Lists and expectations

One of the great luxuries of our winter getaways in the rv is it is the one time of the year when I have the time to think about what I am doing, and why I am doing it.

In general my life is very busy. I have a lot of people in my life and dogs and activities and friends I want to spend time with and my many schemes.

I always have some new project going on in my head. I also have a personality that tends to get over enthusiastic about things. In fact there are moments when I seriously wonder if there is an enthusiasm gap between myself and the world. 

I have no shortage of projects I would like to tackle, and if you were to look up "takes on too much" in the dictionary, well that would be my picture staring right back at you.

In fact in the last little while I have been feeling like I was falling behind in my own life.

Do any of you ever feel like that?

No matter how many garments I complete I feel I am behind schedule, or I would be if I actually had a schedule.

This reminds me of one of the smartest things I ever heard, said by one of the smartest people I ever met.

This woman was a social worker in a tough area of the city. 

Someone remarked, over a dinner party dinner table, how hard this woman's job must be because the people she worked with must be so down and out and so unhappy.

I remember this social worker looking straight in the eye of the person who made this comment and saying that in her experience it wasn't life events that made people unhappy but life expectations.

The question is does your life meet the expectations you had for it?

This also reminds me of one of my sisters who was often disappointed by her birthdays ("yes these are nice presents, but I was kind of hoping for a room full of balloons. Where are the balloons?")

I have been thinking if I am doing exactly this with my sewing.

So as an exercise this is what I did this week:

I decided to do a time budget of my sewing time and look at it in terms of my expectations.

On index cards I listed the months of the upcoming year and for every month I wrote the things I knew I would have to be making or at least collecting the supplies to be making every month. (Pretty sophisticated system, hope you are following all of this).

I also listed predictable users of time, like teaching a course, Christmas, golf season which has my husband looking at me a lot wondering if I want to go out, summer when I take care of the kids, etc.

This was not a to-do list.

What I listed were things that take my time and how much time. For instance making a shirt for a male in my family I wrote 1 week, because since my sewing fits into my other being alive stuff, realistically it takes me a week to make a shirt properly.

So after I did this prep work I put it all into a school scribbler and looked at what my time available/committed flow for the year looked like.

This is such a simple idea, maybe other people do this, and interesting to me because this is exactly what a person would do at work. 

You know if you are an accountant you would know not expect too many other new things to get started at tax season, or a teacher at marking time, or in retail over the holidays. This is just good planning.

Why do we treat sewing, something people like me do constantly if not in reality at least in their heads, in a different way than we do other things that are also serious and important to us?

This whole weird, something you would only do if you were sitting around a lot in state parks with mental time on your hands exercise, has taught me two things:

1. I am OK, when I actually look at all I sew I really am fine. There are only 52 weeks in the year and I am not behind at all. I sew for a lot of people in my family and I can see where the zone of enough, versus too much or not enough is. I shouldn't be feeling I wasn't getting enough done.

2. I have my busy seasons and a few months in the year where I have absolutely no one to sew for but myself. This year in one of those months, August, I will be making my Christmas outfit. I can see it coming. Scrambling to try to make myself something new for the holidays on December 23rd, coming down after 7 weeks of birthday/Hallowe'en/Christmas sewing is just too stressful.

Looking at your sewing time like this can be very illuminating and release a lot of pressure.

Speaking of pressure. My blog posting has taken a hit with my travelling, family commitments, and my ramped up sewing surprises for family. Hope you understand. File it under doing my best.

That said I post in Instagram regularly if you want to keep in touch.

In the meantime a question for you.

How much time do you sew, get to sew, want to sew or manage to sew?

Do you feel you have enough time to sew? How to you make time to sew?

Big thought topic around here at the moment.

   

Butterick 6251

I had to laugh when I read my last post.

I realize that you probably looked at it and thought "Babs is sleeping under a bridge. Oh god that woman."

Really, no need to worry, this was a legitimate RV camping place, just happens that the spots at one end are under the entrance to a huge overpass. 

