I finished my Shawl!

OK, I have a bit of time now. I finally finished the lace stole/shawl/scarf thingy, and I LOVE IT. It had a life of its own, as all art projects do - it doesn't look like the picture in the book, and I had to change some things as I went, but that's the fun of it, after all. Where's the adventure if it all goes according to plan?

The big thing that made me laugh at myself while working on it was this: all along, I knew the pattern said "work lace chart 31 times." Anyone see the problem here? I imagine at least some of my readers will. As I got closer and closer to the 31st pattern repeat, the more that number, Thirty-One, grated on my nerves. It's prime. It's all pointy and angular and weird. It's not Thirty, which is a nice round number, nor yet Thirty-Two, which is an elegant power of two, and twice the square of the first square. But Thirty-One was what was writ. What's more, I ran out of my second ball of yarn at almost precisely the halfway point, and I only had four, so I worried about lengthening it. But I knew in my heart that that prime number would bug me every time I put it on.

Teresa agreed to model for me.
Isn't she pretty?

So after careful row counting, I decided to bump it up to Thirty-Two. There I was, practically *finished*, but I had to add the extra pattern repeat, for the good of my soul. And the good news is, I had plenty of yarn left. I'm using it to make tiny crocheted snow flakes, because it is sparkly.

The other thing of it, now, is that I have nothing I can wear with it. So this blog is going to have to move away from the Knitting Department and into the Garment Design and Construction Zone. I want to make something navy blue, maybe. It's tricky - a dark color will show up the lace best, but as I discovered over and over (but I guess never really *learned*, since I kept doing it) while knitting, black and mohair aren't a smart combination. I looked like I have a very affectionate long-haired cat.

I began this stole just before Ash Wednesday, which was March 9. I finished it yesterday, so it took me 72 days. In between the start and the end, I also made two hats and a baby sweater. (here's a photo or two of the second hat. It's baby-sized.)

I'm alive again!

PS - if you want to see the pictures in more detail, you can click on them to view them in a full-size slide show.

On Easter Dresses: or, Why Do We Tear Each Other Down When We Could Build Each Other Up Instead?

When I was a very young mom, with no car and few social skills, all the women I knew were either single college students or the wives of my only-just-former college professors and had busy schedules and a million children. As a result, I was alone, a lot. My husband had two jobs and was trying to finish college himself, so he had only so much to give me, and my baby was All Things Miraculous, but even she couldn't talk in full sentences until she was 18 months old, plus she is an introvert. She didn't like even mamma getting all up in her space.

So I learned how to sew.

It was an uphill road. Being the clever person that I am, I assumed I knew better than the pattern designers, mostly because I didn't acknowledge things like grain lines, and my early efforts were mostly Lessons Learned The Hard Way, and not actual usable pieces of clothing. But because I was lonely, bored and desperate, I kept at it. I probably learned twenty or so lessons The Hard Way before I produced a single thing I could use or wear.

One of the things I have continually dedicated myself to over the years is the creation of Easter Dresses. I love Easter, and all the things it promises. I didn't have the budget to make it more special than Christmas in the same manner as Christmas, so I had to get creative (my specialty!) and one of the ways was to make matching dresses for all the girls, beginning with my first and myself. (I stopped making dresses for myself after two, though.)

Easter Skirts

As my skills developed, the dresses got nicer and nicer. My adorable three little girls all had completely different coloring - a blond with grey eyes, a redhead and all that that entails, and a dark brunette with alabaster skin. My approach was to find the same print in different colors, and make dresses from the same pattern. In later years, when they started to have vastly differing tastes in clothing, I went exactly the other way, and started choosing a color palette, and making them totally different styles of dress. But I kept it up, year after year, even if it meant doing everything during Holy Week. It is a project that means a lot to me.

Well, one year my ever-expanding repertoire of skillz reached the stage of including smocking, thanks to one of my crafting gurus - Maureen, who also helped teach me to quilt and has inspired me in so many other ways. I was pregnant and feeling sick during Lent, so I spent many hours curled up in my chair, hand-smocking some muslin panels. It's probably the earliest I ever started on dresses, and it took a lot of time, but the results were deeply satisfying, and I dressed them in t heir smocked dresses whenever I had an excuse.

One day I took them to the library, because our wonderful dear children's librarian had asked me specifically to show her my Easter Dresses. In we filed, splendidly arrayed in smocked dresses and little white gloves and straw hats with matching ribbons. (Hey, when you go to that much trouble, you take it all the way, right?) It was Story Time Day, so a lot of other moms were there, and one said to me "Please don't tell me you smocked those dresses by hand." So proud of myself, I told her that I did.

