At Least My Head Didn’t Spin Around. Yet.

Sometimes I wonder about my mental capacity.  (Trust me, so does The Husband.)

A few weekends ago I wasn't feeling very "sewy" but I wanted to do something that would give me a sense of accomplishment.  Mostly because I'd created yet another hideous garment.   (No.  You can't see it.  It's hideousness would burn the very eyes from your heads.  Really.  I'm thinking of calling in an exorcist next week.)  Anyway, my point is that I needed to do something that would result in an actual sense of achievement (instead of needing holy water and a priest).

Enter The Pattern Collection.

I have been downright hoarding patterns.  I'll admit it.  I started sewing clothes about six or seven years ago and I have never, ever, no not ever once thrown away a pattern I've purchased.  Literally.  I have four or five patterns that I bought over 20 years ago in a mad fit of considering garment sewing and I even still had those.  (I recovered from the mad fit pretty quickly and went back to quilting until after the Evil Monkeys were born.)

But for the past two-three (even four) years I really haven't sewn much for myself.  And what I have sewn has been mostly from basic patterns or from my personal sloper.  The large bulk of the patterns in the hoard are either untouched or disasters.  Or both.

Because seriously.  Why did I buy these???

Or these???

My only excuse has to be mental deficiency brought on by the lingering effects of multiple pregnancies.  Er... which is pretty much my excuse for anything that happened for the first six years of the Evil Monkeys' lives.  But now I've hit the magical Year Seven Return To Normal Hormones and really... there is just no rational excuse for owning these:

Yes.  Those are two different copies of the exact same pattern.  Apparently I didn’t think I could figure it out from the first one?  Clearly dark forces were at work here, people.

But I am brave!  The evil pattern demons can’t bring me down!   So I bucked up my courage, dove into the battle and dug through all the pattern boxes.  And ended up culling out 100 patterns.  Well, 97.  Whatever.  These are bundles of ten patterns each:

That's a lot of patterns, people.  I really didn't expect to get rid of that many.   But I've come to the conclusion that between my five years of BWOF back-issues and my current Ottobre subscription... I really don't need any other patterns.  Ottobre more than covers all my kids' sewing needs and Ottobre Woman really covers all of mine.  Ottobre is certainly easier to deal with and better designed than the Big4 generally are.  Plus, quite a few of these patterns are simply the wrong size range for me and there’s not really any point in holding on to those.  (I have no idea why I own so many patterns in size 20-28.  I currently cut a size 12-14. The mind boggles at what I might have been thinking.)

I did keep some patterns.  Mostly Big4 that are still in the Evil Monkeys' size ranges and any independents that might be useful or that I just enjoy owning.  I have a ridiculous collection of HotPatterns and vintage Folkwear, for instance.  Because I will persist in the delusion that I might have lost 45 pounds when I wake up tomorrow.

It could happen.

Well.  At least I achieved my sense of accomplishment for the week.

Minkied. Again.

Here's the second version of the Valentine's Day Coat. 

This one is also a size 122, then I widened it based on the measurements of a 146.  That wasn't wide enough apparently, it's snug across the chest on TLo.   Who admittedly is basically shaped like a barrel.

A really melodramatic barrel.

 

 

Um.   Yep.  That's all I have to say about the whole project.  Except that I'm extremely glad it's done.

Oooo, but look what came in the mail this week!

A gift from Big In Japan.   I should say, a really really AWESOME gift.  It's a Tintin file-folder.  Because seriously, you can just never have enough things with Tintin on them.  Especially office supplies (or at least, this seems to be the basic premise in Japan… and I’m totally willing to go with it).

The real kicker is the day my gift arrived, The Big One had pulled out this book to read for the very first time.

So imagine our surprise when I opened the mail that afternoon and my fabulous folder was in it!

 

I am not giving it to The Big One.  I am not that nice.

 

Next time: What to do with 100 extra sewing patterns.

No.  I'm asking.  What to do with 100 extra sewing patterns??  I cleaned out my pattern boxes.  It was... disturbing.  I'll tell you more about it when I've sufficiently recovered from the trauma.

This Is Not The Handbag You Are Looking For…

Because it’s MINE.

Mine mine mine mine mine mine.

I rock.

A Cookie For A Cookie… it’s like Hammurabi. You know… Hammurabi.

So y’know how sometimes you think to yourself, “Self, that there actor is interesting.  And sort of… interesting.  In an… interesting sort of way…”  And then you don’t ever really think about that particular actor much ever again?

Did you watch Masterpiece Mystery this past week?  They’re running BBC’s “Case Histories”.  You should check it out.  ‘Cause seriously:

 

Lucius Malfoy?

 

Michael Caffee?

 

That scary guy from The Patriot?

