Brrrrrr

I feel like this week has been a repeat of the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. I don’t know what day it is, the daily routine has been upended, no one is working, and we’re all just waiting for things to get back to normal.

As promised, a photo of the thermometer on the porch at 4 am:

Kalispell broke its previous low temperature record for January 12 (and probably will for January 13, as well).

The husband has been collecting eggs every few hours because otherwise they freeze. The chickens seem to be doing okay. We have two heat lamps in the coop and the flock congregates underneath them. He told me that Dave claimed the prime real estate underneath one of them, which is good. His comb and wattle could get frostbittten otherwise.

We don’t warm up above 0F until almost mid-week. That will feel like a heat wave.

I made another Nathalie yesterday:

The fabric is a Minerva cotton/lycra French terry in the Celestial Motion colorway. It was very easy to work with. For this version, I made the body a bit longer and hemmed it instead of adding a band. This hits me about mid-thigh. I might run up another one today that is closer to dress length, or a length I’d be comfortable wearing with leggings or tights and a pair of boots.

This is such a customizable pattern, a point I plan to emphasize when I teach this class. It can be banded or hemmed (both sleeves and bottom), lengthened, shortened, made with long sleeves or short sleeves, with drawstrings in the cowl or without. Although I like that cowl very much, I would also like to try scaling it back a bit so that it crosses over but doesn’t fold down. I’ve got a couple of tops (from Kohls) with necklines like that.

I might also start an Oxbow Tote. Anna Graham, of Noodlehead, is running a sewalong for that pattern. I watched the first video yesterday. I’m having trouble deciding what fabric to use, though. She shows several different combinations in the video. Should I use a cotton print quilted to batting/foam? A canvas print? Waxed canvas? I am casually shopping my stash to see if anything leaps out at me.

Situations like this are why I have a large stash. I can work on any project I want to and not have to stop mid-creativity because I’m missing some key component.

I pulled a pair of yoga pants out of my closet yesterday that need to be hemmed. I know it’s a trend to wear them long and let them pool around your ankles, but that’s a recipe for tripping and falling. (Also, it shreds the fabric!) I unzipped the original coverstitch hem and cut 2" off the length. I’ll re-hem them the next time I have black thread in the coverstitch machine.

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I joined the Washington State Quilter’s Guild Spokane chapter and I also joined Artists and Craftsmen of the Flathead, which is a local group. WSG has a lot of interesting programs in Spokane. ACF is also very active. I think it’s important to support these groups even if I am not participating regularly.

My podcast interview on Thursday was with two of the organizers involved with Sew Expo, where I am teaching in March. That will air this Tuesday, which is also the day that registration opens for Sew Expo. The interview I did on Wednesday will air the following week.