Addendum

Today's original post was too grouchy, even for me. If I have a pet peeve, it's people who don't know how good they have it.

I leave you with these words of wisdom:

Rachel Pulido
October 5, 1981
Old Testament
Block E
Sister Mary Patrick

It seems that the more people win, the more people think we're incapable of losing. Instead of being thankful, we think it's all because we're great. We rarely give God the credit, and so we lose our humility. And when a person loses their humility, they're usually in for a big disappointment. Suzanne Somers, for instance, thought she was so great she was worth an enormous raise in salary. She found out she was wrong and now she's all upset because they fired her.

Bib

This is what I made this weekend. I based it on a pattern in a Japanese craft book that I got a few weeks ago at the Asahiya Bookstore on Sawtelle. I had to tinker with the shape of the bib a little so that it would fit around my baby's fat American neck.

I really just wanted to find a use for the little patchwork thingy I'd made. Making tiny little patchwork thingys is fun! Maybe instead of quilts, I should make coasters.



I had a pretty blue vintage button that I wanted to put on the bib, but I've never made a buttonhole, of course. So I was forced ... to read the manual for my sewing machine. The sewing machine and I have have a distant but cordial relationship. I am reminded of a Janeane Garofalo routine: "I still have the 'don't ask don't tell' policy with my vagina. I don't bother it. It -- she. She minds her own beeswax, I stay up here. She doesn't sass me. You know, no back talk. None of that. She's not flippant at all with me."

I have a similar relationship with my sewing machine. I can sew a simple seam, refill the bobbin, change a needle, but any action that requires reading the manual is generally the type of action I avoid, and I like to think that the sewing machine ("Bernina" is her name) appreciates my not screwing around with her. My negligence allows her to pass her life in serene contemplation, dreaming about her childhood in the Alps.

There's a good reason why I avoid reading manuals. The older I get, the more I realize that my brain's capacity is finite. I remember my kids' birthdays, the phone number of the house where I grew up, the first stanza of Byron's "She Walks in Beauty," the names of a lot of crappy '70s TV actors (Bernie Kopel!), the circumstances surrounding my first kiss with my husband (spring, 1988, post-party snog), the circumstances surrounding my first big fight with my husband (he was reading "The Silence of the Lambs" and ignoring me), and many other things, some useful, some not. I don't seem to have any control over what gets saved and what gets lost. For example, I remember the middle name of every friend I've had since grade school, but I left the Japanese craft book in the Xerox machine at FedEx/Kinko's when I went to make copies. If I learn how to use a zipper foot, some other bit of knowledge might be obliterated forever, and who knows what it might be? I might forget Shaun Cassidy's birthday (September 27, 1958). Or the way my father's hand looked -- strong and brown, with big ropy veins -- or the way he would rub the ball of his thumb over the edge of my thumbnail when he was holding my hand. There's only so much room up there, and there are some things I don't want to lose.

Anyway. I dug out the manual and learned how to make a buttonhole. Turns out there's a lot of stuff Bernina could do, if properly coaxed. I believe it's time to move our relationship to a new level.

James can't believe I put this much effort into something he's just going to drool on anyway!

Household Tip of the Day

If you put off doing the laundry for long enough, your family will be forced to wear everything in their closet at least once, creating some interesting fashion combinations and maybe sparking off some trends!

I'm looking forward to the day that Bill is forced to wear his purple velvet suit to the office.

Pink Lemonade

I stayed up until three in the morning last night embroidering the words on this apron (and watching a documentary on the Patty Hearst kidnapping -- we finally got desperate and commandeered the tiny TV set that Mary uses to watch DVDs in the playroom). It's a significant personal accomplishment for me, having begun and finished two projects in one month ... I have a wee bit of a problem focusing my energy on anything long enough to finish it.

It's more of a pathology, really.

Anyway, I chose a different pink fabric for the apron because my original choice didn't seem gutsy enough to stand up to the yellow fabric. It came from an old feedsack. The pattern was very easy to follow, except for the application of the bias tape, which I had never used before.

Here's my first try ... clearly something wrong with this one.



And here's my second try! Much better ... but applied to the wrong edge.



I finally figured out that you have to baste one side of the tape to the fabric first, fold the rest of it over while stretching it and pinning it in place, and then sew the other side on. It's not a perfect job, but it's good enough for government work. As I said, the pattern itself is easy, but I don't understand why it's so short. According to information on the back of the pattern envelope, size 8 is intended for children up to 52 inches tall, but Mary is just shy of 50 inches and the apron looks more like a blouse on her. I think it may have been designed for hobbits.



