"Well, at least it's not raining," quoth Derek, who has been alternately working his way through a physics book so thick it has its own gravitational field and a thin, elegant Latin primer.

Over the last few days, the rain has been on and off -- Tuesday mostly on, Wednesday mostly off but still cloudy and breezy, today on again. It's that trough I mentioned, it's stalled over our section of the Bahamas and we're doing the usual boater-ly thing and waiting it out.

On the way over here to Rock Sound, I finally finished that little fruit basket I've been weaving out of silvertop palm fronds:

silvertop palm small basket, Heather's first
Otherwise, despite the "frass" (small bits of palm frond that get all over when you do basketry), it would have been a good rainy-day project.

Our new friends at Pascal's were very welcoming, and we have been trying to come up with ways to be helpful to them, as they have been so helpful to us!

I got out my Sailrite sewing machine and brought it over there on Tuesday (after the rain ended), and used some of the moons-and-stars material I had brought along to make a little sundress for La'Tisha's youngest daughter, the precocious and charming Cirena, and a "wrap-style" skirt for her oldest daughter, the quiet and lovely Ja'Maya (any misspellings are due to my faulty memory and/or not having seen the name spelled out). Those were both finished Tuesday (except for final hemming, we just left the selvage edge at the bottom of both pieces, as it was identical to the fabric and provides a bottom edge that will not ravel no matter whether it's hemmed high or let out all the way). La'Tisha will finish the hemming herself as needed.

I left the machine at the restaurant and came back yesterday to work on a bar apron for La'Tisha. I had bought some wildly tropical print remnant with parrots and toucans and jungly bits and sunsets, intending to use it to make one of those cylinders you hang up to take rolled-up grocery plastic bags, in order to recycle them as small trash bags. Hadn't done that yet, and can always do it some other time -- and there was just enough to make a full-sized apron for La'Tisha, once she provided, for the waist tie, a black stretchy neoprene belt she had that had stretched out from its original use. We had only a very small scrap of material left over, sufficient to use for perhaps one pocket, but with the designer name and pattern number on the selvage edge! Convenient if a'Tisha wants to expand on coordinating items. Here's the finished apron, modeled by the lovely Derek:

Derek modeling the Tropical Bar Apron since LaTisha was busy with customers at the time -- Grant suggested Derek needed a hibiscus blossom behind the ear for best accesorizing!

I darted the apron since LaTisha is definitely a girl, and managed to get enough material left over from the bib top to make self-ties for the neck (the waist, as previously noted, is black stretch fabric with neoprene backing and velcro closure, from a previous belt of LaTisha's). The coolest part was seeing that I could match the toucan body on the bottom with a toucan head that continues the bottom panel's theme (the cloth was side-by-side rather than lengthwise), and use the remainder of the trimmed-off section of that second panel for the ties, matching the color-theme of the design on the bib at right and left shoulders with the bottom end of the respective tie (even though the design on the tie is sideways to the design on the bib). So, molten orange is with molten orange and grassy fronds are with grassy fronds. I liked the way that worked out!


No sooner had I finished that apron than -- zing! Pascal tagged us back with a wonderful supper of pan-fried whole red snapper (marinated since the night before in lemon juice, salt and pepper by La'Tisha), roasted potatoes in a light, creamy sauce, and fresh (dressed) salad with all kinds of wonderful crunchy veg added in -- and small black olive pieces that provided little flavor focal points throughout the salad! The five of us had sat down to dinner at about 6:30, before the restaurant was officially closed, but no one had been in for some time, when -- zap! Customers showed up wanting dinner (probably having scented the red snapper delights within). When this picture was taken, Pascal was finishing up his dinner while La'Tisha had gone off to take drink orders and distribute menus. Once the orders were in, Pascal went off to the kitchen and La'Tisha returned to finish her meal :-)

Pascal's Snapper Supper -- come Friday for the Fish Fry!