How to Grow Lettuce in the Basement

One of my aunts (hi Auntie Omi) asked about the lettuce-growing setup. I’ll run through it in case anyone else wants to know how we do it.

We bought this a few years ago:

It’s a frame with three shelves and three lights. The lights are adjustable using chains. If you don’t need the shelving but want lights, the Barrina lights are what most people use. (Ignore those totes—that was a different project.)

I start the lettuce seeds in these Rapid Rooter plugs, which I get from Amazon.

These are not the same as little peat pots. I tried starting seedlings in these and putting them directly into the ground in the garden and that did not work very well. These are meant for hydroponic systems.

I’ve found it works best to pack the rooting plugs into a casserole dish, allow them to soak up water from the bottom, then plant the seeds in the holes. Once the seeds have sprouted, I move the plugs to half-pint mason jars. The jars have rings on them but no lids. A plastic “net pot” sits in the jar and is supported by the rings:

Net pots come in different sizes (also from Amazon). The ones I use are 2".

This is what the seedlings look like when they are growing in the mason jars:

And eventually, we get this:

At that point, the lettuce plants will produce for 6-8 weeks. I keep them watered and just cut off the new growth for our salads.

Time to Grow Lettuce

I restarted the lettuce-growing operation in the basement. The seeds are beginning to sprout in the rooting plugs:

Once they’ve all sprouted, I’ll transfer the rooting plugs to individual mason jars under the grow lights, and in a couple of weeks, we should be having fresh salads for dinner every night.

It is about time for me to start thinking about putting in a seed order. I am going to order from MIGardener. I just haven’t had good luck with Victory Seeds since they moved from Oregon to Texas, and MIGardener comes highly recommended by Sarah.

We’ve already decided not to do pigs again this year.

The husband and I were at the fire department dinner Thursday night when he got a text from one of our employees who lives down the road from us. Apparently, his family had a grizzly bear in their yard that evening. I saw the photos. A couple of weeks ago, another neighbor posted pictures of grizzly tracks in the snow (verified by Fish, Wildlife, and Parks).

It is wild to me that we’re in the second week of January and at least one bear hasn’t denned up yet. It might have to build an igloo now.

I spent yesterday morning working on my punch list and got most of it handled. “Punch list” is a building term that refers to all of the minor tasks that need to be taken care of, usually toward the end of a project. Some of the items on my list only required a phone call. Some involved updating a couple of websites. If I don’t corral and deal with those little tasks, though, they tend to fall through the cracks.

After lunch, I cut out a black corduroy Ramona skirt. That will be today’s project, once I finish the remaining items on the punch list.

*******

I’ve decided to change the podcast production schedule starting this month. I am going to release an episode every other week. On the in-between weeks, I am sending a newsletter to my mailing list. If you want to get on the mailing list, go to the podcast website and scroll down to the bottom of that home page to sign up.

The newsletter will feature additional information about the current episode, a teaser for future episodes, and photos of my current sewing projects. It will be similar to the blog, but I won’t include any photos of lettuce seedlings or roosters.

One of the classes I am teaching at Sew Expo is on knitting pattern publishing. I’ve been thinking a lot about the changes I’ve seen since I published my finishing book in 1996. Back then, desktop publishing was in its infancy. Now, anyone with a computer is able to publish anything in virtually any format. What a revolution.

One More Tote

We are deep in hibernation mode here. The husband was home again yesterday. I think it’s good for him to have some down time. The only problem is that I am tempted to spend the day talking to him instead of working. Thankfully, he has stuff to do out in his shop.

I made another Wool and Wax Tote yesterday:

I think I am done with totes now. I’ve scratched that itch. I am very pleased with the way this one turned out. A piece of precious Tim Holtz fabric was used for the lining:

I should not have opened up my bin of Tim Holtz fabric, though, because now I want to make a quilt with some of it. 😮

I need to find out where our store sourced this brown waxed canvas and if they can get additional colors. It’s lighter than the AL Frances Textiles canvas and has a nice finish. Making the bag start to finish yesterday gave me a good idea about how long the class should take.

I still have to put handles on the blue plaid version. Joanns didn’t have gray leather. I think Hobby Lobby has some and I’ll check there today. The first bag I made had cotton webbing handles that were sewn into the bag. I prefer the leather handles.

Speaking of Joanns, I have heard of a few store closings around the country. I hope ours is able to stay open. I won’t be surprised if it closes, although I don’t know where people will get fleece and flannel, because that seems to be mostly what our store sells.

I think that I am going to move on to making a couple of corduroy Ramona skirts. I want to be able to wear me-made tops and bottoms when I teach at Sew Expo and I do like the way that skirt fits.

Today is a very busy day. I have a podcast interview this morning, a lunch meeting in town, a chicken feed/Costco run after that, and our fire department trustees are hosting their annual member appreciation dinner for the firefighters and their spouses tonight.

Over Here in Bagland

It seems that the theme—for the first month of 2025, at least—is bags. I assembled the outside of the plaid Wool and Wax Tote yesterday morning:

I’ll make the lining today and attach the handles and it will be done.

I was working on this around 10 am yesterday when I got a call from the quilt store:

“Janet, you have a class today?”

“Yes, with one student.”

“She’s here waiting for you.”

After a bit of discussion, we determined that when she signed up for the class, she was told it started at 10 am. The website indicated the class started at 1 pm. It was a simple mixup in communication. Things have been a bit crazy at the store for the past few weeks because they implemented a new point-of-sale system over the holidays and are still working out the bugs.

