For Rain or Shine

“Mommy, can we do the umbrella class at Bungalow?”  “Well, ok,” she said, neither of us realizing what we were getting ourselves into.  I don’t know what we thought making an umbrella entailed.  A couple hours?  Some scissors?  Magic?  Well, it turns out to be a little more than a couple hours,  a little more than some scissors, and no magic.

The hardest part was choosing the fabric.  I had a concept in my head, but nothing was singing out to me, and the fabrics I kept finding myself drawn to didn’t match a thing in my wardrobe.  Mommy, however, little over achiever that she is, found her fabric right away.  She was a good deal of the way into assembling her umbrella before I had my fabric selected.

Mommy chose two complimentary fabrics: a cute  print on white with 1950s-style Parisian women doing things around Paris, shopping, sitting at a cafe, standing by the Champs Elyse or near the Eifel Tower; and a large grey polka dot on white. 

I chose a black and white print of cityscape silhouettes, people in business clothes going here and there with briefcases interspersed with large round clock faces and park bench scenes. I liked the modern, busy city feel of the images combined with the old-fashioned simplicity of black & white.  It seemed perfect for a busy city like D.C.  I had some trouble choosing a complimentary fabric, but eventually went with a black, grey and white flower on a variegated pink background.  I hedged a bit, looked at lots of fabrics, and pretty much just went with this combo because I was tired of looking and race-horse Mommy was on her third lap.  And being the little trouble-maker that I am, that wasn’t enough.  I decided I wanted a binding along the bottom and picked black with small white polka dots.  Mommy and the lady helping us, Peggy, cut the polka dots into strips and ironed it into double-fold bias tape.

First step to making umbrellas is to cut out your 8 panels.  Then – here’s where things seem a little backwards – you hem them each individually.  Since I was putting on binding instead of hemming, I had to sew each bias strip onto the bottom of my panels while Mommy hemmed hers (well after Mommy hemmed hers cuz I’m a slow poke).

Next, you sew all the pieces together, being sure to leave an opening at the top for the umbrella post.  You also make a strap to wrap around the umbrella and hold it closed and stitch that onto the umbrella.  It turns out those are the easy parts.  Then, you put your machine away and take out the hand needle.  Oh boy.

The umbrella frame is kind of scary on its own, like a giant pokey spider.   It comes with 9 parts to be assembled onto the frame, 8 little metal tips and 1 cap.  The metal tips are sewn onto the umbrella covering and then lock onto the ends of the metal frame.  The tips are sort of like little metal tube socks.  At the top end, there’s holes in the metal across from each other for stitching the tips to the umbrella.  It’s a little tricky at first, and it helps a lot to safety pin the tips to the umbrella covering and slip onto the frame first, then slip them off the frame one-at-a-time to sew individually, removing the safety pin after a few stitches.  The really cool part about this step is you get to see how your umbrella’s going to look!

We had to go home before I got to sewing on the tips, but Mommy was able to finish her umbrella during the class.  After she sewed on all the tips, Peggy helped her glue the cap onto the top of the umbrella.

Next, Mommy sewed each seam to the umbrella frame.  When she got home, she added a button and button-hole to the closure strap.

 

 

Voila!  A beautiful umbrella.

 

Mommy’s going to spray hers with waterproofing so that it can actually be used as an umbrella.  I want mine to be a parasol for the hot D.C. summer sun, so I’m not spraying it with waterproofing.  I originally wanted to add lace to it, before I picked out my fabrics, and am still toying with the idea.  But for now, here’s my parasol.

 

It wound up perfectly matching the outfit I had on that day, the polka-dotted side of my wrap skirt and a light pink blouse with black and white spectator stilettos.  Goes ok with my suit, too.

Old Fabric, Old Pattern, New Skirt

Over the years, I’ve collected a bit of a stash of fabric.  Nothing, I mean nothing compared to what Mommy’s got, but still enough where I feel like I ought to be doing something with it.  One of my favorite things to do with stash fabric – whether mine or Mommy’s – is look through old patterns around either of our houses to see if I can find something good.  And that’s exactly what I did.

I had a delightful grey suiting fabric.  Light weight but rather decent quality.  I’ve been having the most miserable time finding good business clothes that fit me, so I thought I’d make a skirt for work.  I dug through Mommy’s patterns and found an old 1982 skirt pattern that she’d used to make a skirt for her Mommy.  Thank goodness!  That meant it wasn’t her teeny-tiny pre-kids size.  I had a shot at this working.

The pattern was old-school size 12, with a 26 1/2” waist.  That’s still a little smaller than mine, but not by too much.  I utilized resizing tactics that I learned in a book that is currently at her house where you add inches to the sides by pivoting the pattern piece out from an anchor at the center top. I added a bit to the waist and a bit to the hips. 

