Book Recommendations

The weather is perfect for curling up with a good book. I have two recommendations.

I did a podcast interview yesterday morning with the author of this book, Nicole Nehrig:

I am a bit more than halfway through reading it. This is a not a book for quick consumption. It is meant for thoughtful reading and contemplation. From the website:

With Her Own Hands explores the personal meaning of women’s textile work throughout history and around the world. Textiles have been essential to survival, technological advances, and the development and expression of culture throughout much of human history. But more personally, textile work has provided one of the few avenues for women to develop and express their intellectual ability and creativity in areas of engineering, science, math, and art. Through textile work, women were able to tell their stories, shape and express their identities, process difficult emotions, stand up for what they believe in, nurture relationships, and improve their quality of life. This may explain why, for millennia, women went well beyond what was necessary for survival to dye yarn, create complex designs, and make textiles that are beautiful and imbued with meaning. It is with thread that women wrote.

The podcast interview will come out next Tuesday. We visited for almost an hour—Nicole is a dynamic and engaging young woman and I am looking forward to more of her work.

This little gem popped up in my Kindle queue last week. The Moorwitch, by Jessica Khoury, is perfect for those of us who love sci-fi/fantasy and have more than a passing acquaintance with textile arts.

From the website:

In this sweeping romantic fantasy from bestselling author Jessica Khoury, a young witch caught in a twisted bargain with the fae must disguise herself as a governess and uncover the gateway to the realm of faerie in order to save her dying magic and escape the clutches of her controlling fae handler―even as she finds herself falling for her new employer, an enigmatic young Scottish laird and the owner of a crumbling estate brimming with secrets.

I enjoyed this one very much. My only quibble is that it is written in the first person, a style of writing I don’t prefer. The storytelling makes up for that, however.

******

I made the lining for the Bella Quilt Coat yesterday afternoon:

byAnnie has an add-on video for those who buy the pattern. Neither the video nor the pattern state to finish the edges of the lining pieces—the seams will be enclosed between the lining and the body—but I think it looks better and will extend the longevity of the coat. I also staystitched the neck edges, even though that step wasn’t included in the pattern, either.

Anything worth doing is worth doing in excess, and if we’re going to encourage quilters to become garment sewists, we should teach the correct techniques.

Cutting and quilting the main body pieces seems like such a daunting task, although I know it isn’t, not really. I’m not sure why I am procrastinating. I will try to get those cut tomorrow and perhaps I can get them all quilted this weekend.

The only problem is that the 50" separating zipper for the front won’t be available on the byAnnie website until November 12. I’m more than a bit annoyed by that. I understand the excitement of bringing the pattern to market, but the add-on video didn’t release until yesterday and I won’t have the zipper until later this month unless the store ordered some. (Stores get their shipment of patterns and zippers sooner.) I think it’s better for manufacturers to wait and release everything together.

A Month of Coats

November is going to be the month of coats, I think. I stopped by the store yesterday and picked up fabrics for a shop sample of the Bella Quilt Coat. I’d like to make one according to the pattern before I make mine with alterations.

The floral is Anna Maria from her Good Gracious line. That will be the body of the coat. The deep purple is Andover by Libs Elliott for Andover Fabrics and will be the yoke and sleeve accent. The grid is Tula Pink’s True Colors and will be the lining.

I’m using a silk batt for the batting. I used that on the Bernina University jacket and liked it very much. The quilting will be done with Wonderfil’s Fabulux in a silver and purple variegated. I also used Fabulux on my BU jacket.

It feels good to have a plan. Sometimes I get stuck on the organizational piece of sewing—that analysis paralysis problem—and just need to choose the fabric.

The Chloe Coat is still on the list, but I don’t want to cut into my good fabric for it without making a muslin. This is when I miss Joann Fabrics the most. I almost always could find something suitable there on clearance. Finding a fabric to use as a muslin for a coat is tricky. I checked Hobby Lobby yesterday. They had a few home dec fabrics on clearance but also had their (polyester) corduroy for 30% off, which made it something like $6 a yard. I need four yards of a 55" wide fabric. I’m leaning toward the corduroy because it could end up being a wearable muslin. I’ve also got a few pieces of fabric in my stash than can be sacrificed for special projects, but I’ll only use them if I absolutely must.

******

I caught up on my podcast listening while I was on the road. On the way back from Seattle, I listened to this Craft Industry Alliance podcast interview with Abbie Small, who is now running Simplicity.com. She worked there for 30 years and came out of retirement after recognizing that the entire pattern company was in danger of being liquidated when Design Group International sold off Design Group Americas earlier this year. (I think I have the details correct.) She was able to get backing from Rubelmann Capital to acquire the assets. The Simplicity.com website has been down for a few days but is back up and looks great.

[Truly, though, I need to stop looking at patterns.]

I posted my 100th podcast episode on Tuesday—a listener question episode. 🎉

******

We got a couple of inches of wet, slushy snow yesterday. The forecast had called for rain, but the temperatures dipped enough for snow. Thankfully, I did not see anyone driving stupidly. A branch must have taken out a power line because we lost power for about 30 minutes yesterday afternoon.

Sometimes the Teacher Learns, Too

I had a machine mastery class yesterday. That is definitely the most challenging class I teach. I never know who is going to show up, with what machine, or what topics they want to cover, so I really have no way to prepare for it. I have a core group of students that attend almost every session. Four of them came yesterday. They don’t mind going over the basics each time, but they are also there to sew with their machines. We started by practicing combining stitch patterns in combi mode. I demo’ed the the cordonnet foot that is the Bernina Accessory of the Month for November. And after lunch, we made custom quilt labels using the embroidery module. That process really stretched me, mostly because I am not yet familiar with all the embroidery capabilities. Between the students and myself, though, we managed to figure it out.

They all signed up again for next month’s class.

I had a serger mastery class scheduled for today, but no one signed up for that one. (Breathes a sigh of relief.) I have another mountain of paperwork on my desk that needs attention, so that’s what I’ll be working on today. We’re still tying up loose ends on my FIL’s estate.

I am not quite sure how the schedule got away from me this fall, although the construction company and the estate did need a lot of hand-holding. If I make some headway today, I’d like to can pumpkin tomorrow. Or beans. Or something else we’re almost out of. 🫤

The potholders are all quilted and cut out. I need to make bias binding and finish them. And projects keep adding themselves to the sewing queue. One is the Chloe Coat from Sew Over It:

I bought some beautiful black and green and turquoise tweed fabric last year that was earmarked for a coat like this. (Some women buy shoes; I seem to be fixated on coats and jackets.) I like that this one has a zipper front.

[When I was at Pacific Fabrics in Seattle, I was accosted by a bolt of Hugo Boss deadstock coating fabric in a lovely black tweed with flecks of lime green silk. It was GORGEOUS. It was also $75 a yard and I would need four yards for a coat. I did not buy it, but it was touch-and-go there for a while as I argued with myself over it.]