I looked at the clock and saw that it was 10:12 am. I said, “Give me a few minutes to brush my teeth and throw all the class supplies in the car and I can be there by 11.” The student said she was willing to wait, so that’s what I did. I walked into the store at 10:59.

We had a wonderful class together. Her husband purchased the serger for her as a Christmas present and she was motivated to learn how to use it. I think she will do just fine. She had already read through part of the book that comes with the machine.

The two of us had a good laugh because I was telling her about my upcoming Wool and Wax Tote class and she said that her husband was researching industrial sewing machines. Apparently, he has been asking her to make generator covers. I told her I got the Juki 1541 for the same reason.

While I was the store, I got supplies for one more Wool and Wax Tote:

The red is a chunk of lovely herringbone-patterned wool and the brown is the waxed canvas the store currently carries. I wanted to make a class sample using store materials because the tote they currently have on display is made from waxed canvas I purchased a couple of years ago from AL Frances Textiles on Etsy.

A Wool Plaid Wool and Wax Tote

I went stash diving Sunday afternoon and it was just like shopping in my own personal fabric store. I need a quick win or two after that collar debacle. I pulled out some bright green brushed hacci knit that is going to become another Simplicity 9385.

I also found another length of striped ponte knit. The first one I used was a dark navy stripe, but the second one is a black stripe. I only have enough for a top. I think I may revise the Simplicity 9328 pattern by removing the bust darts and incorporating my collar idea. I have plenty of black ponte that I can use for collar and cuffs.

I understand the need to make compromises in design/construction choices, especially in commercial settings. I also think there is a certain amount of laziness inherent in the design departments of some of the large pattern companies. Indie designers, in my opinion, do a much better job with the sorts of design details that really make or break a pattern, and understanding how knit fabric behaves differently from woven fabric—and how it needs to be handled because of that difference—is one of those details.

The Burda pattern with the collarless zip probably won’t make it into the queue any time soon. I looked at the instructions. They aren’t difficult, but they are different than the Simplicity instructions and I don’t feel like going up another learning curve right now.

I pulled out the leftover gray waxed canvas and the leftover blue-and-gray plaid wool from my coat project and started working on a Wool and Wax Tote:

That print is the lining fabric. I got as far as making and attaching the front pocket. (I love my rivet press.) The rest of the assembly is fairly straightforward. I’ll sew the front and back pieces to the base, sew the side seams and box the corners, make and attach the lining, then attach the handles. If I can find some gray leather to match, I’ll make the handles out of that; otherwise, I’ll use black handles and rivet them onto the bag.

While I have this plaid fabric out, I am going to make some pockets for my coat. Karina at Lifting Pins and Needles has an excellent video about making patch pockets for a plaid coat. She cut hers on the bias, and I will make mine the same way.

*******

The husband took pictures of the basement door-cutting project for me. They poured these concrete columns on the sides to encase the rock edges and to provide a stable base for framing the doorway:

Framing will happen this week.

*******

January is fast becoming the month of meetings. I hate meetings. So much could be done via e-mail, leaving the in-person gatherings for the most crucial parts of planning, but some people just like to get together and schmooze. Ugh.

The past few (quiet) weeks have made me realize how much I appreciate peace and calm. I am at the point in my life where I love peace so much and hate drama so much that if someone feels the need to disturb my peace with their drama—or criticism or negativity—I simply won’t engage with them. The husband and I have created this little oasis of sanity here and I am loath to allow anything to disrupt it.

Form Not Following Function

Just before I started working on the Kanoko Tote, I took a chunk of lighter-weight ponte out of the stash. It was sitting on the table next to the Simplicity 9328 pattern, which gave me the idea to use it for a wearable muslin. The ponte was a Walmart remnant that was something like $8 for four yards, and interlock knits were one of the fabrics specified on the pattern envelope.

[Our Walmart has been very thin on remnants for some reason. Either I am not getting there on days it has been restocked, or they stopped ordering for it. Oh, well. At least I am not being tempted to add to the stash.]

Simplicity 9328 is a quarter-zip top/dress pattern:

In keeping with my habit of making the pattern as written, the only changes I made were to adjust the position of the bust darts slightly. I don’t think I even lengthened this one as it looked good next to my bodice sloper.

And because I haven’t yet been punished enough by zippers, of course I chose another pattern with a zipper insertion—into a knit fabric, no less. I followed the directions to the letter. Next time I won’t. The zipper went in easily, all things considered. I used my dual-feed zipper foot, which kept the stripes from going wonky around the zipper placket. For some reason—more on this in a moment—the pattern instructs you to sew a length of grosgrain ribbon over the zipper edges on the wrong side after the zipper is inserted. I see no reason to do that in future iterations. All that accomplished was to add bulk to the neckline area which became a problem when attaching the collar. Looking at the reviews for this pattern on the Sewing Pattern Review website, I see that other people came to the same conclusion.

And that collar . . . sigh. I want to make this again, but I am going to do the collar differently. The instructions had me sew the interfaced collar facing onto the body, leaving 5/8" of the collar extending past the edge of the body. Then I had to sew the collar onto the collar facing. The bottom edge of the collar was folded in and pressed by 5/8". After the collar was sewn onto the collar facing, it was turned inside out and that folded edge stitched down to cover the raw seams.

