WIP Wednesday: Rain

Tags

Butterick 5948, cats, clothing, quilting, sewing, travel, WIP Wednesday, Yakima, Yakima Greenway

I was trying to catch them having a kissy-face session, but managed to take their CD cover photo instead.

WIP = work in progress

Well, it has been a week, my friends.  Some ups in there and some downs, too.

Autumn arrived this week, which has me feeling a bit melancholy.  All four seasons have their pleasures, for sure, but I wasn’t quite finished with summer yet!  We’ve had a little rain, which I know is very much needed, but I can’t help but feel a little gloomy when the weather is gray.

And then yesterday, this happened:

Not my fault, but it was a hit and run, which my insurance doesn’t cover.  😦

Sigh.

I’ve been fretting about it–because that’s what I do–but I’ve decided it’s time to move on to the rainbow part of the rain business.  YOU HEAR THAT, BRAIN?

Because some other stuff happened this week, too.

Like this:

Made some good progress on cutting strips for the quilt. 

And this:

B5948 in ALL the colors.  Life lesson:  if you don’t have blue skies, sew some.

You can’t see them here, but I put vents in the sides of this like I did on the tank from this pattern.  Vents always complicate the seam finishing issue–French seams, my favorite seam finish, just don’t play well with them–so I zig zagged the seam allowances on the side seams.  This fabric doesn’t fray much, so I think they’ll be fine.

This took longer than it should have, simply because I was being terribly indecisive about the length of the top and of the sleeves.  I wound up leaving the top a bit longer than I usually do (more of a tunic length) and cutting about 6″ off the sleeves to get them to about a 3/4 length.  (I really should do all my woven blouses with 3/4-length sleeves so that I don’t have to keep rolling them up.)  I wore this yesterday and I think I made the right choice in both cases.

It’s also been raining patterns over here!

I picked up some patterns on sale at Joann’s recently.  I am particularly obsessed with the vest (V8954) and I have a piece of FOREST GREEN mystery knit from SCRAP that I’m going to use for it.

Totally not a Tilton sisters fangirl.

And then I met up with my buddy Heidi last Saturday and she gave me these for my birthday!

We had a lovely lunch and then a walk on the Yakima Greenway.  Highly recommended if you’re in the area.  This part of the path leads right to the door of the animal shelter–a seriously genius move, if you ask me.  I would sure walk a lot more if every walk involved PETTING ALL THE DOGS.

So there’s plenty of good stuff happening in between the stuff that isn’t so great.  I’m basically taking Jenny Lawson’s approach to September:  sit under the sunlight lamp, read a fun book, and pet all the animals.  Plus sewing.

Have a great week, and I hope you’re making time for some good stuff.

STH

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WIP Wednesday: Inside and Out

Tags

cats, quilting, sewing, swears, WIP Wednesday

Up in the hills outside Prosser, scouting out a new cycling route.  As my partner said, “My God, there really is fuck all out here.”  Yep.

WIP = Work in Progress

Happy Wednesday!

Since we last saw our heroine, she has done, well, this:

It doesn’t look like much, does it?

That’s actually something in the neighborhood of 680 1 1/2″ x 6 1/2″ rectangles for this quilt:

There was also this, for the black and white wall quilt:

I tried my best to get Ms Wiggly in the picture, but she wasn’t much interested in color-coordinating with my fabric.

The lap quilt was supposed to only (ONLY) require 576 rectangles, so I cut them and was happy to be finished.  Then I got to thinking about how nice it would be to have this queen sized for my bed, and how a border would get it almost there, and I decided to add another column of blocks.  Which meant another 96 rectangles, so much that I used up almost all of my black and white scraps and had to buy a couple more fat quarters to finish up.

There’s a lot of time to think when you’re cutting 680 rectangles.