And Sinclair Patterns just released a new hoodie design called Libby, which is a raglan/princess seam style. I can’t show you a picture because the photos on their website are protected and I can’t grab one, but I like Sinclair Patterns because they come in Tall versions. I wear a lot of these kinds of tops during the colder months. (Aside: We got a couple of inches of snow overnight.)

I’ll just keep chipping away at the sewing queue until I get a chunk of time to work on these larger projects. And I’ll have to find a way to stop adding projects to the list.

******

Spider update: It is still hanging out in the kitchen. The husband fed it a couple of flies while I was gone, but flies are few and far between now that cold weather is here. I may have to stop at Petco and pick up a few crickets or something. I am determined to keep it alive through the winter.

Knitting, Not Sewing

Before I left, the other Janet asked me if I would be interested in a knitting commission. A friend of hers had been admiring a knitted moebius cowl that Janet was wearing. Janet asked if I would knit one for her friend if she bought the yarn. I said I would, that it would be a good plane knitting project.

I’ve never actually knit a moebius cowl before. It requires a specific type of cast-on that isn’t simply a matter of casting on stitches and twisting them before beginning a round of knitting. Twisting a cast-on row creates a 360-degree twist. A true moebius has a 180-degree twist. The late knitting designer Cat Bordhi is credited with bringing forth the moebius cast-on. I taught at several knitting conferences where Cat was also a teacher. The inside of her brain was a wondrous place. JC perhaps remembers, because I am certain she was present, the night a group of teachers at Stitches West went out to dinner. We were in Portland and took the light rail to a restaurant downtown. Sometime during dinner, Cat mentioned that she was working on a new slipper pattern. She took a napkin and proceeded to sketch out her idea. For someone who struggles with anything spatial, watching Cat sketch out this slipper was akin to watching a magician perform a magic trick. Cat also hosted visionary retreats for designers and authors, and both JC and Sarah attended those.

Janet left the yarn and pattern for me at the store so I could pick it up before my trip. I will confess to having attempted the cast-on no fewer than three times before I got it correct. I was helped greatly by Cat’s YouTube video, but even so, I had to wrestle with the concept. (The instructions provided by the yarn store left much to be desired, and I am tempted to rewrite them. A few very specific sentences would have made a big difference.) Once I had it though, I had it, and I knocked out the cowl before I arrived in Cleveland.

I went looking for more yarn to make another cowl. Can I just say that I have not purchased yarn—aside from Lion Brand Homespun to make prayer shawsl—in more than 15 years, and when I was a knitting designer, I had a lot of yarn given to me. I haven’t really looked at the price of yarn in a long time. Wow. I ended up with a few skeins of Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick and Quick from Michael’s. I think I might sell these cowls at the co-op sale next fall, and I would be hard-pressed to justify spending $15-20 on a skein of yarn because I’d have to price the cowls at a point where I don’t think they would sell.

I have since made three more cowls, although I am making these in plain garter stitch.

These take me a few hours, start to finish, and give me a portable project to throw in my knitting bag. Prayer shawls often get to a point where I’m wearing them while still knitting them.

*******

The husband had to do a concrete-cutting job yesterday. His cutting business is quickly becoming a second full-time occupation. I handled a bunch of paperwork, cleaned the house, did laundry, and made a batch of Mexican quinoa and brown rice in the Instant Pot. After lunch, I went to my sewing room and attempted to bring some order to that chaos. I began by making a list of the projects I want to get done this month/before the end of the year.

I sometimes get ambushed by analysis paralysis. The husband says, “Just choose something from the list and work on it.” Men—especially the husband—are much better at compartmentalizing than are women. I could choose something to work on and still be thinking about fifteen other projects on the list.

I traced off the Bella Coat pattern. I don’t have enough fabric to start working on it, however, because I lengthened the coat by 3". (I measured my Bernina University jacket and went with that length.) I’ll get more fabric at the store this week. The pattern instructions have you cut out large chunks of fabric and batting and quilt them together before cutting out the pattern pieces.

I decided to make potholders with the fabrics chosen by DD#1 and her MIL. I pulled coordinating fabrics from the stash and raided my bin of leftover batting. I made and quilted three large quilt sandwiches before cutting out the potholders. I’ve got a huge stack of potholders that need binding, so this will be a good reason to have a marathon binding session soon. If I finally get those others potholders done, they can go in next year’s sale, too.

This is a busy week. I teach a machine mastery class tomorrow and a serger mastery class on Tuesday. I’ve got two podcast interviews scheduled later in the week, and I am giving an abbreviated version of my thread class presentation to the Flathead Quilter’s Guild on Thursday evening. The piano tech is coming to tune my piano and also the piano at the church. At the rate I’m going, there may not be much actual sewing in November, either. 🫤

Planes, Trains, Automobiles, and Ferries

You may have surmised from the radio silence that I have been traveling. Elaine and I left on October 20 and spent the night in Spokane. Elaine’s sister lives in Seattle, so when I travel there and her schedule allows, Elaine comes with me. She is probably my favorite traveling companion aside from the husband. We have been all over the Pacific Northwest together—Seattle, Portland, Boise, and Moscow, ID.

[This is going to be a very abbreviated travelogue because I have a lot of work to catch up on and because I didn’t take very many photos.]

We arrived in Seattle around noon on Tuesday and I delivered Elaine to her sister. I headed for Tacoma to have dinner with some friends of mine before ending up at a hotel near the airport. On Wednesday morning, I flew to Cleveland to spend a few days with my mother and visit some of my extended family. My mother and I went to a store called Pins and Needles, which is quite the place. They were having a customer appreciation sale, but I did not buy anything because it was a bit overwhelming.

On Sunday, I flew back to Seattle, got on the Bainbridge ferry, and drove over to Port Angeles to see DD#1, DSIL, and his mom and dad. I love his family and they are always so welcoming when I come to visit. His mom had a wonderful dinner of salmon and Dungeness crab ready for me when I arrived.

DD#1 and DSIL just bought a house in Port Angeles. They close on the house on November 13, the movers bring their furniture on the 14th, and he starts his new job on the 17th. The two of them have had a busy couple of weeks. We drove by the house, which is perfect for them. It is secluded, on five acres, and has a fenced garden, greenhouse, and chicken coop as well as a couple of productive apple trees.

Before I left on Tuesday to head back to Seattle, DD#1, her MIL, and I went to a quilt store in Sequim, WA, called A Stitch in Time. What a beautiful store! I picked up two fat quarter bundles of Tim Holtz fabric in the charcoal colorway as well as some fabric to make potholders for DD#1’s new house and some replacement ones for her MIL. The potholders I made for her a few years ago are wearing out because she uses them so much.

After another ferry ride, I was back in Seattle. (Elaine had to be back in Kalispell for some appointments, so she took the train home early in the week.) I stayed at the same Airbnb where I’ve stayed half a dozen times already. DD#2’s boyfriend’s mom is coming to visit in December and she’s going to stay there, too.

DD#2’s boyfriend had a birthday this week and his present was tickets for the three of us to go to a Kraken hockey game. Her apartment is only a few blocks from Climate Pledge Arena, where the Kraken play, so we walked over, had dinner in a restaurant across the street, and then settled into our seats.

