Nuns. Definitely.

So, how old do the kids have to be before they can be sent to a convent?  Like what, seven, eight?

Yesterday TLo (who is FIVE) said to me, “Oh. Em. Gee.  I can’t believe something something something blah blah blah….”  Seriously?  O.M.G.?  I mean, I might type “OMG” once in while, but I guarantee you I have never in my life spoken such a thing. 

Clearly they are under the influence of bad, bad forces at school.  Next thing you know they’ll want to listen to Miley Cyrus and eat brand-name breakfast cereal.  And from there it’s just a slippery slope to whining “But TiffanyBrieShaquandra gets to buy her clothes….”  Ugh.  Convent school.  I see now that it’s the only way.

Martian.

No, this isn’t a post about The Big One, although she most definitely would qualify under most circumstances. (Poor, sad, weird Big One. She is so very much like her mother, but with more gloom and doom- which most people who know her mother wouldn’t have thought was even possible).

No, this is about David Bowie.

You saw that coming, right?

My husband and I watch a lot of English TV (possibly because my husband is English or possibly just because we prefer it). We’ve been watching “Life On Mars” the past few weeks, which I love. Aside from the great writing, fabulously funny set design (and my growing crush on John Simm), it has an awesome soundtrack. In fact, as soon as I’m done writing this I’m going to go see if there is an actual soundtrack you can purchase. Because you see, since we’ve started watching this show I’ve had “Life On Mars” (the song) stuck in my head. And having listened to this show for the past few weeks I’ve come to realize that our iPod is sadly lacking in glam rock. We have no T.Rex. We have no Roxy Music. I used to own several David Bowie albums on vinyl but I couldn’t even hope to tell you where they are now. I have one Queen song. Good lord. How have I managed to live like this for so long?

In the past I would have turned up my nose at purchasing a soundtrack. I would have bought the whole album, the “real” album. None of this dilettante soundtrack nonsense. But nowdays I’m more relaxed, more open-minded, more… poor. Do I really want to buy an entire Mott the Hoople album? Probably not. I’d rather spend my 99 cents on “All The Young Dudes” and be done with it.

Meantime, here’s a YouTube of “Life On Mars” (the song).

I'm off to see what I can get with my conveniently-given iTunes gift card. I'm pretty sure we'll be getting singles from T.Rex and Sweet. I might have more trouble eschewing the purchase of entire Bowie albums. I mean, come on. Just one David Bowie song? Ah, David Bowie. You poor, sad, weirdo. No wonder I like you best of all.

Size B, Size D

In recent editions Ottobre has started adding a plus size and a slender size garment or two. I’ve never really had any need to deal with these before now because they’re offered in the girls’ sizes and not, for obvious reasons, in the toddler sizes that my kids both wore. But the kids have both inched their way up into the girls’ section (in one way or another) and now TLo fits (in theory) a size 104D with some added length and the Big One fits (also theoretically) a size 116B (with a bit of spare room in the hip). So now I’m on a mission to try out as many patterns in the “special” sizes as I can to see how it goes.

To start me off, I decided to make TLo one of the plus sized skirts from the 6-2009 issue. Unfortunately I didn’t actually measure her before I did this and ended up making it a size too big. Which precipitated a whole cascade-effect of measurement and sizing trauma that I’m still trying to recover from. I’ve just realized that I will have to add or subtract almost THREE inches in width from each of the girls’ “regular” patterns respectively, which is way more tracing and altering work than I really wanted to do. Special sizing is looking better and better.

Anyway, this is made from brown babywale corduroy. It was from Hobby Lobby and I’ve used it before so I know it won’t hold up well in the wash. It’s moderately cute though. The dots are pale pink, if you’re wondering.

And let me ask you: Doesn’t that skirt in the photo look like it’s hitting that kid at the knee? Because I made a size up from TLo’s height (which I’ve just newly established, with measuring tape and everything). But it’s way shorter on TLo.

One nice thing about this skirt is that the inside is almost completely finished and looks pretty nice. Which is a good thing since it’s so very short and really flips up when TLo wears it. Still. I tried a D size pattern. On to the B sizes.