Happy Fall Ya'll!

 

It's finally fall!!  I love love love fall, and look forward to it each year!  Yep, I'm that oddball.  

The leaves here in our yard in Southeast Kansas have been falling since July.  The lack of moisture has caused this, and we have a crunchy carpet of brown that doesn't stop.   Our trees are finally starting to turn lighter colors vs straight to brown, and I'm seeing reds and yellows while driving around.  I'm looking forward to the blaze orange and deep reds of the sugar maples.  

Yesterday we had a cooler day, and it was sure a blessing!  Here we've had lots of heat for months, a much hotter than normal summer.  Yesterday it rained and stayed in the low to mid 60's.  Before leaving for work I had the windows open in the house and a nice breeze coming in.  At work my windows were open and even got chilly.  It was great!  I'm looking for that 2 or 3 weeks where it's 60's each day.  

It's been very busy for me lately, working several 12 hour days per week up at the railroad depot.  For those who have followed ABA for the long run, I started as a railroad crew driver back in April.  I started with covering a yard shift here and there for one regular driver who was out on medical leave, then moved to long haul travelling around eastern KS, SW MO, and NE OK.  Long haul is an on-call position, where you go out on trips at any time of the day and night, to anywhere in our catch area.  The crews are great, and I've enjoyed doing the trips.  Recently I moved over to a new position that the main railroad company (I work for a contractor that handles the driving positions for the railroad companies) created, a position that is a combination of yard and some limited travel within a certain radius, and I'm enjoying that.  It's set schedule/hours, and during downtime I work on hand stitching flowers to adorn the dresses and skirts I have out on the ironing board to finish up on my days off.  I've got tons of hair hardware as well to make hair clips/barrettes/pins to make accessories for the shop, or to send along as freebies just because.  These last 2 weeks have been filled with significant overtime hours, and that has taken a bit from the sewing machine time.  

Back at the sewing machine, I've got patterns out for skirts sized 6 months up to as large as one wants to go.  The tiered prairie styled ones run from babies up to 6X, but if needed I can easily add larger sizing.  The paneled skirt is more of an upper teen to 6X, and again can add more panels for larger sizes.  Then there's an adorable banded one that runs from babies to teens, that is fairly simple and sweet.  The tiered prairie and paneled styles are a bit more time consuming as well as take up much more fabric--especially the tiered prairie!  But for modest attire, they are worth the extra in time and fabric.  Until recently I hand gathered each tier, which added extra time/cost to each skirt.  Then, I rediscovered the ruffler attachment to my vintage machines.  I think an angel choir sang the a heavenly song and a light shone down when I found the rufflers hidden in the accessory tote.  Now, I just need the days off to work at the machine and get things made.  

Lately I've started moving items from Etsy over to the stand alone shop.  I've been considering leaving Etsy after 14 years, with the changes I've seen through the years.  I have older inventory in there anyway that are eating up listing fees and renewals and so on.  Through the years I've gotten sales directly on there, as well as side sales that aren't shown, from customers who've contacted me away from there and had desire for split skirts in large amounts for camps.  Those are my main Etsy products that move the most.  I've got a separate shop for scrub hats, set up during Covid, and honestly haven't had much time to handle.  I've got hundreds of scrub hats cut and ready to sew.  No exaggeration.  Even have a couple mannequin heads and backgrounds for them for photos.  Just little time to sit and work through each one.  So, considering putting all the scrub hats into the stand alone store for the duration as well.  I'd really like to move away from Etsy completely, after how they treated Garlands of Grace shop, and with the influx of policies and promotions that just go against our convictions.  It was the suspension of Garlands of Grace that prompted me to open the stand alone store to begin with, but just never had the courage to make the full jump.  

While I've had down time at work, I've been writing some posts as well.  Long hand, in a notebook.  I've really missed writing!  Back in my younger years writing was a passion, then life happened.  I can't wait to get the posts up and going, out of the notebook and into here!  I hope they can encourage you as you go about your daily routine.  

You all have a wonderful day and week!  I hope to see you back here again soon!

I'll be praying for you!

Angie