Never a moment's peace.  I put the new dress on Tessie.  She made no comment on the style or even the color.  All she did is run for the sewing box that has all of her aprons in it.

She yelled over her shoulder as she went.

OK!!! Get to work on my dressing room NOW
!!!!!

When she returned, she had on one of the first aprons that I ever made for her. She was smiling from ear to ear.
Then she turned around and put on another apron.  This time the purple one that she says matches the French Lavender in the back yard.

Her only comment on that one was... "Maybe it will match the grapes.

Then "Do you have any paint this color.  We can paint the grapes before we put them on  the vines...

I realize that the "we" really meant "me".
I turned around and in that split second, she had her valentine apron on.

She explained that she didn't get to wear it this year. Then she started mixing up a strong brew to make people do what she wants, when she wants it done.

No... I am not going to let her slip it into my morning coffee!!!
The last one she tried on was the Halloween apron with all of the skeletons on it. 

She merrily danced around the room. Then she turned to me and said... "You know that I have a lot of aprons that need repairing and patching.

As she took it off, she ripped the left shoulder strap.

I guess that I should go start repairing aprons now... But I'm not going to.  I am going to go sip a cool drink and watch TV. Nope.  No more sewing today.

See you tomorrow.

I started the dress that Tessie wanted yesterday at the Witches' meeting.

I put it together today...

I really hated it and Tessie wasn't sure...
She tried on every apron with it... Most just didn't go. The colors were wrong. The patterns to modern.

Icky!!!
I told her to turn around and got the excuse to start over and make her a new White Dress...

She was hiding the fact that all of the aprons were too small to fasten at the back with the new dress.  Too many thicknesses of fabric on the new dress.

I told her to wear it for the rest of the day.  I will make her a new white one tomorrow.  Then maybe I will make a couple of jumpers to wear over it when she is not in need of an apron. 

Poor Pitiful Tessie.  She just can't win. I like the white dresses. She doesn't.

I win! Once again. 

The last words I heard from her as I left the room...

Does this dress make me look fat??? I refuse to answer that, on the grounds that it might incriminate me.

See you tomorrow.

Tessie has been hassling me for a couple of weeks now to put her back in a white dress.  She dislikes black.  Would you believe that she says that it makes her look too skinny? And besides, black clothes scare her.

Anyway, I put her back in white today... She looks like her old pudgy self again... And she is happy about it?

Oh well. To each his(or her) own.
She tried on every apron that she owns. It was a regular runway show for a couple of hours. 

I knew what was coming... She was not going to be pleased with any of the many aprons she owns...

I asked her what she wanted in the way of new aprons.  Knowing full well what the answer would be, before I heard it.......
She flounced into the bedroom... Nobody can flounce like Tessie when she puts her mind to it.

She plopped down on the six fabrics that Gayle brought me and said.... "Hmmmm.....  Let's see... I will have one of each of these.  The blue one first.  It will go with my eyes. 

I am not sure what mirror she was using at the time, but her eyes are brown... Almost black.  They were never blue.

 I sighed and answered her with the usual phrase... "Don't hold your breath, Tessie."

Back to work on the castle.

See you tomorrow.

I found out why Tessie wanted to keep four of the Skeleton Crew out of the box.

Today, she announced that WE would be cleaning all of the closets... Not in my house.  In hers.

Then she proceeded to tell me that at least one skeleton would be assigned to each closet. With the statement, "I always wanted skeletons in my closets.".
I went to get her spare closet and found one of the doors broken, so that had to be fixed before she could put a skeleton in there.  We don't want him getting out and wandering around at night.

I have the door glued and clamped.  Now all I have to do is wait... That's two down and two to go...
I realized that she was running out of closets... She took the third one and led him to her sewing cottage...

She said, over her shoulder as she left, "You can take over where Casey left of at repairing my defective aprons.  Maybe you will do a better job.".

Hey! I'm not complaining about that.  I didn't want to do it anyway.  She has 29 aprons and half of them she has torn asunder...

I am not sure where she is planning on putting the fourth skeleton.  He is still sitting all alone on the ledge by the trailer.  If she doesn't find a place for him, I am going to put him in one of the houses the needs finishing or repairs.  Maybe this will be a solution to all of my problems...Everything will get done, with a Skeleton Crew...

