When Giving Up Is Getting

The last couple years, a week or so before Ash Wednesday, I was assaulted out of the blue by the thought of what I should give up for Lent. But this year nothing came to me. Then on Sunday my pastor/husband suggested to the congregation that rather than giving something up, perhaps we should consider adding something. Like daily prayer, Bible reading, or something else that would have a positive impact on our relationship with God. So I resolved to do this, but thought little more about it yesterday.

Then this morning, Shrove Tuesday, at 9:25am, I realized (with God's direction) what I should give up and add during Lent.

Here's the part I came up with: Give up sleeping in.

Working at home is a huge blessing, but it does make it so easy to waste the morning in bed since I have no commute beyond walking down a flight of stairs and no one can see me so I can work all morning in my robe and slippers.

Here's how God finished my thought: Use the time I gain in the morning to do things for others.

I can be so selfish. My initial inclination would be to use extra time for myself. To exercise, to write, to read, to sew, to get a jump on work. But I already use far too much of my time for myself. Instead, I will use my added time to do things for my family, my friends, and my church. I will start the morning with a short time of prayer, asking God to guide and bless my efforts during the day and to draw my heart closer to Him. Then I'll start focusing on others.

For my family I can:
~ pray for my husband and son
~ pray for my extended family
~ do a load of laundry
~ iron my husband's dress shirts
~ make a real breakfast
~ do a load of dishes
~ write a real, physical note to a family member and put it in the mailbox

For my friends I can:
~ pray for their needs
~ write notes of encouragement
~ bake something for them

For my church I can:
~ pray for my pastor
~ pray for members
~ pray for the kingdom
~ read for Sunday school
~ write encouraging notes to church members

Like any act for another person, each of these things will ultimately benefit me, even prayers for someone else, but I hope to do them not with my benefit in mind but through the pure motive of blessing others.

Can you think of other things I might do between the hours of 6am and 7am (so phone calls are pretty much out) to benefit others? I'm open to suggestions!

Read more...

Mastering the Sin of Covetousness

A few years ago, when the print media world was at the beginning of its sudden financial crisis, a favorite magazine of mine was one of the first casualties I noticed. Cottage Living was a lovely magazine filled with photos of beautiful homes. I was pretty bummed when I got the very last issue of Cottage Living. Other home magazines were nice, but this one was really my favorite. This was a publication that I enjoyed looking to for inspiration for my own home.

Or so I thought.

Shelves over the kitchen sink. At some point a magazine (or several of them)
told me to display like objects in groups and to paint the backs of my shelves
an accent color. I had to buy more things in order to get groups of them to
"properly" display. The only thing I use on these shelves and those next to
them (also populated with green and white pottery) is the teapot.

I was recently reminded of the existence of this magazine during a conversation (which I've now forgotten) and in thinking about it I've realized that rather than being a source of home decorating inspiration, it was actually a source of discontentment. I looked at the homes and rooms featured within and saw how my own home didn't measure up. I greatly desired rooms that looked like the ones I saw. I wished for more space, for better furniture, for more trendy accessories, for more stuff or different stuff.

My grandmother's Italian flower chandelier.
Decorating magazines told me these were cool.
Couldn't I just have decided for myself whether I liked this?

In the few years since this magazine has gone out of print, I have noticed that I spend far less time scheming about how I can make my home more like the ones I admired in the pages of Cottage Living. I have spent less time shopping for items I felt I needed to get a certain look. I have spent less money on home decorating. And, in general, I've gained more mastery over the sin of covetousness in my life.


The Binder

I still have ideas for home improvement, but they are (I hope) more based on me and my opinions and needs than on the style advice of others. I still see beautiful rooms featured on blogs, but I don't covet them. I still have an enormous 3-ring binder full of pages I ripped out from Cottage Living and other magazines, but I look at it maybe once every six months or so. I still buy an occasional thing for my home, but usually because it is practical and necessary. I'm letting more things get very worn out before replacing them.