I also sort of added down the sides by carrying the expanded line most of the way down the pattern.  I should not have done that.  It would have worked better to blend the extended line into the existing pattern.  The skirt’s a bit wide at the knees.

The hardest part turned out to be the pleats.  I was so proud of myself.  They turned out absolutely gorgeous the first time, with amazingly straight top stitching.  I was so excited, I ran down to the kitchen where Mommy was cooking dinner so I could show her, only to realize I’d put them on the wrong side of the fabric.  Mommy always says, “as ye sew, so shall ye rip.”  I ripped.  Boy did I rip.  It took a long time to get those pleats right.  Let’s just say, third time’s the charm.

The pattern didn’t have a lining, but I like my skirts lined.  So, I found a bolt of black lining fabric in Mommy’s closet – I think it’s left from Alfred’s bridesmaid dresses.  I used the quasi-assembled skirt as a guide and cut a front and 2 back pieces.  I stitched the side seams all the way and the back seam up to about the bottom of the zipper on the skirt.  Then, I basted the lining to the skirt and stitched the waistband to both.  It worked well.

  For the zipper, we dug around in Mommy’s zipper drawer until we found something that was close to the called for size.  It’s a fabulous old metal zipper on black zipper tape with a wide zipper pull.  Gives some great edginess to the rather classic-styled skirt.

In the end, it may not be perfect, but I have a nice dress skirt that fits me pretty darn well and works nicely with my existing wardrobe.  (But not necessarily the part of my wardrobe that I was wearing the day I finished it.)

Pattern: Simplicity 5749 (old school)

Happy Halloween

Munchkinhead and I started planning months ago.  When was that March? April?  We knew what we were going to be for Halloween, and as fall arrived, we started working on our fabulous costumes.

I’m a half-eaten Triceratops!

 

And Munchkinhead is a T-Rex.

 

Specifically, she’s the T-Rex that’s eating me!

We were inspired by the Milwaukee Public Museum dinosaur diorama. (re-enacted here)

We bought some very cheap sweats on sale at Target – actually, they were kinda free because I used a gift card I won at a State Bar of Wisconsin program.  Munchkinhead dyed hers to be the proper shade of red-brown.  Mine were good dark grey.  Both of our tails are made from an extra pant leg. 

Munchkinhead’s tail and back have a spine quilted in by Mommy.  My guts are also courtesy Mommy’s quilting.  They’re part of a down comforter that was lying around in her sewing closet.  Mommy also stitched Munchkinhead’s sleeves for her little arms.  Mommy originally said she wasn’t going to help us, but she got pretty into it with lots of great ideas.  She watched Dr. Who has half a triceratops so I could hand stitch the frill onto my costume.

My frill is made of fabric a scarp of stabilizer, which Cathy at JoAnn’s suggested.  She also suggested pleating it for the circular effect.  Mommy did the pleats; I cut the zig zag.  My top two horns are foam and my nose horn is felt, molded on Mommy’s felt carrot scissors keeper that I got her in Texas.  It’s held on with a strap of clear stretchy jewelry line.

Munchkinhead and I both have cardboard feet.  Hers aren’t on in the picture, but she has three front talons and one back talon on each foot.  I just have giant plodding triceratops feet, and I do have to plod in them because they make it very difficult to walk.  Our costumes are also both stuffed with pillows, which makes them quite warm.  They’d’ve been perfect for your standard put-your-costume-over-your-snowsuit Wisconsin Halloween, but it was 67 on Trick or Treat this year.  We felt like we really were in the late Crustaceous period!

Trick or treat was fun.  Have you ever seen a T-rex try to hand out candy?  Tiny arms!  The kids would have to get up really close and Munkchinhead would still need some oomf to throw the candy bar into their bag.  Several kids had to pick up the candy.

After trick or treat, we had fun running around Mommy and Daddy’s house taking pictures of “T-rex attempts to do” this and “Triceratops attempts to do” that.  It was really funny.  T-rex could hardly do anything.  She fell headfirst into a laundry basket attempting to get clothes out of it!  I kept getting stuck in doorways and other narrow areas around the house.

Tonight, we’re going to ballet.  It’s Don Quixote, and they said we could wear costumes since it’s Halloween.  I’ll have to take my top half off so the frill doesn’t block anyone’s view.  Hopefully the colored contacts we got won’t obstruct ours.

We’re also going to – and this was a surprise to us; we found out about it after we’d started our costumes – the museum!  It’s a members costume party night.  Should be great fun.  I wonder if anyone will recognize us.

(Since Mommy and Daddy weren’t home, we went across the street to one of the neighbors’ and asked them to take our photo together.)