Here’s today’s sermon for you: A long time ago, when sergers were less common and more expensive, many sewists made their knit garments using sewing machines. (Hello, Stretch & Sew.) However, it is now 2025, not 1986. A decent-quality serger can be had these days for a couple hundred dollars, and if you’re like me and scour thrift stores, you might even pick up a BabyLock serger for $13.99. However, most sewing patterns are still being written as though sergers don’t exist. This pattern could have been improved dramatically by the addition of a few notes about where a serger would be a better choice than a sewing machine for some techniques. In addition, this pattern read as though it had been written for a woven garment. The sleeve instructions were similar to those for a woven garment, even though it is far easier and quicker to sew sleeves in flat on knit garments. And I am not entirely convinced that this design needs bust darts.

This is what ended up happening at that collar area: There was so much bulk at that front corner—thanks to the redundant grosgrain ribbon, the zipper tape, and four layers of (graded) collar seams—that nothing would lie nicely. I finally ran the seam that attached the collar facing to the body through the serger, which flattened and neatened that seam enough that I was able to topstitch down the collar. I am not happy with the collar, though. Next time, I am going to assemble the collar separately (on the serger) and attach it to the body with the serger, foregoing the instructions to fold up that bottom collar edge and sew it down to cover the raw edge. That means I will have a serger edge there, yes, but I think the entire collar will look better. If I were so inclined, I could sew knit binding over the serger seam to cover it. I looked at a few other quarter-zip tops in my wardrobe and that is how they are constructed.

The striped fabric probably wasn’t the best choice. The bust darts look a little weird when the dress is on me, even though they are perfectly positioned and sewn. I should have done the collar in a solid color. And I ended up cutting the sleeves too short (don’t ask), so I had to add cuffs to make them the correct length. Solid-color cuffs would have tied in nicely with a solid-color collar.

It’s done. I learned a lot. I would make this again but with some changes. I’ve also got this Burda pattern:

This pattern is collarless and has French darts. I am going to read through those instructions today to see how they treat that zipper insertion.

I keep telling myself that none of this is a waste of time, even if I end up with something less than perfect. It’s all a learning process. This is why sewists make muslins.

I am not sure what will be up next on the cutting table. I might take a day or two away from sewing and allow the recent makes to percolate through my brain.

Concrete in Winter

People always ask me if the husband’s work slows down in the winter. The answer is that it depends. It depends on the weather, of course—if we get a lot of snow, he spends more time moving it than working. If we get a cold snap, the equipment doesn’t like to start. If the homeowner can afford it, the jobsite can be tented and heated, which allows work to continue.

This past week, he and the crew have been working inside. One of the buildings in downtown Kalispell is being converted to a restaurant. That building just happens to be next to our bank, so after I stopped at the bank to deposit some checks, I went to look at what the husband was doing in the basement of the building:

This building dates back to the early 1900s, when foundations were made of hand-laid stone and limestone mortar. Code requires a doorway here, so the husband had to cut through the rocks and remove them one by one. Yesterday, he and the crew poured a concrete sill and next week, they will frame a doorway.

He has been doing more and more concrete (and rock) cutting over the past couple of years. Homeowners who want to convert basements into apartments often call him to come and cut egress windows and doors in their foundations. He’s got quite a setup—all the cutting equipment lives inside a trailer that he has fitted out with pumps and large totes of water for cooling the cutting blades.

*******

We’ve been under a winter storm warning for the past 24 hours but it turned out not to be much—for us, at least. We actually got more snow on Monday when there were no alerts in the forecast. 🤷🏻‍♀️ The power did go out, which was no surprise given how much snow is still on the trees.

I finished the Kanoko tote yesterday. It turned out okay. I appreciate the process of making a pattern start to finish according to the pattern instructions, because I think it’s important to see how designers make the choices they do. I might think I know how best to construct something, but defaulting to familiar techniques doesn’t afford me the opportunity to learn anything. I am reminded of the women who would take my classes at Stitches events or other conferences and confidently swagger into the classroom announcing that there was nothing I could teach them because they had been knitting for 40 years. Most of them had been knitting exactly the same way for those 40 years.

In this case, though, I would make some changes. I am tempted to make this tote again using the Klum House waxed canvas just to see if I have an easier time of it.

I will do the top differently next time:

My travel tote has a longer zipper with zipper tabs at each end, and the zipper is free from the bag at both ends. Think the Open Wide Pouch by Noodlehead and you’ll get the picture. The bag design, above, makes a very neat and tidy opening, but it prevents adequate access to the interior. It was also a pain to sew, even on the 1541. I am not sure that someone with just a domestic machine would be able to make this bag. What I really needed was a post-bed or cylinder arm machine to do that last bit of assembly. (No, I am not going to buy one.)

Another thing I found curious was that only the high stress areas of the lining called for interfacing. I am used to making bag patterns where the entire lining is interfaced. It could be that interfacing is expensive or hard to get where the designer lives. Next time, I would interface the entire lining. I might also use a waterproof canvas or lightweight Cordura for the lining instead of quilting cotton.

I’m trying to decide if I want to go ahead with version 2.0 in Klum House waxed canvas, making it the same dimensions and style as my travel tote in order to test out the design modifications, or if I have scratched this itch for the moment and need to move on to something else. There is something to be said for continuing on while this is fresh in my mind. We’ll see.

Still With the Zippers

The pile of paperwork has been filed and the cutting table is once again clear. The construction company is a partnership (hubby and me), and the tax returns are due March 15, so I try to get all of that information to the accountant as soon after January 1 as I can.

I worked on the Kanoko Tote after lunch. Let’s talk about machines for a moment, shall we? I am not a happy sewist if my machines are not humming along in top-notch shape. My beloved Necchi industrial was out of commission for almost six months after I broke the tension stud. Thanks to a very talented machinist in Spokane, I was able to get a replacement part. I haven’t sewn a lot on that machine since I put the new part on it, but when I started this project, I spent a good 30 minutes refining both the upper and lower tensions so that they are absolutely perfect.