Flowers from my son. He beamed as he brought them into the kitchen for me.
"Why did you get me flowers?" I asked. "Because I love you," he answered.
Commence heart melting.

I still get catalogs from Pottery Barn. I still get an occasinoal decorating magazine and flip through it. I still admire other people's homes. But it's becoming less and less important that others be "impressed" with my own home. Instead, it's becoming more important to me to try to keep the rooms I have clean (after all, I think part of the reason I coveted the rooms in Cottage Living  is because they were clean!) and livable. My decorating and home improvement schemes are largely made up of ideas for more storage and better lighting.

Do your reading or viewing habits open a door to discontentment and covetousness? If they do, what could you change in order to shut that door?

Read more...

Socializing Your Hobbies

My hobbies don't involve teams. They are generally things I do alone. Sewing, quilting, crocheting, photography, etc. But there is a long history of women doing their crafts together. Quilting bees, for instance, or a pleasant afternoon of chatting and needlework with friends. Modern knitting groups are one manifestation of this social crafting phenomenon in our day.
But you don't have to belong to a particular group to socialize your hobby. In fact, you don't even have to share the same hobby with others to hang out while you work on a project. If your project is portable, you can do it practically anywhere with anyone. Here's a list of hobbies I can think of at this moment that you could share with your friends. The list is by no means exhaustive and I encourage you to add to it in the comments.

knitting
crochet
cross stitch
embroidery
applique
hand quilting (smaller projects)
making yo-yos or hexagons for quilts
sewing (bring your machine or save the hand sewing parts, like the hem, for time with friends)
scrapbooking
stamping

If you're going to hang out anyway, why not bring something to work on? If you're friends aren't so crafty, ask if it's okay for you to bring a project to work on while you're at their house for dinner or while you meet for coffee. Most people don't mind, and it may spur in your friend an interest in that hobby, which you can then share.

How do you share your love of sewing or knitting or whatever with your friends?

Read more...

March

Allow me to point out that if you are reading this you have survived another February. This may not seem like a big deal to those of you in the south who are already planting your vegetable gardens, but to those of us still under several inches of snow, this is a momentous occasion. Last night I turned my calendar to reveal this lovely lady.

She's happy it's March, too.

Outside red squirrels scamper across the crusted snow and every day I hear birdsong heralding warmer weather. Today it is supposed to get to 40 degrees. The sun is shining stronger and sticking around for longer each day. This is the time to keep your birdfeeders filled and watch for interesting birds passing through on their migrations. It is also the time songbirds are beginning to next, so if you want to put out birdhouses or nesting material, now is the time.



The boy is very much into dogs at the moment. Live ones, stuffed ones, pretending to be one (there is a lot of high-pitched barking, panting, and begging in our house of late). Anything fabric-based becomes his dog bed, including a pile of dirty laundry or the actual dog's bed, which is COVERED in fur since shedding season is in full swing.


In a week Lent will begin. I love having a late Easter (April 24th this year) because it's more likely to be nice weather. But having Lent begin in March rather than February is a bit difficult. Lent in February feels quite natural. We're all depressed anyway. But Lent beginning in March will take more of a concerted effort, I think.

Meanwhile, we're here making the best of lingering winter, looking forward to rain puddles, flowers, and getting back into the sandbox. Unfortunately our weekly storytime at the library is on hiatus during March, so we'll have to find some other special thing to do on Wednesdays for the coming weeks. Tomorrow we'll be going to the zoo, and, I suspect, playing trains.

Read more...

The Boys' Quilts

Augusta Christine Durow was born in Fairhaven, Michigan, on May 26, 1886, the fourth of five children. Her father Albert was born in Germany and her mother Katherine was born in Canada, making Augusta (or Gusty, as she was nicknamed) a first generation American. Augusta married Frederick Koch and they had two daughters: Marion in 1917, and Lorraine (my paternal grandmother) in 1920. My deepest apologies, but I do not have a photo of Augusta, though I hope to possibly get one from Great Aunt Marion.