I did a lot of thinking about the most efficient way to cut my oddly-shaped bits of fabric, of course.  And about how I learned to entertain myself with my own thoughts as a child, when the consequences of not sitting still in church or school were pretty severe, but there wasn’t much in the environment to entertain me.  And I worked on some ideas for my ideal fantasy home in the woods–you know, the one with the $20,000 long-arm quilting machine, and the massive garden that doesn’t require any weeding, and the cabin that I fix up FABULOUSLY and maintain all by myself despite having none of the skills required to do so.

This is what got me started on that: it’s an abandoned cabin built on the friends’ property where we stayed for the eclipse.  Apparently, it started life as a picnic shelter and just sort of grew from there.

Rustic yet cute.

OMG.  I wonder if my friends realize they NEED a quilt artist in residence?

Sigh.

I hope to make some good progress on my blouses this week, as the weather is turning a bit cooler (YAY) and they’ll be perfect for it.

Have a great week and find yourself some fun wherever you can.

STH

WIP Wednesday: Zero to Sixty!

Tags

Butterick 5948, cats, quilting, sewing, WIP Wednesday

(WIP = Work in Progress)

So last week at this time I was happily dawdling over patterns and fabrics and ways to combine the two.

Then I finished my fabric inventory in Evernote.  And panicked a little bit.  And realized I really needed to get off the damn computer, quit spinning ideas around in my head, and SEW SOMETHING.

So Saturday became Pattern Cutting Day.  I cut Simplicity 8052 (the colorblocked version) out of these:

These actually work better in real life; the knit looks a bit more reddish here than it should.

The one on the right is some sort of drapey synthetic from SCRAP.  I suspect polyester, simply because of those gorgeous colors.

Now here’s the interesting part.  I had wanted to use the poly for the center panel of this blouse, but couldn’t figure out another fabric to match with it (drapey blouse fabric isn’t something I keep around).  I was able to use the “1-2 yds.” tag on my fabric inventory to bring up all the possible candidates and came up with this purple knit that I hadn’t even considered.  I checked the pattern envelope and jersey was one of the recommended fabrics, so I used the purple knit.  That inventory is turning out to be pretty handy!

I also used this pattern to cut my fabulous turquoise curtain fabric:

You may recall this is the pattern I used for my plaid tank; this time, I cut the version with the long sleeves.  I was half a yard short on fabric for that, but I was able to squeeze the pattern pieces on there by changing the cutting layout a bit.  Instead of folding the fabric in half to cut on the front and back pieces on the fold, I just folded it up enough to fit the pieces; that left me enough width to just about cut the sleeves (I didn’t want to piece them because of that big bold print).

Things are also happening on the quilting front.

I recently had to go to the local quilt shop to get a gift and I also managed to come up with a little something for me:

SO VERY ME.

I have two favorite quilts in this book, but decided to start cutting pieces for this one last night:

Is this cool or what?

But I kept hearing this voice in my head telling me how efficient it would be to actually cut BOTH quilts at the same time, since they’re both going to be from my black and white scraps.  And that lap quilt would use up SO MANY scraps . . . .

That’s a whole lotta scraps in there . . . .

I’m a sucker for that whole efficiency nonsense–especially when you combine it with the promise of scrap-busting–so it looks like I’m going to be cutting TWO quilts at the same time.  This is either my best idea ever or my worst.  We’ll see.

Anyway, gotta run.  I have 569 black and white rectangles to cut for that lap quilt, so I may be a while.  😉

STH

UPDATE:  My tube fabric came!

There might also have been a yard of some fun flannel.

!!!

 

WIP Wednesday: Stops and Starts

Tags

Butterick 5456, quilting, sewing, WIP Wednesday

(WIP = Work in Progress)

I’ve been feeling a little stuck and overwhelmed thinking about all I need to do in the next couple of weeks, but some progress is still being made.  As Stephanie and I were discussing yesterday, slow and steady wins the race, so that’s what I’m focusing on right now.