I have decided that hockey is my new favorite sport. (I’ve given up on the Cleveland Browns.) It is quite the spectacle:

We can watch Kraken games using our Amazon Prime account, so that is what the husband and I will be doing tonight. They lost this game against the Canadiennes, but it had gone into overtime and was quite exciting.

As I always do when I’m in Seattle, I visited Pacific Fabrics. I bought yardage to make the Butterick tiered skirt pattern and got a yard of pink waxed canvas. I also purchased the Britney quilted vest pattern by Melly and Me:

The sewing queue fairly exploded on this trip. Between potholders, an embroidered baby blanket—DD#2 needs a baby shower gift—a couple of quilted jackets, and a new pattern coming to the store that needs a sample, I have no shortage of projects to work on in the next few weeks.

I made a trip up to Snohomish, too, to visit Quilting Mayhem. My friend Deana and I had gone there on our trip to Seattle in July. They had just put out the new Bella quilted coat pattern from byAnnie.com that morning, so I bought a copy.

I am itching to get back to my sewing machine. I took some English paper piecing supplies with me but ended up knitting on this trip, instead. I’ll talk about that in tomorrow’s post.

October is Not a Sewing Month

It’s a good thing I am not being paid by production, because I’ve only sewn two items in October: a Toaster Sweater and the Geranium Dress. Both the husband and I feel like we’ve been running from one thing to the next to the next for the past several weeks—he is trying to get some big concrete jobs done before the snow flies and I have been buried under an avalanche of paperwork. The transition months always seem to be like this. April is usually a meat grinder and so is October. I wish I could say that things will slow down in November, but we’re going to be in the thick of the holiday schedule before too long. Hopefully, though, I should be able to sew more next month. I miss my machines.

Our insurance agent was able to find another company to underwrite coverage for the construction company. The cost of the policy has effectively doubled, but at least we have coverage.

I taught a class on Friday and one yesterday. I only had one student in each class, but I am reluctant to cancel classes because that causes more problems than it solves. My Friday student was someone I know fairly well and she and I had a good time. I had one student in yesterday’s Learn to Sew class. She was able to make several pillowcases during class time. Sammy and Ashlee were in Spokane this weekend; they set up a booth at the Washington State Quilters’s show (Spokane chapter). By all accounts, they have done well.

On my way home from class yesterday—after I went to Ulta and bought a new hair dryer—I stopped at Edie’s and dropped off the serger. I found out that she bought that serger new in 1995 and has used it extensively since then. I hope she gets many more years of use out of it.

We have church this morning and I am playing for a memorial service this afternoon. It is a cold, rainy day. I don’t think the high is supposed to be above 45F.

Quilted jackets still seem to be all the rage. The Bella Quilt Coat is a new release from byAnnie:

I like this style a lot so I will be getting this pattern. I bought some Kaffe Fassett fabric specifically for another quilted jacket and I think it will work nicely for this one.

Still a Patient

I haven’t returned Edie’s serger to her yet. I asked her if I could keep it for a few days to make sure that everything was working well. The cover over the tension disks comes off, so I removed it and vacuumed that area thoroughly with my mini hose attachments. I unthreaded and rethreaded the machine several times to make sure I understood the thread path. Unfortunately, the slider that threads the back of the lower looper is no longer reaching that area—for whatever reason—so in order to thread the back of the lower looper, I had to remove the throat plate. That’s not a huge problem, just an extra step.

During subsequent tests, I was still having an intermittent problem with the dropping left needle thread. I now suspect that the machine does need to have the timing adjusted, but Edie can use it even without having it fixed. The machine makes a three-thread wide stitch with just the left needle (top swatch). It makes a three-thread narrow stitch with just the right needle (middle swatch). Both of those stitches can be used for edge finishing and for construction. In fact, some sewists (sergists?) prefer three-thread stitches for construction because the seams are a bit less bulky without that fourth thread.

I can get it to make a four-thread stitch (bottom) with both needles installed, but it’s not reliable. It seems to be something about the interaction of both needles that is causing the problem.

I’ll return the machine to Edie this weekend and make sure to explain all of this.

*******

Yesterday was “tackle the punch list” day. October has been an insanely busy month with lots of moving parts. We sold my FIL’s house, the kids bought a house, I’ve been teaching quite a bit, and the husband has been working long days trying to get some big concrete jobs done before the snow flies. I teach today and tomorrow and am playing for a memorial service on Sunday afternoon. I could not shoehorn anything else into the schedule and I needed yesterday to deal with all the tasks that still hadn’t been crossed off the list. A couple of them have deadlines early next week.

[The day started off with a bang, literally. I was drying my hair in the downstairs bathroom when all of a sudden I heard a very loud pop and saw sparks flying out of the outlet. The power had gone out in the bathroom. I went and got the husband, who checked the panel and saw that the breaker had tripped. He asked me how old the hair dryer was. I told him I think I got it when the girls were in elementary school, and they are 33 and 28. He said it’s time to buy a new one.]

I completed all but two of the items on yesterday’s list, and they can be done this morning before class. Oh, and I have to stop somewhere after teaching today and buy a new hair dryer.

Serger Hospital

A few weeks ago, my friend Edie asked me if I would look at her serger. She had taken it to a local service place but they hadn’t gotten around to fixing it (after more than a year). She retrieved it from them and brought it to me.

[Edie is Elaine’s cousin. A few days ago, I got a text from Edie’s niece asking me if I could teach her how to bind a quilt. Margaret (their aunt/great-aunt)—will be happy to know that the quilt she wants to bind is the yellow baby quilt from reunion. Amanda finished it. All of them belong to one of the families that founded our church. I laugh because I have more members of that family in my phone contacts than I do my own family. 🤪]

Anyway . . . I had to order another foot pedal for it because the original had gone missing at the repair shop. Fortunately, electronic foot pedals are cheap and plentiful. I have a whole box of them, but of course, I did not have one with the correct plug end. I ordered a replacement and it arrived yesterday. The husband was working late on a big concrete pour, so after dinner, I sat down to tinker with the serger.

I’m not sure if Edie took the machine in for service or if something was wrong with it. Nor do I know how she came into possession of it. (I should do a better job of getting information from my customers, LOL.) The machine is a Pfaff Hobbylock 788:

For all that I love my modern serger with all the bells and whistles, I have a soft spot for these vintage models—with the exception of the White Speedylock. That machine was designed by Satan himself. I suspect that the White Speedylock is the reason that sergers got a reputation for being difficult machines. I have one—given to me by someone who abandoned it in frustration—and I refuse to pass it along to anyone else because it is so awful to thread. And that’s coming from someone who can thread sergers in her sleep.

My plan of attack:

1. Find a copy of the manual. These are all over the internet.

2. Determine if the machine works at all. The loopers were still threaded, so I left them alone. I rethreaded the needles and checked to see if the machine would make a chain. It did, sort of. It wasn’t picking up the left needle thread. In 99% of cases, when a serger isn’t picking up a needle thread, it’s because the needle isn’t seated properly. In the other 1% of cases, it’s because the machine needs to be re-timed. I fervently hoped that 1% was not the reason the machine wasn’t picking up the needle thread because re-timing a serger is above my pay grade. I have re-timed sewing machines, but a serger is a different beast altogether.

