Tara:

We've arrived at the stitching phase of our building adventure! Like pretty much every other part of this process, I've had a looming fear about it. I was afraid that "quilting" the house—attaching the exterior wire mesh to the interior wire mesh by way of baling twine stitches—would be never-ending and difficult. Happily, my fears were mostly unfounded.

This morning, after an hour or so of fumbling around and bickering, we eventually discovered our strengths, played to them, and fell into a pretty efficient groove. The process, while time-consuming, was simple: I'd attach a strand of twine to the notch in a long, steel baling needle and thread it through the wall. As soon as I was finished, Tyler (waiting on the other side of the wall) would take both ends and tie them into a super tight Miller's Knot almost before I could start the next one. Rinse and repeat, forever.

It was extremely satisfying to see the wire mesh suck firmly into place against the bales!

Tyler:

Tara's attention to detail on our house is commendable, but sometimes her need to do everything perfectly makes me feel like we'll never actually finish the thing. I'm usually the one with the obsessive compulsive drive for perfection—it's a very strange sensation to hear myself saying things like, "It's good enough, can we please move on!?"

Today, after spending hours tying knots on a wall that Tara practically refused to stop stitching (Tara's Note: I wasn't being picky—the wall wasn't finished!), I offered an ultimatum in the hopes that it would help us get past this "preparing-to-plaster" treadmill we seem to be stuck on. The plan was simple: we had to finish stitching this weekend. Tara would decide when a wall was done, and then she would spray-paint a smiley face on it. Once the wall had a smile, she wasn't allowed to make me tie any more stitches in it.

Tara:

The smiles eventually morphed into any face at all, from ghosts to aliens to turnip-shaped heads. Almost every one of them made Tyler crack up laughing, and we joked that this was by far the most fun part of the house-building project. We were able to stitch most of the house in a single fourteen-hour-marathon of a day. Phew!