Ramble On

 

ram·bling v. ramb(ə)liNG

1) to move aimlessly from place to place; to explore idly
2)to talk or write in a desultory or long-winded wandering fashion
3)to grow or extend irregularly

Hey, I was just reading Heather's blog and she nominated me for an award.  Awwww....  And this one doesn't require you to say anything about yourself except what you like about your own blog.  Awesomeness.

But you know what?  I have a complaint.  Not about Heather or her award, of course.  No, this is a complaint about Blogger.  Because you know how in WordPress, you have the option of replying to comments?  Why doesn't Blogger have this?  It is soooo annoying to have to post new comments on your own blog, just to answer someone's question.  Seriously.  It disturbs my deeply entrenched sense of hierarchical order.

For instance, someone called "Anonymous" asked, "So, your faolks not from Minnesota then? Or is all that 'expletive deleted' from the Drak Side of Minnesota?"  To which I had a clever and witty reply (long since forgotten in the hazy mess I like to call my brain).  But which I would still just like to answer by saying, "No. My parents were actually from South Dakota, which not only isn't quite as Nice as Minnesota, but also my mother is not one little bit Scandinavian (which is something of which she is inordinately proud).  My mother is ½ Irish which is a whole nuther ball of wax, people.  The Niceness mostly comes from being, y'know, Nordic.  Also, my mother takes after her dad, who swore like a sailor.  Literally since he was, in fact, a sailor during WWII.  Sadly, I take after my mother in this respect. Amongst others."   (And just to keep it all in sync, “Nordic” makes me think of my all-time favorite Mad Men quote in which Betsy is told, “You are so profoundly sad.” To which she replies, “No.  My people are Nordic.”  That almost made me choke on my tea.)

And several people commented about Mad Men Peggy possibly making her own clothes in the first season, and I was going to reply that after I posted I started mulling it over and decided that it was entirely likely (as stated or alluded to by several people) that Peggy’s mom or sister made her clothes for her, which would be totally in keeping with the time and the characters.  But it would be nice to see.

And Kathryn commented the other day, “Your blog is so funny I tend to forget that you can actually really sew....”  To which I reply, “Aha!  My clever deception is working!  Because of course, I don’t sew so very often and I have to keep you all from figuring that out somehow---"  Er.  Oops.  You did not hear that.  These are not the droids you’re looking for.

And so forth and so on...

So to answer the question, "What do you like about your own blog?" I will have to say, "I like that I can blather on like this with no apparent purpose or reason.  Now, why you all like that is not 100% clear to me.  I guess you're gluttons for punishment."

Oh and I'm supposed to make a list of ten blogs to nominate.  But really, if it's on that list over there on the side, then you can be pretty assured that I like to read it.  And so, I hereby nominate everyone.  I'm egalitarian like that.

No, I am not lazy.  I'm egalitarian!

Even Gooder Value. “Gooder.” It’s A Word.

 

So remember last week I showed you the very cute and highly flattering “Good Value skirt” that I made for TLo?  That is one brilliant skirt, I’ll tell you now.  The cotton gabardine washes amazingly well and the whole thing just looks great on TLo (which sadly, can’t be said for all of her school clothes).

Well, I made another one.  You may not be aware, but apparently these days grade-schools have Casual Fridays.  Honest.  I guess they all wear jeans and wander around pretending to do work for most of the day in the hopes that they can go home an hour early and have accomplished nothing whatsoever.  Or maybe I’m confusing that with Casual Fridays at places I used to work. (And doesn’t “Casual Fridays” sound like the worst generic-american-food-served-with-obnoxious-themes franchise ever?  It’s like T.G.I.Friday’s only you know, with crappier, more casual service.)

Anyhoo, poor TLo only had one pair of sad sad sad denim shorts to wear on Fridays.  Oh yeah, you know them as the Smoke On The Water Shorts (a.k.a. Ottobre 1/2009 #23).  Those ones.  I finally felt sorry for her and made her another Good Value skirt out of denim.  Um.  That same free denim that we’ve been flaunting for the past year (oh man, you just have no idea how far 24 yards of ugly denim will go).

Here it is, Good Value Skirt #2.

I drafted a coin pocket.Same back.

Same interior.

I did use the rivets I bought last winter (I’m a little slow).

I didn’t use elastic in the waistband of the first version and it’s a little loose.  So I put in buttonhole elastic in this one, which bunches up the back a little but does make it fit better.

