Installing the Metal Roofing

We have this habit that I’ve jokingly started referring to as “drinks on the verandah,” where we take a break in the afternoon and check in with each other. The husband grabs a beer and I make myself a whiskey sour and we sit in our old people glider rocker on the back porch and survey the kingdom. Yesterday, I asked the husband how the metal roof installation was going and he said, “Good—I am 1/6th of the way done.” Of 108 panels, he had installed 18 of them by that point. He had to take a break for some thunderstorms and dinner, but he did a few more before calling it a night. It looks good:

I am so glad the Architectural Review Committee insisted on spending the extra money for brown roofing. I’ll be looking at this shop for years to come and I didn’t want to be staring at acres of galvanized every day.

The Interior Design Committee also started decorating the new shop:

When DD#1 and her boyfriend were here a couple of weeks ago, we made them go on date night with us. The four of us went out to eat and then ended up at Harbor Freight so the husband could buy a new jack. I went next door to Hobby Lobby. The three of them came looking for me, and as the husband had never been in Hobby Lobby before, I gave him the grand tour. Hobby Lobby carries all manner of metal signs and other kitchsy decorations. I’ve peppered the old garage with half a dozen metal signs and I noted that he would need some in the new shop, too, for what is a shop without metal signs? We both saw this one. It was on sale when I went back this week to get some sewing supplies, so I added it to the cart. I nailed it up next to the man door. It makes me laugh.

I mowed the grass yesterday morning—hopefully for the last time this season, as it’s going to get hot and the lawnmower’s self-propel mechanism has been malfunctioning intermittently—and then I worked in the garden until lunchtime. After lunch, I sewed. The fair apron is almost done, but I am thinking I might make a second, better version to enter into the fair. I am not happy with the binding on this apron, and when I say “not happy,” that is just me being incredibly picky. Some of it is the vagaries of attaching narrow 1/4” binding and some of it is the design of the apron. I preshaped the binding and attached it using the one-step method. I can sew slowly, stitch by stitch, on Vittorio and was getting reasonably good results (as I did on the first iteration of this apron), but I think I’d like to try it again and sew the binding on using the two-step method because fair entry. I also got out the vintage binding attachment and monkeyed around with it, but I need a lot more practice. This apron has some 90-degree curves and the binding attachment wasn’t handling those well at all. The straight sections looked really nice, though.

The other issue is that I made this version in a size Large, and while I like the fit of the upper bodice better than the Medium, the bottom half of the apron is too big. What I need to do is use the Large pattern piece for the front and the Medium pattern pieces for the sides, and then I think it will fit perfectly. I don’t mind making this again—it’s a relatively quick sew.