The Dog Ate My Pin Cushion and Other Sewing Adventures

I’ve been sewing since I was twelve. Well, maybe not consistently. I’d sew a while then do something else for a while and then eventually get back to sewing again. And so it went, if you'll forgive the pun.

When we prepared for our move to Costa Rica I knew that sooner or later I was going to want to take fabric in hand once again… and might even, actually, need to. That being the case, my sewing machine was carefully placed next to the dog crate (which we considered equally essential since we planned on adopting a dog once we were settled) to await the arrival of our shipping container.

Wouldn’t you know that moving day came and went and both items got left behind. Why is anyone’s guess and really doesn’t matter much, as the result is the same. New puppy; no crate (but luckily a shower with a sliding door). And no sewing machine. Period.

It wasn’t long before I started dreaming up projects I would undertake if only that were not the case. Throw pillow covers. Tablecloth. Table runners. Apron. New jammie bottoms exactly like my favorite ones… Not to mention mending.

When we finally came to terms with the fact that we just might have to pay Costa Rica prices ($$$$$$) for one, we started looking around and discovered that Price Smart (the Central America version of Costco) sells a mid-range electronic machine, made by Singer, for less than I could buy the same machine for on Amazon -- before shipping and duty. What a deal!

So my new machine and I have been getting acquainted for a couple of weeks now, as I prepare to tackle my long list of projects. Learning to use the machine’s features, though, appears to be the smallest part of my learning curve.

Certainly, in addition to a sewing device (machine or simple needle and thread), every sewing project requires fabric, thread and various other sewing notions, and in many cases a pattern. No problem… if you live anywhere close to a U.S.-style fabric store like Joann or Hancock. Here it’s a little more complicated.

Finding a fabric store (Tienda Telas) is no problem at all. Even the smallest town appears to have at least one and probably several. Larger towns and big cities seem to have one on almost every block. And fabric is sold not only in fabric stores. You can find upholstery fabric and vinyl in hardware stores, too.

Some fabric stores also sell thread, needles, and bobbins – but not all. So you might just find yourself needing to find a pasamanería – or notions store, especially if you also need ribbon or other trim.

Patterns? Don’t bother looking. You’ll be needing to learn to make your own (or order them online and have them shipped in). But hey! We knew this would be an adventure!!! So, I’m geared up and ready to get started. My friend, Mayra, promises that learning to make my own patterns is a piece of cake. We'll see about that.

But first I need to clean up the mess Yoda made when he ate my (thankfully, empty) pin cushion.

Pura Vida

April (and May, June, July, August, Sept, Oct...) Showers Bring...

Apparently living life in the slow lane has done little to help me overcome my natural inclination to procrastinate. Hence, I’m ever so tardy reporting in.

So without further delay...

A flock of Lora parrots has taken to visiting us regularly. Sometimes they come in ones and twos. Sometimes the whole troop shows ups. On this particular day, they seemed to have agreed ahead of time to stick around long enough for Vic to retrieve his camera. If only the sun had been out to catch the color!!

We also have a couple of toucans that swoop in every now and then and leave just as quickly. We keep hoping they will take a page from the Loras' book one of these days so that we can get a photo of them, as well.

As expected, our life here continues to offer us unending opportunities to expand our horizons. This winter (remember that our seasons are switched now that we are living here in the tropics), we learned that cat litter makes an excellent and economical desiccant.

Moisture absorption was the least of our problems when we lived in the desert Southwest. But in Costa Rica it’s front and center of our daily consciousness – especially now that we are deep in the throws of the rainiest month of the year.

Well, thanks to a helpful tip from another expat about the cat litter, we're finally getting the upper hand on a recurrent mold problem that's been bugging us since mid-July. All it took was ripping out the pressed fiber backing on our free-standing closets and cabinet dividers, packing every shoe, belt, hat, leather item, and piece of clothing we don’t wear each week in plastic, filling every knee-high stocking (and a few sliced up pairs of pantyhose) I brought with me with cat litter and dropping one in every drawer, plastic bin, file box, plastic bag and cupboard...and last, but far from least, installing little Dampp Chaser heating rods in the bottoms of our chest of drawers and kitchen cabinets.

The battle has lasted close to eight weeks. Every time we think we have the problem licked we find another nasty patch of mold and start over from scratch. I won't claim success just yet, but a little more than a week since we wrapped up our latest skirmish, so far so good. That said, I'm sure we'll be keeping our fingers crossed as we do a daily mold inspection for the foreseeable future.

Come December, I’m thinking we’ll be hauling everything we own out into the sun for a dose of UV and fresh air before packing it all in dry containers again. Who knows? I just might use the occasion to rid ourselves of one more layer of non-essentials.

Even without the mold, I think we’d be anticipating the end of the rainy season. I mentioned to Vic the other day that it feels like February in Ohio. You know spring is right around the corner, but the snow storms just keep coming.

Mostly, though, it’s the dampness more than the rain that gets old after a while. From the time we moved into this house in April until our new bed arrived in early July, we couldn’t wait to kiss the trundle daybed farewell and sleep downstairs. Yet, here we are sleeping in the upstairs guest room again because we found that the air up there can can be a full 5% to 10% lower than the first floor.

It’s a lovely room with windows on three walls and on the fourth, an eight-foot patio door that opens onto a balcony. Great views! Drier air! What’s not to love about it? Other than the twin beds and the hike downstairs for the midnight potty run, that is.

In closing, I do have some sad news to report. This past week, our sweet Ozzie passed away suddenly. He went out to go potty at 4:30 in the morning and we found his little body in the carport about an hour later. We’ll never know for sure what happened to him, but we believe he more than likely took a chomp out of a poisonous toad. We’ll sure miss the little guy, but take comfort knowing that he lived his last months as a beloved little prince.






Ozzie (aka Baby, Little One, Rotor)
??? - 10/04/2011