See you tomorrow.

Now that the Skeleton Crew is gone, we of the clean up crew get to work. 

I had to take all of the party participants home. 

Tessie left Zar where he was.  He must be getting old.  He fell asleep about 10:00PM.  He still hasn't budged. He has Spike to keep him warm.

Tessie actually started cleaning the closet.  She announced, "It's much easier without all of those extra aprons. 

I have the feeling that she is, as a grandiose gesture, going to give the Skeleton Crew each an apron... I am hoping that will mean that she will let me off the hook for making aprons for a while.

 I had to check and make sure that there were no more party goers upstairs. 

No party goers, but a very dirty floor.

I spent the morning deep cleaning our real kitchen.  The microwave hadn't been moved since well before the cancer came into view.  Now that it is gone, I am slowly, but surely getting things in the real house back in order... Step by step.

OK... Another floor that really needs cleaning!  The rooftop garden is in bad shape.  Rocky Raccoon is still drinking.  He seems to do that, party or not.  Maybe it's because he has to put up with Tessie all the time.

Anyway, after all of the kitchen cleaning, I am going to wait until tomorrow to do the floors in Tessie's Townhouse.  I do them a LOT faster than she does, so she just waits until I am in the mood.  Tomorrow Tessie!

See you then! 

When I got home from grocery shopping this morning, I found Tessie in the potion room of the townhouse...

I made the mistake of asking what she was up to. She said the nail polish, nail polish remover and other implements on the tray would make a potion of great strength... They smelled like it!

I have never known her to polish her nails or even clip them.  They just grow to a certain length and stay that way...

Then I figured it out.  She was trying to get out of cleaning her closet.  I had mentioned that I needed to clean mine... She must have taken that as a hint...

I shoved her into her closet and then went to clean out mine...

I paid no attention to the wailing and whining coming from the direction of her closet... Mine was bad enough.

Then, suddenly there was total and utter silence...

That can't be a good sign...

I went in and found her clamoring to get out from under the pile of aprons that were overtaking the area...

Then I simply smiled sweetly and said, "I don't think that you need any more aprons, Tessie!"

She frowned and clamored over the pile.  Then she disappeared in a puff of smoke!  It took me a while to figure out where she went... When I did, this is what I found.

She growled at me from under the basket... "I have a new bedroom.  I don't need that house anymore.  You clean it, if you want it clean! If you need to contact me, I will be in my new bedroom with all new possessions!"

Then, dragging one foot to keep the basket tray with her, she headed for the new bedroom...

I am always one step ahead of her.  I got between her and the new bedroom.  I carried it back to the workroom.

If she is going to make a mess of that bedroom too, she is going to do it behind a closed door where nobody can see the mess.

I am off to hunt for something else to do now.  If I want a mess, I will make it myself!

See you tomorrow.

Maybe that should read "Everywhere an Apron".

I repaired six aprons today.  Some needed shoulder straps sewn back on.  Some never had hooks in the back to hold them together.. Or they lost them.  With Tessie's help.

Now that all of the aprons are wearable, it took Tessie about three hours to decide which one she would wear first.


She decided on this green one, because she said that she couldn't even remember it! 

I found it stuffed in the back of the closet.  I think that she wore it once and then forgot about it when I made more aprons...

She now has 19 aprons... and is suggesting that the number be upped to 31!

Her logic is... "I will never have to wear the same apron twice in a month!"
I also have to make some more hangers.  She ran out before the 19th one.

If you want to make hangers, they are easy to do.  Just grab a few paper clips and start bending.  Just put hangers in the search and you will find some here and there between other kinds of hangers.

There is a short description here.
http://caseymini.blogspot.com/2010/05/search-continues.html

The ones that she has in her hand are made of regular wire, with the ends bent up to hold the shoulder straps of the aprons.

At any rate, I think that I am going to have to make more hangers, or maybe I can just use her method.  She piles them up neatly and squishes them into a space between other clothes in the closet...  The only trouble comes when she decides she wants one in the middle... Then the whole mess ends up on the floor...