3. Change the needles. This machine uses common household sewing machine needles, so I swapped out the existing needles for a couple of new 80/12 universals. I will say that the needle bar design on this machine leaves a bit to be desired. It took me a couple of attempts to get the needles in correctly.

4. Test again. This time, when I stepped on the pedal, the machine growled a bit, which reminded me that it probably needed oil. I checked the manual for the oiling instructions and oiled generously.

5. While rethreading the needles, I noticed that it was a bit tricky to get the left needle thread seated properly in the tension disks. I need to make Edie aware of that when I return the machine because that could be contributing to the problem. However, I was able to get the machine to make a chain with all four threads. Yay me.

6. Test on a piece of fabric and refine the tension settings. The machine makes a lovely stitch:

I still want to go over the rest of it and test a few more settings and stitches, but I think this machine has many more years of life left in it.

Yawn

The National Weather Service has lost all credibility with me. I live in Montana. It snows here. Every system that comes through is not bringing the end of the world with it. From now on, I think I’ll just look out the window to see what the weather is doing.

Get off my lawn, LOL.

DD#1 and DSIL put in an offer on a house in Washington state and their offer was accepted over a competing one. We are all thrilled with the house they found. It’s on acreage and has a fenced garden, greenhouse, and chicken coop. The price was excellent.

I taught the Free Range Slacks class yesterday to three students. I was very happy with how it went. Sometimes I suffer from impostor syndrome—who am I to be teaching garment classes when I’ve never been formally trained?—but everyone went home with a muslin that fit. I always encourage students to try on my class samples, and I try to have samples in several sizes. That helps me to identify fitting issues ahead of time and gives the students a ballpark idea of what size to make. One student needed no alterations, but the other two had to shorten the rise on their patterns. I showed them how to do that.

This is one of my students tracing her pattern:

The store is closed now on Mondays, but the Monday classes that were already on the calendar are proceeding as scheduled. After next month, the store will be closed on Mondays and we won’t schedule classes on those days. While I was teaching, the owner took advantage of the peace and quiet to rearrange the displays and get some other work done on the floor.

This is a very full week. I am scheduled to teach two more classes, on Friday and Saturday, and have to organize supplies and handouts for those. I also have to prepare music for a memorial service on Sunday afternoon. We lost two elderly members of our congregation over the past few weeks. Both ladies were in their 90s and had lived long, full lives, but we still mourn their passing.

I am home today and I have a very long to-do list. Tomorrow, I have several appointments in town. I still need to put the buttonholes in the Geranium Dress but that may be the extent of my sewing this week. I also need to find some food for the spider. It re-spun its web the other night so I stood there and watched it for a while. That was fascinating.

Too Much Hype?

The National Weather Service appears to have changed how it issues some of its forecasts and warnings. Last winter, it seemed that we had several Armageddon scenarios that ended up being nothing more than typical winter storms. (Hello, this is Montana.) I’ve been watching the winter storm warnings ratchet up in severity over the past several days and I think the NWS continues to cry wolf. And you know what will happen? People are going to stop listening. One warning stated that there will be heavy snow with accumulations up to 1" (laughable) and that travel is not advised. You know what constitutes “heavy snow” in our neighborhood? Accumulations of two or three feet.

Right now, it’s 4:38 am and the temperature is 38F. It is raining. The temperature could drop and the precip could change over to snow. We’ll see. I am more concerned about the back-door cold front that is supposed to arrive this evening with gusty northeast winds. Those kinds of weather systems always bring problems for us in the form of downed trees and power lines.

No, I would not try to drive up Going to the Sun Road to Logan Pass today, but I probably wouldn’t try to do that at this time of year anyway. I don’t need an advisory to suggest that I don’t. The husband says that he thinks these warnings are for people that just moved here from places that don’t get snow. Personally, I think the warnings are useless and should be saved for events that are out of the ordinary.

/sermon

******

I pulled tomato plants and stacked tomato cages Friday morning. Yesterday, the husband and I laid out the rest of the billboard tarps and black plastic. All of the growing areas are covered. If I can reserve a spot on his schedule in the spring and get him to level some areas with the track loader, gardening next year should be easier.

Yesterday afternoon, I finished—except for making the buttonholes—the Geranium Dress in the long-sleeved, collared version. I started this Friday afternoon:

The bodice is lined. That was, by far, the hardest part of making this because the sleeves were attached and had to be rolled up between the neckline and shoulder of the body and lining—a la burrito method. Were I to do it again, I might consider changing the bodice lining to a facing. Otherwise, it was a quick sew, taking approximately one day. The fabric is a lovely flannel from Riley Blake. The dress needs a good steaming.

I also went through my pattern stash and pulled this one to trace:

I am still on a quest to find a good dress pattern. I chose this one because I like raglans—I made four Toaster Sweaters, after all—and because this is a raglan with bust darts. I don’t have a raglan pattern with bust darts. I traced View A but in the longer length of View B. Above-the-knee-length dresses look funny on me. Something about the proportions is wrong. I also lowered the bust darts a bit. I think I am going to muslin this as a top, first, to see if it fits well before I make a dress out of it.

Theory is great, but actually altering and making a pattern is how I learn best. I haven’t given up on the dress pattern I worked on over the summer; I still need to make a muslin of the last pattern iteration. (I need to get more sheets from the thrift store.) This might seem like a lot of work, but it’s worth it to me to be able to have clothing that fits well.

Winter on the Way

Back in the spring, when Joann Fabrics was going out of business, I loaded up on apparel fabrics. I managed to score three yards of a black rayon cable sweater knit—the same fabric I already had purchased in burgundy, navy blue, and light blue. (Hot pink, where art thou?) Those first three fabrics were made into Toaster Sweaters and I wore the heck out of them last winter. That cabled sweater knit ranks as one of the nicest fabrics ever purchased from Joanns. It wears like iron. I hadn’t ever seen it in black, which makes me think I ran across a bolt that had been unearthed in a warehouse and sent to Missoula for the liquidation.

In any case, a black turtleneck will be a great addition to the wardrobe, although I am trying not to overload my closet with black. (Hot pink . . . ) I pulled out that fabric the other day and made Yet Another Toaster Sweater. I also pulled out a length of black and gray abstract print ponte, which will become some Linda pants that will coordinate nicely with it.

No photo, because it’s a simple black turtleneck sweater.

I have other sweater knits in brighter colors. Some of those may become Toaster Sweaters, too.

Yesterday, I cut out a Geranium Dress in pink printed flannel. I am using the expansion pack to make one with long sleeves and a collar, like the one on the right:

This will be a store sample. I made the original Geranium dress as a store sample over the summer using some Kaffe Fassett Collective fabric. This second version should go together quickly.