I mean, fine.  Jason Isaacs is a good lookin’ dude.   But….  evil villains… not really my type.

 

(Government-sanctioned psychopathic killers?  Totally my type.

 

But I digress.

You’re welcome.)

 

Annnnyway…. Jason Isaacs.  Case Histories.  The good guy.

 

I want one for Christmas.

We leave cookies for Santa.  I think Santa should, y’know, reciprocate.

A Royal Meeting Of The Minds.

So this photo has popped up on multiple news pages that have randomly floated across my desktop today.  I’m getting a little tired of it, actually:

Here’s what’s probably going on in this photo:

And then there’s what goes on in my mind:

  I get bored easily.

Oooo, Now I Get To TALK About My Favorite Subject…. Me.

Ok, so Tanit-Isis (rather bravely) posted up her participation in a new meme regarding one of my very favoritest topics: dialect.  I love this!  Not only do you get to hear people talk in different dialects and accents, but you also get to hear the (hopefully) charming voices of some heretofore aurally mysterious bloggers.  Coolio! 

Basically this all adds up to you, yes YOU, being subjected… er… I mean, allowed to listen to my rambling insanity.  As opposed to just reading it.  Lucky lucky YOU!  Right?

(Warning: I talk really fast.  This is me talking slowly.  Just saying.)

(Also, yes I know my glasses are jacked up.  I can’t get new glasses until next week when our new insurance kicks in.  Meantime, I’m Crazy Glasses Girl.  Really.  No need to tell me.  Again.)

The words are:

Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught

And these are the questions:

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

 

I really hope everyone joins in on this one!  C’mon! You know you want to.  Copy and paste.  Get out that video camera.  You can do it!  Go team!

Wow.  Too much caffeine today.

edit: ‘K, so Big In Japan at least should know that I’m pretty much always that excited to talk about something… er… anything, as long as I’m talking.  I’m whatcha might call A Talker.  Big shocker, I know.

edit revisited: so yesterday we had a slight sprinkle of rain while it was sunny and my mother announces, “Hey, it’s a sunshower!” out of the blue.  I have never heard this before but she insisted this was a totally normal thing for her to say.  Weirdness.  And re: T.P.ing a house… that is a pretty normal North American thing to do, usually by high-school students.  The trick to clean up (in case you ever need to): light one end of the toilet paper with a lighter and the whole streamer should go up in a puff of ash.  Not recommended in extreme drought, but otherwise pretty safe.  And waaaay easier than picking it all up.

I Swear, Diet Sunkist Almost Came Out My Nose

You know how sometimes you’re just aimlessly surfin’ the webs and something strikes you?  I mean, not literally jumps out of the screen and smacks you in the face (that would be a little too “Poltergeist” for me), but makes you just sit up and LAUGH?

Case in point:

This photo came up in BBC News’ “A Day In Pictures” segment.

And I quote:

“There were 5,000 police officers on duty, with more than 900 along the wedding route.  Most were in uniform, but some were in plain clothes, mixing with the crowd.”

Plain clothes in London has gotten significantly weirder than I expected.

Howdy Ho, children! It's Saint Patrick's Day!

No wait. That's Mr. Hanky. Maybe it's Mr. Hanky on Saint Patrick's Day.

We did our SPD celebrations last Saturday night at what was, to quote The Husband, "The World's Smallest Saint Patrick's Day Celebration, EVER."  Having grown up and lived in a place that takes it's Irish roots pretty seriously (rumor has it that Saint Paul, MN was at one point the number two contributing US donor to the IRA, second only to Boston... that's right. They gave more money than New York, people. That's alotta of money. Jeez. WTH?), let's just say I'm used to a little more... shenanigans in my SPD celebrations. This one consisted of about 300 people, mostly really drunk college girls dressed for trouble and really drunk college boys who were absolutely thrilled at the trouble they were finding. Whoo. Hoo. Let the good times roll.

Otherwise, we got to hear the Killdares play, who always rock.  I mean, they have a bagpipe player who, again in the immortal words of The Husband, "Plays to the audience like he's in K.I.S.S. or something. Cooool."  Actually, it is pretty cool.

This SPD I'm on my own. No soda bread. No cabbage. No Dreaded Corned Beef.  Everyone (but me) went up to OKC to go to the zoo (it's spring break for the Evil Monkeys and The Husband has today off so I sort of subtly suggested they all Get. Out. Of. Town. -ahem-  It was subtle.)

Anyway, Happy Saint Patrick's Day, people! Try not to throw up too much green beer. (Wait. Does that only happen in Saint Paul... and, uh... Boston... and, uh... New York?)

Boo!

So apparently the most interesting thing about me to date is an apartment I once lived in twenty years ago.  I'm not sure how I feel about that, to be honest. 