C-O-W-L *-O-W-L *-*-W-L and Cowl was it’s name-O

We were at Hamburger Mary’s for a church fundraiser.  Bingo night.  It was great fun.  In between the drag queen-led Bingo games, the church was handing out raffled door prizes.  Mommy won one!  Mommy won a knitting basket, lined with a fabric scrap and complete with 2 skeins of Alpaca and Merino hand-spun wool, size 9 bamboo 24” circular knitting needles and instructions for a cowl: Tweed Cowl Pattern by Melina Martin Gingras.

Mommy immediately gave the basket to me and said I could make whatever was in it for her.  I got to keep the basket :)  (She, of course, got the fabric piece for her quilting collection.)

It just so happened that I had meetings and trainings at the State Bar Offices in Madison over the next two days.  By the time I came home Friday night, I had a finished cowl for Mommy.

This was my first experience working with hand-spun fiber.  I liked it a lot.  The different textures and thickness as the yarn works through your fingers gives some neat variety.  The yarn worked out smoothly and gave the finished piece an extra level of coziness.

The pattern was pretty simple, a combination of basket weave and knit and purled sections.  I only needed one stitch marker to keep track of where my row started.  Somehow, I managed to lose my stitch market while sitting still at the meeting.  Needing something, I improvised and used the ring from my finger.  It worked well, and thankfully, I didn’t lose that, too.  (I later found my stitch marker; it’d fallen into my bag.)

The cowl looks great on Mommy – everything looks great on Mommy.  And now she’s all set for the start of autumn.

yarn: OMG Handspun by Melina Gingras, 70% Alpaca/30% Merino, 8wpi (Aran), 3 oz.

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Yesterday, we celebrated Mommy’s birthday.  It’s been all the buzz around these parts, “Mommy’s sixty!”  “Mommy’s turning sixty?!”  “Can you believe Mommy’s sixty?!”  But it didn’t really hit me until we were sitting at her birthday dinner and I saw the front of the card Munchkinhead made her.  “Happy 60th Birthday Mother.”

The numbers looked big and scary.  60?  I feel like I remember when my grandparents turned 60.  Maybe I do, maybe I don’t really, but it’s a number I associate with a certain image that Mommy doesn’t fit at all.  The math may say 60, but the fun factor is still stuck at 32, or at least somewhere in the 30s.

Just the other day, Mommy and I were in the pool pretending our floaty rafts were bumper cars and crashing into each other.  Old people tell me all the time, “when I was younger, I used to wear shoes like you; when you’re older you’ll be stuck in ugly shoes like mine.”  But Mommy’s shoes are still as fun as mine, so she can’t be old.

We had a fun evening out on for her birthday.  First, we all went to Cafe Centraal for birthday dinner.  Minus the less-than-stellar surprise live music, it was quite fun.  Munchkinhead was the designated driver and drove Daddy’s car.  Daddy called dibs on the front seat even though it was Mommy’s birthday and Mommy let him take it.  She, RonnyLew and I squeezed into the back.  And I do mean squeezed.  Munchkinhead dropped everyone off near the door and I took over the wheel for parking just in case parallel parking was required.  After dinner, we took Daddy home and went to Leon’s for frozen custard.  Yum!

I’m guessing Mommy finished the evening in her sewing room. That may sound like an old-people thing to do, but she’s been spending evenings in her sewing room since I was a little girl, so it’s not.

Happy Birthday Mommy!  This one’s for you.

It’s July 7th!

Happy 35th Anniversary Mommy and Daddy!

Every year, as 7/7 approaches, we get all excited about Mommy and Daddy’s anniversary.  They get so happy, it’s hard for that not to be contagious.  This year, their anniversary comes as reminder not just of the happiness of marriage, but of all the other stuff that comes with those vows.

Daddy had emergency eye surgery just a bit ago and while he’ll most likely be alright and be able to see again soon, it’s a long and difficult recovery period.  Munchkinhead and I have been helping out, but nothing is as important as Mommy and Daddy’s patience with each other right now.  Daddy’s frustrated by what he can’t do – which is pretty much everything except sit or lay down.  Mommy’s tired and worn out by what she has to do, both in picking up the extra parts of running the house – like cooking all the meals; that’s Daddy’s job – and in caring for Daddy and helping him with his eye drops and such.

It’s rough on everyone when a family member is ill or somewhat incapacitated, no matter how momentarily, but watching Mommy and Daddy together is like watching a hug from God. 

Mommy’s doing her best to make sure Daddy’s as comfortable as he can be, which isn’t very.  She helps him out whenever he asks – even when he asks for stuff he insists on doing himself when Munchkinhead or I offer.  She quickly gets a towel when he knocks over his water, again, because he can’t see it.  She carries his special chair and special table headrest to wherever he needs it.  And you can see Daddy appreciates it and really is trying to make the best of an unpleasant situation.  It’s sweet.