******

My Squash Squad block is coming along nicely. The pattern specified a couching stitch around the perimeter of the squash, but I couldn’t find a combination of yarn and thread that I liked. I’ve got a ton of bits and bobs that I inherited from my mother and my MIL, so I poked around in the stash until I found some baby rick rack and used that. I love the effect:

When I get tired of working on this, I’ll switch to embroidering the chicken.

******

We are going to get weather whiplash here this weekend. It is supposed to be 71 and sunny today. I have to get out to the garden and finish cleaning up. Tomorrow, we will only be in the 50s and it is supposed to start raining later in the day. On Sunday and Monday, we are under a winter storm watch, which could include snow in the valleys. That might be hype, although the meteorologist who did the NWS Missoula weather briefing on YouTube yesterday said that every time they run the forecast models, it gets worse. And even if it doesn’t snow in the valley, our elevation is high enough that we might get some. This will be the week that everyone panics and tries to get their snow tires on their cars.

The barn spider is still hanging out in the kitchen. We have had an influx of flies—and big ones—so when I whack one with the flyswatter, I pick it up with a long pair of tweezers and deposit it in the web. I feel like I am Uber Eats for the spider. The husband has taken to calling me Morticia Addams. Perhaps I should make myself a long black dress and put on some goth makeup.

Squash and Urban Chickens

My college friend, Audra, who lives in Colorado, sent me this note after reading yesterday’s blog post:

The "glass balls and rubber balls" concept originates from a 1991 Georgia Tech commencement speech by former Coca-Cola CEO Brian Dyson, who described life as juggling five balls: work, family, health, friends, and spirit. The idea is that work is a rubber ball—it bounces back if dropped—while the other four are glass balls, which can be irreparably damaged if they fall. The analogy encourages prioritizing the glass balls (family, health, friends, spirit) to maintain balance and avoid long-term consequences, as dropping them can lead to lasting harm, whereas dropping the rubber ball (work) is less impactful.  

Thank you, Audra. I appreciate knowing the origin of that analogy.

*****

I spent yesterday cleaning and organizing the sewing room. I didn’t do a complete teardown, but I did file all the loose pieces of fabric into their respective containers, cut leftover chunks of quilt cotton into squares and strips—now the scrap bags are really overflowing—and rearranged storage bins so that the winter fabrics are within easy reach. I “shopped my stash” for upcoming projects. I have some very nice fabrics in my stash and it’s time to get them out and use them.

Once everything was cleaned up, I got out my embroidery supplies and prepped a new Squash Squad block and a new Urban Chickens block:

On the left is #4 of 9 in the Sue Spargo Squash Squad series. I am averaging one squash per winter so I should probably speed it up a bit. I’m not following the directions slavishly; I embroider until I think it’s done. The block on the right is the “Sylvia” Urban Chicken. (This pattern doesn’t seem to be available any longer.) I’ve already done the “Charm” chicken block. The pattern also has nine blocks.

I prep these blocks by adhering bits of wool felt to a piece of Steam-A-Seam, cutting the pieces, then fusing the pieces to the base. The fuse is temporary, so I have to whipstitch around each piece with a matching thread color. Once that’s done, I can start embellishing.

The husband and I sit every night after dinner and watch YouTube videos, so this gives my hands something to do.

*****

Sunday morning, before I left Spokane, I stopped at the Walmart in Spokane Valley. That store—and Missoula—have the only two decent remnant racks left, and even that isn’t saying much. Still, I went to look. As I was standing there, looking through the fabric, a mom and her young son walked through the fabric department. They were discussing his Halloween costume. I heard her say, rather wistfully, “I wish Mommy knew how to sew.” I almost went over and said something to her but I try very hard not to accost strangers in stores because I don’t want to be that person. I taught myself how to sew (mostly) by making my kids’ Halloween costumes. That bar is pretty low, so it’s a good place to start.

What a stupid society we were to take home ec and shop class out of the curriculum. I am glad to see those classes are coming back.

Letting the Rubber Balls Bounce

We finally got a hard freeze. I need to get out to the garden this week and clean up the tomato patch. I thought I might do it on Saturday, but it looks like rain that day. Nothing is worse than working in the garden in a cold rain. I need to pull out the vines, stack them, and stack the tomato cages.

I read something yesterday—I wish I could find it again so I could give credit—about juggling balls. The author said her garden fended for itself this year because she was trying to keep too many balls in the air. She decided to drop the balls that could bounce and concentrate on juggling the balls that would shatter if they fell. I thought that was a great analogy. The world will not come to an end if the garden has to fend for itself for a season.

I don’t have a podcast episode today. I still sound a bit like a rusty gate, and between getting the tomatoes out of the freezer and making them into sauce, taking a trip to Ritzville, picking up pork orders, and teaching yesterday, something had to give. The podcast was a ball that could bounce last week, so I let it.

******

I took the Suzy Furrer book with me to Spokane and spent some time looking through it. I am very glad to have it in my patternmaking library. The book is comprehensive and laid out in a logical manner. As I told Ashlee, though, it’s not really a beginner book. The information makes sense to me because I’ve made slopers before and numbers and math don’t scare me. I’d like to try some of the pattern drafts this winter.

A friend of mine asked me to look at her serger to see if I could get it up and running. It’s a 90s-era Pfaff. I had to find a foot pedal for it, which I did, so I am going to tinker with it this week. I suspect it just needs a good cleaning and oiling. I’d like to get it operational for her because I know she will use it if it runs well.

******

Yesterday’s machine mastery class was a bit challenging. Customers who purchase a machine have a year to take the mastery class every month, so I never know who is going to show up, with what machine, or where that person is in her sewing journey. Some women came with machines they bought last week. Others brought machines they have owned for a few months but are scared to use. My goal is to get everyone comfortable enough by the end of class that they go home and use their machines.

While I was at the store, Marianne asked if I would teach a class using the Accuquilt cutter. Accuquilt offers a lot of free patterns on their website, so I’ve been looking through them to find one that would make a good class. I really like this one, using the Enigma Star die:

I could use my vast stash of Kona to make up the sample. 😇 Or maybe even some Tim Holtz. Or Grunge. The possibilities are endless.

Today, though, I am going to clean and reorganize the sewing space. I need to pull out and stack patterns and fabric for upcoming projects. I also need to prep some embroidery projects so I have things to work on in the evening.

This Year's Mennonite Country Auction

Many years ago, when I was not even a teenager, our family took a day trip to Amish country in Ohio. We somehow ended up at Lehman’s Hardware on the same day that Mennonite Central Committee was holding its relief sale. All I remember from that day were the clotheslines strung with beautiful quilts, but it is a sight that has stayed with me. And because life is funny that way, now I belong to a Mennonite church and I help out at the relief sale in Ritzville, WA.

I headed over to Spokane on Friday morning. Tourist season is (mostly) over and traffic was light. I met a friend of mine at Pink Thread Fabric in Couer d’Alene, Idaho. This is a new store and both of us wanted to check it out. The store is small, with only one line of quilting fabric, but they had quite a bit of apparel fabric. I bought two yards of a very pretty hot pink rayon Swiss dot-type fabric. I want to support fledgling businesses, especially ones carrying apparel fabric. I hope the owner is able to make a go of it.