Anyway, to appease the masses, here's what happened:

I attended a small private art college.  One year, I agreed to become a Resident Assistant in one of the student housing apartment buildings owned by said college.  The building I was assigned to was a two-up/two-down apartment building, built circa 1900 -- in other words, absolutely typically of the neighborhood in general.  Basically I had to oversee 10 upperclassman students who mostly kept themselves to themselves and pretty much expected nothing of me in return except to buy them expensive snacks with the activity money we got every quarter from the school.  (Well, I don't know that they expected that, exactly.  I was required to spend the money and since none of them wanted to do any activities I figured they could all have snacks, operating under the theory that everyone likes snacks, especially when they're free.)

Now, as was our wont, my roommate and I did not own any living room furniture.  The bedrooms were furnished with, you know, beds and stuff.  The dining room housed the studio stuff.  The living room?  It's sole occupants were an answering machine, a small pile of misshapen pillows and an exercise bike.  Needless to say, we spent a minimal amount of time in this room. 

Strangely enough, every time I rode the exercise bike (not a very frequent occurrence), I got the distinct impression that someone was watching me from one corner of the ceiling.  It was a pretty persistent feeling and also pretty strong.

Also, all our aluminum mixing bowls and foil kept going missing.

One day I went upstairs to discuss something with one of the girls in the apartment above us (her roommate's boyfriend had beaten the crap out of her roommate after finding out she'd used all his heroin and this girl was understandably pissed off with them both-- and yes, that's the kind of thing an RA had to mediate at our school.)  We were walking through the living room towards the roommate's bedroom when she made a strange detour towards the middle of the room and said, "Oh, I don't walk in that spot."

"Um?"  I stood and looked at the spot on the floor she was staring at.

"It's a bad spot." 

I wanted to scoff, except... it was a bad spot.  It also happened to correspond exactly to the spot in my living room ceiling where I felt something watching me.

Turns out not only did she think it was "a bad spot" but her third roommate (not the junkie) thought so too.  Also, the guys in the apartment next door admitted that they thought one of their rooms was "not quite right".   The guys in the lower apartment admitted they thought their back room was haunted, but they hadn’t wanted to say anything.

They also kept having to replace their missing can opener.

Oh.  I forgot to mention that we all had really really really strange dreams.  That part we only figured out at the end of the year when we got together for our End Of The Year Expensive Snack Party. 

There's more, but this is already pretty long and boring.  Mostly, it was a perfectly normal place to live.  Other than the aluminum going missing all the time.  And the strange manifestation of a single insect sitting perfectly still in the middle of the room every time I woke from a particularly vivid dream.   Frankly, the most annoying part about it was, you know, the insects.  As you know, Beangirl doesn't do vermin.

 

Also, to answer another question: my mother makes peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwiches, so that’s where I learned about them.  I have absolutely no idea where she learned about them.  They are, however, tasty.  But you have to use sweetened peanut butter and non-kosher dills or it’s a disaster.  Kosher dills have garlic in them.  It’s not a good thing.  Not with peanut butter, anyway.

EDIT: Ooooo, so you should go read Oonabaloona’s ghost story.  It’s quite a bit freakier than mine.  And as for the “spot” it really was just sort of a… spot.  A place.  A presence in that particular locale.  It was a little freaky.  Also, I have no flippin’ clue what was up with the aluminum.  It was very mysterious.

Mail Call!

So look what I got in the mail a few days ago:

It’s an assortment of off-cuts from Japan, courtesy of Big In Japan.  Some are rayon, some are cotton, some are silk.  There are dragons and mums and cranes and just all sorts of traditional motifs.  The Evil Monkeys and I are going to plan a wall hanging using most of these, some small purses (or similar) using the others and then the Evil Monkeys can have the remaining bits to make something else of their choosing in the future.  Whew!  That’s alotta projects.  Aren’t we lucky?!

And in the mail I also received a lovely gift from G.Marie, in the form of two issues of BurdaStyle that I did not own.  Yay!  I wasn’t even sure where to start with that one, so I picked this duster:

I’ve been wanting a drapey duster pattern forever.  Despite having five or six on hand, not one was exactly what I wanted.  This one is!  Awesome.  I’m working it up now in a reeeeeally cheap heather-grey pucker-knit that I must have bought on sale at Hancock’s… there’s no other explanation for having five yards of it.  Which is fortunate, because this pattern calls for three!  Yikes, that’s alotta fabric, right?  Even I don’t have very many lengths of fabric that would cover that.  If it comes out well, I’m going to buy something prettier and make it up again.