When you rv down this time of the winter so many places en route just aren't open so you take what you can get when you need it.

At any rate we have landed in the wonderful McKinney State Park just outside of Austin, Texas, where we have one son. For the next month or so this is what my sewing room looks like. We have a real long extension cord and I can set up the ironing board next to the rv and just plug in the iron to an outside plug.

Perfect arrangement.

I will be setting up there shortly with the Rocketeer, a couple of projects I pre-cut at home, and a can of wasp spray. 

The wasp spray is in case I have another coyote circle the table like I did last year. They really are pretty attractive, smooth moving animals, and I don't mind them looking at me, it's the looking through me to another world part I don't really like.

Apart from the coyote issue this is a lovely place to sew. I am looking forward to it after nearly six days on the road.

The campsite has also provided me with a nice backdrop to a project I finished up while we drove - sort of camping sweater coat thing made up in some really thick cotton sweatshirt type fleece.

Here I am with Daisy who is keep an eye out for things that move in the bush

You know how sometimes you make a project and you think it will be great, and it actually turns out kind of not great?

Well in my estimation for every 10 or those you occasionally pull off a low-expectations-going-in project that you really like a lot.

This sweater coat was one of those.

The pattern I used was Butterick 6251  I got so long ago I don't remember getting it. The main attraction of this pattern for me was the shawl collar. Coming from a cold climate and possessing a scrawny neck I have never met a shawl collar I didn't like.

The reason I like this coat so much is probably the fabric. It has sort of a confetti thing going on, a clear knit on one side and a really, really thick fluffy side on the other:

I am completely crazy about this fabric and would get more in other colours if I could. 

Which reminds me to contact Angry Ballerina Fabrics where I got it - one of a number of cool knit little fabric online stores (often with an interesting ranges of weight in solids) we have in Canada. You know my US readers with the dollar it is, it would make sense to look at some of these sources, mostly run by young momenterpreneurs.  Blackbird is probably the most familiar of these companies, but I have also been really happy with fabric from Fabric Snob, Mint Lily Fabrics, L'oiseau fabrics, and Fabric Crush. 

There are other sources too, but these are just the ones I have ordered from. And of course I am on all the Facebook groups for each vendor which means I am able to sit in my bed in the morning with my coffee and order fabric before I am even up or can change my mind.

Back to this project.

I ended up doing a fair bit of hand sewing on this one, which was fine with me as I had 2,300 miles to kill to get here.

First off I followed the pattern instructions and topstitched on the pockets. In the light of day through the window of the rv it became clear to me that topstitching was not a good idea in such thick and bouncy fabric. That hard line of machine stitches just sort of violated the hand of the fabric and cheapened it a bit, as much as you can cheapen a camping coat made out of sweatshirt fleece.

As a result, and since I had some time on my hands which never ever happens at home, I unpicked the pockets and slipstitched them back on with some reinforcing backstitching done into the seam allowances from the wrong side. This is how they looked after I did that:

I also had a dilemma over closures. 

One of the great mysteries of life as we know it know to me is this current idea that a cardigan for any season but the summer makes sense to be closureless.

I mean really. 

Think about it. 

An open, no button attached cardigan might make sense for wearing in the office in one of those places that always have the AC turned onto super, super high, but for any other time when you put on a cardigan you are doing so because you are cold. 

And to stay warm you would want to button it up.

So why not build the cardigan to be able to do it? Why make an article of clothing that you need to keep you warm with a built in draft down the middle of it?

Since I am on a rant let me continue.

I have recently being looking at Aran sweater cardigan patterns on Ravelry. An amazing number of them look like the one worn by this knitter in the home page today:

What do you notice here? 

First there is a lot of serious knitting gone on. This is no make-it-in-a-weekend project.

Second this person obviously has a sweater on because she is cold. She looks cold to me.

Third the only way she can keep warm in this item, that undoubtedly cost her $200 in yarn and four years to make, is to grab it with two hands and wrap it around her. 

