The neck was way too big and the tie too flimsy on this one to be trusted to hold it together for long; I considered undoing the top edge, pleating it, cutting the bottom off to cover the new top edge–

–Nah. I ran a narrow elastic through the casing and tacked it down with my sewing machine as a quick fix. That was easy.

Oh wait no it wasn’t, as I saw that the machine had jammed a whole wad of thread on the underside that pulled right off, and whoops, one edge of elastic was going swoop! into the inside there.

I managed to stab at it with a sewing needle till I pulled it back.

I do not use my sewing machine enough to justify taking it in for a tune-up; those were $80 twenty years ago. $100 to do this?

Bribery was definitely the way to go.

I messaged this picture to a friend who’s good at sewing: would she be willing to do that small bit of tacking down for me on her machine, in exchange for a pound box of peaches from Andy’s come Friday?

It is safe to say we have a deal.