In the meantime, I have multiple projects in the planning stages (as usual) and not a lot in the almost-finished stages (as usual).  I have to make TLo a spring dress and also of course some western shirts.  I have a ridiculous collection of gingham I could use (that’s ten different ginghams!):

but I’ve decided to start with these fabrics from the stash for the western shirts (I already used the bottom fabric to make this skirt):

and this fabric for the spring dress, also from the stash (no pattern chosen as of yet, but something basic to show off the gynormous print – note the seam gauge at the left side of the image):

My mom bought the Evil Monkeys each one of this sweater:

which hopefully will match both their dresses.  We’ll see.  (And no, we don’t normally dress them alike, but both Monkeys insisted they wanted the turquoise… we explained to The Big One that, because she gets hand-me-ups and TLo’s is three sizes bigger than hers, she would probably be wearing this sweater for the next four years.  She didn’t care.  We’ll see how that goes four years from now when she’s still wearing it to school.  I guess you can’t say we don’t get our money’s worth out of a $50 kids’ sweater.)

 

And thus concludes this episode of “What I’m Pretending To Have Accomplished When In Fact I have Accomplished Very Little… Now With Added Gifts!”  Maybe next time I’ll have a wall hanging or a duster or a western shirt or a spring dress to show you.  We can dream.

What You Do When You’re Supposed To Be Doing Something Else.

Sometimes, there are advantages to having the job I have.

 

This is one.

Sadly, this is pretty much the only one.  Unless you count soul-crushing despair and bone-wearying toil.  I don’t, usually. 

Good thing I have my full-scale scanned-and-outputted Burda patterns to comfort me.  I guess.

 

edit: To be honest, I don’t do this very often because I usually end up having to trace off of this if I want to tissue fit.  I don’t generally like to waste fabric on muslins without at least seeing if the tissue will get around my body.  And it is pretty much impossible to tissue fit with copier paper (which is the weight of the paper my 36” plotters put out).

Here’s the pattern shown above.  I didn’t really plan on tracing it, but since I had the pattern sheet scanned and had already made a print for the pattern I did want to trace, I figured I see if there was anything else on the sheet worth taking off.  But of course, I didn’t have the magazine with me.  So it was going on pure guesswork based on the pattern pieces; this pattern looked like it might interesting.  Turns out it is interesting:

The pattern is BS 1-2008 #119.  Sorry, the image necessarily has to link to the Russian BurdaStyle site.  You know why.  Burda Style.  We say, “Da!”  I think I’m going to have to brush up on my Russian.

This Just In…

Get it?  It’s a bulletin board.  A bulletin… “Just in”… get it? 

I am so funny.

This is actually my old bulletin board (as seen in this photo). 

All I did was cover it with some genuine Marimekko Unikko fabric that I purchased (at genuine exorbitant cost) from… uh… somewhere or other.  Actually I think from FinnStyle.com.  My original plan for it was to make it into a shower curtain.  Or rather, a part of a shower curtain.  Don’t ask.  It was a long and complicated design idea involving three fabrics, clear plastic, jumbo curtain rings and a blowtorch and that’s why I never did it.  The clear plastic was kicking my butt.  Meantime, it’s been sitting in my stash for three years.

I heart Marimekko.  When I was a child, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ apartment.  It basically looked like this:

My grandparents were all about the Danish Modern.  Danskware, Bertoia chairs and teak featured heavily in the formative years of my childhood.  Also Marimekko.  Remember in the early 70’s when imported Scandinavian fabric stretched on canvas stretchers and hung on the wall was the height of home decorating?  I do.

As a child, it took me several years to realize that when people spoke disparagingly of “grandma furniture”, what they probably meant was this:

and not this:

(Which probably explains my bewilderment at the disparaging tone, as well.)

Look!  There I am in their apartment, all bohemian and whatnot.  Well.  As bohemian as you can be with saddle shoes on.  Note the lovely rosewood credenza-and-mirror, circa 1970.  Ok, fine.  It’s a little hard to see in black-and-white.  It was 1970.  Kodachrome was expensive.

Annnnnnnyway, I attached the fabric whole-piece with thumbtacks (seven, to be precise, because seven was all I could find).  I hang things on it with quilting pins (you know, the huge pins that you can’t possibly use for garment sewing), so they don’t really cause much damage to the fabric (should I ever get over my fear of clear plastic and decide to make a shower curtain).  Easy-peasy.  Make one in an hour!  It will only cost you about $90.  Pssht.  You can’t afford not to, right? 

(Good grief.  Who has an ninety-dollar bulletin board??)

So that’s the bulletin board story.  I totally plan on dragging out this studio revamp. And no, not because I haven’t sewn anything.  Because I haven’t photographed anything. 

Yes, there is too a difference.

Hmmmph.