Let’s take a look at the list:

1.  Quilt for my niece:  done!

Isn’t that spiral quilting fun?  I love all the movement in this!  I read several tutorials (best one here) about spiral quilting, then ignored most of what they told me to do.  I used a regular presser foot, regular thread (white on top, turquoise on bottom), and kept the left edge of the presser foot 1/4″-3/8″ from the last line of stitching.  The key thing is to draw the start of the spiral, sew very slowly around it, then go from there.  I don’t think I quite realized how dense the quilting would be, though, so it took a LOT longer than I anticipated.  A bit boring, frankly, but not hard at all.

Right now, this is my favorite of all the quilts I’ve made, but I tend to say that about everything.  😉  This will go out in the mail to my niece tomorrow, and I hope she loves it.

2.  Black hoodie:  cut out and waiting.  You know I love you, Marcy Tilton, but 12 pattern pieces for a hoodie?  Seriously?

3.  Sew-along dress:  Getting there.

Here’s the picture I was too lazy to take last week:

The pleats at the shoulders are just because those seams up there are only pinned.

I was grumpy about it, so I’ve set it aside to work on next week, which is appropriate as it will be the bodice week of the sew-along.  I’ll tackle the peek-a-boo problem with the back keyhole then.

The good news is, though, that I went back and looked at those shoulder seams I had hastily pinned and realized my seam allowance was too narrow.  When I corrected that, it was just enough to hide the bra on the sides.  So that’s one less problem I have to deal with.

3.  Pant hems and pockets–one set of pockets done, will finish second today.  You’ll recall these are the RTW pants I bought that had fake pockets and needed hemming.

I went looking for a tutorial on how to turn fake pockets into real ones, but was surprised to find there isn’t much out there (where are my fellow pocket people??)  I started with this very basic one, but then tried to improve on it.  I’ll see if I can’t get some better pictures and write up a quickie tutorial.

It’s not pretty, but I was determined to not have to disassemble these pants to get those pockets in.

Also–and I will have to try them on again and confirm this because I hardly believe it myself–the pants appear to have shrunk a solid 3-4 inches in length in the wash.  And not at all in width!  I may actually be able to wear pants that I don’t have to hem.  Independence Day miracle?  Sign of the apocalypse?  Who knows, but less hemming is a good thing.

4.  Mondrian-inspired cycling jersey for my honey–better than expected!

The company I ordered the fabric from is supposed to be closed until 7/10, but I received notification yesterday that the fabric had shipped.  Current tracking predicts Wednesday delivery, which would give me a week and a half to sew the jersey before we leave for London.  I can do that.

5.  Navy blouse–probably won’t happen, and that’s okay.

Okay, so my new goal is to get those pants and the hoodie done by early next week, then fix the dress and start on the jersey.

Have a great Thursday and, because I don’t say it enough, thank you so much for stopping by and reading about all my fretting, list-making, obsessions, and general goofiness.  I appreciate your company (and your comments) so very much!

STH

 

 

Sunday Sevens 06-26-17

Tags

Eugene, Oregon, quilting, SCRAP Tri-Cities, sewing, Sunday Sevens, travel

Hot afternoon still life with binding.

Sunday Sevens hasn’t been happening too often around here lately, as I just haven’t had many opportunities to take interesting photos.  I’ve got a few fun things to share with you today, though, so let’s get to it!

SCRAP recently had a jewelry repair workshop and Rachael and I fixed about a bajillion broken bracelets.  I had been stuffing broken jewelry in a box for YEARS, and I’m so happy to have it all back!  This was a big mood booster for me, as I LOVE my jewelry and the arthritis in my hands is to the point now where I pretty much can’t wear rings any more.

I’ve been working away a bit at a time on my fabric database in Evernote.  I’m up to 64 pieces of yardage, which I think is maybe 2/3 of the total.  I’ve pulled out the ones I don’t love and they’ll be going to SCRAP.