After that, I headed to the Quilting Bee in Spokane, where I did not buy fabric. I am trying to put a moratorium on fabric purchases. I need to sew up the stash, first. It is not a bad thing that Joanns is out of business and Walmart has eliminated most of its remnant racks. I did buy some machine embroidery supplies and bag hardware.

On Saturday, I drove out to Menno Mennonite church, which literally sits in the middle of acres of potato fields. Two of the members of our church own a processing company here in Kalispell that makes products under the label Redneck Sausage. (If you’re in the Pacific Northwest, many of the grocery stores like Super 1 and Albertson’s carry it.) They bring ham, bacon, and a special apple German sausage to sell at the sale to help raise money. I run one of the cash registers. People start lining up around 8:30 to be able to buy from us as well as the cheese people whose booth is right next to us. It’s very hectic for about an hour but it is great fun.

After lunch—sausage on a stick and some New Year’s cookies—I went into the tent for the auction portion of the day.

The big attraction is the quilts, of course. In between selling the quilts, the auctioneers also auction off other items. My family will be interested to know that one poppyseed kolache sold for $1800. (That is not a typo.)

Sadly, the sale is dwindling in size. I am hearing rumors that it may not continue after another couple of years. The organizers are getting older and no one is stepping up to take their place. Hand-quilted quilts are getting hard to come by, so most are machine quilted. Many of the quilts in this year’s sale were quilted in Ohio or Pennsylvania and sent out for this sale. I donated a quilt, but it got there too late to make it into this year’s sale so they will keep it for next year’s sale. I will try to donate a few more. The quilts that were in the sale were lovely:

I was back on the road to Spokane by 3 pm. Margaret and Elaine, you were remembered fondly and we wished you could have been there with us.

On Sunday, I drove back to Kalispell via the alternate route, through north Idaho, and stopped at the processor to pick up part of our pork order to deliver to customers. I was home by 3 pm. The processor is still working on the smoked items and they will drive them down here next week so we can deliver the hams and bacon. I will be glad to have that done.

I’m teaching a machine mastery class today. The quilt store is going to be closed on Mondays from now through the spring, but the Monday classes that were already scheduled in October and November will be held as usual. I think it is a good thing for the owner and the staff to have a day off. They have been working very hard. And I should have some time to sew this week. The binding I ordered from Sailrite came over the weekend, so I’ll finish that Retro Sling Bag and see what new projects float to the top of the queue.

Sauce Week is Over

I ended up with a grand total of 42 jars of tomato sauce—plenty for this year. I still have some bags of tomatoes in another freezer, so when things ease up a bit, I may make salsa.

I have gotten in the habit of checking on my pet spider when I come downstairs in the morning. Yesterday, I looked up at the web above the sink and it was empty. Oh, no! Where is my spider? I walked around the kitchen and found it above the cabinet where it had been originally. When the husband came down for breakfast, I was going to show him, but when I pointed to that spot, the spider wasn’t there. Oh, no! Where is my spider? I found it again on the other side of the kitchen door, above the hall tree. It had made a web there. That’s a good spot for it. I think it’s already snacked on some flies.

******

Ashlee ordered a book and asked me to evaluate carrying it in the store:

I haven’t done a deep dive yet, but on the surface, this looks like it’s right up my alley. This is a drafting-style manual so everything is based on math—think slopers and beyond. The author is no lightweight, either. She’s is a professional clothing designer and has done Craftsy classes.

Would this appeal to other customers in the store? I’m not sure. My sense, from my own students, is that they would prefer not to have to draft from scratch. I do have one potential quibble and it’s admittedly a very subjective one: I am always suspicious of thin clothing designers who don’t appear to have any fitting issues. It’s one thing to write patternmaking guides for “perfect” bodies; it’s another thing to write patternmaking guides for women in the real world. But I need to look more deeply into the information presented here—and test the instructions on myself—before I make that judgment.

******

No sewing got done this week. Honestly, I am not sure how much sewing will get done this month. This is not unusual for October. Between canning and traveling and getting things buttoned up before the snow flies, sewing sometimes takes a back seat. I am teaching three classes in the next 10 days, too. I’ll do what I can and let the rest go until November.

We got a letter last month that the company that underwrites the husband’s liability insurance is not going to continue in that market, so our agent has been searching for another carrier. I’m beginning to wonder how any construction is going to happen in the next couple of years because it is getting so difficult to find coverage. We’re down to two potential carriers and waiting to hear if one or the other will cover us—and how much it’s going to cost us.

I’ve been watching quite a few YouTube videos on the Washington Policy Center’s website about what’s going on in that state. I have two kids living there, after all. Washington state is not only killing the golden goose, its legislature is slaughtering it in dramatic fashion. It’s a cautionary tale about allowing people with zero economic literacy to make financial decisions. Washington’s business and occupation tax is based on gross receipts, not net revenue. Imagine a business pulling in 1.5 million a year with $500,000 in net revenue. (I’m spitballing numbers here.) They would be taxed on the 1.5 million, not $500,000. Is it any wonder that small businesses are fleeing the state in droves?

And according to the WPC, the state legislature took the pandemic stimulus money and baked it into the budget going forward rather than treating it as one-time, non-budgeted income. That’s just irresponsible management.

The minimum wage in Seattle is set to go up. Beginning on January 1, 2026, all employers in Seattle must pay a minimum wage of $21.30, regardless of business size, and cannot count tips or medical benefit payments toward minimum compensation. How many people do you know who are willing to spend $95 on a simple lunch for two people? (That number is not made up—I eat out in Seattle every time I’m there and am always prepared for a bit of sticker shock.)

If we ran our construction company the way some of these states run themselves, we’d be out of business in short order. I just shake my head.

What Came in the Mail

Today’s post is a long one. I didn’t think I had anything to say, and then I started typing . . .

I was the first customer at the tire place when it opened yesterday morning. They got the Jeep in right away and I was out of there in just under an hour. That business still has the “small town Montana” feel that we’re losing—their internet was down so they had no way to process credit cards. I didn’t have the checkbook or enough cash with me. They sent me on my way and said, “We’ll call you later to get your credit card number.”

I came home, dropped off the tires, then headed back to do a Costco run and get chicken feed. I was in the Costco parking lot when I got a text from the tire place saying their internet was back up but their phones weren’t and would I please call them with my credit card number. I did, and now that bit of winter prep is off the list.

Our new Costco is supposed to open in late November. This is the third Costco—hopefully the last?—since we moved to Montana. The problem with the current Costco isn’t the size of the store; it’s the size of the parking lot. The new Costco will be located about a mile north of the existing one.

I hit up the case sale at one of the local grocery stores. The store holds this sale every September and every March. I stock up on things like brown sugar, rice, canned pineapple, and evaporated milk. The store honors the case sale price on single cans of items, so even if you don’t need 12 cans of enchilada sauce, it’s still a good time to buy.

I also dropped off the quilt to go to Ritzville and stopped by the quilt store, where I bought a backing for the Kaffe quilt. I got a tone-on-tone print in acid green that matches several of the same shades in the front of the quilt. The front is such a riot of color that I thought the back needed to be plain and quiet.