Cubes of Doom

Trena very kindly pointed out that she was culprit... er, I mean, the interested blog reader looking for this tutorial on berets posted by the lovely Neighbourhood.gal.  Despite the beret trauma inflicted on me as a child, I have to admit that this is pretty dang cute.  It's a nice tutorial too, so hop on over and check it out if you're looking for beret patterns.

Whew.  Mystery solved.  Now I can sleep at night.

But that leaves me with the need to find something else to write about... oh dear.

Let's draw out the studio remodel a bit, shall we?

Storage Cubes: Brilliant Design Concept or Build-Your-Own Nightmare?

I did purchase two new storage cubes to facilitate the rearranging and creating of new storage space:

  I wish I could say that this is all of my stash, but I have this much (or, um, maybe a bit more) in the closet.

The taller stack of cubes next to the closet doors are the new purchase, which went on sale at Lowe's on the very day I had my epiphany about remodeling.  I decided I needed two.  And when I got there, they only had two left.  Yay, verily.  It was a sign.  So, despite not really having the extra cash, I dug out my Christmas Visa gift card and  home I came with two spankin' new storage cubes.  This meant that I could remove the dreaded Fabric Cover on the old storage cube.

It had been a necessity because that corner gets some sun and the fabric was suffering.  But, like Mushy, I prefer to see my fabric out in the open (I mean, gazing adoringly at it is mostly the only reason I even own it in the first place).  So I moved the fabric to the (mostly) sunless wall and therefore had a whole big storage cube free for... uh... for… hmm..... for what exactly?   Good question.

I decided it was the perfect place for Notions.  And that's what's there now. 

I'm still in the process of covering and labeling cigar boxes and collecting prettier containers and whatnot, but that will take some time because I don't have lots of funds right now to blow on totally unnecessary junk.  Plus, I want things I really like, not just whatever I find right then and there.

I’ve discovered that despite never seeming to have the tool or notion I need, I have a lot of notions and tools.  That ArtBin is full of stuff like scissors and marking tools and needles and such.  And all these boxes have stuff in them too.  Plus there are more things that I don’t use often in the closet.   Sheesh.

By the way, my walls aren’t fluorescent mustard yellow and I didn’t repaint the walls.  Our entire house is painted this color, which is actually quite a lovely shade of soft gold.  Being yellow, however, it reacts dramatically to lighting changes and also photographs unpredictably.  It’s roughly this color:

And yes, I did ban the Evil Monkeys from the studio Forever and Ever In Perpetuity Never To Return For As Long As-- um.  Right.  Well, I bought them a new industrial-strength (read "cheap-ass junk from Walmart") rug for their bedroom (so as to protect their existing cream-colored carpet) and did a storage-and-table-rearranging number on their room as well.  They have the biggest of the bedrooms by far and now have lots of room to play and draw and watch DVDs and listen to music and, uh, sleep and stuff.  It's pretty slick in there, if I do say so myself.  Plus, now all we have to do is shove some food in through the door every once in a while and they never have to come out.

Which would be fine if we could ever get them in there in the first place.

011000100110100101101110011000010111001001111001

Today is 011111. Or I suppose if you live anywhere else in the world, it's 110111.  If we fell through a swirling vortex of time and landed in the Middle Ages, it could be 11011011.  Which means "Û" in binary. 

Excellent.

This thing with the month/day/year and day/month/year is hard for me to switch back and forth on.  The Husband's birthday, according to our marriage certificate, has been irrevocably changed from August to December.  We applied for a license in Texas and the girl at the County Clerk's desk interpreted the "12/8/1970" on his New Zealand driver's license to mean December 8th.  The Husband wasn't thrilled to find out he's been downgraded (his word) from a Leo to a Sagittarius.  Frankly, as a Taurus I find both to be inferior so I don't know what he's fussing about.

Since we're already swirling through a vortex of time, I thought I'd show you what my studio used to look like:

 

And how it looked this morning:

The picture’s not really doing it justice.  It is spacious and streamlined and pleasantly clutter-free.  In fact, I was so zealous in my reorganization attempts that I actually achieved something of a miracle (two more and I get to be a saint):  I have excess storage space.

This is unheard of.  Seriously.  Throw in two more tricks like that and I'm Saint Beangirl.  Um.   Which doesn't quite have the ring of Saint Catherine or Saint Scholastica or even (a personal favorite) Saint Hilaria.  But still.  I'm impressed with myself (which clearly isn't very saintly behavior).

Did you know that Saint Clare of Assisi is the patron saint of needlework?  Actually, she's the patron saint of poor eyesight.  But I'm guessing you can see the connection.  I mention this because my mostly-finished studio needs better lighting.  I have not one clue how I will achieve this.

A Year In Review, Part Two: Resolved.