This feels like the bigger accomplishment, though.  I went through all my scraps and filled these three big bags with all the ones I don’t like and won’t use.  These bags were posted in my local Buy Nothing Facebook group and wound up going to a little girl who’s taking a sewing class and wants to make doll clothes.  I thought it would be hard to give all this up, but I realized as I went through everything that these fabrics felt more like a burden than anything else–I didn’t want to use them, couldn’t see a way to use them, but I felt a lot of responsibility to not waste them.  When they were picked up, and that burden lifted, I felt light, and so moved that I was able to help out a beginning sewer.  And all my scrap drawers close again!

This past weekend, my partner and I headed down to Eugene, OR, so that he could ride a 300k brevet organized by one of his buddies.  While he was out there riding (in temps over 100F!), I explored Eugene, which I hadn’t seen since I was a kid living in Medford, OR.

Lots of cool older houses and mature trees!

Love this Craftsman bungalow, now divided into offices.  Every time I go to Oregon, I’m reminded how big and new everything is in the Tri-Cities, where I live–pretty much everything here was built after World War 2.

Nifty older theater building.

This looks more like a courthouse, but it’s actually a Protestant church–that’s stained glass in those second floor windows.  I like the blue banner celebrating Ramadan; on the left side is a Pride flag.  This is the kind of thing that cheers me up when the political news is ugly.

Saturday afternoon and evening were spent in the air conditioning at the motel, watching some good TV (PBS) and also some bad TV (horror movie starring some menacing frogs and a very young Sam Elliot) while I worked on my quilt binding.

As always, many thanks to Natalie over at Threads and Bobbins for starting Sunday Sevens and encouraging us to document and celebrate our adventures.

I hope you all have a very excellent week and have a little sunshine wherever you are (temps below 100F would also be nice).

STH

 

 

 

WIP Wednesday: Addition and Subtraction

Tags

quilting, sewing, Simplicity 1199, WIP Wednesday

(WIP = Work in Progress)

I was thinking in the shower yesterday–where I do all my best thinking–that I should take along some sort of hand sewing on Friday when we head down to Oregon again for another bike ride.  I am happily cable-free at home, but I do love sitting in a hotel room in the evening and stitching away on something while listening to a terrible movie.  But the only hand sewing involved in my current list of projects would be the binding on my baby quilt–surely I couldn’t get that quilt to the binding state by Friday, could I?  Because I love a challenge (and I am not quite right in the head), I decided to try it.

I got all the applique sewing done last night; I wasn’t sure I’d ever un-kink my neck again after I finished, but I did it.  Today I figured out my borders and put them on.

I’ll put together my quilt sandwich tonight, then I’ll have Thursday and Friday to quilt and bind.  Maybe I had better start planning that quilting tonight . . . .

I also finished up the second Simplicity 1199 over the weekend, and I’m really liking how this one turned out.  I wore it while out and about on Tuesday, and it was super-comfortable and cool in the hot weather.

The hem needs to be pressed, but it’s not bad for being fresh out of the dryer.

The neckline lies a little better on this, I think because I tried a different method on it.  (Completely forgot I was going to try a chest adjustment on this top until after I’d cut it out.)  The instructions have you apply the neck band like a quilt binding: fold in half wrong sides together, sew raw edges to neck edge, fold band to inside and machine stitch down.  On this one, I sewed the raw edges of the band to the neck, then pressed the band up and the seam allowance down toward the shirt; I then sewed the seam allowance to the shirt, giving it a nice finish, I think.  I’m too lazy to look it up, but I think this neck band technique came from the Love Notions Laundry Day Tee pattern (free when you join the Facebook group), which I printed out lately as a possible use for some SUPER SEXXXXY turquoise rayon jersey I picked up at SCRAP (seriously, with that gorgeous drape, those glowing colors, that subtle sheen, rayon jersey is HAWT).

I spent a fair bit of time working on finishing this top nicely, as I really want to improve my knit sewing skills.  The white fabric with the dots (it looks like one of those über-’70s bead curtain things to me) is a cotton jersey and the edges curled, so I worked diligently to keep the fabric flat when doing the neckline and hems.  I would have loved to use the blue for the neck band, but it has a somewhat rough texture on the right side, and I knew it would drive me bananas to have that on my neck.