In the late 1940s, Augusta made twin bed-sized quilts for Lorraine's two boys: my father, Dale, and his older brother, Gary. She would have been in her late 60s at the time. Dad thought maybe the quilts were made in the early 1950s, but my grandmother's records indicate that Augusta died January 14, 1951, at age 64. So if she did make these in later than the 1940s, it would have to have been 1950, when Gary and Dale were just ages 3 and 4. I discovered these quilts after my grandmother died a couple years ago. Dad and Uncle Gary recognized them immediately and said I could have them.


Gary's Quilt



Dad's Quilt

Unfortunately, neither of them can be used on a bed today. They were definitely well-loved, well-used, and often-washed. The bindings and backings are worn through in spots and Gary's quilt especially has major damage to the top, with some pieces completely blown out.

Many people would have thrown these away or used them to move furniture or stuck them in a car trunk in case of an emergency. But Grandma had them tucked away in white pillowcases for safekeeping. I wonder if she ever got them out to look at them and remember the times when her sons were young and her husband was still alive. Or maybe she didn't look at them because it would bring to mind the sad fact that her husband had been gone for more than 30 years. Regardless, she kept them well and because of that, I can know my great-grandmother just a little better.

When I was preparing to do this post, I asked my dad to send me some photos of him and Gary at about the time they would have used these quilts. He did me one better, sending me photos of them actually sleeping under the quilts.

Gary asleep under his quilt. This photo and the one below it are
very early Polaroids taken sometime between 1959 and 1961.

Dad sleeping under his quilt. Note that he had the backing side up,
but you can still identify it because of the pattern.

This is a good reminder that if you have heirlooms in the house that you're unsure about, that you don't know the history of, start looking through old family photos to see if you can spot them. That might help you learn a bit more about who used them and when.

Uncle Gary and Dad in 1956. Dad still wears plaid,
button-down shirts just like this one today.

I occasionally feel a bit wistful about boys' clothes and bedding of the past. In our day of loudly-colored t-shirts and bedding covered with licensed characters from movies, it's hard to come up with sewing ideas that wouldn't make our sons or nephews cringe. I have made my own son a quilt (his baby quilt, which is the first quilt pictured in this old post) and I even made my nephew a rather unconventional bed quilt, but I wonder how much sweetness I could get away with on a bed-sized quilt for Calvin. I know he would enjoy a Thomas the Tank Engine-themed room (almost as much as his father would) or a Lightning McQueen toddler bed (almost as much as his father would), but I would far prefer to make him a handsome, not-too-cute but still little-boyish quilt (with no Disney/Pixer/Hit Entertainment characters on it) and decorate his walls with his own finger paintings.

And in fact the time where he won't really care and he'll like anything I give him is running out as he gets older. Will I miss my chance to make him a quilt that will someday be an heirloom for his own children and grandchildren? Let's face it, no one is handing down a cheaply-made Buzz Lightyear comforter to their progeny. The concept of heirlooms is in danger of dying out as we continue to consume cheap, mass-produced schlock in place of items carefully crafted with thought and love.

End rant.

Anyway, before wrapping this up, I want to leave you with my favorite picture of my dad and Uncle Gary, at least from this decade. Here the boys are with their cousins, Jim and Dave, the other grandchildren of Augusta Koch (but more importantly, the other members of the illustrious Hotshot Band). Not sure if she managed to make Jim and Dave quilts as well, but I will have to check that out.


That's Gary on the clarinet, Dale on the trumpet, Jim on the piano, and Dave on the drums. Just look
how intense and into it they are. Glenn Miller's band couldn't do any better, I suspect.

Read more...

The Literate Lutherans

A few weeks ago I was talking to my mother on the phone when she told me that the wife of my former pastor asked her to be on her spelling bee team. I laughed out loud, partially at the idea of an adult spelling bee, but mostly because I know my mom.