The Juki 1541 has a servo motor with a needle positioner. In a nutshell, that means that I can control the speed of the motor digitally. I can also tell the machine to stop sewing with the needle up or the needle down, depending on my preference. I like it to stop sewing with the needle down, in the material. The servo motor came with some incredibly awful instructions translated to English from Japanese. With help from someone on the Facebook vintage industrial sewing machine group, I managed to slow down the motor (a bit), but in the process, I somehow toggled the needle positioner and the needle has been stopping in the up position.

One of the staff at Juki Junkies—where I got the machine—posted a YouTube video about changing the speed and needle position on the 1541 servo motor. Changing the settings is actually not that difficult if you’re able to make sense of the instructions. I slowed the motor to the lowest setting of 200 rpms. That is still fast if you’re not paying attention. Believe it or not, the top speed is 8000 rpms.

Now I can sew stitch by stitch. I just have to make sure my fingers aren’t in the way. I took the finger guard off the machine because it interfered with the presser foot I like to use. I think the 1541 and I will be good friends from now on, though.

The body of the tote bag is mostly complete:

It’s not perfect; attaching that front zipper pocket to the body was an absolute pain. Some of the issue, I think, is that the waxed canvas has been in the stash for a couple of years and is pretty stiff. If I hit it with a hair dryer, it softens up; I do that when I need to turn parts of the bag inside out. The fabric cools quickly, though, and gets stiff again. I doubt I would have had so much trouble had I used the Klum House waxed canvas, which is much more supple.

I was going to sew the top zipper to the zipper facing before stopping for the day, but the instructions are very specific about the length of the zipper in relation to the zipper facing. That is to ensure that there is enough seam allowance at each side to avoid the risk of hitting the ends of the zipper with the needle. Even though I had the 14" zipper specified in the materials list, I didn’t have quite enough clearance. Shortening a metal zipper is pretty straighforward: Remove the top zipper stops and clip off the teeth one by one. I could not get the zipper stops off the zipper, though, and had to enlist the husband’s help. (He made it look easy, of course.) He clipped off three teeth on each side, I replaced the zipper stops, and now the zipper is the correct length.

After I sew the top zipper, the lining is all that is left. I think this pattern will work nicely as a basis for a travel tote, although I will need to modify the dimensions. My tote is wider and not quite as tall as this one.

Welcome to 2025

All of the heavy, wet snow has been causing intermittent power outages and fallen trees for the past 36 hours. I was on my way to town yesterday morning for an 8:30 am appointment—having left in plenty of time because I didn’t know what the roads would be like—when I encountered a line of stopped vehicles a few miles north of our house. A large tree had fallen across the road. I put on my flashers and turned off the car. I spotted Susan’s daughter up ahead of me, so I called over to her and we stood there and chatted while we waited for the fire department and a neighbor who had gone home to get a chainsaw.

Imagine the scene: Half a dozen cars with flashers on, stopped in the road, waiting. The county plow was right behind me. As we stood there talking, a couple in a pickup truck drove past the line of stopped cars. When they saw the tree down on the road, they had to back up past the line of cars they had just passed to get back to where they started.

I may have made a snarky remark to them as they were backing up, because the woman had her window rolled down.

As the wife of a first responder, that kind of behavior makes my blood boil. No one is so special that they have the right to try to drive through a scene like that. Yes, this was just a tree across the road, but if it had been an MVA, not only would they have endangered the responders, they quite possibly could have blocked an ambulance trying to get to patients.

A few minutes later, enough of the tree had been cut up that the plow was able to pull past us and push it off the road. I made it to my appointment on time.

Some people truly don’t have the sense God gave a chicken. When you see 8-10 cars (and a county plow!) stopped ahead of you on the road with their flashers on, what on earth makes you think it’s okay to drive past them? If you ask the husband, he will tell you that I get out of bed every morning naively optimistic that my fellow humans will go out in public trying to be the absolute best versions of themselves. Most days by dinner time, that faith in humanity has been beaten out of me. Yesterday, it was beaten out of me before the sun even came up. 😕

The power went out again yesterday afternoon. I was home by myself, but I was able to start the new generator with some telephone assistance from the husband. We replaced our old gas generator with a diesel one about 18 months ago. I had a cheat sheet for the old generator; the husband wrote the instructions inside the door of the new one—and I’ve had a lesson—but I wanted him to walk me through the process the first time. Fortunately, the power was only out for about 10 minutes.

I am going to finish the Kanoko tote before I start a Wool and Wax Tote, but before I can do either of those things, I have to sort paperwork. I make a large pile of paid bills and receipts during the year—because I cannot abide filing—and sort everything into its respective folders at the end. In order to motivate myself to complete this job, I put it all out on my cutting table and do not allow myself to remove anything until I am done. I did about half of the sorting yesterday afternoon. I’ll complete it today, double-check some entries in QuickBooks, and then the accountant can get started on the tax returns.

This little gadget arrived yesterday:

It’s a thread cutter to mount on the side of the Juki 1541. Jess, of the OklaRoots YouTube channel, also has a 1541 and I saw this on one of her videos. I am all for little things that make sewing more efficient.

Sewing the Kanoko Bag

Finally!—We got some snow. I took this picture yesterday morning.

As of this morning, we’ve gotten a total of about 10" of snow. The husband spent much of yesterday moving it around. He was able to fix the Blazer, by the way. He described the repair to me as a “five-cent part,” but he was able to figure out where that five-cent part belonged, and that was the crucial part.

