Not just one, but TWO lights!! First, I’ve been wanting to get back to my sewing and crafts for many months now, and I finally got there. Started three things - one, a really cute purse for a “sister” (long overdue Christmas gift), next I'm finishing a pair of knitted fishing gloves for another sister (again, long overdue) and finally a “test apron” of a new pattern for the stack of them that I owe as… uh, yeah, more overdue Christmas gifts! Hey, my heart’s in the right place, I’m just time management challenged! This apron pattern calls for seven yards of bias tape. Well, the ready made stuff was either boring or just didn't match the fabrics I had chosen, so, I decided to make my own. No problem, have made lots of it in the past, but this time I bought a cool little gadget for $6 that makes it way easier. Feed the continuous strip of fabric in -- pull out folded stuff on the other end and run the iron over it! Also spotted a cute little machine that folds AND irons it for you, but it was $99. I like $6 better!! (Yes Catherine, that's YOUR apron fabric I'm using as a background!)
I also need to make “machine rolled hems” on all the apron ties – never done that before, but did lots of it by hand when I was making and smocking baby clothes for everyone. So, found a presser foot online for $23-25, then hit our local sew-vac repair shop and bought a couple of used ones for $3 each. I cannot believe how well these things work! Of course hubby's immediate response was – “can you reupholster my ’49 Buick seats with that?” He’s been asking almost daily for YEARS now. Answer is and will always be, NO. So, here’s the first apron – it’ll match all my black cat décor for the trailer at the vintage trailer rally this Halloween in Kernville!
The second light is the fact that we have a new schedule at work: FOUR TENS!!! Starts on July 20th and it can’t get here soon enough for me. As it is now, my weekends that I’m home have three components: All routine housework and errands one day. Special heavy duty projects one day. Relaxation, recuperation, recreation one day. Obviously I’ve been a day short my whole life, so now, PROBLEM SOLVED!! Thank goodness they got this enacted while the days are long – I am so excited!
Interesting visitor the other morning – a Turkey Vulture! Each spring and fall nearly 40,000 of these critters migrate through here to points south, some as far as Northern Venuzuela. I am just fascinated by so many of them at one time. I was taking a picture of a group of them spiraling up the thermals, when my hubby said “you might want to be careful “looking up”! Yikes! I forgot about that! Anyway, here’s the picture – not very good, they were so high up it looked like black pepper specks on a blue table cloth. (Click on picture for larger yet blurry image) They roost in the big trees around the corner from us along Old Town Road. It is SO creepy – by October most of the leaves are off the trees, but there are so many of them that when you first come around the corner the trees appear to be fully leafed out again… then you realize that the leaves are black and they weren’t there yesterday! One year we hiked across our defunct golf course, and under the big trees there was a blanket of enourmous vulture feathers. Another year I noticed one lone vulture who didn’t migrate. This poor bird somehow spent the entire winter perched on a big boulder outcropping high above Old Town Road. Must’ve relied on the daily roadkill of birds, ground squirrels, and skunks. Occasionally I’d see it on a lower branch of the nearby tree, and by spring it had moved up a branch at a time and then I did see it flying around with a couple large flight feathers missing from one wing. Amazing. I’m guessing the one on our low fence might be in a similar situation.