"I told her I was in remedial reading in high school," my mom said, "but she said that didn't matter."

Somehow Tracy convinced my mother to join her and another woman from their church (Linda) in this venture, which I later found out was an event to benefit the Literacy Council of Bay City. Their team, the Literate Lutherans (can you get more Lake Wobegon?), had never lost this event (granted, it's only run for a few years).

I decided during that phone call that I had to go to see this momentous occasion, my mother spelling words on a stage. Imagine my disappointment when I found that only one person on the team actually spells a word at any given time, and that the honor did not have to rotate among team members. So the teams pick the person who does the best job spelling out loud (which is harder than it sounds) and that person could be the only one who speaks.

The event was held at the State Theatre, which was recently renovated to look more like it did in the 1930s, is decorated as that decade's vision of what a Mayan temple looked like. Read a very short history of the theatre here.

Before it started, the spellers and attendees had great hors d'oeuvres (that word was not on the list of words to be spelled) that included a yummy satay (also not on the list). It was a light crowd, which is too bad since it was a benefit. But it was a fun time nonetheless (also not on the list).

Here Linda, Tracy, and Donna (Mom) confer about the rules before going up onto the stage.

So serious and studious-looking, aren't they? But is was actually a lighthearted event. The judges were funny and charming and the other teams were not overly serious either.

You can tell by the way these women sit on stage that they grew up going to church. Their knees are together, their hands are folded demurely (not on the list), their chins are held up, and they are paying close attention. No fidgeting. After a practice round in which the words related to the organizations that the teams represented (pastor, return, smiling, interest), the real list began. And the words were easier than I'd anticipated (though I suppose they would be easy during the first few rounds).

Here's the list of words they got through before a winner was declared:

cherub
horizon
marine
privacy
stinger
tremor
wobble (at which the first disqualification occurred because the women spelled it "wabble")
carom (at which the Literate Lutherans were out because none of them knew the word, perhaps none of them had heard the word [at least, that's what their stunned expressions would have indicated], which is more frequently used as a sports term than anything else)
unique
trilogy
wholly
gyrate
mustache (which I would have spelled wrong because I thought it was "moustache" but according to Merriam Webster, it is a varient, so perhaps they would have accepted it)
sieve
risque
wrangle
counterfeit (at which the third team was disqualified, accidentally spelling it "countrfeit")
coquette

The team called the Spell Binders won, which was nice because they'd apparently been runners up to the Literate Lutherans in the past few years. The whole contest took just 14 minutes (probably about the same length of time it took to explain the rules) becaue there were only four teams and two were disqualified one right after the other.

I hope they can publicize this event better next year so they can make more money and have more teams participating. It was fun even if it was short.

Read more...

Secondhand Clothing Extravaganza with Mom

Thursday morning I headed to Bay City, Michigan, to visit my parents and attend the adult spelling bee my mother was part of (more on that tomorrow). When I got into town I perused the Bay City Antique Center and found some buttons and two charming collections of fairy tales, one from Hans Christian Andersen and the other from the brothers Grimm, published in MCMXLV (1945, I believe).

Mom and I went to lunch at Intermission Deli then headed over to The Cat's Meow, a higher-end secondhand shop that helps fund a charitable organization. They have nice clothes very cheap, and my mother the coupon queen gets things even cheaper. So we walked away from that store with a bag full of great stuff for about $35 (we each got five things, so it averages out to about $3.50 per item).

While we were there we ran into a friend of Mom's who made a call and got us into her friend Mary's shop, Glad Rags, despite the fact that she had not actually opened for business yet. Mary had just relocated her vintage and unusual clothing shop from Saginaw to Columbus Street in Bay City. And boy-oh-boy did we have a blast there. So much crazy artsy clothing with some more conservative gems thrown in as well. We certainly spent more at Glad Rags than at The Cat's Meow, but it was so very worth it.