So, sure, it’s a pretty basic tee, but I’m proud of the finish on this, it feels lovely to wear, and I may figure out this knit business yet.

 

Could NOT get these in focus for some reason.  😦

Also in Tuesday adventures, I went over to Fred Meyer to look for pants (it’s a Pacific Northwest chain of grocery stores that also carry clothing and other things; I have a terrible time finding pants that fit me, but I’ve had good luck at Fred’s, for some reason).  And, yes, someday I’m going to learn how to sew pants that work for me, but today is not that day.  I found these pants that are totally secret pajamas–look like regular dress pants but don’t have a zip and the fabric they’re made with is actually the stretchiest stretch woven that ever stretched.  Score!  I bought two pairs.

Problem is, those nicely-stitched (if blurry) pockets in the photo are fake!  I googled and apparently this is now a thing.  I haven’t bought pants in YEARS and sometime between the last time and now, lots of pockets in RTW clothing became fake–not just sewn shut but no pocket bag at all.

Now, obviously, you KNOW I’m not standing for that.  Tutorials are being googled and we’re just going to see what we can do about that situation.  (Why, yes, my glasses are perched on the end of my nose and my hands are on my hips.)

So, this week I got one item off my to-do list and also managed to add one more–fixing the pockets and hemming (of course) my two new pairs of pants.

Have a great Thursday and I hope the pluses and minuses are going your way.

STH

 

WIP Wednesday: Conquering the List

Tags

cats, clothing, quilting, sewing, WIP Wednesday

(WIP = Work in Progress)

Making lots of progress here!  Which is kind of amazing, considering how lousy I’ve been feeling, but I’ll take it.

Let’s go through the list of what I wanted to get done before our vacation:

•  Baby quilt for my niece.

All appliqué pieces are cut and fused on!

There might have been a little bit of grumbling and swearing as I made my way along the Steam-A-Seam learning curve, but I got there in the end, and I really love how this looks so far (much better than I was able to capture in my picture).

So many fun fabrics in this!

• Another version of S1199, short-sleeved this time.

Just need to sew side seams and hem.

• Black hoodie.

Last time I went to London, I bought a black hoodie to bring with me, and it turned out to be a very useful light layer.  Now that hoodie is a little scruffy and is being used for exercising, so I thought it was time to make a new one.  My first idea was to use this Greenstyle pattern that I won, but I decided I wanted a hoodie that didn’t look like workout wear, and found this one:

She doesn’t look too thrilled about it, but this is right up my alley.

I’ve got some black ponte for this, and assembled the rest of the supplies yesterday, so it is ready to start.

• B5456 dress for the Facebook sew-along–muslin of the bodice is done, sew-along posts and schedule are mapped out, and preliminary posts are up.
• Navy blouse (McCall’s 7571)–still cut out and patiently waiting for me to get to it.

Have a great Thursday and I hope you’re working on something that makes you smile.

STH

I have linked this post to Scraptastic Tuesday and Whoop Whoop Friday.

WIP Wednesday: Zingin’ and Dingin’

Tags

clothing, quilting, Sew-Along Dinner Date Dresses., sewing, Simplicity 1199, WIP Wednesday

Look–I almost have a waist!

WIP = Work in progress

Today’s title comes from a favorite saying of a former co-worker of mine when I worked for the VP of a meat-packing company.  My desk was in a room full of beef sales people–an excellent location for picking up colorful phrases, as well as beef recipes.

Anyway, this past week I had one of those “OMG, I have HOW much time to do all that stuff?!?” moments when I realized how much I wanted to get sewn before our trip to London and how few weeks there are before the end of July.  So, I was in a bit of a panic,  trying to figure out how I was going to get everything done, and then I got a gentle reminder about the sew-along I’m supposed to run next month.

