High Button Shoe
August 15
...I am sitting here in the midst of what might appear to be dandruff or olde grey insulation, however, I think it must be several inches of brain function matter that has fluffed off. Yup! I did it! I have been making witches shoes! Like childbirth, we often forget just how traumatic a procedure is, occasionally, until we decide to do it again. And for my two children who read this, NO, I am not considering childbirth again, yegads! Such is my efforts to make the dreaded witches shoes. How can one item, well, two, as it is a pair of them, make such a mess of my house! First, I went over the instructions again, reading intently each sentence to make sure it sunk in. AND this year, made sure I didn't cut said vamp and sole until I had 'flipped' the pattern over as to make a left and right shoe. I bought 2 packages of interfacing and making the same mistake as last year THREE times before I got it right, I left the interfacing ON the ironing board with the side that is supposed to adhere TO my material right there and never moved it. No sense in going thru that trauma more than 3-4 times. Had anyone moved my interfacing, I would have seriously had to consider great bodily harm to them. As it is, most people would have the good sense to stay clear of me while making witches shoes! Anyway, so that interfacing did not move at all, I left the ironing board up in the utility room, to continue to use as I needed more material with interfacing on it. Try to remember to have your right and wrong side of your material up or down, as to how you did it the first time. Un-huh. You can see my dilemma. I am in way over my head to begin with. I seriously don't think my brain understands interfacing. So anyway, I end up with more lefts or more rights than I do pairs. And while trying to use up all those little scrap pieces that I can cut the 8 pieces I need for the heels out, and obviously NOT keeping count of how many I have, but rather trying to use the material all up with those pieces, I have enough heels now for some time. So this morning, after 2 cups of coffee, but no chocolate or red licorice to help my thought process, I start once again, as I have one right shoe, 4 heels and no left shoe. I carefully put my vamp and sole on the correct side of the fabric, trace around it, cut it out, pin it, and proceed to sew up my shoe. Come back to the harvest table which is unrecognizable as a table now, except for the 4 table legs visible, certainly not from the top of the table which I haven't seen in probably a month....only to find I didn't make a left shoe, I made a right shoe! So now I have two right shoes, 4 heels, and still no left shoe. IF I can get myself together this afternoon, and that is beginning to look doubtful, I will attempt to make TWO left shoes, to go with my two right shoes, and I will have enough heels for all four shoes! So my pitiful production line continues. Just relaying all this now to Ronnie who only surfaces for meals, when I am making witches shoes, quietly and probably without giving much thought to it ( he likes to live dangerously), says, "well, you could probably just stop, you know." OH, NO, I am going to get this right! I am going to make these drated shoes, until I end up with the right amount! In the meantime, I can no longer stand the mess on the dining room table and while it is only a temporary solution, I am throwing all the pattern pieces from other projects, now temporarily on hold while I struggle with the dumb shoes, into Kroger sacks, picking up my thread, needles, pins, and various tools, polishing off the old table, and am going to make me some coffee and sit at a clean cleared off table. I am taking down the ironing board, putting the iron away, as I used up all my interfacing I had ( I now could safely make about 12 pairs of shoes with all the fabric I have glued to the interfacing), and I really HAVE to do some laundry. With the ironing board and all my production line set up in the utility room, it barely left me room to get to the washing machine! Ron doesn't ask much of me, but he does like to have underwear in his drawer.I am hampered in my cleaning efforts by the recent trip into the local vacuum cleaner store with the long end of my vacuum tool that is used for dusting things. Waiting on another customer, when my turn finally came, she just looked at me and asked "WHAT I had in my hand????" Thinking it was fairly obvious, it was the whole 2 piece wand and duster end for my upright vacuum cleaner, perhaps she was temporarily confused by the duct tape, scotch tape, and rubber bands holding it together in one piece and not too good a job at that and practically missing all its paint. I obviously have been using too much force on this piece(that was why it kind of cracked and I had to duct tape it), and now the end comes apart and the brushy thing slides off unless you hold it specifically in one direction. Unfortunately that direction is not real conducive to using that tool to vacuum with. Most of the time, my time spent vacuuming was bending over to pick up that dumb piece that kept sliding off. So anyway, I was there to get a new wand, and a new dusty end piece, one void of duct tape that I could now resume my cleaning with, without all the frustrations of all the above said. NOT. She doesn't even carry this stuff. Neither does Meijer or Walmart. So there I am. Back to my duct tape. AND I need a new belt. That would be why it doesn't work in the upright position and won't pick up anything, and is why I used the other dusting tool to do the floors with, but you can't buy a belt unless you know your model number. Do I seriously strike you as someone who knows the model number of my vacuum cleaner?? No. I DID know the model OF the vacuum and what it looked like. That mattered not. AND in recanting all this to the other half of this household, he looks at my vacuum and tries to take the bottom plate off and cannot get it off. Absolutely cannot get it off! SO when I do find my model number, which will have to be ON the vacuum itself somewhere as I cannot find the manual.......... we probably can't get the plate off to put a new belt on anyway. I tell you this, because while the harvest table may be cleaned off, I will be under the table with my eyebrow tweezers, picking up all those tiny pieces of thread and little snippets of cloth I cut off so merrily with no regard to where they were falling. We are showing the shoes on www.crowsoup.com and can be found athttp://www.crowsoup.com/Market586.php. Please consider buying my shoes! A few sales will pay for 8 bags of chocolate and several bags of red licorice, perhaps some Tylenol, a couple rolls of duct tape, a new bag of rubber bands to hold that slidey end on with.Okay, I know what you are thinking. BUY a new vacuum! However, when we move to the old house in the spring, I will have all hardwood floors and will need a totally different type vacuum. No carpet. So for the next several months ( I have it figured out, it is the gestation period of a pregnancy...) I am stuck with this vacuum. I wonder how many friends I have, that I can ask to borrow their vacuum cleaner every couple weeks?? Did you know that new vacuum cleaners cost about the same amount as your mortgage payment? I also am privy now to the various machines NOT to buy, which attachments should be used, which should not, and feel if I buy a machine from anybody but them, I will be doomed to duct tape forever.Update of the gourds. The field/garden ones are growing at a snails pace and better hurry up if they will become anything before frost. The fenced in garden ones are wrapping themselves around everything, snaking themselves thru the fence and gourds will be growing UP the fence. Oh, and speaking of snakes, I have yet to see the 'anaconda' from the barn again, but just in case, I have been driving around the barn every few days, in the hopes that he will be out sunbathing in the now worn down path and my truck will do him in.Update on baby turkey and mama. Neither of them have been back in. I know not of their whereabouts. She was here everyday before. I hope they made it.Okay, I have kept you long enough. Me, the Kroger sack, and the eyebrow tweezers have a date for under the harvest table. And just to be on the safe side, I think I will put some coffee on.Thanks for asking to be a part of our farm.in fond regard, ClotildaTo unsubscribe to this letter, just put that in the subject and I will take you off the mailing list!