Mary has an interesting philosophy when it comes to the clothes in her store. She cuts the sizes out of nearly everything, thus forcing customers to try on the things they like instead of dismissing something as the wrong size when in reality the actual size of women's clothing often has a tenuous connection with the number or letter on a label, especially when dealing with vintage clothing. In addition, there was practically no organizational philosophy that I could see in the racks, though Mary did put some items together or near each other that would be complimentary. I suspect, though, that she had been purposeful about the placement of each item and that she knew exactly where every scrap of clothing was.

Mary made us coffee and chatted with us while we tried things on. She chatted like she was there shopping with us and was very casual, not like some store owners who make you feel sort of uncomfortable because they won't leave you alone.

When we were ready to pay she took our money and tucked it into a round antique tin. There was no cash register in sight. And as we were walking out the door, she took a shirt back off the rack that I had tried on and liked but not bought (because I had to draw the line somewhere). She brought it up to me and said, "Here, Erin, I want you to take this." Just gave it to me. Such a sweet, sweet woman.

One of the best finds at Glad Rags was this pair of vintage green suede shoes for $12. Anyone out there care to venture a guess at the decade from which they hail? I thought they looked sort of 1940s, but Mary thought 1960s.

Regardless of their origins, to find any pre-owned shoes in a size 10 is so very rare. And I found two pair at Glad Rags. Here's the second.

The designer is Nina Shoes, and from what I can tell from their website, their fashion shoes run around $80. I got these for $8.

After our excursion we popped back to Mom's house so she could change clothes, then it was off to the State Theatre for the Adult Spelling Bee . . .

(to be continued)

Read more...

Stylish? Moi?

Wow. I haven't been the recipient of an award since college, but this week the lovely SusieQT at Practice in Time gave me the Stylish Blogger Award. Thanks, SusieQT!

While I'm new to the blog award process, I do know that with this particular award I'm to share seven facts about myself with all of you and then pass the award on to seven other bloggers. So, here goes . . .

1. I started this list at number seven and worked my way backwards to number one. Whenever I do anything that involves a list, I number the whole thing first so I'll have spaces to fill in. I love filling in things. Crosswords, sudoku, bubble tests (I loved taking the MEAP, the SAT, and the ACT—actually, I love any kind of test and the longer the better), checklists, order forms. I wonder what that says about me.

2. I'm a pretty strict parent. My parents were strict and I feel like I turned out fine, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And there is little that annoys me more than a poorly behaved child, especially one who obviously has the upper hand and rules over his parents. I was a happy kid and I always knew that my parents loved me. I never doubted it. And when I was punished I knew I deserved punishment. I understood that it was their job to make me into a respectable, respectful person who contributed to society, who didn't expect others to do things for her that she could do herself, who didn't believe the world revolved around her, who behaved in public, who did her best all the time.

I want to raise my son with those values, as well as the wonderful additions that my husband contributes from his upbringing: compassion and charity (my parents are charitable, but as a child I didn't actually witness that as much as Zach did with his parents), devotion to God and the church (we were churchgoing people, but we didn't talk as much about faith when I was a child as we do now), and looking for the good in people even when they behave badly (I'm still working on this myself as I tend to be pretty hard on people most of the time). We both have wonderful, loving parents and are so blessed that our families are intact. Our parents are married, our sisters are married, and their families are full of love for one another. I always remember how blessed we are to experience that when almost everyone I know seems to be dealing with divorce, resentment, anger, and grudges somewhere in their family tree.


That's Alison on the left and me on the right.


