breaking the cycle

I’m sad to say, that these days I live in jeans. There was a time, a few years back that days were spent in summer dresses. Skirts. Cotton blouses. Sigh.  What glamor is there in a pair of jeans? Okay, I don’t want to be ‘glamorous’, really, but the options seem slim for a cool, damp weather climate. And I’ve never spent $$$ on denim anyway. ( Do people still do that, I wonder?)

I find myself looking in the closet as though something new will be there, ( sort of like when you look in the fridge for that dream treat that doesn’t exist )  or that item that I had long forgot about will reappear. I see dresses, lots of skirts, and several pair of jeans. Summer before last? I made a couple pair of pants that came out okay. I’ve given a lot of thought to sewing my own jeans, but right about now I have no interest in doing so. It would just be more jeans. A friend on facebook made a simple post yesterday:  “pants are evil”.  Right now I’m in total agreement.  But then I’ll go to get dressed, and what do you think I’ll wear?

I bought a new pair of boots a year or so ago, and then felt the need to buy a whole ‘lot’ of sweater tights on ebay. I think I’ve worn one pair. I was never very comfortable wearing boots with skirts, except when I was a teenager. I don’t know what to wear all those sweater tights with; pairing them with summer skirts is a no-go.  Ditto with vintage dresses.  And besides, it is supposed to be spring! I’ve long since quit subscribing to ‘fashion magazines’ and sometimes fear that I might join the ranks of the “I give up” tribe. Maybe I have already? No,  I can’t have done that as I don’t own or wear any sweats.  But I think the jeans and t-shirts are just a step or two away from that.

I did find a pair of shoes recently – at an antique store of all places – for a song.  New and never worn, in my size no less!

Hello, Dr Martens!       (I don’t know when these were made – I can find no info on them online. But I like them lots! )  I can now retire my ‘Simple’ brand mary janes which are old and comfy but too worn.  I ‘think’ these will work with skirts ( when I finish breaking them in ).

I will spend today and tomorrow finishing up alterations, all the while thinking about clothing that I can actually wear in this cool climate. I’d love some suggestions. I never went any farther than cutting out the red corduroy coat last fall, so I might get to work on it later this week.

Happy sewing!

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little sewing

 This past week or two I’ve gotten a little sewing done.
I made two little girls’ dresses using vintage patterns as a guideline. I changed a few things, and re-drafted the pieces some. Funny thing is that as garment sizes for women have changed, even in patterns, they’ve not changed for children. At all. If I’m using a fifty year old pattern for myself, I’d sew a size 20 or 22. In today’s patterns I sew a 12.  But for the last half century, a child size 2 has remained the same. Obviously it’s just us women that have the vanity issue.  Here are my two first test pieces:
       and     I like them, but they seem big for a size 2. I’ll make a few more and then, I need a model, which shouldn’t be too hard to find. Then I’ll list them on etsy.  
I also finished this baby quilt using scraps ( yay!) from my HHJJ quilt that I did last fall:
 It’s bright and cute and I love it.

After a lifetime of sewing you’d think I’d know by now that the planning of a project takes three times longer than the sewing sometimes.  I’ve been collecting selvages for a year now, and yesterday I pulled them out of the box and loosely sorted them out according to color. My piles look like this right now:     I’ve decided to attempt to make them into a spiderweb quilt . I’m going to do mine a little different, with both big and little spiderwebs in the blocks. We’ll see if I loose steam, although using selvages seems like less work than all the stitching and flipping that usually happens in making one of these quilts. I’ll do a few blocks today and see how it goes. I’ve begun to really use the ‘image’ tool when using google to search for an item for inspiration. Its an easy way to see hundreds of pictures without trolling through countless websites. 

I also need to make a quick couple of charity baby quilts before the next guild meeting. May is when the coordinator for the local DHS new baby wellness classes comes to pick them up. I can use up some of my fabric stash, and do some good at the same time. 

Time to get busy.

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Long Week

I thought the election would never end. Thank god that the mailings, commercials and all that crap is over. I think there should be a limit placed on how early campaiging can begin. A big hooray that Palin will go home. Just maybe she’ll now practice some ‘traditional family values’ and raise her kids. I just don’t get absentee parenting by choice. It’s not that I’m sexist, I just think there should be consistensy in parenting. And there was no way she could be a ‘mom’ as the VP. She has a baby for christs sake! I know that Obama won’t exactly be available for his kids, which is sad, but I don’t honestly think that will be a huge change for them.

We’ve been having stormy weather all week, and the other night we had our first power outage of the season. That same night Sunny broke her collar and took off on a run. Dark, rainy,windy. She got into something, which caused her to have violent sneezing attacks that lasted all night long. A trip to the vet next day found nothing wrong, thank goodness, and she’s all better. Whew! Its so horrible watching a child or an aanimal in distress.
It looks like Richard’s knee was an attack of pseudogout. Its better, kind of, but yesterday he went in and got a shot to alleviate some other pain in there. Surgery will likely be in the future, due to a torn miniscus inside I think. bleh

The fearmongering just won’t end. Is it really here to stay? Cripes, there was a hideous ad that we saw for a child locator, which works when you just can’t watch your kid for that second when the perp swoops down to get ’em. ( it works from a few hundred feet away to within one inch! – is that in case the kid is on the other side of the tree hiding from you????)They want us to believe that the Big Brother thing is just plain normal – you need to be able to spy on your kids, the nanny, cars running red lights, citizens on public streets, parking lots, etc. Those red light cameras are a revenue generator, nothing more. I’ve never seen one placed in an intersection that has a high rate of accidents. This crap makes me nuts.  I kind of like my privacy, and anonymity thank you.

We are now starting the waiting game. We’ve delivered things to a couple banks, and only time will tell if this will pan out. Just maybe now I can begin catch up on all things neglected while we’ve been focusing on this stuff. There is still information to gather, but only a little compared to what we’ve collected over the past couple months.  I think the biggest thing that may stand in the way would be this economy. Everything is so bleak out there. 

Right now I’m not liking the fact that to find a new pair of jeans, or shoes, or ?? I need to go to the Big City. Some things you gotta try on. The nearest shopping options are Fred Meyer and JC Penney. Swell. Living in the country has limitations sometimes.  

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