I started work on the Kanoko tote. I’ve said before that “potato chip” sewing has its place—when I need a top to wear to church on Sunday and can knock one out on Saturday afternoon—but there is much to be said for a project that takes several days. I started the Kanoko tote with no expectation of getting to a certain point, and that makes all the difference in these big projects. I am enjoying the journey.

If I end up using this pattern to recreate my travel tote, I will incorporate some modifications, but I am making this version according to the pattern. This is one side of the tote, which has a small slip pocket:

Those are my two favorite marking tools for waxed canvas. Robin got me that fabulous point turner, which does double duty as a Hera marker. The tracing wheel is great for transferring marks from the pattern pieces.

And this is the other side, which has a flap pocket and a zipper pocket. I completed the zipper pocket but had not yet sewn it to the bag:

That area on the left side of the flap where it looks like a pleat is a trick of the light.

I’m not crazy about these 3-D pockets; they were not easy to do in this stiff waxed canvas. I was sewing on the Necchi industrial. I probably should have gone out to sew them on the Juki 1541, but it’s in the garage and I didn’t feel like hiking back and forth through the snow.

[The best outside pockets I’ve ever seen on a bag were on Betz White’s Ravenwood Messenger Bag.]

If I could have the perfect canvas for bags, it would be a bit heavier than the Klum House waxed canvas but with the same beeswax finish as the AL Frances Textiles canvas. Klum House uses a proprietary vegan blend on their canvas which is based in mineral oil. The finish tends to be a lot “wetter” than the beeswax, but the weight of the fabric is easier to sew. When I start to get into multiple layers with this bag, I will have to use the Juki 1541.

My travel bag has a large (flat) zipper pocket on one side and a trolley sleeve on the other, and those are the features I will incorporate if I make another one.

That’s as far as I got with my sewing yesterday. I don’t know if I’ll work on the Kanoko tomorrow—today is a running-around day—or if I will take a slight detour and make a Wool and Wax Tote. I have enough of that gray canvas left for the base of a W/W Tote AND it just happens to coordinate beautifully with the wool fabric I used for the coat I made in October. I am itching to make a version of the tote using the wool for the body and the waxed canvas for the base. I may have to interface the wool, but I think it will work nicely. Anna often uses Pendleton wools in her bag designs.

While all of this was going on, DD#1 and her husband were flying back to Ketchikan (from Hawaii) and DD#2’s poor boyfriend was having an emergency appendectomy. As of last night, he was doing well, but I know that wasn’t on his bingo card for 2024. I spent much of the day listening to the scanner and getting Snoqualmie Pass alerts on my phone. Some people vastly overestimate their winter driving skills. The dash cam I ordered for the Jeep arrived yesterday, although I don’t know if I’ll be able to install it before I head to town this morning.

Revisiting the Scout Tee

I love that the quilt store where I teach is willing to bring in garment fabrics. That can be a risk for a store when inventory doesn’t sell. The store recently began stocking a few colors of the Robert Kaufman Brussels Washer Linen, which is a linen/rayon blend. I had a request for a class on making a top using that fabric. I’ve sewn with it previously—I made the Emerald Dress pattern by Made by Rae out of some turquoise blue BWL—so I am not unfamiliar with it. I brought home a couple of yards.

The trick for garment classes is finding a pattern that is stylish, but not so complicated that it can’t be made in a few hours. Boxy top patterns are easy; however, they aren’t flattering to most women. I flipped through my pattern stash yesterday morning and spotted the Scout Tee from Grainline Studios. Eh—my first experience with that pattern was not so good. The one I made ended up looking like a maternity top. However, that attempt was made before I knew that I had to lengthen patterns for myself, or knew to check the height of the fit model used by the pattern company for drafting.

I decided to re-trace the pattern, adding 2" to the length by slashing and spreading the pattern vertically just under the bust. That pattern does come with cup sizes. I had previously traced the D-cup version for my size and knew that the darts were in the correct location.

The Scout Tee is not a difficult pattern. I finished raw edges on the serger but sewed the seams on the 880. The neckline was finished with bias tape and the sleeves and bottom edge got narrow hems. I am going to tinker with the armscye a bit because it feels a bit too high and tight to me. I wonder if that is a function of grading out to a D cup in the pattern; in order to make that work and keep the armscye from gaping, the base of the armscye rotates up and back quite a bit. I think it’s easy to overdo that and make the armscye too tight. The other possibility is that the pattern needs a broad back adjustment, which I’ve had to make in other patterns. Or both.

It looks like a shapeless sack on the dress form because the dress form torso is shorter than I am and also not as well endowed. Save for the sleeves, I like the way the Scout Tee fits on me now that it has been lengthened. I’d like to try it in one of the batik rayons in my stash.

I tried a new trick for setting in the sleeves and it worked better than any other method I’ve tried thus far, although I still see room for improvement. I used the gathering foot on my 880 to gather the head of the sleeve before setting it into the armhole. That trick came courtesy of a Bernina of Naperville video. (That channel is fabulous.) And yes, I’ve tried everything including sewing with the sleeve against the feed dogs to help ease in the cap. With almost every pattern I’ve made, I’ve only truly been happy with the sleeves after I’ve shaved a bit of height off the cap. 🤷🏻‍♀️

After lunch, I knocked out another Simplicity 9385, this time in the squiggle print:

(I apologize for the dress form—the base is loose and the whole form keeps listing to one side. The husband tried to fix it for me. It’s better than it was.)