She said "I hate you."




Looking back on it, I know why she said it, and she meant to be funny, I'm sure. She was tired, she had that difficult blend of older children that keep you running and tiny babies that keep you up at night, and she is also a woman that loves beautiful things - she grows a lovely garden in the spring - and not enough time to fulfill that love. She didn't know what I gave up to make those dresses, because it's not like I go around showing people pictures of my mountain of laundry or the unswept kitchen or the uncategorized piles of papers and books... I sacrificed to make this a priority. I knew she didn't mean it. But wow, did it hurt. In fact, I'm sure she's forgotten the incident completely. (Hey, it might be you!)




The Thing is, just as we don't see those background sacrifices, that different ordering of priorities, we also don't see what kind of power our words can have. I carried that "I hate you" around for a long time in my heart, believing that I must have done something wrong, that my creative drive was somehow blameworthy because of the things I let go. I often lock myself into a place where I'm "not allowed" to make anything or buy anything until I've done X amount of housework. It never works. In fact, one time I actually got my entire house clean AT THE SAME TIME but still didn't sew because of the guilt block. Every time I sat down to make something, I felt badly. That "I hate you" became the Voice of Bob. He was right on top of that one. Alongside "You never finish what you start," it's one of my most deeply rooted Bobisms.


I'm working on it, though. I'm learning to let myself be, to recognize what people mean when they say things like that. And I'm trying to be very, very careful about what I say when I wish I could do what someone else can do.

My beautiful Audrey, recycling dresses from
last year. This year, I actually DIDN'T MAKE ANY,
and my lovely Helen wore this dress.

This is How It's Done, people.

My eldest's offering for a bake sale.

“To Fangirl” (etymology fr English coll “fan” abbreviated form of “fanatic,” and “gurle,” ME, a young person of either sex) is a verb my daughters use to describe the inordinate delight taken in certain fictional subjects. At its most basic, it is the Squee Instinct. It’s been a thing for a long, long time. The modern young woman fangirls about Sherlock (the BBC show), Dr Who, Loki (or other Avengers/super heroes), and so on. You’ve seen the t-shirts. The litmus test is this: is there fan fiction? Then it’s fangirl territory. The word can also be used as a noun.

Skyward Sword Link and Zelda

Consistency is important to the fangirl. Even if you’re just making stuff up yourself, you have to take every canonical (e.g. actually written by Stephen Moffat) happening into account, and characters must not act outside of their usual mode, unless they are hypnotized by an alien or drugged. And if you’re going to dress up, you HAVE to get it exactly right. And someday, you’re going to find yourself dressing up, so you’d better build up your wardrobe skillz now. And that would be my department.

Around here, we start ‘em young, and we feed them only the finest material. My little ones’ favorites are Legend of Zelda and Avatar: the Last Airbender. I dare not say a word against it, because hey, someone has to play the video game (that would be me), and Avatar is actually a really good show. (I might write a whole blog post about it later.) And the costumes… well, let’s just say I’ve never had to think very hard about what to get my kids for their birthdays.

My latest - my son specified the Season One Prince Zuko.
It should be clear by now where my kids learn their fangirling from.

My first major sewing project ever.
I totally altered the pattern, too,
to make it more like the movie. 

Replication is a skill set in its own right. It’s one thing to go down to the Disney store and buy the approximately-colored dress with the right princess face on it (that is the current way to distinguish between princesses at Disney) and make your little girl happy. That’s just fine. Children are happy at the end. But I got my first taste of replication when my eldest turned 4, and I never looked back...

When my son wanted to be Sheriff Woody for Hallowe'en, I couldn’t just get the costume that was an image of the cartoon representation of the toy of the puppet of the person, silk-screened onto a jumpsuit. Even though there may have never been a Real Person Sherriff Woody before, there is now, and my son was him. Actual blue jeans, a proper shirt, separate cowboy vest, nice boots, and a real bandanna. That’s how we roll. (Full disclosure: I bought the printed jumpsuit for Buzz Lightyear. Dammit Jim, I’m a seamstress, not an engineer.)

 My only real regret is that when I made a Princess Aurora gown, I gave in and made it pink. A Real Replicator would have known to make it blue, like it is for most of the movie, including the whole time she is sleeping. (No, I'm not posting a picture of that one. Bob will eat me.)