3. I have a lovely older sister named Alison. As children we did what most sisters do. We played dress-up and put on plays and played catch. She coerced and bribed me to play Barbies and basketball and I . . . well, I don't remember forcing her to play anything in particular. At Halloween we would set up "stores" and shop one another's candy. She always got the better stuff even though I attempted to be shrewd. When we played Clue or Monopoly, she always won. When we picked up fallen apples for my father before he mowed the lawn, Alison would fill her plastic grocery bag as fast as possible with the newer green apples, leaving the old rotting ones for her poky younger sister to pick up. She was a strategist and I never seemed to catch on. That's what older sisters are for though. They prepare their younger siblings for a world that will try to take advantage of them. Thanks, Alison!

4. I have a fair number of idiosyncrasies regarding food, including texture issues (cauliflower, mushrooms, coconut, blueberries, raisins in bread, etc.) and a low tolerance for ultrasugary things (marshmallows, fudge, cotton candy, cake frosting). I like few sort of strange taste combinations (bologna and peanut butter sandwiches, for instance). I am also frequently a chore to have at a restaurant (I learned from my dear mother that there's nothing wrong with making special requests—if they have it in the kitchen, surely it can be added to your meal for a small charge).

I love looking at the details in this photo. The makeup case, the roses, the junk strewn over the counter, the terrible flourescent lights, the plywood cupboards that were filled with costumes and props, the gloves that go past my elbows. Theatre was the best part of high school.

5. I enjoyed being in several theatre productions in high school, including You Can't Take It With You, Arsenic and Old Lace, 1984, Witness for the Prosecution, Damn Yankees, Hello, Dolly!, The Bald Soprano, and forensics. My parts ranged from bit parts to starring roles and some of my best memories of high school involve play practice, backstage at performances, getting to the state level with forensics, and hanging in Mr. Smith's office with friends. In fact, it was because of Arsenic and Old Lace that my husband and I met and started dating. He tried out because he found out that I was trying out. And the rest is history.

6. I have begun but not finished at least four novels in the past five years. I have plans to finish three of them. I work on them from time to time. I have had better success at finishing children's stories (because they're ever so much shorter) and currently have six manuscripts that I'd someday like to get illustrated and published as picture books.

7. I actually write and/or contribute to a few blogs. The earlier incarnation of this blog is Stuff No One Would Publish, and some of my favorite posts can be found archived there. I also write occasionally (as often as I finish a piece of classic literature) on The Books I Should Have Read. I'm a contributing author to a serial end-times satire called Beauty and the Mark of the Beast. And from time to time I post on Potter Park Zoo's blog. These cover a lot of ground as far as interests and the circles in which I run—literature in English, publishing, the church, the zoo, education, and a love of animals—and are a great way to get to know more about me.

And now to pass on the Stylish Blogger Award to seven bloggers I enjoy reading. I'm sure that some of these may have gotten the award before, but if you can win multiple Oscars, why not multiple blog awards?

Liz at The Quilted Turtle shares her unique life as a yearround resident of and math teacher on Mackinac Island, one of my favorite places in the world. She gives you interesting information that you don't get as a mere tourist and she shares some great tutorials. She shares beautiful photos of this small island where the automobile has been outlawed since 1898. I got the opportunity to meet Liz on the island last October. If you're interested in reading about that trip, click here and start at the bottom.

Valerie at The Victorians Didn't Even Like Pink! is a personal friend and has appeared a few times in photos and posts on this blog. But don't think I'm showing her favoritism. She really is one of the most stylish bloggers out there and shares her vintage sewing, hats, and hobbies (like crocheting amazing doilies—really!) along with her knowledge and opinions about historic architecture in the United States. She's a hoot. I'm pretty sure she's gotten this award before. If that's the case, Valerie, don't feel obligated to pass it on again unless you really want to!

Jody at Couture Allure Vintage Fashion is not only a wellspring of fascinating information about vintage fashion designers, she also sells eye-popping vintage dresses through her shop. They just got in some gorgeous dresses I wish I could squeeze into. My word. Her blog and shop really make me bemoan how casual and frumpy women's dress has gotten. Sigh.