It may not be the anniversary of their dreams, but it’s one that truly exemplifies how much they love each other.  And it’s one they’re unlikely to forget anytime soon.  Happy crazy, curve ball anniversary Mommy and Daddy.

Is this Officially Old Age?

Today is a very special day.  Today is Mommy’s last day of work, ever.  She is officially retired!  And is she is very, very excited.  She’s been counting down the days since Christmas – probably longer in her head.

Mommy started working at the bank when she was 16.  She went to college, got a degree, tried out her degree in the professional world, hated it, and went back to the bank until she could figure out what she wanted to do with her life.  She’s retiring from the bank.  Ok, it’s technically a different bank, but it’s a bank.  (If you’d like to know what she did with her life, read any of the 700+ posts on here for a small glimpse of the amazingness that is Mommy.  Or follow her on Twitter.)

After today, Mommy will be easy to find.   She’ll either be in the sewing room or the pool.  In winter, it’ll be really easy to find her; the pool won’t be an option.

Congratulations and happy retirement Mommy!

Mommy cutting her retirement cake.

Adventures with Ivory: Camping with Mommy

My mommy’s side of the family goes camping every Labor Day and Memorial Day weekend at Lazy Days campgrounds.  Just going along is an adventure – ask Munchkinhead who won’t do it anymore!

This Labor Day, our group had roughly 2 dozen people in it; aunts, cousins, uncles, children, friends and some dogs.  The theme was Olympics so we had some organized games on top of the regular foolishness.  Mommy and I were partners for a three-legged race and a bag race.  We didn’t win, but we also didn’t fall down or pee our pants like some people.

There’s a small beach on a small lake at the campgrounds.  Somehow, I got myself elected to take all of the kids, 7 of them ranging in age from 4 to 10, to the beach.  That was interesting.  I’m like the only person on the camping trip who doesn’t have kids or isn’t regularly around children.  We had fun.  The kids seemed to appreciate that I was quite content to sit on the beach as long as they wanted to play in the sand and water.  Eventually, some other adults came down, including Mommy who was running away from a game of Cards Against Humanity at the campsite.  (That game is not Mommy-proof.)

We had campfires every night and Mommy and I cooked all our meals over our fire, Zambian style on a tripod of bricks.  For Saturday night’s group dinner, I attempted to make nsima and peanut sauce cisyu with eggs.  People were very polite about trying it, but I don’t think anyone actually liked it. – With the Olympic theme, we were supposed to cook something from our nationality.  Since the family’s all Polish, I thought I’d make Zambian food.

The best part of the weekend was when Mommy and I rented a tandem and attempted to toodle around on a bicycle built for two.  We did pretty well except for that one ditch.

AMAZING!!!

When Alfred and I were little, we had a couple of cassette tapes that we absolutely loved.  Somehow, Mommy seems to now hate the one that was mine yet still enjoy the one that was Alfred’s, but I digress.

One of the fabulous songs from Wendy’s Little Brown Tape, which has made it into quite a few blog posts over the years, was “Mr. Computer Man.”  Mind you, this is on a cassette tape. This song was written, at the latest, sometime in the early 80s, when few people had computers in their homes.  It’s about how super smart computers are.

Alfred being a computer man.

There’s the computer, Mr. Computer Man, who probably would have talked like Stephen Hawking if Stephen Hawking had talked like that back then, and was a robotically clipped, stern male voice.  And then there were all the super impressed children who asked him questions.

“Mr. Computer Man, how much is two plus two?”
”Four.”
“AMAZING!!!” the kids would all yell.

Mr. Computer Man puts up with the kids’ questions for awhile, and then he starts getting smart-aleky.

“Mr. Computer Man, how do you spell Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?”
“With Letters.”
“AMAZING!!!!”

And of course, in a sort of Mr. Roboto fashion, a machine cannot be truly human and we must distinguish ourselves from the machines.  Human concepts cause overload.

“Hello, Mr. Computer Man, my name is Jenny.  I have a question for you.”
”Wait, Jenny does not compute.  What is your number please?”
”Number? I don’t have a number. I’m a person.”
”A person? A person?! AMAZING!!!!”

It’s difficult to spend more than a couple of days with any combination of me, Mommy, Alfred or Munchkinhead without hearing someone say “AMAZING!!!!”  not to mention answering questions with smart-aleky responses like “a heck of a lot.”

If I ever get one of those smart phones with a personality in it, I’m totally going to say “AMAZING!!!” to it every time it answers me.

A Very Merry Christmas, or Something Like That

It was is if we just were not meant to go.  Each of the four of us had messed things up in some way.  I got the ticket time wrong.  Munchkinhead didn’t communicate Mr. Munchkinhead’s changed plans.   Mr. Munchkinhead came up a day later than originally expected.  And Mommy spent fifteen minutes not parking the car.  It was such a kerfuffle.