2010

Resolution: Lose 46 pounds
Result: Lost 36 pounds
Conclusion: Sufficient

Resolution: Stop Buying Fabric
Result: Bought A Small Amount of Fabric, Used Most Fabric Purchased
Conclusion: Sufficient

2011

Resolution: Lose 25 pounds
Result: pending
Conclusion: pending

Resolution: Organize and Reduce Possessions/Make Living Space More Visually Appealing
Result: pending
Conclusion: pending

Inspirational Motifs:

Executive Punch

A few days ago we were sitting around in my parents' kitchen waiting for the inevitable pokey shoe-putting-on-and-coat-denying by TLo.  This year my mom had put all her holiday cards in a big basket on the kitchen table and as TLo began to whine from the living room, "But it's not cooooold..." I decided to spend a little time picking through all the cards.  I was looking for photos, of course.  Cards without photos are totally useless.  (I know this is true, because I pored for a good thirty seconds over the photo of one of our congressmen and his family -whom I didn't recognize by sight and have never met- while I barely glanced at the written card from my cousin -whom I haven't seen in six years but visited every year for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter until I was 22.  Clearly photos are better than words when it comes to Christmas cards.)

As I flipped through the cards, derisively discarding the handmade snowman and the vintage santa in order to pounce like a vulture on the glimmer of glossy photo paper, I made my pronouncements:

"I have no idea who these people are.  Weird hair."

"Oooo, look.  The Gustafsons.  I met them once. When I was 12.  Pretty sweaters."

"Oh, look at all the little blondies!"  (I said this quite a few times, as many of the cards were from friends or family in Minnesota or North Dakota and virtually all small children there are blond.  Regardless of their adult hair color.  I was a notable exception.  When I was a baby, people would ask my mother if I was an adopted Indian.  Seriously.  It really upset her at the time.)

Then I came across a cheerful picture of some guy sitting on a brick wall.  "N. Esquivez*.  I have no idea who that is.  Nice leather jacket."

My mom and dad -perhaps eager to avoid the grating cries of, "But I don't have to wear a hat, I have LONG HAIR!" emanating from the living room- both perked up immediately. 

"N. Esquivez!  You know!" gushed my mother.
"You don't know N. Esquivez!?" admonished my father. "YOU know..."

I had never in my life heard of N. Esquivez.  My father opened his mouth to say more, presumably about this mysterious person I most certainly did not know, when my mother suddenly stopped short.  Sort of... quizzically.

"You know... " she said, hesitating.  We all raised our eyebrows, ignoring the screams of "It is NOT too cold for flip-flops!  Yes you CAN TOO wear a miniskirt to Texas Roadhouse in the winter..." that poured from the living room.  My mother sort of... giggled.  "Well, you know, a few years ago I met up with N. Esquivez in Austin for SDEC**.  We went out for drinks and he had this friend with him.  A tall skinny black guy.  He was a lawyer.  From Chicago.  Getting into politics."

We all sat and stared. 

"I think it was Obama."

We all sat and stared.

"But I'm not sure.”

We all sat and stared.

“They're really good friends.  So it's possible.  I think it might have been."

"But you don't remember?" I asked.

"We all got drunk as skunks.”  She shrugged.

TLo chose this moment to grace us with her poorly-dressed presence and in the ensuing chaotic shuffle to get everyone into the truck I never heard any more about N. Esquivez.

 

So. 

We’re all going with “My mom got drunk with the President!  Of the UNITED STATES!”  

Right?

 

*This is not this man's real name.  Not to protect his anonymity.  Because I can't remember it.
**State Democratic Executive Committee (Texas), of which my mother was a member for several years.

Random Information, Part… uh… Three?

Peppermint Penguin (who has no links, sorry) recently said, "Ok, so I'm supposed to be here for the sewing talk, but I find myself caught up in the pop culture".  Which I’m going to assume is a compliment, although it could quite possibly be a chastisement.  Yes.  Definitely a compliment. 

And of course makes me feel very guilty.  Yes.  My pathological guilt?  It's all PP's fault.  Good.  I finally have someone to blame.

Really, I do intend to write about sewing.  Honest.  But May is a Bad Month and I haven't made much of anything lately.  I'm hoping the holiday weekend will give me some time to work on something.  Really.  I will sew something.  I will.

No, I am not whining and defensive.   Shut up.

But I feel compelled to make at least a pretense of discussing sewing. So here is a piece of random information:

These (in a really shameless attempt to pretend this blog post has anything to do with sewing at all and not just me blatantly bragging about my children) are some photos of two of the kids' garments "in action".  Yeah, that's it.  ACTION SHOTS!  Just in case you were wondering how these garments I make look out in the field.    Literally.   A field.

