Ruching a beaded gown, Feral Jane is my Hero, Everlasting torment

Feral Jane is my hero this week.    I have this show I will be doing on Friday night that requires a very pretty very formal gown.  I found a beautiful piece of beaded frosting at Nordstroms rack.  Just like every dress I have ever bought.......its too long.   It was suggested by the director of the show that I ruch it instead of hem it.  Genius idea and truly the best option.....But.....oh my God.........  This is a beaded gown that was almost $500  before all the discounts you get  at the rack and I was terrified of ruining it. It looks like something from the movie Titanic.  After walking wide circles around it for 2 days and treating it like a spider in the middle of the floor ....Feral Jane took one of her precious  2 days off and came over to help. We circled it some more.... drank some coffee , threw around ideas, drank more coffee and ate tuna fish sandwiches.  During the coffee part...... Feral Jane referenced her long dead great Aunt who was a cranky manipulative fashionista who had obviously sold her soul to the devil for the talent she had with sewing.  Jane recalled  a moment from her childhood,watching her aunt  ruch a garment and marveled "of all  the things I saw her do....why this one stuck in my memory...I'll never know".  So, using the knowledge of a woman who is in everlasting torment, as we speak,  Jane and I began working around noon and finished right before dinner.

Here is the finished product.  When we started.... the bodice was  a long straight  thing and now is fitted and flattering.  We took off 4 inches.

Seattle Urban farming, Sky Nursery, Mud Bay Granary cum pet stores, Wet and waiting.

Are we there yet?....are we there yet?.........are we there yet?.... No, its not a road trip with  a car full of 8 eight year olds.  Its the month of March for Seattle Urban farmers.   A trip to Sky nursery finds that Jimmy and I are not the only impatient twitchy gardeners in Seattle.  There are hundreds of us wandering through the green houses  at the north end of Aurora and making lists towards the utopian fantasy gardens we have in our heads where everything is lush and green and fruitful. In our heads we are already rolling naked on soft beds of aromatic basil and   licking the juice of fresh strawberries from the lips of our  gardening partners (yeah I know.... too much info about what Jimmy and I do in the garden but, hey its all in the name of journalistic  honesty).  The cold hard reality of it is..... we are standing in our yards , in our muddy wellingtons and damp hoodies waiting for it to stop raining so we can DO something. There are only so many times we can count the seeds in the cardboard box we lovingly call our 'seedbank'.  And while we  wait for the skies to turn  to just plain old Seattle  'over cast'  the list of things that need to be done just keeps getting longer.  Putting vermiculite or any other  soil additive would just be pointless right now...Cuz it would just...... wash away.  So...... we wait. Last fall's visit from the messenger of the Gods, (the blue Heron that ate my fish) appears to have left a gouge somewhere in the pond that needs to be patched. Just about the time we think it has drained through the leak to the point where we can FIND the leak, it pours and the pond fills up again.  So.....We wait.  Through a design flaw  in the chicken coop  that put the roost  too close to the nest.... resulting in the girls pooping in the nest regularly,  (hey we were beginners  and acceptable mistakes were made) We now have to move the coop so we can get behind it and  rearrange the  the roost (yes I could do it from inside but then we would have  screws sticking out of the  walls).  Its so wet in the pen, that the jack we need to move it two feet keeps sinking. So...... We wait.
On an up note though, Jimmy and I had to take a trip to Greenwood yesterday and  on a whim stopped by the Mud Bay pet store    to see if they  might carry chicken feed... saving us  a trip to  'almost Bothell' and the Mud Bay pet store  there.  Yes folks the Mud Bay pet supply store carries  chicken feed.  Jimmy and I  LOVE  Mud Bay!   Mostly cuz we were getting our supplies from them in Olympia 15 years ago when they were still the  The Mud Bay  Granary on Mud Bay road.  Back then they sold a lot of  farm feed and hay and straw bales.  Its nice to know they still remember their roots.  And Its nice to be able to patronize a locally owned business. 
So, there's our Seattle Urban farming  update. We are waiting and trying to stay  dry!