How Hard Can It Be To Make A Hat?

Evidently too hard for me.  I got all the hat parts cut out, skimmed the directions, and started sewing.  When I got the first crown and sides pieces together I sensed something wrong.  Like, it was flat.  It was supposed to look like a pot--flat top and straight down sides--so I double-checked the pattern piece markings to discover that I'd sewn the hat top to the brim.  Trash.  Re-cut.  Start over.  (see the word "skimmed" up there in the second sentence?  there's your problem, right there)  Once I got going it made more sense.  And with a break for supper I got it done.  Ta-da!  A reversible bucket hat for LC.  Really, it's one hat turned inside out.

After I finished the hat I drilled holes in the tepee poles and got them lashed together.  Earlier I went to Fleet Farm for leather shoelaces, found some, and asked a teenaged clerk if they had leather for lashing in any other department.  She looked at me like I was speaking a foreign tongue, called around, and said they had nothing else.  So I found the rope department and bought a few yards (okay, 15 yards) of starter cord in case the leather wasn't the right stuff.  But it is.  Look!  All I have to is weave in the tails and I'm done.  Although I might go looking for some of those cup things you put on chair legs to keep the poles from slipping and the fabric from slipping off the pole quite so easily.  For now, though, it's operational.

June 29--Gordon E. Smith--Vegetable Food Pyramid.  Ava stood on the sidewalk with her basket on her arm.  She felt like she was on the edge of another world, a world where food was fresh and washed clean but not processed.  She paused in the same spot every Saturday before she plunged into the stream of people moving up and down the stalls at the Farmer's Market.  She had some thoughts about what she hoped hoped to get, asparagus and summer squash for sure, and some spring onions if anyone had them, but she mostly wanted to soak up the atmosphere.  People were happy at the market, they smiled and said hello.  They stopped to chat with friends and they talked to strangers.  Ava loved to soak up that small town feeling, hoping to keep it alive through the week.

I was determined to get this done before leaving for work because the Shift keys on the fancy (and expensive) Mac keyboard rarely work so it takes twice as long to type a blog post and, besides, it's extremely annoying.  Plus I have to stop to pick up a tank on my way across time.  Gotta go!
--Barbara