So, time to prioritize, spend my time wisely, and try not to freak out (or at least keep it to a manageable level).  Today’s post will be me tidying up old business and planning next steps.

First, the Hello Kitty top.

I bought this pattern recently for no other reason than that I have a lot of knit remnants to use up and my knit tops (which I wear a lot, especially when I travel) are looking a bit old and scruffy.  I didn’t think the pattern was very interesting, but worth a try.

I love how this top turned out, though.

I love how it has a little shape and gives me the illusion of having a waist (I tell you, I mourn the loss of my waist).  I love the 3/4 sleeves.  I love the neckline, which isn’t too wide or too low, as usually happens with my narrow shoulders and lack of boobage.  I love how comfy the top is and that I have a matching skirt so that I can look totally put together and elegant in my cartoon cat head shirt.

The binding on the neck is a little wonky, and I’m starting to think maybe I need a hollow chest adjustment.  I’m wearing my plaid tank today, and it has the same problem.  And the hollow chest thing seems to be a common issue among female sewers “of a certain age” (I love how that expression indicates old age without spelling it out, as if it’s a shameful secret).

The hem was also wonky, which I’m going to attribute to sewing it while waiting to hear from my sister at the hospital how my mother was doing after falling and bonking her head.  I needed to leave for my Memorial Day weekend trip, but couldn’t go until I found out what was up, so I thought I may as well do my hem while I was waiting.  Probably not the best idea; I redid it as best I could when I got home.  (And my mother is okay, if a bit more dotty than usual; I suggested she tell everybody that she got in a bar fight and they should see the OTHER little old lady.)

I’m planning to make another version of this top with short sleeves, but that may need to be put off until August.

My other recent finish is the wall quilt, which I had set aside but finally finished yesterday.

The only way I could find to take a pic of the whole thing–binder clips and a bookcase.

You can just barely see it, but there’s a stalk of wheat below the text.  I wanted it to be subtle, and I guess I got that.

To be honest, I had hoped I would love it by this point, but I don’t.  Which is fine, considering it’s not for me.  I hope the recipients do, though.

So, next up on the priority list is the sew-along.  Here’s what we’re making in July:

I love these fabrics!  The yellow is from SCRAP, the flowered from the Goodwill in Newberg, OR, and I think they’re both cotton interlock.

I’ve got several questions about that bodice, so I’m going to make a muslin of it this evening.  I plan to do my dress in a midi length, possibly extend the sleeves a little, and add pockets (because pockets).  I love empire waists and I think this could be a good look for me.

If you’d like to join along, the Facebook group is called Sew-Along Dinner Date Dresses and it’s a very fun and helpful group.  They’re making some really gorgeous (and challenging) Vogue dresses, so they’re acquiring some pretty great skills.  I only wish more of those great patterns were suitable for the waist-free (Vogue 1424–so very cool, so wrong for my shape, sigh).

Have a great Thursday and I hope you’re keeping all your proverbial balls in the air.

STH

WIP Wednesday: Trippy Elephants

Tags

applique, Paisley Splash quilt, quilting, sewing, WIP Wednesday

So much happy color here!

WIP = Work in Progress

I had a busy Memorial Day weekend over on the west side of the state, so not much sewing happened the past few days.  I spent this afternoon making a start on my niece’s baby quilt, though.

If you recall, this is the pattern I’m using (I’m planning to add borders to get it to a better baby size):

And these are my fabrics, sale (of course) flannels from good old Joann’s:

Plus scraps from the stash for all the “splashes” at the top of the quilt:

Some of these have been hanging around a while!

I haven’t done a machine appliqué (guess who figured out how to do accents!) quilt in forever, so I’ve been studying this for days.  Then I realized that I had a package of Lite Steam-a-Seam and I could just use the instructions on that and quit confusing myself with all kinds of different options.

I’m sure there’s a nifty quick method for enlarging things, but I don’t know what it is, and I wasn’t in the mood for more research, so I went old school.

