Not Always Thankful

Last Thanksgiving, my dad threw away the wishbone.  You have no idea the horror, agitation and pain this caused.  For TLo and The Big One, at any rate.  For the next 365 days, they made sure to remind us all that they must have the wishbone this year.  Or else.

My mother (being a mom and therefor a bit more on top of it about these things), duly saved the wishbone from her (flippin’ huge) turkey.  When we got to my parents’ house on Thursday afternoon, there it sat on it’s own platter like a temple icon, waiting for TLo and The Big One’s grubby little paws.

TLo won.

After 7 hours of family-and-friends goodness (and in The Big One’s case, a dinner made up exclusively of 8 chocolate chip cookies and 5 buttered rolls), we headed home with two very tired little girls in tow.  As we walked from the garage to the house, TLo began a strange and curious series of contortions in the security light.  Was she having a sugar-induced seizure?  Had the 6 straight hours of TV she watched actually melted her brain, just like I kept telling her it would?

Not exactly.  When questioned, she stopped her body-bending and all was made clear.  She was looking at her shadow.

“Mom!  Grandma said if you wish on the wishbone, your wish will come true.  She said it.”

“And….?”

“I’m looking to see if my fairy wings have started to grow yet!”

Oh dear.  Grandma is going to have a lot to answer for.

Mod-Not

I heart me some Modwear.  Seriously.  I mean, I stopped watching Project Runway halfway through two seasons ago and I’m actually almost sorry because I missed out on this guy:

And of course the anti-social rebel in me felt compelled to create a mod dress for TLo’s school uniform.  Because that’s exactly what school uniforms need more of: Mod.

In that vein, I attempted to make this dress for TLo.  It (technically) conforms to the dress code: sleeves, collar, solid color.  Right?  RIGHT?

Unfortunately, in my brilliance I decided to not (as recommended) use felted wool but instead use a slubby sort of linen-lookish cotton that I got... from somewhere.  (Probably from Fabric Mart in that bundle of stuff that included the Anna Sui Harses-Harses-Harses border print and the surprise pink dotted-swiss voile.  Just guessing.)

Anyway, I made the dress very specifically not from felted wool (and given that today –two days before Thanksgiving-- it's 81 degrees outside, that was probably not an unreasonable decision).  Which is fine.  Until I realized that one of the reasons felted wool was probably a good choice for this dress is that the ruffles on the collar are unfinished.  Which obviously works fabulously in felted wool, but not so fabulously in cheap linen-lookish cotton.

Oh, the humanity.

This tragedy might have been avoided by simply overlocking or zig-zagging the edges of said ruffles... except I didn't have any orange thread. And wasn’t about to go and buy some.  I could have used the white thread I used on the rest of the dress, but it would have really stood out and possibly made it no longer so “solid colored”.  So I didn't attach the ruffles.  Which immediately begged the question, then why make the dumb thing in the first place? 

I know.  It's a good question.  A mod dress with no mod ruffles... is just a plain boring dress.

I did make an orange fabric rose pin to stick on the front, thinking it would at least add some visual interest.  But it's too heavy and droops in a very unbecoming manner.

Hmmph.

Here's TLo, not particularly looking fabulous in said ruffleless dress.

Plus, she wouldn’t wear the white go-go boots.

I've decided Mod is not good for us.

But here’s a Mod-ish blast from the past… if your past includes early 90’s Canadian hip-hop.  Mine does.

 

In our next episode: BurdaStyle... apparently they think we have monkey hands for feet.  It's the only explanation for their belief that assembling this dress is possible.

Today

Today TLo asked loudly (at the crowded skating rink), “Mom, how old are you?”

To which TBO replied (in a bellow), “She’s 53.”

 

Thanks.  No.  Really.  Thanks.

 

Time for some music.  Unfortunately, watching this video makes me feel… about 53.

Good grief.  Baby-faces.  Remember when you were that young?  It’s slipping away from me.  But then, apparently I’m 7 years younger than my own mother.  I probably have some kind of dementia.

Love Bits… No wait, “Bites”

Google “Def Leppard – Love Bites” and see how many hits you get tagged “Def Leppard Love Bits”.  Seriously.  It’s pretty entertaining.

Did you know that Def Leppard -collectively- hail from Yorkshire?  I like to bring this up periodically in conversation with The Husband.  Because it irritates the crap out of him.  And I'm the kind of person who feels compelled to irritate her husband.  It’s for his own good.

The Husband will claim that Def Leppard annoys him because they're "a bunch of untalented wankers who couldn't get real work, just like the rest of us".  In reality Def Leppard annoys him because they were a bunch of untalented wankers who couldn't get real work just like the rest of them and proceeded to make millions of pounds selling records.   Which means many, many people must have liked them.  Many, many old people.

This is for Angie A.  She’s one of those old people.

 

And Angie A, you inspired me to write a poem:

Emo Is Dead

Emo is dead.
Get over it.
And get a sense of humor
While you're at it.

What, you’re like twelve, right?

Sheesh.

 

Hmmm…. I think “Emo Is Dead” is a great name for an all-girl punk band.  Feel free to use it for your next musical venture.  No charge.  A gift from me to you.

 

PS The brilliant verse above isn’t about Angie A, just in case that’s what you were thinking.  Well, because for one thing, she’s not twelve.  I did say she was old, right?  Right.  (heh heh heh… Ang, you’re still younger than me, for what it’s worth.)

A Bird In The Hand…

I went to Hancock's last weekend with the specific purpose of buying some appropriate patterns for TLo, as I have very few patterns in her size.  Given that most Big4 children's patterns are laughably large and my children are comically short, it didn't occur to me that I would need anything above the size 6 range for some time to come. I was wrong.  TLo is now in a size 12/14 width in RTW, which even in the world of Humongous Big4 Patterns is a 10.

TLo and I went to the store together, partly because I was hoping she would enjoy picking out her own patterns (with subtle guidance from yours truly) and partly because The Husband was taking TBO to soccer practice on that side of town anyway so I thought we could all go in one car.  I figured TLo and I, left to our own devices, could easily spend an hour and fifteen minutes in the fabric store.

This was poor reasoning on my part. TLo begged the entire time to be allowed to peruse the button section on her own, which is as far away from the pattern area as you can get and is completely obscured by row upon row of towering fabric aisles.  She was not allowed to peruse.  Or at least, not until we'd sat at the pattern table and looked through the sale books.  Apparently this is a breathtakingly tempting activity when you're not allowed to do it, but mind-numbingly boring when the siren call of the button section sings it's temptress song.  Much whining ensued.  And (despite what you're thinking) not all of it from me.  Pattern selection became a hasty process.

I relate all of this to you, Gentle Reader, in an attempt to excuse what happened next: When I saw this pattern was on sale, my heart skipped a little dance of happiness at the perfect fit for TLo's school uniform.  McCall M6156, size 7 to 14.

Shirtdress styling? Check!  Adjustable empire waistline with drawstring? Check!  Cute as a button? Check!

Perfect.  I forced (her words) TLo to help me find said perfection in the pattern drawer and, with our seven other pattern selections, we made our giddy way to nirvana-- sorry, the button aisle.  All was right with the world.

And then today I finally got around to photo-copying the technical drawing insert for October’s BurdaStyle.  Which I have already pored over a half-dozen times in the past month.  At least.

Um.  Girl's Shirtdress.  With adjustable drawstring empire waist.  Size 134-158. 

Doh!