There is sun above this horrible fog

The endless fog continues. It's thicker and wetter than ever. It appears to be raining.

I brought an umbrella and rain chaps with me on a hike yesterday expecting to be rained on part of the day. Lo and behold, at about 2500 feet, we broke out of the fog into a gorgeous, warm fall day with light high clouds in the sky. We sat at the summit on East Camino Cielo Rd. in the warm sun and dreaded heading back down into the soup. It's really becoming quite intolerable. It's so dark and gloomy all the time I find myself wearing my headlamp in the house sometimes so I can see what I'm doing.

I made another pair of shoes using my Simple Shoemaking patterns, the pattern for a two-piece casual. They turned out more like slippers than shoes.

I made them from a leather skirt I found at the thrift store. I lined the very thin leather with interfacing and the silk nylon lining that came with the skirt. I used aloha shirt fabric for the insole and stitched the upper to the insole and a layer of yoga mat. The stitching came out looking very unprofessional so I glued on some trim to hide it. Then I glued on another layer of yoga mat so I can wear them outside.

When worn they appear very soft and wrinkly so they really look more like slippers than shoes. Otherwise, the pattern is nice.

One thing I have learned from my 3 successful shoe attempts is that I need to pull in the heel area so that it tapers inward against my ankle. The pattern had a straight line from the part that attaches to the sole up to the top of the ankle. But on me, that leads my foot to fall off the back of the sole. If I angle the seam inward, my foot doesn't fall off the back and it's much more comfortable.

I'm hoping to one day get this right. For now, my black ones are the closest ones to getting it right. I'm not sure I see the advantage of the stitched on sole to the sole glued around the outside edges. Unless I can learn to stitch an even, nice-looking stitch, I'll always end up struggling to figure out how to hide the stitches.

I glued mousepads on to my two other shoes so that they'll last longer. I hope that's what will happen. I chickened out of gluing on a boot sole to my black shoes. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to aim right to glue the top to the sole straight. It's very hard to do. Once the two sides touch each other, that's it. They're stuck.