And here we are

First off, before I say or do anything else, I have to tell you how very much the comments you all left after I lost Rascal helped me. 

It was tough. 

Of course you never really know if you did the right thing or the smart thing - is there anything else I could have done I ask myself -  but he was very sick, and I did know I did the kind thing.

However after you lose someone, yes that includes animals you care about, not feeling alone really helps.

And you helped me.

I am now in Florida for our annual two months of remote working, golf, knitting, sewing, online ordering of things without shipping charges and duty, shopping for the little girls and new baby, beach walking, canning, and husband cooking eating.

I have decided it is time I just cheered up.

I caught sight of my face in the mirror the other day it and seemed to me that I had a sort of grim look on that face.

You have to watch that sort of thing.

I have a theory I thought up all by myself that the expression you have had most often in your life is the one your face freezes at when you get older. Think about it. Old ladies with bitter faces or interested ones, or old men whose faces are stuck at bully or guileless. 

I am not letting mine get stuck on grim. Particularly if part of that is because of a guy who himself was never either introspective or discouraged. 

Ever.

It is really good to be here in Florida after all of that and having spent the last winter down the deep shaft of another unscheduled Ice Age. 

I hate to be one to talk about the weather, it's pretty ageing in itself, but really this last one was nuts. We had three snow days at school, and my workplace never likes to cancel classes until noon when everyone is in there, and the sort of day after day light grey skies that never changed at all so you finally got to thinking that maybe the sky got frozen stiff like that, like a face,  and couldn't get unstuck and show blue anymore.

The trip down was good, with me getting nostalgic over tiny dusty strips of grass along side the edges of gas stations where Mr. R peed on previous trips, and we had one really nice night staying with my son's girlfriend's parents in Maryland. They have a nice calm house with a nice calm dog and it was one of those visits where it becomes clear to me why their kid has turned out so well.

I am unwinding now from a busy winter term and will be posting about various random projects but before I do that I will finish up my shots and comments on the batch of T shirts I made before I left, for whatever reason I did that.

The pattern was a dolman no brainer now out of print, very much like this current Simplicity:

BTW you remember Simplicity don't you? That would be the pattern company that has put Canada under a trade embargo, probably for sharing Justin Bieber with the rest of the world, and no longer lets us buy patterns here. 

I got my revenge today with a 99 cent sale at Hobby Lobby where they let me buy without checking my passport or anything.

Anyway in working with a similar pattern from the past, as in the bottom of my junky pattern drawers, I made these little numbers, photographed on my dummy as my husband at the time of the photo shoots was trying to get himself flown home from the North Pole to golf in Florida.

Here we go:

I like this one a lot because it is made of a heavy interlock and because I had the presence of mind to cut the neckband on the bias. If you think this looks wrinkled like it had just come out of the laundry hamper where it was waiting for a wash, that is because that is exactly where it came from. No airbrushing going on here.

I got this fabric at a place that sells knits for kids clothes but I realized that when I made this up and had added some ribbing, because the actual single knit didn't have enough body for the cuffs and neckline, that it actually looks like a kid's top. A PJ top even. When I wear this I am very comfortable and start whining that I want to watch one more show before bed.

The top I messed up the neckline with and did a semi save with a cross over V after the original had been surgically removed with chicken scissors.

What that looks like.

Another childlike knit top. If it looks a bit crooked here that is not because I didn't match the stripes, but because the top half of the dressform fell off the bottom half and I did a lousy job putting her back together again.

And where does a sewer go from here?