TLo is wearing her butterfly tunic, another version of the one seen in this post. 

And The Big One is wearing her school uniform blouse as seen in this post.

These are from their riding lesson this week.  The Big One is, apparently, a natural.  After just four lessons she's already learning how to do the clover-leaf at a trot on Captain, The World's Tiniest Horse.  I swear that child will become a barrel racing queen.   If for no other reason than to totally annoy her father with her cowgirl ways.

Yee haw!!

 

Seriously?  Why did you even read this?  You didn’t, did you?  I knew it.  Next time: CLOTHES!  Honest.

Random Information, Some More Of It

So an hour ago, White-Supremacist-Possible-Drugdealer-Crazed-Gunman Guy decided to come barrelling past my house chased by literally the entire law-enforcement body of our town/county (most of whom screeched to a stop in front of my house and hopped out of their many, many law-enforcement vehicles with guns drawn), ran into a house three houses down from us (which may or may not be the house of someone related to him) and shot himself in the head within the vicinity of or possibly in front of the two children who live there (who may or may not be related to him, but who's hysteria, combined with the clear trauma inflicted on the gentleman collecting them, when he heard the person who may or may not have been related to them was most likely dead, made me cry out loud so that my husband told me I had to go back inside), all after shooting and/or killing six people in another part of town (in a place where my husband's classmates usually gather to study), which we only found out about after turning on the news to see if the massive law-enforcement/shooting scenario in front of our house was being reported on yet (despite the fact that it happened only ten minutes earlier, in fact recently enough that the reporter stated that the "lone gunman" was still at large, to which I replied "Not any more. I think those cops just shot him.").

Right.  So I decided since I’m crazy-hyper-alert now, I would try to focus on something else.   All of which is the roundabout way to say this is another episode of Random Information, albeit a potentially wacky and rambly one since I'm a little.... freaked.  These are things that have been percolating at the back of my mind for a few days but I just didn't get to yet:

 

1)  Trena (the Slapdash Sewist) asked a while back about the facings I drafted for TLo’s Ladybug Dress. To be more specific, she very kindly complimented me on the facings and asked if I have any tips.  To be quite honest, I don’t.  They are very straightforward facings, which I drafted by lining up the front and back bodices at the armscye, tracing around the armscyes and adding about 2 inches for the width.  I serged the lower edge and then I tacked each facing down at the center by stitch-in-the-ditching at the side seam.  I think what makes them look so nice is that they’re so small compared to regular grown-up facings and so they just don’t flop around like grown-up facings do.  That’s not really anything to do with skill on my part, it’s just physics.  So that wasn’t highly helpful, but I didn’t want Trena to think I was ignoring her very nice comment because I wasn’t.

2) I remembered (rather belatedly) to inform Mr. Donald Hendricks of Legacy Designs Paperdolls  that I snagged one of his images and posted a link to his website, re: Paperdoll Mania.  Mr. Donald Hendricks (or a close approximation thereof) emailed me back and said that while enjoying the publicity and goodwill of bloggers, there was some sadness at people not actually mentioning that YOU CAN BUY HIS PAPERDOLLS.  I forgot to mention this as well.  If I had spare income I would purchase many, but since I’m a poverty-stricken mother of two who works two jobs and apparently lives in the kind of neighborhood where white-supremacist drug-dealer gunmen (possibly) live, I don’t really have the disposable income right now.  So I will just say: If you have some disposable income and a penchant for exquisite illustration, please purchase something from the mysterious Donald Hendricks, whose email is either written by an assistant, one of his multiple personalities or in the royal “We”.  I’m not totally sure which.  I sort of prefer to imagine it's in the royal "We".

Well, being snarky about a total stranger has calmed me down a bit and I think I’ll head off to bed.  I thought I had more questions to answer and random information to give, but I guess I only have those two.  Clearly I’m not interesting enough and will have to work harder to generate questions!  Um… so let’s see:

“If you could be any kind of animal, what kind would you be?”  No, wait!  I mean: “If any kind of animal could be you, which kind would?”

Discuss amongst yourselves.  I'm going to try to sleep.

 

(edit: well, that guy wasn’t the children’s father, he was their uncle.  so I guess there are some small mercies, although not many, in this situation.  one person (other than the shooter) has died, the others’ injuries are “non-life threatening”.  as for my kids, their bedroom is at the back of the house and they slept through the whole thing.)

In Which I Brag Shamelessly.

I finally broke down and bought some new jeans.  My grand plan of wearing only skirts (based simply on the fact that I outright refuse to make my own jeans) has not gone well.  I have one almost-finished skirt based on my super-duper fitting muslin.  And that's it.  But my old jeans are not only old and worn out, they're also way too big.  They look schlumpy.   Even for me.