I am NOT picking it up!  She can do it herself.  That's the house rule!  You make the mess.  You clean up the mess.  I am now going to clean up the mess from sewing.

See you tomorrow.

It doesn't pay to clean the closet!  As soon as it was clean and there was some space in it, Tessie went and got all of the aprons and other clothes from her auxiliary closet.  And she stuffed.  And she stuffed.

Then she grabbed every apron that she has messed up and torn up.  She is hard on aprons.  It does save dresses though. 

She dragged the aprons out to the bedroom and told Zar, "Casey has as many days as I have aprons that are good enough to wear, to fix these.  Remember?  She says she is going to change aprons every day... That should lase about a week.

Maybe I should just volunteer to make that many more.  Some of them are really a mess! on second thought, maybe I will just wait 'til she runs out.

If you would like to work along and make a few aprons yourself, you can go here for the tutorial.
http://caseymini.blogspot.com/2011/05/eight-days-week.html

I started putting the kitchen back together and things got better. She found her favorite rubber chicken in the fridge.

I should have skipped the closet and went straight to the fridge!  As soon as she found it, the aprons were forgotten. 

I am not sure why she is so crazy about that rubber chicken, but as I remember, I hid it in the fridge to keep her quiet.  She was driving me crazy with ideas of how she could use it to irritate Zar.  Poor Zar.  I have a feeling that it is going to start again... Maybe I can kidnap the chicken and hide it in her closet.  She would never find it in there!

I am going back now and start looking through the aprons to see how many are salvageable.  I am hoping for NONE... Wish me luck!

See you tomorrow.

"That's what I want!!!!!!". Can you tell that Tessie was talking just a bit too loud when she said that, yesterday? "I am tired of having to wear the same apron every day for months. I want change!".

She ripped off the green apron and refused to put it back on. It was a little embarrassing. I had to admit that she has been wearing that apron for more than a month. No wonder she is such a grouch.

With nothing better to do....(right), I sat down and drew up a pattern of the apron that I have been making for her for years now. There is no reason that it couldn't be made removable. And I thought that it was about time to share.Some of your smaller people might want an apron or two...

First of all, I put the green apron back together and put a snap on the back of the waist.

She picked it up and put it on....Then she turned to me and said, with just a hint of threat in her voice...."That's one.... You only need to make five more for the time being."

I asked, "What do you mean? Five more?".

She looked at me as if I were a simpleton and heaved a heavy sigh. Then she proceeded to explain, in child like terms...."I have this green one, with a snap. I have the zebra skin one, that will need a snap. I have the patchwork one that you made a while ago, also needing a fastener of some sort. That's three."

"OK. So why five more?" I asked....

"Duh! Don't you listen to the Beatles? There are eight days in a week!", she replied with much exasperation.


So there I sat all afternoon, making apron after apron. You will have to poke the photo to see the pattern better.

Using cotton fabric....No synthetics please. You will just be frustrated if you try synthetics. It doesn't glue well, or sometimes not at all.

Note that the pattern is on 1/4" graph paper, so if there is not measurement, just cut it to size by counting squares.

First glue or sew all of the hems. I prefer white glue for this. It is much faster than sewing. Two sides on the skirt and the bottom are turned under once. Both sides of the straps and waistband are also done this way. You don't have to glue the ends of these pieces. Simply trim them to shape and let them dry. Oh! and the top of the bib piece.

Now gather the top of the skirt piece to fit the waistband with the pointed part sticking out to the side.

Glue the shoulder straps to the sides of the bib, lining up the bottom edges. You can overlap the sides as much or as little as you wish. Just make sure that it fits your person.

Next glue or sew the skirt to the back of the waistband about half way up. Glue the bib to the back of the top. Don't forget to center it.

Last but not least, cut out the pieces for the bow. Then put white glue on all of the edges. Don't fold under. Just let them dry and then proceed with putting the bow pieces together. When dry, glue to the top of the snap area on the top layer. See the apron that Tessie is holding in the last photo.

Now. Please don't tell Tessie how many days there are in a month, or a year, or a decade.....PLEASE don't mention centuries to her!!! Have pity!

See you tomorrow.