on them—and I need to know which tomatoes are which in case I want to save seed. The Pinterest poster suggested buying old butter knives at thrift stores and labeling them with a label maker. I stopped in at one of the thrift stores in town yesterday and picked up a dozen knives for $0.22 apiece.

We shall find out if this works. I may need more if I can’t control myself and end up with 40 tomato plants again this year, but this is a good start.

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I have assembled most of the back of the BU jacket. The process involved a bit of trial and error, but putting together the other pattern pieces should be easier now that I (think I) know what I’m doing. This was the hardest part. Quilting won’t take long, and sewing the jacket shouldn’t take long, either. Stay tuned.

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I spent another 30 minutes on the phone with QB support yesterday morning. Apparently, the programmers thought they fixed the problem, so they sent out an e-mail to all the affected customers only to find out that some users were still having issues. I did get QB to refund the first month’s subscription fee, though, so that was a win.

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And finally:

Joann Fabrics was always my last stop on the way out of town. No more.

The Grass Grows

We are in the thick of grass-cutting season. This will last until about July, after which it gets hot and the grass goes dormant. I had to cut the grass in the garden again yesterday. If I don’t keep it trimmed out there, I find it too hard to work—rather like having to have a clean kitchen in order to cook.

The strawberries are coming on beautifully. However, I spotted a turkey on a reconnaissance mission in the garden yesterday afternoon. That may become an issue. I am not interested in sharing the bounty with the neighborhood wildlife, and the turkeys seem to be particularly fond of berries.

I started running my hose lines, too, although the final layout will depend on where I put plants. Everything is on schedule. The plant sale is this Saturday and I will be glad to have that over and done with.

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I made more flying geese for the BU jacket:

The first batch of flying geese went into making the Sawtooth Stars. This second batch will be used as fillers for smaller areas. They range in size from 1-1/2" wide to 3" wide. I may not have time to work on the jacket again until after the plant sale, but I’m trying to do a little bit every day. Slow and steady wins the race.

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QuickBooks sent me an e-mail this morning claiming to have fixed the problem I was having with payroll. I tried it again and got the same error message, so I’ll have to call them AGAIN and let them know they missed the mark. If this continues much longer, I am going to demand a refund of my first month’s payment for the payroll module. At the moment, it’s useless to me.

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I’m trying not to rush time, but I already find myself looking forward to the fall. I think I just don’t like the frantic pace of summer here in Montana. The season is so short that everything has to be crammed into a couple of months. I like cooler weather, too. And I get to spend more time with the husband during the winter. Our 35th wedding anniversary was yesterday. We’ll go on date night soon to celebrate.

Who knew it would be such an adventure?

Interesting Things in the Garden

We worked outside yesterday. I mulched the potatoes with hemp from the bale we got last season. I also weeded the peas and lettuce and dug up the collards, which had promptly gone to seed after surviving the winter. Sometimes biennial plants do that. Makes you wonder why they just don’t go to seed the first year. 🤔 The leaves were too bitter to use. I’ll replant that row.

After the garden work was done, I mowed the yard again. I did the first pass with the riding mower, then finished up with the push mower. The husband spent most of the day wielding the string trimmer. He doesn’t need to trim every time I mow, but it’s got to be done at least a couple of times a season. I have a little Dewalt battery trimmer that I use in the garden. He has a much larger gas-powered trimmer.

[I have my own set of “Mama Bear” tools because everything he buys is built for him.]

The hemp bale had mushrooms growing out of it:

The layers of these round bales peel off in one piece, so I peeled off this layer and put it down between the rows of potatoes. I didn’t have to touch anything.

I also spotted this ladybeetle on the gooseberry bush, although it’s hard for me to get close-up photos with my phone:

Ladybeetles are different from ladybugs and have a bad reputation as an invasive species. They are aggressive and will crowd out native ladybugs. They also bite, but I don’t make a practice of picking them up. All I know is that if I see these, I won’t see aphids.

It felt good to be out in the sun, moving around. No garter snakes yet.

After lunch, I got out the pieces for the BU jacket and started putting that together. This is the hardest part of the process. I have stacks of variously-sized Sawtooth Star blocks. The blocks have to be assembled into large pieces of fabric which can be quilted and from which I can cut the jacket pieces. I started with the back. Of course, I didn’t just make two sizes of blocks that sew nicely together, like 6" and 12"—no, I made blocks of several different sizes. I solved that problem by sewing strips of background fabric to some of the blocks to make them larger. I also don’t want to cut off any parts of the blocks when I cut the pattern pieces, so in addition to the “sashing,” there will be a border around the outside edges.

This is as improv as I get. I don’t enjoy flying by the seat of my pants and I’ve already gone way off script with this project. It will be what it will be, but I am motivated to get it done because it’s holding up the rest of the sewing queue. And June is going to be an insanely busy month. I get back from BU late on June 30th. My friends from Tennessee arrive that day to spend three weeks in the Flathead and I plan to do nothing but goof around with them while they are here. That will be my reward for having gotten through April, May, and June.

I have church this morning. By the time I get home, eat lunch, and call my mother, it will be too late (and hot) to start any garden work, so I’ll probably work on the jacket or edit this week’s podcast episode. Tomorrow, I plan to start putting some plants in the garden.

A Wish for Simpler Times

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate QuickBooks? I was on the last step on Thursday—literally, entering the last bit of historical payroll data so I could run this week’s payroll—when I encountered an error message. I called the QBO help line and discovered that it’s an error on QB’s end. I am not the only person getting that message. The representative said she would escalate the trouble ticket and QB would let me know when the issue has been resolved. It’s Saturday morning and still no resolution.

I calculated payroll the old-fashioned way yesterday morning so I could write checks. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate QB?

The amount of friction I’ve run into lately just getting simple tasks accomplished has been ridiculous. “Progress” does not always move us in a positive direction. I miss the 1980s.

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I went to Missoula yesterday to teach a serger mastery class. The drive down was lovely. Traffic was light and the weather was beautiful. (No rain.) I had two students; three had registered but one didn’t show up. I get paid, regardless, but I find it baffling that people register for classes and ghost them. Oh, well. The two students and I had a great time. The owners of that store are also going to Bernina University next month and I think we’re registered for some of the same classes.

On the way home, I stopped at the Amish store for ice cream, then stopped at the Amish furniture store and ordered the gliders for my garden. (I think both places are owned by the same family as both places have the same name and the Amish store has some Amish furniture available for sale.) I ordered two 5' gliders. The color I want—antique mahogany, which is actually kind of a dark golden oak—isn’t in stock, so it’s going to be a few weeks. They will deliver, though, when the gliders are built.

Traffic was much worse on the way back. I almost went straight up Hwy 93 from Polson, where the Amish furniture store is located, but I decided to backtrack and come up the east side of Flathead Lake as that is the shorter route to my house. Thank goodness, because there was a big accident that shut down Hwy 93 about an hour later and I probably would have been stuck in that backup.

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I finished another squash in the Sue Spargo “Squash Squad” series:

This makes three. I think I will take a break and move over to embroidering chickens again.

There is no rain in the forecast today and temps are supposed to be in the mid-60s. The husband is home this weekend—last weekend, he was cutting concrete—and both of us plan to work around the property. I have lots to do in the garden.