Anna at The Sweet Nest never fails to make me smile. She takes beautiful photographs of her gorgeous children and the lovely details of her home. She has a great sense of style and seems to thoroughly enjoy life. Reading her blog never fails to perk me up and she's one of the bloggers I read that I would dearly like to meet someday. I think we'd have a great time together.

Liz at Mabel's House gives me great inspiration for projects around the house and is currently pregnant with her first child, a little girl named Jane. Liz's blog is one of the first I started following. She loves anything mid-century modern and is helping me develop my own appreciation for that style. She's super funny and takes photos that make me want to redecorate. I remember feeling a little thrill when she first commented on one of my posts, like how you felt when the more-popular-than-you kid smiled at you in the hallway in junior high.

Jacquie at Tallgrass Prairie Studio is the most amazing modern art quilter. If you think quilts are sort of stodgy and too flowery and smack of old-ladydom you must visit her blog. Her quilts are a smorgasbord of color, simplicity, style, geometry, and plain old pizazz. I pretty much want everything she's ever made. She challenges me to think out-of-the-box and never fails to inspire. She also has scads of tutorials on her sidebar to help you recreate her style in your own quilting.

Mena at The Sew Weekly. I challenge you to look through Mena's homemade wardrobe and come away not itching to get sewing. What started as a personal challenge to herself to sew one new outfit every week of 2010 has ballooned into a cooperative website and sewing circle that gives out weekly sewing themes and challenges, giveaways, and more inspiration than you'll know what to do with. You could spend hours tooling around her site and never get tired of it. Makes me wish I had more time to sew!

So there you have it. I hope you'll visit each of these blogs and wile away many hours looking at old posts because they are treasure troves of amazing photography, inspiring projects, and good humor.

Read more...

Making It Up

I don't mind following directions. In fact, I rather like it. Directions help you do things right the first time (if they're good directions) and they act as a progress map, a checklist that allows you to see how close you are to finishing. And when you first start a hobby, they are imperative. They help you succeed so that you won't abandon it as "too hard."

But when you've been doing something a lot for a decent amount of time, you can start using the skills you've learned while following directions to make something up. You can make estimates and guesses and judgment calls and come up with something sort of original.

One of my goals for the year is to design my own dress pattern from scratch, using only my measurements and inspiration from pictures to draft a pattern and make an original dress. But I do want to work up to it a little. So I've made a partly-original shirt/light sweater. I've taken the sleeves and part of the bodice measurements from my knit shirt pattern and changed the neckline and the shape of the bodice to make this deep blue cowl neck shirt. I used a shirt from my closet and my dress form to get the bodice shape I wanted.

As for the neckline, I was sure that YouTube and Google would give me some good advice and tutorials for how to draft and make a cowl neck. I was wrong. So I looked at a shirt I have already with a cowl neck, looked at pictures online of ready-to-wear shirts with cowl necks, draped my fabric over the dress form, thought long and hard about the scissors, then took the plunge and started cutting.

Perfect? No. I was hoping the collar would be a bit droopier than it turned out to be. And the sleeve caps aren't as smooth as I'd like. But good enough when you're just making things up.

If you find yourself terrified to think outside the box a little and experiement with your hobby, be it sewing or quilting or crocheting or whatever, buy some cheap materials that won't break the bank if you mess up, and just go for it. If you create a monster, just hide it away from judgmental eyes and try again. You may find, though, that some mistakes are happy ones.

One nice thing about this shirt is that it already matches a number of bottoms in my closet, including this old wool skirt from Banana Republic, one of my favorites. And that was just a happy accident.

Read more...

Caution: Rogue Squirrel

He may look cute and innocent . . .

But he's off the reservation. This is what he's doing to my yew tree:

What? Why? For what purpose? What could possibly be going through his pistachio-sized brain? He's not lugging these branches away to make a nest, just piling them up day by day. Just arbitrarily chewing them off and letting them fall.

Madness. Sheer madness.

Read more...