But, we did finally get there, only half an hour late, to St. Josephat’s Basilica for Pius XI High School’s Christmas concert.  None of us had been in the Basilica before – as far as we know, though Daddy claims Mommy has been.  It was quite something to be seen.  Large dome, elaborate painting, gold leaf detailing and stained glass.  We sat in the balcony area under a mini dome with four scenes depicting four virtues, only three of which we could decipher from the Latin words below.  The inside of the dome was ringed in large letters spelling out sentences in Polish.

The Pius students performed from the front of the sanctuary and the highest balcony at the back.  The poor Madrigal Choir seemed to have to keep going back and forth between the two.  Choir is definitely the high school’s strong point.  All of the five separate choirs were quite good.  The band, orchestra and dancers performed as well.  We couldn’t really see the dancers where we were sitting.  The music reverberated throughout the sanctuary, filling the dome with sounds of the season.  It was by far the best setting for a choir concert that I’ve ever experienced.

 

Mommy, Munchkinhead, Mr. Munchkinhead and I sat spread out in the middle pews.  Only people in the first two rows of the balcony could see down below, so we had plenty of room to just sit and listen and sing along when th e program directed.  The concert was quite good and I’d like to make a regular thing of going.  However, next year, logistics planning a little more ahead of time might be helpful.

My New Purse

I loved my yellow purse.  It was actually my second yellow purse.  I loved the first one, too.  Yellow was such a nice way to immediately brighten up an outfit, especially when that outfit was covered in a black trench coat.  But, my purse was falling apart and I had to admit it was time to move on.  I was sad. I hate trying to shop for purses. None of them every seem to be what I want.

Then I saw Mommy’s new purse – purse and tote collection rather – all made by her.  And she had a new pack of yellow and green fabrics that had arrived in a kit for her.  Ooooh!  So Mommy and I got out one of her patterns and started making me a new purse.

I pulled out all the yellows from her kit as well as one of the greens and then rummaged around her fabric closet for some more yellows and something for the lining.  The purse is a patchwork quilted purse so there’s lots of opportunities for fun patterns.  In addition to the yellows from the kit, I used scraps from a dress I had with mud huts on it and scraps from one of Katrina’s dresses that was white with yellow and black flowers.  I used two greens from her kit and scraps from a pair of under trousers I’d made for Mr. Trizzle, as well.  We used her Accu-Cutter to cut the strips, so they’re actually straight.

Adjustments

The pattern is a simple, lined bag with a handle and a front pouch.  I made some additions: a divider to create two inside pockets, a row of three small pockets on the back of the inside, a small cell pocket on the inside of the front pouch for my cell phone, plastic ring to clip my keys onto so they wouldn’t get lost in the bottom of the bag, and plastic backing to make the bag water-resistant.

The Divider

The purse pattern has four pieces: outside, front pocket, handle, bottom.  I used the outside pocket to cut a piece from the lining on the fold.  I folded this piece so the rightside was facing out and the fold was at the top of the piece.  I basted the raw edges to the back lining piece.  When the lining was fully assembled, the folded piece created a pocket in the back section of the purse.

The mushroom fabric is the divider, front and back lining, the yellow is the bottom lining.

Row pockets

I know that I have lots of little things in my purse that would wind up swimming in the bottom of a bag and never be found.  To give these things a home, I made some smaller pockets along the inside of the back of the purse.  This is in the pocket area formed by the divider.  I took a long rectangle of fabric, hemmed it all around and then stitched it down across the back lining piece on the sides and bottom.  To turn it into multiple pockets, I stitched to straight lines from top to bottom of the piece at roughly 1/3 intervals.

You can almost see it in the picture.  The row pockets are the flowered material on top of the mushrooms.

Cell phone Pocket

I always want my cell phone easily accessible and in an outside pocket.  But the outside pouch on the purse pattern is quite large.  So, I decided to add a home for my cell phone in the front pocket.  It’s positioned so that when the purse is on my right shoulder, I can reach inside with my right hand and pull it out easily.  It’s a simple rectangle of fabric, sewn down on the sides and bottom with triangles sewn at the top corners to help enforce the stitching.  It works well.

Key Ring

The ring for my keys is probably my favorite addition.  My last purse had large metal rings connecting the handles to the purse.  I would use the little metal clip on my keys to clip my keys to those rings and prevent them sinking to oblivion in the bottom of my purse.  I found a brown plastic ring somewhere in Mommy’s sewing room that was once part of who-knows-what.  I cut a long rectangle from the row-pockets fabric, folded it long-wise, sewed a seam on the long side, turned it and pressed it.  Then I put it through the plastic ring, folded it back on itself and sewed a line just above the ring to keep the ring in place on it’s holder.  I basted it to the lining bottom fabric and sewed it in place when the handle was attached to the bag.  It hangs inside the purse from where the handle meets the bag.