All in all, a very productive day.

******

Two packages came in the mail Monday. The first was from Cali Fabrics. I’ve bought some beautiful deadstock fabrics from them in the past and I am on their e-mail list. For a few years now, I’ve had it in my head to make a simple long, lined coat using a herringbone fabric—I can see in my head exactly what I want, which is a rare—but I could not find the right fabric. A few weeks ago, Cali Fabrics’ weekly e-mail blast featured some wool herringbone deadstock they had just received. I saw the photo and thought, “That’s the fabric!” They had it in navy and black. I bought the black, but I am showing the navy because it’s easier to see the herringbone pattern:

It’s even more stunning in person. I’m going to have the length of fabric dry cleaned before I use it, just to factor in any possible shrinkage.

I also received my wholesale order from Wonderfil:

We sewists almost have too many choices, but some of the choices fly under the radar. Isacord is probably the most popular quilting/embroidery thread available. It is in every store I visit. Floriani may be the second most popular. Wonderfil makes a thread called Polyfast, for machine embroidery, but I have never seen it in stores. (Wonderfil is a Canadian company, so Canadian stores probably carry it.) I bought some to try on the 700 PRO. I also got a spool of the new variegated Softloc wooly polyester. I know Ashlee ordered this at Bernina University, but it hasn’t arrived yet. Softloc makes great rolled hem edges on linen napkins and I think the variegated will be very pretty. And lastly, I got some Fabulux. Fabulux is a trilobal polyester thread—just like Isacord and Floriani—but the difference is that it’s a three-ply thread, not a two-ply. You may wonder why that matters. A three-ply thread is rounder in cross-section, and that makes it sit up off the surface of the fabric. Fabulux is one of the six threads featured in my thread class, and everyone who tries it loves it. I used it to quilt my BU jacket.

[I could go on and on about the technical details of thread construction, but most of you probably don’t care.]

I also bought a sample pack of Wonderfil’s new stabilizers.

Wonderfil is going head-to-head with OESD in this area; Ashlee and I attended a presentation at BU by Andrew, the owner of Wonderfil, on these products. I am curious to see how they compare.

I have a lot of “studying” to do. Today, though, it’s back to the tomato trenches for another batch (or two) of sauce. If you read this far (Beth H and Sarah, LOL), thank you!

Sauce Production

I put 28 gallon bags of tomatoes into the freezer in September. Yesterday morning, I emptied 14 of the bags into big pots on the stove and cooked tomatoes down into sauce. Charlie kept me company while I worked. The husband said the spider needed a name. I said that Charlotte was the obvious choice, but I didn’t want to call a male spider Charlotte. Charlie is gender-neutral enough that it works either way, so Charlie it is.

[I am aware that the spider doesn’t care.]

I did paperwork and tidied up while the tomatoes cooked. Just after lunch, I ran them through the food mill and began filling jars. I had enough sauce for about 17 jars, but the canner only holds 14. The rest of the sauce will get mixed in with the next batch.

It feels good to get that done, at least partly. I need to get the rest of the sauce made this week. I’m going to Ritzville, Washington this weekend to help with the Mennonite Central Committee Relief Sale and I plan to stop at the processor on the way back to pick up part of the pork order. The freezer has to be empty.

I’m meeting a friend of mine in Coeur d’Alene on the way to Ritzville. We are going to check out a new fabric store there called Pink Thread. They carry apparel fabric. The big quilt store in Spokane—the Quilting Bee—has also expanded its selection of apparel fabric. I suspected this might happen after Joanns went out of business. While I miss Joanns, I also know that the quality of apparel fabric carried by independent stores is going to be much higher than what Joanns had. (Now, if they will just carry something other than muddy earth tones . . . )

I found a photo of Kaffe and me on the store’s social media page. I think Ashlee was sneaking around taking pictures during class. Kaffe and I were shopping for the fabric to use in the 5" blocks:

Kaffe and Brandon wore shirts made from their fabrics every day. I am wearing my top made from a wideback cotton sateen in the Millefiore print. I have that same print in a lovely grass green.

Snow tires are going on this morning. The tire place doesn’t do appointments, but if you call, they put you on a list and then it’s first come, first served. I don’t usually have to wait more than an hour or two. I take a book and my knitting. The people who wait until the first snow to switch over their tires are the ones who have issues, because then everyone panics.

The husband’s concrete pour went well yesterday. He says he doesn’t feel that bad and thinks I had a worse time of it. Thankfully, whatever I had didn’t last long. I felt much better even by yesterday morning.

I don’t think there is going to be much sewing this week. I do need to organize my embroidery and English paper piecing projects, though, so I have things to work on in the evening.

The mail brought two boxes of goodies yesterday. I’ll show you in tomorrow’s blog post. One box contained thread and one box contained fabric. 🧐

Down for the Weekend

I ended up with more days of respite than I intended because I was felled by a virus Thursday evening. I woke up Friday feeling pretty punky and had to skip helping out at the craft co-op sale. I spent most of Saturday lying around doing nothing. If you know me at all, you know that “doing nothing” is almost the worst kind of torture imaginable.

And now the husband has it. He will power through because he has a big concrete pour scheduled for today. I will make sure to have a pot of soup waiting for him when he gets home.

I managed to finish my Kaffe quilt top before I started feeling really awful. I am so happy with it.

The next time I am at the store, I will get a backing for it so I can baste and quilt it.

Yesterday afternoon, while watching the coverage of the awful event at the LDS church in Michigan, I started putting together another scrap quilt. My bag of white, beige, and gray scraps is overflowing, so I decided to make a Sunday Morning quilt from the book Sunday Morning Quilts by Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkinson:

I have lost count of the number of scrap quilts I’ve made from this book. The total has to be well over a dozen. Sunday Morning, Candy Coated, and Scrapper’s Delight are my three favorite designs and the ones I make most often.

It did not escape me that I went from retina-burning yellows to calm neutrals. That may have been my subconscious looking for a safe harbor. I’ll probably set these aside until the next time I need some mindless sewing.

This week is going to be devoted to tomatoes. I have to get them out of the freezer before the pork shows up. I also need to get the snow tires put on the Jeep. As predicted, the weather pattern is changing and it looks like we will finally have a frost. I’m going to be traveling over mountain passes in October and I don’t want to wait for the rush to get the tires changed.

******

The spider that has been living above the cabinet in the kitchen moved to a spot over the sink. I am not opposed to it being there—our ceilings are 8' high, so neither of us is likely to walk into the web—but it anchored its web on the towel bar so I’ve had to put a towel in a different spot. Sarah, I tried to get a photo of it but I can’t get one that is in focus. I did determine that it is a barn spider.

The husband laughs because I talk to it while I am cooking. I also expressed concern that it wasn’t getting enough to eat and suggested that we leave the door open so bugs could fly in. We’ll see how long it stays in its present location.

