In Quick Succession, Another Niagara

I trust most of you have recovered from the shock of seeing a post from me. 

Seriously, thank you for all of your kind comments. While I sincerely appreciate them all, Janet's comment of "While you were gone, I stopped by for 'advice' a couple of times" cracked me up for a good few minutes. And Bonnie@SewPlus, how did I not know about your blog before this week? I spent HOURS reading through it, wanting to make everything you've made, watching your daughter grow up (and you grow DOWN!) — and reliving a hurricane or two. I think we're almost neighbors, right? And Carolyn, I'm out of "retirement." This one's for you. :-) 

So, while the pattern was still on the cutting table, I quickly cut out another Niagara and sewed it up over a couple of days/nights. I made a couple of construction changes on this version, but that's it. 

Instead of front/back facings for the upper bodice, I made it single layer and bound the neckline opening. We're quickly heading into hot temps here in Florida and keeping the polyester layers to a minimum should be cooler. (Who am I kidding? There's no such thing as "cooler" in Florida summer.) 

This is an ITY knit from Fabric Mart a couple of years ago. It's much brighter than it shows in the two pics above. More like the right side of the pic below. Unless you're new here, I'm sure you know how I love bright colors.

No pretty enclosed seams this time, but I'm OK with that. It's faster, lighter, and uses less fabric.

And here I am, with my Old Navy joggers. Not sure if I'll ever be able to wear office shoes again. Also, see that OTT light in the background on the left? I found out that if I have it and my iron on at the same time, I'm blowing a fuse/circuit breaker. Every time. So, the light will be on its way out. I've got an LED bulb in my coverstitch machine which is plenty bright, even for my old eyes, plus another regular lamp over my sewing machine/serger so I'm really not going to miss the OTT. 

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Now to catch up a little on some non-sewing, mundane life news. First is my car, below. Alex was driving it to pick up some dinner and got sideswiped. (Minor accident; he's fine, but boy was I hungry by the time he finally got home.) I took it into the local dealer (not where I originally bought it) for body work and a couple of service issues. They had it for three and a half weeks and I finally got it back last night. Except they missed a couple of things so it's going to need to go back. Ugh. They promised me a free rental this time, but truthfully, I hardly missed it those three weeks. Thanks Covid. 

See this reflector where the arrow is pointing to below? That's one of the things they missed. Or two, actually, since there's one on the other side too. There's also an area where the bumper meets the tail light that needs to be re-aligned better. And I asked them to replace the wiper blades and they missed the one on the back. I'm not overly thrilled with this place. The pic below is from when my new fridge was being delivered last year. I got it right before the lockdowns and before all appliances were selling out. Thankfully dodged that bullet since the new fridge was a need, not a want. OK, it was a want too, just earlier than expected.

House update:  Shortly after moving here, we had a garage built in the back yard. It's really more workshop than garage, and it's really nice to have all the extra space for junk and projects. 

Alex update:  We're still sharing this house, but over the past five or so years, he's been building a real estate "portfolio" of rentals. In December, after selling one that he had rented out for about three years, Alex bought two more fixer-uppers in New Port Richey, which is about 45 minutes north of Tampa. That makes five houses he now owns. 

We've been spending many weekends updating floors, kitchens, paint in Alex's latest additions. Below, is the tile that was in place throughout one of the houses, but it was coming up in places, cracked in others, and not very stable.

Alex jackhammered it all up and is replacing it with vinyl plank (below). After both "new" houses are rented, the plan is to put similar flooring in our house. I don't know if my old knees can take that.

To save my knees, I've been mudding the drywall of a wall and closet we added to what was a second living room, to enclose it for an additional bedroom. The light "fixture" you see is really a new ceiling fan, just with the blades removed. The closet area used to be a pass through to the kitchen. We also added french doors to the left of this view, but I didn't get a pic.

And, finally, the project supervisors … sleeping on the job. I'm glad we don't pay them by the hour.