I is for…

Industrial Sewing Machines

Threading an Industrial Sewing Machine

Industrial Cutting Tables

For the last few years I’ve managed with an old conference table on bed risers and 3 large cutting mats…a pretty cheap efficient cutting table that has served me well…

BUT I had been jonesing for a REAL cutting table…actually, SEVERAL.  Well, as luck would have it, a NJ school uniform manufacturer was closing down their factory and selling off their 41 cutting tables.  At $60 a piece (retail value $400+), I bought 4 of them.

This sounded like a great deal…until I realized I’d have to have my Most Wonderful Brother™ disassemble and move them to my garage in NYC.  Thankfully, he owns several lift-gate box trucks as these darn table sections weighed hundreds of pounds!  They’re now taking up half of my garage awaiting the sewing studio renovation…we are literally going to have to hoist them down the stairs…should be fun!

Idea Board

I have a large fabric covered bulletin board in my sewing room…covered with lots of things from the Neiman-Marcus, Horchow and Ballard Design catalogs, templates, extra button tabs, instruction sheets, size charts and photos.

Interlock Knit

You’d think I’d have access to an unlimited choice of cool boys’ interlock knits being only 20 minutes away from NYC’s fabric district…but no, I’ve yet to find a source there.  Anyone know where I can find boys’ printed cotton interlock knits in NYC?

Iguanas

In an effort to save my parents’ marriage, my Father thought it would be clever to buy my Mother an unusual gift…two 7 foot iguanas.  Now you have to know we live in Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City.  Most of our neighbors have big dogs that run around in fenced backyards…nothing abnormal…no goats, no chickens–just cats and dogs…oh and the occasional hamster.

Well, Mom had thought Dad bought only one iguana.  However, when she went to open the big box marked “pet accessories,” the second iguana leaped over my Mother’s shoulder.  Mom jumped up onto the dining room table in horror where she’d stay for several hours!

See, on a recent trip to Puerto Rico, my Mom commented about the “cute little iguanas” which hung around outside our hotel balcony.  But being my Dad was heavily into “shock value,” he figured he’d do something over-the-top.  Bad idea.  And it got worse as the night progressed.  My older sister (aka Woodstock Sister™) was out partying and came home late hours after her curfew (as usual)…only to find these two huge iguanas guarding the front foyer.  Needless to say, Woodstock Sister™ went missing for a day or so until Dad built a makeshift cage in the basement for these creatures.

We’d cautiously feed them fresh lettuce and canned fruit cocktail.  And if you tried to handle them, they’d slap you with their long tails and you’d have a large bruise/burn mark.

Every so often, we would take these fugly-looking creatures out…getting lots of strange looks.  Honestly, these iguanas were better than pit bulls…they’d scare the heck out of any intruder and terrify the old man next door who had a massive garden (aka as a JUNGLE to our iguanas when they’d escape and visit him).

Perhaps a year later, both iguanas died and now we’d have to bury them somewhere.  So being the resourceful children we were, we figured the dirt motorcycle trail would work.  However, we didn’t know our beloved trail would be the future home of the local elementary school.

We had to laugh when our local newspaper printed a story about how they found prehistoric dinosaur bones when constructing the new school…haha!