I’ve had two days of very productive sewing. The husband spent yesterday out in the shop working on the Blazer. He is like a dog with a bone; he isn’t going to let that project go until he chases down the problem and fixes it. I know he likes a challenge.

I don’t need to go to town again until Tuesday, so tomorrow will be devoted to working on that Kanoko tote.

Domestic Life

I processed seven quarts of ham stock yesterday and baked three dozen molasses cookies. After that, I went to my sewing room and made a top:

This is Simplicity 9385, which has turned out to be a great pattern. It comes in two lengths with neckline and cuff variations and can be banded or hemmed. (”Cropped” on me is the longer version; the shorter version would be a belly shirt and no one wants to see that.) A cowl neckline is not one of the variations, but I borrowed the cowl piece from another pattern and frankenpatterned it onto this one.

I am trying to plug some holes in my wardrobe. I am also trying to make pieces that can be worn with at least 2-3 other items in the my closet.

This is a lightweight sweater knit, which is about as much as I can wear comfortably these days. I have another length of a similar sweater knit with royal blue, hot pink, and black squiggles on a white background that is destined to become a similar top, hopefully today. I may go stash diving to see what else I have that will work with this pattern. I’d like to try one of the cuff variations.

My me-made tops are the ones I reach for over and over. They fit well and they come in colors and prints I want to wear.

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This has been the weirdest winter in terms of weather. My hopes for a long, snowy one have evaporated. It’s the end of December and I can still see green grass in our yard. My (admittedly amateur) meteorological evaluation is that the plumes of moisture coming in off the Pacific either hit Seattle and travel above us into Canada before heading back down into the midwest, or they hit Portland and go south into southern Idaho and Utah. We’re getting precipitation, but it isn’t cold enough to fall as snow.

I should not speak too soon. We may still get hit with a bunch of snow in January and February. (Or even March and April.)

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Things seemed to have calmed down a bit in the chicken coop, although Little Roo is still a bit skittish. Baby roosters learn from older ones, so I am hoping that he is paying attention to how Dave treats the hens. I haven’t yet heard Little Roo crow. I’ll know when he starts trying, because he’ll sound like a rusty gate until he gets the hang of it.

That Organizing Time of Year

This week is one of my favorite times of the entire year. Christmas—with all the attendant hustle and bustle—has come and gone and I can begin looking forward to a new year. Yay. I love to organize and prepare. On Wednesday morning, before everyone woke up, I organized my quilting rulers:

I have a lot of rulers. Now I can find the the ones I need quickly and easily.

The kids flew back to Seattle Wednesday afternoon. Flights were cheaper and DD#2 had to work yesterday. DD#1 has been sending me chicken pictures from Hawaii. Apparently, there are a lot of free-range chickens everywhere, including this mama with chicks. The two on the chair are trying out their roosting skills:

I made scalloped potatoes and ham yesterday with the leftover ham from Christmas dinner, then put the bone and scraps—with some from the freezer—into the roaster to cook down overnight into stock. I also made some cookies to send to the husband’s dad in Colorado.

The husband is taking a few days off and has been working out in his shop. He put a block heater on his dad’s old Jeep Cherokee and worked on Sarah’s husband’s Blazer. The Blazer has some kind of a fuel issue. The husband has a few theories about what is wrong.

I’m going to bake molasses cookies this morning, put jars of ham stock in the canner to process, and then I am going to sew. I have a few things I want to make before I start the Kanoko tote.

Searching for Simplicity

(And I don’t mean that I am looking for that sewing pattern brand.)

I still haven’t come up with a Word of the Year for 2025, although “simplify” has jumped to the top of the list this week. Perhaps that is a reaction to the Christmas season, which always feels to me like a month-long maelstrom to be endured rather than a time to celebrate. (Such is the lot of church pianists everywhere, I think.) I’ve tried to hold on to those bright moments—traveling with Elaine for the Christmas concert in Idaho, last weekend’s carol singing, and having DD#2 and her boyfriend here—in the midst of all the noise.

I yearn for some peace and quiet. Maybe I should take a chair out to the pig palace and sit there for a while. It’s not a stable, but it’s close enough.

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DD#2 and the boyfriend and I drove up to Whitefish yesterday. We went up to Big Mountain—or Whitefish Mountain Resort, as it is officially known—although the top of the mountain was socked in by a cloud bank. I pointed out the vague outline of the chairlift to the boyfriend and assured him that there was an actual mountain with ski runs above it.

After lunch at the Buffalo Cafe and a stroll around downtown, we came back and made snickerdoodle fudge. The boyfriend has a weak spot for anything snickerdoodle. Last year, at the Christmas market in Seattle, I bought him some snickerdoodle fudge. I found a recipe and we decided to make it this year:

We let it set up overnight so I have no idea how it tastes. I think I need to invest in a candy thermometer, though, if we make this a regular thing.

The kids looked through the “cookie book” and decided on some cookies to bake today. (No doubt, there will be more snickerdoodles.) My mother bought this for me a long time ago and it has been used often over the years:

While they are baking, I will be practicing music for tonight’s service.

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I had to laugh at myself yesterday—we stopped at the grocery store to get a few last-minute items for dinner tonight. One of the items on the list was french-fried onions for the green bean casserole. I don’t need green beans—I have plenty of home-canned ones. We searched all over the store for the onions. DD#2 thought they might be with the salad toppings. Nope. I finally asked an employee and she told me they were with the canned beans on aisle 2.

Duh. Did I think to look there? No. I didn’t need canned green beans. 🤦🏻‍♀️

What Do I Do?