So I went to the mall -shudder- and checked out the jeans sale that a friend at work was hyping.  And I found a pair of Levi's and a pair of low-rise Lee's. 

But wait.  Here's the kicker.  These jeans were not in the "women's" department.  They were in the "regular people" department.  Granted, they're size 16 so we're talking the very top of the regular world, but still... that's like three whole sizes down from my previous jeans (which were size 18W)!  No wait.  That's four sizes. Whoo HOO!   I AM SO PSYCHED.  Ok fine, my 18W's were loose to begin with, but not my 16W's. That's still three sizes, people.

 

(And if, Gentle Readers, you are now looking at my weight-loss slider bar and shaking your heads in disbelief, muttering, "No flippin' way did she go down four sizes on eight pounds!"... well, I have an explanation.  Remember way back when, when I said it was a long story why that thing hadn't moved?  Here's the long story.  About a week after I set up that slider, I realized that my scale was having some serious issues.  As in, one day it told me I'd gained three pounds.  The next day, it decided I'd lost 65.  Now, as much as that is a dream come true for many of us, I'm willing to recognize that I'm only going to lose 65 pounds overnight if it involves having a limb or two amputated.  So I decided to put that scale out of it's misery and bought a new one.  Unfortunately, the new scale was pretty persistent in declaring my weight to be seven pounds more than the old scale thought it was.  Much like my doctor's scale insists.  I finally decided that since the scales were clearly in cahoots, I'd just go with the "new" weight, which meant that in order to move that slider I had to go back and lose a whole new seven pounds before I could even make any progress.  Rather than change the slider setup I figured it would be, you know, "good for me" to just tough it out.  Character building.  And look!!  Four whole friggin’ sizes, people.  Go Beangirl, it's your birthday.  Go Beangirl, it’s a party.)

 

My only question now is: Does this mean I'm not a woman anymore?

EDIT: here’s the size chart from Lee, which is the other brand of jeans I bought.  To answer a question, typically “women’s” sizes in jeans continue on where “regular” sizes end, but due to (presumably) vanity sizing, they don’t go up from the regular size 18 (the last size) and on to just plain 20.  Instead, they start over at 16W (which would be the same as a 20) and then 18W, etc.  You could argue based on this chart that 18 and 16W are pretty similar in size (and in some brands I think they’re probably identical). 

This sizing seems accurate to me in that my starting measurements were waist 39” and hip 49”, which corresponds exactly to their size 18W and that’s what I used to wear.  The new jeans I bought are the size 16 under the misses chart.  

I defy you find a sizing chart on the Levi’s website.  It’s unintelligible!

Random Information

1)  The kindly Cynth commented a while back on my fabric purchase from Hancock Fabrics.  She very graciously came back (after being subjected to craven pleading by yours truly), and posted a link to photos of her fabulous HP 24/7 A-Line Skirt version. 

Check it out.  I'm thinking that this style might be a bit over-the-top on me (simply because making such a skirt for myself will require substantially more fabric than Cynth used and whoa baby that's quite a statement—and maybe not one I need to make).   But I really like her results and now the wheels are churning in my little hamster-cage of a head.

2)  Judy In N.Z., a.k.a. Judy-Does-She-Ever-Make-Anything-Ugly-No-She-Doesn't-I-Hate-Her, had asked about the line drawings I made of my imaginary garments

and whether there is a tutorial for this.  Unfortunately, there is not.  In the spirit of full disclosure:  I am actually a bona fide, trained, professional illustrator.  Therefore I gots the skillz (and the software) to make said illustrations.  If there was a relatively easy way for me to provide the how-to I would, but I think that's probably beyond the scope of a tutorial.  Beyond the scope of one I can deal with, at any rate.  So I'm not much help there.  All I can recommend is... that you hire a bona fide trained professional illustrator. She takes checks, cash or Pay Pal.  Or barring that, just brush up on your drawing skills and be proud of your achievements as they are, because I don't think anyone expects perfect drawings… and doggonit, people like you.  There.  Daily Affirmation.  (I heart Al Franken… and whatever happened to Davis?  What the heck am I talking about?  Google it, baby.)

3)  KidMD (Katie) made a comment on that same Have-You-Seen-This-Dress post and provided us all with The Answer.... in the form of McCalls 5885, which is truly one of the ugliest things I have ever seen in my life. 

Until you get past the crazy-ass ruffles on that first shirt and take a look at the line-drawings. 

Then you see the true brilliance of KidMD, who is - clearly - a genius.  Takes one to know one, I always say.  So now I have something to purchase when McCall patterns go back on sale.  Because I really need more patterns.   Stop laughing.

And thus ends today’s episode of “Random Information”.  That is all.