Getting the fusible web where it’s actually supposed to be–off the paper and onto the elephant–was a bit fiddly, but I blame it on the large size of the appliqué.  Or maybe the web gets troublesome as it ages?  I honestly have no idea how long I’ve had this package hanging around . . . .

I eventually got it done (more or less) and this thing is going to be super cute!

I think I’m going to have fun with this one!

I’m tentatively planning to try some spiral quilting on this quilt, which I think would work with the quasi-psychedelic quality of the pattern.

Have yourself a colorful Thursday and I’ll have some pretty pictures from green and sunny Bellevue for you on Sunday.

STH

Sunday Sevens 05-14-17

Tags

bags, Manhattan Project, politics, quilting, sewing, Sunday Sevens

I went out to get the mail yesterday and had to run back in to grab my camera.  Dramatic clouds after a brief hail storm.

A stressful week in many ways, and I’ve spent way too much time online following the news and thinking about the sorts of things that bring down Presidents.  The Watergate hearings are my first memory of paying attention to politics and I’ve got quite a significant case of déjà vu happening right now.

For those of a certain age who remember the last time:

A bit of political ephemera I inherited from my father, another political junkie.

 

On the home front, a couple of fun things came in the mail this week.

Been lusting after this pattern for a while and finally decided it was time.

I had to order some boring black rayon/lycra knit to combine with some of my other knit pieces and I was unable to resist the lure of the Hello Kitty cotton knit.

One of my favorite dinners this week–started with this chicken on a Greek pita with veg and topped with this sauce and some feta.

Saturday evening sewing.  I have obviously not yet learned important life lessons regarding:  1)  NEVER use heavier fabrics like purple twill for a bag pattern that calls for quilting cotton, and 2) NEVER use contrasting thread for topstitching.

On Saturday morning, I took a bus tour through the older parts of Richland, the next town over from where I live.  Someday I really must do a long post on the history of this area (which is super-interesting, at least to me), but here’s the condensed version.

In 1942, the U.S. government chose a parcel of land in eastern Washington state to be the site of a plutonium production facility as part of the Manhattan Project to develop nuclear bomb technology.  At that time, there were two small farming communities there, the towns of Hanford and White Bluffs, plus a few Native American settlements.  The few thousand residents were paid for their land and given 30 to 60 days to leave.  The feds brought in workers from all over the country to raze the towns and construct in their place plutonium-producing nuclear reactors, plus everything that would be needed to house, feed, transport, and entertain hundreds of employees in the middle of the desert.  There was literally nothing and nobody out there, which was by design, as the project was top secret and even most of the people employed at the site didn’t know what they were working on.

The tiny town of Richland, Washington, was unincorporated and became the new home of these workers.  Saturday’s bus tour was to look for remnants of World War 2 and Cold War construction projects in the midst of modern Richland.

Here’s the bus in front of the Reach museum, which organized the tour.  It dates from the early 1950s, and was used to pick up workers in Richland and ferry them out to the Hanford site.

 

How things have changed–the bus has ashtrays!

 

This is one of the H houses built between 1943 and 1945.  Each of the different house floor plans was designated by a letter of the alphabet, so they’re now called Alphabet Houses.

 

This looks like a B duplex; the windows have been replaced and the house appears to be in pretty good shape.  There were originally about 1,000 duplexes–most are gone and many of the remaining ones are a bit run down.

I think this is an A duplex.  Note the detached garage at the right; that would be a later addition, as none of these houses had garages.

Richland also still has a theater, a shopping center, a federal courthouse and some other structures built by the government during this period.  And the parcel of land that the government bought all those years ago was back in the news this week because of the mess they made out there and are still trying to clean up.

A big thank you, as always, to Natalie over at Threads and Bobbins for starting Sunday Sevens and keeping us all grabbing for our cameras.

Have a great week, everybody, and keep well away from any 20-foot pits filled with radioactive material, okay?

STH