A Moment of Calm

I’ve about reached my limit of social interaction this week. I think I am going to lay low today. I plan to help at the craft co-op sale tomorrow and Saturday and that will involve more people-ing. I don’t have anything in the sale because I haven’t been in production mode this year, but I enjoy being there.

I was home for a bit yesterday morning, so I nudged the sling bag project along to the point where I am about to sew the three main pieces together. I probably will sew the first two pieces together today, but I am waiting on binding to arrive from Sailrite. I can’t sew everything together until I get the binding because the seams have to be bound in a specific sequence. I am a bit surprised at how quickly the bag came together, although this is not my first bag rodeo.

The center of the Economy Block quilt from Tuesday’s class is in its final form:

I put the 11" and 8" blocks back together the same way I had done them in class—thank goodness for phone cameras—then played around with the 5" center squares. The quilt really wanted those pops of black. I ran back to the store in the middle of the afternoon to get a few more pieces of fabric so I could fussy-cut the remaining 5" blocks. I could have gone softer and less dramatic, but I love the contrast. Putting this together might be today’s project.

Matchy-matchy quilts have never been my thing—I adore scrappy—but this one pushed the envelope. Will I make another? Perhaps. I certainly learned a lot from Kaffe and Brandon about how color and fabrics play together.

While I was at the store yesterday, I was seduced by this fabric (Ammonite), designed by Phillip Jacobs. He is the third member of the Kaffe Fassett Collective, along with Kaffe and Brandon.

I bought enough to make another quilted jacket. Hot pink has always been a signature color for me and this fabric is even more spectacular in person. I won’t piece this; I’ll simply quilt the yardage together with a lining fabric, then cut out the pieces and assemble it the same way I did my BU jacket. Sometimes the fabric needs to be the star of the show.

Brandon asked me on Tuesday about my area of sewing, because I think he believed I was mostly a garment sewist. (Half a dozen pieces I made were hanging in the store.) I laughed and said I dabbled in everything. Back in my knitting days, I was very focused on stitches and texture. That was fine for that time in my life, but now I want to try it all.

*******

I need to sort potatoes today, too. That will be a good project for this afternoon when I can sit on the porch and enjoy the sunshine. It looks like today will be our last warmish day; temps are dropping into the 60s and 70s from here on out. We did get down to about 32F the other morning, but I haven’t gone out to the garden to see how the tomatoes are doing.

Anna came over last night and got a few squash. I showed her what I was planning to use and told her the rest was up for grabs.

I love this cooler weather for cooking, too. I make a lot of soups and stews during the colder months. A nice batch of curried butternut squash soup sounds delicious.

The Kaffe Fassett Event

Kaffe Fassett had his first knitting pattern published in Vogue Knitting in 1986. At the time, I was a junior in college, happily knitting my way through All Sweaters in Every Gauge and Great Knitting in Vogue, the only two knitting books I owned. I made sweaters for many of my friends; in fact, one of them recently shared a photo of hers on Facebook. She has kept it for all these years. Kaffe entered the scene during those years and nothing in the knitting world has ever been the same since. And now he quilts.

If you had told me back in 1986 that some 40 years later, I would be in a quilt class taught by Kaffe Fassett—in Montana—I doubt I would have believed you, for lots of reasons. And yet here I am, because life is funny that way.

On Monday afternoon, I went to Flathead High School and helped to set up for the Kaffe lecture. The store put up a pop-up shop in the commons area outside the auditorium, so we unpacked boxes of quilts for display and bolts of Kaffe Fassett Collective fabric to sell. I wore one of my Kaffe wideback tops. Marianne told us later that they had cut and sold 307 yards of fabric before and after the lecture.

And then, the big event:

(We were asked not to take photos during the actual lecture.)

Brandon Mably, who has worked with Kaffe since 1990, came out and got the audience warmed up. He and Ashlee handed out door prizes. And then Kaffe came out and walked us through the most fascinating story about learning to knit and learning to quilt. He took questions from the audience afterward. Both he and Brandon are very engaging and entertaining.

Yesterday morning, I packed up my sewing supplies and headed to the store. Twenty lucky women—including me—had been able to get into one of the two classes. I chose the Economy Quilt class. The Economy quilt block is an old block pattern.

When I arrived, Brandon asked what fabrics I had brought, which weren’t many. First, I wasn’t entirely sure what kinds of fabrics to pull. Second, my stash is a bit light on the kinds of fabrics we ended up using—big, bright florals. Brandon assigned Kaffe to go shopping with me in the store. Kaffe asked me what color I wanted to use and I said, without hesitation, “Yellow.” I love yellow and I can’t wear it because I look like death warmed over.

I think Kaffe took that as a challenge. We went through the store and he picked out about 14 bolts of fabric—both conventional prints and batiks—in yellows as well as yellows leaning to both green and orange. I had stripes. I had prints. I had a huge variety of fabrics and I had no idea what to do with them. He told me to get half a yard of each.

The store had put up individual flannel design walls for each student. We were instructed to cut 11" blocks from our fabrics and arrange them in checkerboard fashion, alternating lights and darks. I happened to be stationed closest to the door from the classroom into the store, so the store staff kept coming in and suggesting other fabrics to add. I joked that we were designing my quilt by committee. Brandon and Kaffe walked around and made comments and suggestions, some of which were conflicting. 🤪

By lunchtime, I had this:

We put 8" squares on point on top of the 11" squares, then put a 5" square in the center. I should mention that I had the only yellow quilt in the bunch. Everyone else stuck to blues, earth tones, or pinks and reds.

We were not allowed in the classroom during lunch. The day was beautiful, so we sat outside in the parking lot. At the end of lunch, Kaffe and Brandon walked around and looked at each quilt and conferred with each other before they allowed us back into the classroom.

Those 5" squares were the ones giving me trouble. Kaffe wanted those blocks to be florals. Ashlee suggested some graphic prints, some of which I liked. Kaffe wanted some pops of black florals. Brandon disagreed with him. I know what I want, which will go into the final design, LOL.

I added another column of blocks, and then we went shopping for border fabrics. I love love love the border fabrics for my quilt.

At that point in the class, everyone was being so generous and sharing fabrics. We were fussy cutting bold prints and that gets costly after a while. Some of the extra black florals that I had cut for my quilt ended up in other people’s designs, and I took a few contributions from my tablemates. During the conversation, it turned out that the husband had done concrete work for the lady sitting next to me. Life in a small town.

At the end of class, Kaffe walked around the room and stopped at each design board to critique each quilt. (This is a bad photo because I was getting so much backlighting.)

His comments were so helpful. I am excited to finish this quilt. It is so beyond anything I have ever done before.

I was invited to dinner with the store staff and Brandon and Kaffe. We sat outside and enjoyed a delicious meal cooked by Ashlee’s husband and talked for two hours about fabric and teaching and life in general.

Kaffe and Brandon are teaching another class today—a diamond quilt pattern—before heading off to Utah for their next commitment. I told the husband that I think these last few days were the high point of 2025 for me. We owe Marianne and Ashlee so many thanks for making this event happen.

And 20 year-old Janet would be very surprised to find out where she ended up in 2025. 😊