Life Without a Dog

Thank you all for the kind words about Lila. I will not lie; it has been a tough couple of days. I am used to having her here with me in the house and it is disconcerting to be entirely alone.

The last few days have been cool and rainy. The only thing happening in the garden right now is that the tomatoes continue to ripen. I cleaned the house, made half a dozen pillowcases, finished some rolled hem napkins, and cut out another Kensington skirt—black ponte this time—and a couple more T-shirts.

I was talking about fabrics with a friend of mine who also makes her own T-shirts. We agreed that we can’t quite understand why Joann Fabrics has such ugly garment fabrics. Truly, some of them are really hideous. Joanns has a line of knits—the 98% cotton/2% spandex ones—that are carried under the Pop! label and intended to be for juvenile apparel. Naturally, they are heavy on dinosaurs, cute forest animals, and bright colors, as they should be. My biggest gripe with that line is the scale of the prints. Kids’ clothes, especially baby clothes, are tiny. The prints should be scaled down accordingly, but they aren’t. Some of the motifs are way too big for small pieces of clothing.

And someone thought this was appropriate for a line of juvenile fabric:

It’s cute—this middle-aged woman bought some to make a T-shirt out of—but it’s not what I would consider a “juvenile” print. Also, the scale is too big for small clothing. Those greenhouses are 4” across. The print will look fine in an adult garment, but it’s going to look weird in a T-shirt for a young child.

I get it—this is Joann Fabrics we’re talking about. And I am aware that they’ll try to squeeze as much revenue out of a design as possible, so they’ll often have the same design available in cotton, fleece, flannel, and knits. That doesn’t leave much consideration for the appropriateness of the design for the fabric. A design that looks good as a fleece blanket might not look good on a kids’ T-shirt. Still, I wonder how one gets to be a fabric designer for them, because I am tempted to apply for the position. Because wouldn’t it be better to design fabrics that are attractive and of the correct scale and sell out of them instead of having a whole bunch of leftover ugly fabric that has to go on clearance or be sold as scrap?

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Our church conference had its annual meeting yesterday. We were hoping to have it in person this year, but out of an abundance of caution, the Board decided to have it online, instead. I was planning to fringe a finished prayer shawl during the meeting. However, I could not find the fourth skein of yarn in that colorway (Lion Brand Homespun). I make the shawl with three skeins and use the fourth for fringe. The missing skein might be in the bin of yarn at church. I grabbed another batch of yarn from my stash and cast on for another shawl. The meeting lasted several hours and I got a good chunk of work done.

[I again wonder how meeting attendees can sit for three or four hours with nothing to work on. Is it just me that has trouble?]

One of our discussion questions during the meeting was whether or not we should meet in person or online. The churches in our conference are geographically spread out, unlike conferences back east where you can swing a cat and hit a dozen Mennonite churches within a small radius. Ours is the congregation furthest east, in Kalispell, and there is a congregation in Anchorage. Meeting locations vary, depending on who is willing to host them, but it’s a 12-hour drive from here to Boise or Portland. We also have winter driving conditions to contend with. (I did comment, though, that I’ve made to the trip to the February meeting in Portland twice in a snowstorm, because if you live here, you just learn to drive in it.) Ultimately, the vote was 2/3 in favor of hybrid meetings, where those who want to gather in person can, and those who want to join in online can do so as well.

I am 100% in favor of in-person meetings. I hate Zoom, for all that I get a lot of knitting done. Part of that is my fondness for road trips and part of that is a desire to see my friends in person. I can’t get to Seattle for a while yet, but I am planning to squeeze an overnight trip to Spokane into the schedule here before too long. The rain has eased fire concerns enough that I am comfortable venturing further afield.

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I had a good conversation with the quilt store owner yesterday about classes and students. One of the issues with Thursday’s night’s class was a lack of preparation. One lady hadn’t received the supply list. (I do bring leftover fabrics and supplies in case that happens, but I don’t want students to rely on me to provide things.) Several students wanted to shop for supplies when they got there, despite the fact that I was very specific in the supply list—down to suggesting a suitable brand of thread—so they could buy before class. A couple of people walked in and announced that they had never taken the machine out of the box/closet and had no idea how to thread it. Another student wasn’t interested in rolled hems on woven fabrics and wanted to jump right to lettuce edges.

It’s going to take some time and ongoing “training” to get students used to taking classes, but I pointed out that if the store is going to continue to attract nationally-known teachers—Krista Moser will be there in a few weeks—those teachers are going to expect students to come to class ready to learn. I suggested that the store make something available, either on the website or as a handout when registering, that gives tips for “getting the most out of a class.” I offered to write it up. The handout would include things like becoming familiar with the machine before class (and bringing the manual), having the correct supplies, and not expecting the teacher to tailor a group class specifically to individual students.

This isn’t going to happen overnight, and there will always be students in a class who come less than prepared, for whatever reason. For these serger classes, though, I am going to insist that if someone has never used a serger—or never used the serger they want to bring to class—that they either take a mastery class, first, or make arrangements for a private class ahead of time. You could get away with coming to a sewing class with a new-to-you sewing machine, but sergers are a whole ‘nother beast entirely.