I had originally planned to embroider a glass of lemonade on a white fabric panel and apply it to the front, but I figured it would look too busy. I embroidered words around the neck edge and near the pocket instead. My embroidery ... er ... leaves something to be desired. But that's part of the charm of something like this, isn't it? The wonkiness of the embroidery just makes it seem more "home made" and endearing, right? Right?





The marking pen is supposed to fade eventually. I firmly believe that it will.

Billie the Monkey - July Month of Softies

Finally finished! It took me a lot longer than I thought it would, primarily because I was determined not to do a half-assed job like I usually do. I made a muslin pattern for the dress like a good sock monkey couturiere.

Her dress is a vintage feedsack, trimmed with a tiny blue vintage picot trim I got in a lot on eBay. Her eyes are vintage buttons from F&S Fabric, one of my favorite fabric stores. She's a lot more demure than I had originally intended, but I'm still very happy with the way she turned out.

Dumpling

When James was a newborn, we started calling him Cuddles. We meant it ironically, because he was so angry all the time, with the flailing and the screaming. To amuse ourselves we would pretend that he could talk (although his grammar wasn't very good). For example, "Cuddles furious!" "Cuddles hungry!" "You pick up Cuddles now! NOW!"

But at four months, he really has become the cuddliest thing imaginable. He's friendly and happy and even when he wakes up in the middle of the night, I'm happy to see him. It doesn't mean that I don't still feel like running away sometimes ... changing my name, maybe getting a job slinging hash somewhere in northern California ...

But at other times I feel like I could hold him forever. There are times when I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't get to spend every minute of the day with him.

If James were a food, he would be a Peking dumpling.

Santa Monica Airport Flea Market

The greater Los Angeles metropolitan area has been blessed with many flea markets, handily scheduled in such a way that you always know which one is coming next. Pasadena City College Flea Market, first Sunday of the month, Rose Bowl, second Sunday, Long Beach, third Sunday, Santa Monica Airport, fourth Sunday. Bill likes PCC and Long Beach best -- they still have a few of the kind of old-school vendors who sell junk, which Bill thinks increases the chance of finding a "treasure."

The Santa Monica Outdoor Antique Market (notice the fancy-shmancy title) is exactly the kind of flea market that Bill hates. Most of the stalls look like they've been put together by professional set decorators, with old French ticking cascading artfully out of old wicker market baskets, and beautifully chipped antique enamelware bowls filled with branches of red coral. It's all very "Country Home Magazine," but I like it.

It occurred to me yesterday that if I woke up very early, I could probably a) beat the heat, and b) stick Bill with the children. So I got out of the house by 7:30, which is unheard of for me (the sun was in the east! So weird!) and arrived at the market so early that I saw Rachel Ashwell herself in the parking lot.

EBay has really changed my attitude towards flea markets in general. Why walk around in the heat looking for Fire King cereal bowls when you can type "Fire King cereal bowl*" into a search engine in the cool comfort of your own home? I've also found that prices on eBay are better than prices at flea markets, even when you factor in shipping. There are a few exceptions: one of them is the button lady by the bathroom at the Rose Bowl, and the other is the $1 linen lady by the chain link fence, also at the Rose Bowl. The linen lady has huge piles (literally, huge piles) of vintage linens that you have to root around in, but anything you find is a dollar. It's great.

She doesn't have her dollar pile at the Santa Monica Market, but she did have some things I loved at reasonable prices, including a bunch of stuff for $1 a piece, like this linen tea towel with a stewardess and the name Mary printed on it

And this old towel, made from a beautiful heavy slubbed linen with my (!) initials in petit-point,

And this pretty panel from an old quilt ($1),



Another quilt panel, pieced together but unquilted,



And a linen doily. I have no idea what to do with it (if I were Rachel Ashwell, I'd probably turn it into a pillow) but I love the bird pattern and the colors ...



And some other things that I didn't photograph -- a silk souvenir scarf of London (my favorite city in the world), a striped dish towel, a child's shoe caddy with appliqued animals on it. And my favorite thing of all, an appliqued and embroidered child's quilt. Here's a closeup of two of the panels. How absurdly cute is this?