Water-Resistant Lining

My other modification turned out to not be such a great idea.  We found some iron-on plastic, for coating table cloths and that sort of thing.  I thought it’d be great to help protect the contents of my purse from rain, puddles, spills etc.  So, I cut plastic for the lining front, back and bottom and ironed it on to each piece.  Assembling the back was a little tricker because the lining pieces were stiffer, but it wasn’t too much of an issue.

However, once in use, my purse was very noisy.  It sounded like a krinkling shopping bag every time I rummaged in it for anything.  At one point, we had to take the purse apart a bit to fix a bad seam.  When I opened the purse’s insides, I discovered muct of the plastic had torn or was coming away from the fabric.  So, I just tore it all off.  Oh well.

Finishing Touches

Mommy had put some embroidery on her purse and offered to add some to me. I chose a squirrel!  He’s got this mischievous look, like he’s up to no good, like he just stole that acorn in his hands from under your nose.  I love that.  He’s hanging out on the back of the purse.

I love my new purse.  I keep thinking about what I’d do different next time, but that’s the learning experience.  Besides, I could always make another and have one for each season, like Mommy ;)

It’s that Time of Year…

Tomorrow is a very special day.  It’s Mommy and Daddy’s 34th wedding anniversary.  My sisters and I made them a present and they aren’t allowed to open it until tomorrow.  I can’t wait to hear how they like it!  No, no, it’s not snakes in a can that pop out at you.  Though that would be very fun…

I have lots and lots of great memories of spending time with Mommy and Daddy, but some of the best are actually when their squabbling.  Not angry fighting, just old-married-couple bickering. 
(Photo: Mommy and Daddy at their 30th Wedding Anniversary vow renewals.  Daddy doesn’t like his photo online, so I edited it.)

My mommy has this delightful way of saying my Daddy’s name in a manner that seems to say, in one little syllable, “that is totally inappropriate and you should not be doing it and don’t you dare do it again even though I know you will but I still love you dearly anyway.”  It’s adorable and makes me giggle. Makes Daddy laugh, too most of the time.

One of the best things is when they’ve been arguing over something factual that can be checked and the moment when Daddy realizes Mommy was right the whole time and he doesn’t really want to concede that she was right but can’t honestly keep claiming he’s right.  Somehow, those conversations just sort of end and Daddy suddenly has something he needs to do somewhere else.  Though there are the rare occasions where he goes, “ok, ok, you’re right; I was wrong.”  Then he tries to hug Mommy, and she’s still so upset about being told she was wrong to begin with she scowls.  It’s so cute, like little bunny rabbits munching in the garden.

Here’s to plenty more years of nice little squabbles, and plenty of non-squabble moments, too – Happy Anniversary Mommy and Daddy!

Other Posts related to Mommy and Daddy’s Anniversaries:

Mommy and Daddy in love

Their song

The importance of beer in a relationship

The Road to being Stuck in Your Room is Paved with Good Intentions

It was June, the summer after 6th grade.  My sisters and I had some sort of fake slumber party on the hide-a-bed.  I don’t remember the details.  The middle of the day on Saturday, Mommy and Daddy had gone out for a walk.

My sisters and I wanted to make Daddy something for Father’s Day but we needed supplies.  There was a JoAnn’s not too far away; Alfred and I rode our bikes there frequently, just over a mile.  Munchkinhead was too          Us, a few months later
little to  ride that far; she was only about 3 years old.  We decided we’d walk.

We cleaned up our slumber party.  Sort of.  Figuring we’d want to play again later, instead of folding the hide-a-bed back into the couch, we made the bed up and tucked all our stuffed animals into it. 

We cleaned anything else we’d been playing with.  We left a message for Mommy and Daddy in the living room, checked that all the doors were locked, took our house key and set off for the store, pulling Munchkinhead in the little red wagon.  We took an umbrella with us in case it rained while we were away.

We were pleased with ourselves, feeling we had remembered to do everything we were supposed to do.  We were having fun together and excited about making something nice for Daddy.  How were we supposed to know Mommy and Daddy hadn’t taken a house key with them?

They couldn’t get in.  They couldn’t get our message.  They didn’t know where we were.  And, it had started raining.  Apparently, these circumstances make parents freak out.

Mommy and Daddy found us with the little red wagon, next to the McDonald’s, heading out of the Plaza parking lot.

I don’t remember what Daddy got for Father’s Day that year.  It couldn’t have been good because I remember we spent a lot of time looking at puffy paint supplies.  I know what I got though.  Grounded.  For being irresponsible by not anticipating the facts I didn’t know.  And for making my sisters go with me.  They didn’t get in trouble at all.  “They’re too young to know better.”  Harumph.  And yes, 20 years later I am still bitter.