 

Although it’s hard to tell from Tantrum Girl’s poses.  She had a fit about being scolded for not getting ready on time, which inevitably caused her to be even more Not Ready.  Stomping and screaming ensued.  Eventually, she was overcome by her own temper and had to get a tissue half-way through to comfort herself (since she wasn’t getting any sympathy from me).  All this before 7:45 am.  And I wonder why the day seemed so long?

T.G.I.Friday.

My Mad Mentality

 

First off, Gentle Reader, I'll just tell you now that I'm a season behind on Mad Men.  We're slow like that.  So this commentary is only valid up to Season 2, Episode 6.  If there is something relevant that has happened since then DO NOT TELL ME.  Or I will hunt you down.  With vengeance.   I have access to stat counters.  I can find out where you live (uh... within, you know, 150 miles--- BUT THAT'S ALL IT TAKES FOR SOMEONE WITH A GRUDGE TO BEAR.  Remember this.)   If you haven’t watched Mad Men, then this may be really boring.  But I (being a good person) won’t tell you anything that will ruin it for you if you do start watching it.  Just saying.

I mention all this because I just spent fifteen minutes scouring the interwebs for a specific screen shot from Season 2, Episode 1.  I actually thought about taking a picture off my own TV.  (Seriously.  How pathetic is that?)  Because I saw something in it that made me think, "Aha!!  SEWING."  To be honest, this isn't my reaction very often when I watch TV.  So it was memorable.

"And what did you see?” you ask.  Well, Gentle Reader, it was a shot of Peggy sitting in church with her sister.  The sister is holding a toddler and when she stands up to go to communion, she hands him to Peggy.  And I realize, the sister and the baby have on matching clothes.  He's wearing pants made out of the same fabric as the sister's dress.

"And your point being?" you ask in a sardonic voice.  (You, Gentle Reader, can be somewhat snide.  Or at least, that’s how it comes across in my head.) 

My point is simply that despite my habitual lack of thinking about sewing while watching TV, I have once or twice mulled over the fact that so far none of the women in the show seem to sew.  Which is interesting, given the period and context.  Is it that none of the women are in a position to need to sew, so they don't?  Joan is not the sewing type, granted.  Betsy could be, but she's wealthy.  Peggy is relatively poor, she could certainly do well to sew for herself but doesn't seem to.  Is it because she's a working girl (not in the, you know, prostitutional sense... unless you count copywriting, which in fact I think you could be forgiven for doing)?  She maybe doesn't have time to sew.

But clearly the sister does.  That makes me happy.  Because I think sewing is a pretty substantial part of being a woman in 1962.  Take the following story, as related to me by my mother last week:

In the summer 1968 my parents - 18 years old, freshly married and toting a 6 week old baby (that's me) -  moved from South Dakota to Minneapolis.  They possessed virtually nothing, just enough to fit into a tiny little U-Haul trailer that could be pulled behind their crappy old car.  Shortly after moving into their new apartment, my dad announced to my mom than his work pants needed hemming (at this point I could already see where this story was headed, but then I know my mother).

Dad: "My work pants need hemming."

Mom: "And..."

Dad: "Uh."

Mom: "----"

Dad: "Well, get out your sewing machine...."

Mom: "What the (deleted expletive-deleted expletive)?  I do not own a sewing machine!"

Dad: "-----"

Mom: "You helped pack up everything we own in a 4 foot by 4 foot trailer.  Did you see a (deleted expletive) sewing machine?!"

Dad: "----"

I may have paraphrased.  My point is, in 1968 my dad could not conceive of a girl who did not own a sewing machine.  Or at least know how to hem up pants.  (Now granted, my mom probably did know how to hem up pants, but she would not have volunteered that piece of information willingly and probably didn't own a needle or thread.  I do know my mother.)

To my mind his assumption isn't so surprising, as every other woman around me from that time period did know how to sew and my mom’s mother and several of my parents' aunts made their own clothes.  It was what you did if you didn't have a lot of money or you had a difficult body-type to fit (or possibly, although it wasn't readily apparent to me in any of these instances, if you just enjoyed it).

So while my view of Mad Men is skewed by my own personal recollection of people who wandered around in the 60's, I'm glad to see that somewhere buried in there amongst the stylish clothes and drama are some sewing women. 

Props to Peggy's Sister and the Matching Toddler Pants.