I was at the farm store the other day and one of the cashiers—who waits on me often enough that she has our account number memorized—looked at me and said, “What do you DO?”

What a complicated question, LOL. I related this story to the husband and he said, “Did you tell her that you’re the chief financial officer of the construction company?” I said that I hadn’t really told her anything; whenever I get a question like that, I stammer out some reply about doing lots of different things and leave it at that. Anything more specific usually leads to additional questions.

I do lots of different things. I like it that way.

I found some appropriate fabric at the quilt store and put a second binding on the hexie quilt:

This has moved over to the “needs to be quilted” pile. That outer border may yet be trimmed down, but I put generous borders on my tops because they are easier to quilt that way.

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Another church in our area put on a live nativity this weekend. They asked if some singers from our church could come and sing Christmas carols at the event. Because Mennonites will break into four-part harmony for literally any reason, of course we said yes. The event ran from 3-7 pm on Friday and Saturday evenings. I sang for two hours both times. This was our group yesterday afternoon:

We always include the kids. How else will they learn to sing? That is yours truly in the blue coat. (You will never lose me in a snowbank.) Elaine’s brothers are the tall guys.

This was a stretch for me because I had to sing melody most of the time. We were a bit short on sopranos. I am an alto, and a low alto at that—enough that sometimes, I fill in as a tenor. I pitched everything a few steps lower and we managed.

What do I do? Lots of different things.

DD#2 and her boyfriend got here around midnight last night. (DD#1 and her husband are going to Hawaii for Christmas.) The two of them want to make Christmas cookies, so I bought all the supplies. The boyfriend is particularly fond of snickerdoodles. We might even make some snickerdoodle fudge for him.

Partying With My Sewing Peeps

I went into town early to run some errands and headed back out to Mountain Brook in time for our 11:30 am Thursday Sewing Christmas Party. We began with a delicious potluck luncheon. Beth, who sells the most amazing book art at our annual co-op sale, had decorated the community library with fresh greenery and pop-up books of all kinds:

That’s Sarah’s arm in the bottom right. 💪🏻

After stuffing ourselves silly with excellent food and doing our gift exchange, we played BINGO. We are easily amused.

Sarah and I won several rounds and I told her we should go buy some lottery tickets, LOL. We used buttons for markers (of course) and the prizes were small items like Christmas ornaments.

We were a smaller group this year but still did a lot of laughing.

Sarah has taken up watercolor painting and she showed me photos of some of the pieces she’s done. They are amazing. I can’t wait to see what she does next!

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The husband thinks I am imagining things, but I am pretty sure Dave believes he needs to protect me from Little Roo. When I threw scratch grains out to the clucks in the chicken yard yesterday afternoon, both of them were outside. I went into the coop to get eggs. Little Roo came inside. All of sudden, Dave came tearing into the coop making all sorts of warning noises and planted himself between me and Little Roo.

The husband said that Dave doesn’t do that to him and I pointed out that he’s not a hen. Neither am I, but apparently being female is enough of a reason.

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I think I am going to hire someone to help me with social media and the podcast. Nicole Sauce has someone from our homesteading group helping her, so I reached out to that person and asked her if she would do the same for me. Even having her get me set up and on some kind of schedule will be an improvement over what I am doing now.

DD#2 and her boyfriend arrive tomorrow night. They are leaving on the afternoon of Christmas Day, and then I will begin my week of sewing and prepping for 2025. In addition to that Waffle Patterns tote bag, I need to make samples for upcoming classes.

The Theme is Squash

I worked on a stack of quilted pouches yesterday, which was a nice, low-key sewing activity. A front came through but the predicted wind never materialized, at least up here on the side of the mountain. We don’t usually get winds from the west; it’s the east winds that we have to worry about. Temps are still warm enough that whatever is falling is mostly rain and freezing rain. Honestly, it feels like March out there. I watched the National Weather Service Missoula office briefing yesterday on YouTube and the forecast into January is for an arctic blast with precipitation. We will get snow, but perhaps not until 2025. I checked the Snotel reading at Noisy Basin, which is in the mountains above our house, and it is at 135% of average. We’re getting moisture, just not in the form of snow.

The husband spent yesterday getting a job ready for a concrete pour this morning and came home covered in mud. He said it rained on them most of the morning.

I am a bit tired of English paper piecing so I switched back to embroidery in the evenings. I was going to work on my embroidered chickens—and I will, eventually—but I got distracted by the Squash Squad project. Apparently, I still have pumpkins on the brain:

This is the Queensland Blue, the third of nine embroidered squash. I will never be as good as Sue Spargo, but these are fun and provide lots of opportunity to be creative with thread.

And while we’re (still) talking about squash . . . the Baker Creek seed catalog arrived the other day. I’ve been growing Waltham butternut squash for the past several years, but it requires 100 days to maturity and sometimes it is touch-and-go. This year, only about two-thirds of the crop matured. I saw that Baker Creek is carrying a variety called Burpee’s Butterbush Butternut—say that three times fast—that matures in 75 days. I am going to try that one in 2025. Anna used all my extra butternut squash and Georgia Roasters this year. I told her I’d be happy to put those in again next year. She takes my excess produce and pays me in prepared meals, so it’s a win-win for both of us.

That is as far as I have gotten in deciding what to plant in the spring.

I think Dave may have figured out that there is another rooster in the coop. (The little rooster has been dubbed Little Roo, which is not a dignified name for a rooster AT ALL, but seems to fit.) Dave chased Little Roo outside yesterday while I was in the coop putting fresh pine shavings in the nesting boxes. The husband has not seen any aggressive behavior and thinks they are getting along. We shall see. Maybe Dave thought he needed to protect me. Who knows what goes through the pea-sized brain of a chicken?