But I’ll tell you this much, as a grown-up, I’m pretty darn good at anticipating a whole lot of “what-if” scenarios and preparing for most of them.

Flowered Empress

Back to those fun Christmas presents.  Here’s a shirt I made for Mommy.   I’d had the fabric around for awhile, holding onto it because I thought it would look great on Mommy.  I’d even found the perfect pattern for it.   I decided Christmas would be the perfect excuse to finally turn that fabric into a beautiful shirt.

The pattern is an empire waist that ties in the back.  It’s one of the super easy Simplicity patterns, so it didn’t take long to make.  The flowered fabric is sort of silky, but heavy enough to hold it’s shape nicely, and it’s quite soft.  I added some lace edging to the neckline and sleeves.  Hopefully the lace on the back of the neck doesn’t itch too much.

 

Front of Shirt

 Back of Shirt

 

Pattern: Simplicity 2322

Pink Polka-Dots

It was my favorite nightgown, long, warm, cozy; it was like being wrapped in Mommy’s love..  White flannel with pink polka dots, delicate pink ribbon trim.  I have so many fond memories of wearing that nightgown; Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, curled up on the couch watching tv, snuggling into my bed, getting toothpaste on the sleeve…  I’m glad Mommy made it so long because that meant as  I grew it still fit.  I always considered that very “Little House” of her.  When I did finally grow out of that nightgown, when polka dots were almost gone and the sleeves came only to my elbows and my shoulders couldn’t squeeze inside, I was very sad.  I loved that nightgown.

So, when Mommy put “nightgown” on her Christmas list, I totally called dibs and immediately headed to JoAnn’s to look for some white flannel with pink polka dots.  The store had exactly what I was looking for, and some matching pink ribbon.

Mommy’s nightgown isn’t as long as mine was – she’s already tripping on her slippers, don’t need her tripping on the nightgown, too – and it has short sleeves.  It’s still cozy, though, like mine was.  And it’s very cute.  Well, I might be biased.

The pattern, being Simplicity, was pretty easy.  The lined yoke didn’t present any problems, which was good because I’ve done plenty of yokes where that wasn’t the case.  The rest of the nightgown is unlined, allowing it to be, I hope, the right combination of snuggly-warm and breezy-cool.  The pink ribbon I chose for the edging had it’s own decorative edging, which made it fairly easy to hide my stitches when sewing it down.  I hope Mommy’s gotten good use of it this winter.

Pattern: Simplicity 4048

Fun and Easy Slippers for Mommy

One of the lady’s at knitting pulled two objects from her bag.  One looked like a warm, thick and cozy tube sock with cable detailing up the front.  The other looked like a flat rectangle.  Yet they clearly belonged together, knit from the same soft grey yarn.  Sock with matching coaster?  Mitten with matching single-shoe rug?  Baguette holder with matching hotpad?  Slippers!  Very neat and very fun slippers.

The lady at knitting at found them in some stash somewhere, and curious about them, had deconstructed one.  It turned out that what appeared to be cable detailing was actually a crocheted chain lacing up the slipper.  That flat rectangle was the slipper body.  The long edges each had eyelets knit into them, knit one, yarn over, knit two together, repeat.  Lace up the rectangle, and it becomes a slipper.

“Why, how perfect,” I thought.  Mommy had sent her Christmas list only a few days before, and on that list, she had asked for slippers.  Plus, I was just finishing the shawl for Mr. Trizzle’s mom. 

As soon as I could, I ran to JoAnn’s and scoured the yarn aisles for the perfect yarn.  Mommy’s favorite color is red and there was one red yarn that particularly stood out to me, a nice chunky yarn.  The slippers the lady at knitting had were knit with one strand of yarn, but I wanted to give Mommy’s slippers extra thickness and firmness to keep out the cold from the floor.  So I picked out a matching white to go with the red.  Both chunky, both tweed, with little speckles of colored yarn mixed in.  As I knit, the resulting fabric reminded me of a rag rug Mommy used to have in the kitchen at the old house.  Maybe that’s why I picked the yarn…

The slippers are long, so they cover her ankles and form a cute little cuff at the top, like elf shoes.  The toes of the slippers are sewn together by threading a piece of yarn through the end of each row and pulling it tight.  I used two strands for strength and used the yarn to add a cute little bow detail.  Of course, the best part is, Mommy loved them.   And I hear that if she gets a good running start, she can turn the kitchen floor into her own playground.

 

Mommy trying on her new slippers.

 

 

Yarn: Serenity Chunky Tweeds, Premier Yarns Deborah Norville Collection in Claret and Aran, 2 skeins each

Pattern: Using two strands of yarn, cast on a row about as long as you want your slipper, from the tops of the toes, around the heel and up the ankle.  

