Ah thank you. 
I started looking a pictures of かっぱ and found myself thinking “durtle”… 
The WK forum has corrupted my brain!
In related news, かっぱ巻き (the sushi with just cucumber) is also named after the same mythical water creature, as apparently their favourite food is cucumbers. How きゅうりous! 
How long have you been waiting to make a cross-language pun? 
I make them all the time! But I don’t often have an audience for the Japanese ones!
So is 間に合わせ屋さん actually a thing? Or is that just Sumire-san’s way of saying that she’s someone who makes do with what she has (in this case her hands)? Her explanation (page 127 blue book) of 「間に合わせ屋さんだから、手で間に合わせ、ってわけ」kind of reiterates that, but otherwise doesn’t make it clearer.
I couldn’t find any other reference to 間に合わせ屋
I wonder if we could translate it as “improviser”? 
Just in case you couldn’t quite visualise ねじりん棒 p142 red/ p128 blue
It’s this kind of shape:
How did you figure out what it was? I got the general idea since I know ねじ and 棒, but I couldn’t find anything in a dictionary.
OK, grousing time! I find myself annoyed with this chapter. We’ve got Kiki, feeling grumpy for reasons we don’t fully understand and with some sort of teen romance thing going on with Tonbo, which at least was interesting… but then all of a sudden she gets a call from this bizarre washer woman, who apparently has plenty of business but no money for a washing machine, and somehow talks Kiki into being the other end of her ludicrously long clothesline.
This is followed by what seems like page after page listing articles of clothing. Useful for our vocab practice, I guess, but definitely not interesting. I don’t understand why this woman called Kiki, why she doesn’t have a washing machine, why her clothesline is obviously too long, how she ever dried anything before Kiki happened along, and most of all, why we should care about all this.
I’m like, that’s cute, but can we please get back to the story? How is it that Kiki seems to be flying well now, even with her busted-up broom? Did Tonbo ever smile more than that one time when his crazy scheme worked? What sort of “in kind” payments are people giving Kiki, and how is she able to make a living that way? What happened to the little boy that almost drowned in the last chapter, and how grateful were that kid’s parents?! There are so many things in this book I care far more about than how many red, blue, black, and white undergarments can be strung on a line.
OK, grousing done. Thanks for letting me vent a little. 
I actually kinda liked the repetitive lines with all the clothing =)
This book is kinda aimed at younger children, and this type of style is usual for such books.
I agree a bit of closure with the kid would be nice, but I have a feeling that was the end of it… seems like they were only important for the action, not a reward.
I think the washer lady was trying to say, between all her rambling, something about a cake or something… something that had to be delivered to her sister…? We’ll probably get the actual request next chapter =P
Perhaps. At first I too thought she was talking about her actual sister, but after reading more, I’m not so sure. I think it might just mean “a young woman” here. She seems to refer to all her customers in similar fashion: おとうさんのパンツ、おかあさんのハンカチ、etc. Either these are just polite terms for her customers, or she has a very big family with a lot of clothes!
Hehe, good point! =D
Let’s all look at the adorableness of 舌をちろっと出す.
https://www.google.com/search?biw=1366&bih=637&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=84KoWvbCL7Gb_Qbot4jABg&q=舌をちろっと出す
Okay, I just finished the chapter. It was a little weird, but I thought it was fine.
I think there was something in there about this being a rush order or something like that, so maybe it’s normally not a problem.
I didn’t take it that way, but I could be wrong of course. Actually I was unsure during a lot of that part of the chapter, but I took it as Kiki flying off with the clothing for a bit to help it air dry more quickly.
She just needed practice, and more time has passed since she made the broom.
I thought the stardust she got at the end of the chapter was pretty sweet, though I have no idea how she lives with no money. I’m also curious about that.
Did you finish the chapter? She delivered some (probably burnt) cookies (or biscuits if you prefer) at the very end. It was pretty much an afterthought.
I do think it was her actual sister. Again, based on the ending, there seemed to be personal feelings towards Sumire-san that I don’t think would be there from some random おねえさん. Plus,
as @Kyasurin pointed out, they are both named after flowers. I agree that those terms are being used throughout the chapter for her customers, just not for the person getting the delivery.
No, it really was ridiculous. The text goes on at several points about how Kiki was far away, high in the sky, and this matches the illustration on page 147 of the red book — that line must be 100 m long at least.
If you could upload a picture of the illustration behind a spoiler tag or on Sunday when we’re officially done the chapter that would be great.
I’ve just finished the chapter. Pretty neat that it wraps up with a moral, though I’m not entirely sure I’ve grasped it.
The washer woman’s saying appears (at least) twice in the chapter, so let’s make sure we understand it properly.
まにあえば しゃわせ
まにあわなければ ふしあわせ
If you make do, you’ll be happy.
If you don’t make do, you’ll be unhappy.
Is that it, or have I missed some nuance?
Finally, at the end, I get that Kiki was singing about the 1-of-a-pair slipper from the start of the chapter. But I don’t quite understand the final sentence.
でも、どうまにあわせたらいいのか、なかなか思いつかないようなのです。
But, [although?] it’s good to make do somehow (?), it seems she rather can’t think of it.
I’m interpreting ~たらいい here as “it’s good if ~”, though perhaps that’s not right. And I don’t quite understand the role that のか is playing in joining the clauses here. Yomichan says it means either “endorsing and reflecting on” or “lamenting” the previous statement, which led me to my above translation.
But if so, that’s kind of a bummer… she’s all happy to be adopting the attitude and motto of the washer woman, but in the end, can’t think of how to apply it to her slipper?
I think she means that she makes do even though she cant think of a way to fix the slipper