Canning is Done

The 2024 canning season has officially ended:

That is another 14 quarts of pumpkin. The husband will not lack for pies in the coming year.

I still may have to do some batches of beans every now and then, but the canning supplies can go back into storage until next summer.

While I worked on pumpkins, I listened to Nicole Sauce’s podcast episode entitled “Renew Yourself, Renew Your World.” She wrapped up 2024 and introduced her word of the year for 2025, which is “Enrich.” I still haven’t come up with a good word for myself.

I also listened to Amy Dingmann’s Farmish Kind of Life podcast. That episode hit me right where I needed it. It was entitled “Why Are Information Platforms Dying?” She talked about the natural life cycle of social media platforms and how everyone rushes to the newest shiny platform and posts there until it gets saturated and then they begin looking for the next newest shiny platform. I have been told for years that blogs are dead, and yet here I am. Toward the end of the podcast, she made a comment to the effect that “Maybe where you need to be is the place that isn’t popular anymore.”

I don’t like “shorts” or Tik-Tok or reels or other 20-second sound bites on social media. The videos I want to watch are the ones that dig in and explore. I have been agonizing over my inability to get enthused about Instagram—one of the current shiny platforms—and although I am going to make an effort, I am not going to begin chasing clicks.

She also talked about how social media platforms force content creators to sabotage themselves because the algorithms drive the production of more and more content in order to stay relevant, but people only have so much time to consume that content. It is ironic, but the more content a content creator produces, the more likely they are to lose followers. I find this is true; I fall way behind on podcasts that put out more than one or two episodes a week. And that’s the reason I don’t blog every day.

Lots of stuff for this Luddite to think about heading into 2025.

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I will sew today. What I sew remains to be seen—it might be zipper pouches or binding potholders, or I might get ambitious and cut out a few tops. I hit the pumpkin pretty hard yesterday and want to relax today. We are under a high wind warning and a winter weather advisory today, so it will be a good day to stay inside.

My Sew-Jo Went on Vacation

I have nothing interesting to report. My sew-jo seems to have started its Christmas vacation early. I am having trouble mustering the enthusiasm to work on any projects. I can tell you that I gave the little boys their hoodies on Sunday at church and they seemed to like them as they were wearing them by the end of the service.

Yesterday was a podcast production and errands day with a meeting to cap off the evening. Today is another pumpkin day. I want to get that second batch processed and canned. I am hoping that once that big project is complete, I’ll be able to relax and do some sewing tomorrow. Friday and Saturday will be devoted to cleaning ahead of DD#2’s arrival. I’m also spending at least an hour a day practicing the accompaniment part to our choir piece for the Christmas Eve service.

This is all the sewing I’ve managed to do in the past five days. I repaired my friend Anna’s apron:

This came to me with a pretty sizeable rip down the front. I trimmed the loose threads, butted the edges together, ironed some SF101 interfacing to the back, then did two passes of a zig-zag stitch at the widest setting (9mm) and shortest stitch length over the rip. That worked well. She’ll be able to continue to use the apron. She said it was her favorite one.

This happens every year around this time. I am sure that once we get past the holidays, I will be ready to hit the ground running. In the meantime, I am organizing and stacking projects.

If you need me, I’ll be in the kitchen.

Getting Into the Christmas Spirit

Elaine and I took a quick road trip this week(end). I picked her up on Friday morning around 10, and after a stop in town to deposit a check and another stop at the quilt store to check in with the owner and the class coordinator, we were on the way to Moscow, Idaho. What is in Moscow, Idaho, you ask? Elaine’s niece is a junior at New Saint Andrews College and we were meeting Elaine’s sister’s family there to attend the niece’s Christmas choir concert. Moscow is south of Coeur d’Alene. It took us about five hours to get there.

Elaine’s sister Alice lives in Seattle, and I spend enough time with their extended family that we all know each other. Alice arranged for an AirBnB large enough to accommodate Elaine and me for an overnight stay.

The concert was amazing. New Saint Andrews has a conservatory program that, while small, easily rivals that of a larger college like Oberlin in quality. The program also included two opportunities for congregational singing: ”Angels We Have Heard on High,” whose alto part I can sing from memory, and “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night” sung to a new-to-me tune by the name of “Otford.” Elaine and I are going to see if we can teach that latter tune to our congregation, because it is a four-part arrangement that is great fun to sing. The sheet music can be found here if you want to take a look.

We had breakfast with the family yesterday morning and then Elaine and I headed back to Kalispell. I am the pianist at church and she is my backup pianist, so it isn’t good if both of us are gone on Sunday morning. The roads were clear save for a stretch over Lookout Pass crossing from Idaho into Montana, but nothing I haven’t driven through (many times) before.

Whew. And now it’s Sunday again and we have church and choir practice.

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I received a lovely gift from my friend Janet—one or the other of us is often referred to as “the other Janet” in an attempt to keep us straight because she is the class coordinator at the quilt store. She made me this adorable zipper pouch!

I’ll have to check with her, but I think this is the Noodlehead Pencil Pouch. We are both big Noodlehead fans. I love the combination of the minky leopard print and the faux suede, and one can never have too many zipper pouches.

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I didn’t go to Thursday sewing last week; I started a deep clean of our bedroom and decided I didn’t want to stop. Not only did I clean the bedroom, I did our bathroom and the hall bathroom, too. I will go to sewing this week because it is our Christmas party. I have a few other things happening, but mostly I plan to stay home and get some work done.