Next row, knit one, yarn over, knit two together, repeat until you reach the end of your row.  If you don’t have exactly enough stitches to end the row, knit the last few stitches; this will be the top of your slipper. 

Next rows, knit.  Keep knitting until you have a rectangle of desired width.  When placed under your foot, with the rows running parallel to your foot, the rectangle should be able to wrap around your foot to cover just under a third of the top of your foot on each side.  The rectangle will stretch when you lace it up so pull a bit as you try the size out.

Do another row of knit one, yarn over, knit two together, making sure the yarn overs line up with the other side of the slipper. 

Bind off.

Using a crochet hook and one strand of yarn, knit a crochet chain long enough to lace up your slipper and tie at the top.  I suggest threading the chain through the slipper as you go to make sure it’s long enough.

Lace up your slipper.

Thread two strands of yarn through each end stitch at the slipper’s toe.  Pull tight and tie in a knot.  Hide the ends in your stitches or tie into a decorative bow.

Enjoy your slippers.

Christmas Dresses

It’s almost Christmas and I’m soon headed back to the land of milk and cheese to celebrate with my wonderful family. In the spirit of Christmas and family and all that fabulous stuff, I wanted to share one of my favorite holiday traditions: new Christmas dresses.

New Christmas dresses are extra special.  Not only are the new and for Christmas Eve at Grandmas, they’re made with tender loving care.  Every year growing up, Mommy would take us to the fabric store a month or so before Christmas to pick out our patterns and fabrics.  Christmas always had the fanciest fabrics of the year, velvets and satins and rich colors. 

We’d sit at the pattern table pouring through books, me driving Mommy nuts with “could you change this to this and remove this and add this?”  And Alfred driving us all nuts complaining she didn’t like the color of the dress in the book.  (For those who don’t sew, you can make the dress whatever color you want.) 

After we finally picked our patterns, including Mommy picking out her own, we’d head into the fabric section to continue driving Mommy crazy by either picking out the most expensive or most difficult to sew fabrics, slippery fabrics that would slide off the machine, patterned fabrics that would need to be lined up and crazy fabrics that were not suited to the pattern we’d just picked out.  Mommy would talk us into something more reasonable or somehow make the fabric work.
My sisters and me in our slippery fabrics. (and the only time you’ll see Alfred in better shoes than me.)

Sometimes, Alfred and Munchkinhead and I would all match.  Sometimes, Mommy would match, too.  One year, Mommy made Munchkinhead and Alfred’s Barbies Christmas dresses to match their own.  I was Mommy’s Barbie because we had matching dresses, too.

And there was that year I wanted my dress to be just like one of my Holiday Barbies’.  Poor Mommy; that must have been an extra headache.  That particular Holiday Barbie wore a long, poofy, green velvet frock with detailed beading all up the bodice and sparkles from the hem up.  Mommy did a pretty good job coming up with something close.

Barbie is the one on the left.

The dresses didn’t always turn out perfect - there was that one year she put my skirt on Alfred’s bodice and vice versa.  Alfred had a very beautiful flowy gown, and I had a mini-dress. And my size in high school and college fluctuated so much dresses often barely fit by Christmas – but we always loved our Christmas dresses.

Now that I’m too big to live at home, I make my own Christmas dresses.  It doesn’t always go well and they’re never as pretty as Mommy’s, but it’s still fun.

Incidentally, that dress was from last Christmas and it no longer fits, but the dress Mommy made me in 1998 still does.

A Quilt of Many Color(ful T-Shirt)s

Two years ago, Mommy was working on a Alfred and Nathy-Boo’s wedding [link] present, a t-shirt quilt made out of t-shirts they’d acquired growing up.  Not any old t-shirt, the ones from things like band, twirling, sports, 4H, etc. 

Mommy’d been wanting to teach me - or I’d been wanting to learn, something like that – how to quilt, and a t-shirt quilt seemed like a great simple way to start.  Then the office manager at work started to clean out the old supply shelves.  All sorts of old items for which the organization no longer had use.  Amongst the piles, some old t-shirts from the early days and past events.  I looked at those t-shirts, and I looked at the giant set of shelves filled with the current t-shirts, and I knew exactly what to quilt:

the history of Creative Commons in t-shirts.

 

 

We had a lot of fun making the quilt: cutting pieces, laying out patterns, sewing squares, finding a backing, tying it down and being silly. 

 

Mommy graciously offered for the backing one of the fun fabrics I’d brought her from Nigeria. That seemed perfectly appropriate as I had applied to CC while living in Nigeria and worked closely with the CC Africa teams. Plus, the fabric’s bright colors went well with the t-shirt colors and the pattern incorporated a close approximation of CC’s signature green.

Now, the quilt lives in the couch room at the CC office.  Often, when the office is too cold, I find the quilt and wrap myself up in the coziness.

And it all started from this:

A pile of t-shirts.