I know this look. 

It is the national costume worn by Canadian woman who dash out with a sweater on over their flannelette nightgowns, and in their boots, to get the car started so it will be warm when they have to drive the kids to school.

The problem of course in using your hands as closures is how would you do anything else? Like what if you have to scrape the ice off the windshield? Or grab that dumb cat and bring it in? Or use your phone to call your husband and have a discussion because he said he would put gas in the car but forgot?

Why not put a few buttons on that cardigan?

Where did this no closure movement come from?

Is there a world shortage of buttons going on that you all forgot to tell me about?

So all this means this coat thing I made has snaps.

After having determined that machine stitched on pockets defiled the integrity of my sweatshirt fleece of course I couldn't make machine buttonholes.

So instead I sewed on some nice big snaps I got a while ago in Botani in NYC. 

 These look pretty sharp IMO but to make them work securely you have to stitch them right through the facing which makes a little right side dimple in the fabric, which you can see better here:

I am OK with that but maybe not everyone would be.

Out of interest my T-shirt is the Favourite Tee by Patterns for Pirates and the pants are Stylearc's Margaret pants. Despite going through considerable angst about making wide leg pants because they are fashionable I really wonder if they suit me. In fact I might be shortening the pairs of wide pantsI have made to 3-4" at least above the ankle. Otherwise I think they swamp me. I think the Margaret's are just about right for my legs.

It will be interesting what else I decide to make while I am here in Texas. I have been so, so busy at home this fall and winter. I really intend on letting myself float a bit while I am here. 

Pretty sure it is time for some of that.

Flypaper thoughts somewhere in Tennessee edition

• Fourth day travelling and now in Tennessee
•  One of my favourite states
•  Not sure why but I pick up some quirky thinking in the air
• Driven through snow, ice, sleet and rain
• Driven through mill cities where the factories are now “executive lofts”
•  Driven by so many houses and have wondered about the lives being lived out in them
• What’s for dinner in there?
•  Are you happy with the life decisions you have made?
• Or have you just gone along and realized that doing that was in fact a decision?
• That’s a lot of lawn to be cutting
• Slept a few times in truck stops
• The truckers always have room for someone in an RV who needs to get off the road
•   I am surprised by the number of women driving these rigs
• A lonely life maybe
• But probably good money
• And no supervisor on her way over tell you what you should have done
• No trying to be more pleasant than you feel
• Or not as smart as you know you are
•   Lots of dogs in these trucks too
• Dogs know it’s all a journey
•   No need to know where you are going
• The whole point of travel like this
• Is finding out you can be comfortable anywhere
• Thinking of my neighbour on the other side of the back fence
•  A gardener she always says she could live and die in her backyard
•  Which is probably how it will play out
•  Nice though to realize how big the backyard is
• You relax more when you feel this
• We are in constant contact with home and the family
• Baby pictures on the west coast
•  Son in Texas booking me into see his bodyworks guy
• My daughter keeping me updated
• The next door neighbour doing our mail and the plants
• The man across the street in constant contact with my husband
• Shelley’s getting her pipes done
• When will it be our turn
• The city put in those lines a generation ago
•  Find out what gauge the new pipes are says my husband
• Will do says Barry
• He also writes two days until the full moon
• Temperature dropping by afternoon
•  Will probably stop in Memphis tonight
• RV parking spot under the bridge
• You hear every car bump over every joint in that bridge
• And I sleep in my eyeshade
• Headlights
• Local police meet up there
• Nose staggered to cop car nose
• Discussing Memphis crime
•  And I can get a good night’s sleep through all that
•  And get up fresh the next morning and see what the sewing world has posted to Instagram
• The bodywork guy is going to assess my asymmetries
• Give me some work to do on balance
• Doing a little of that on my own now

Completely random post with a bunch of pictures of my week

The day after tomorrow we head out in the rv down to Texas.

This whole winter and our delayed and complicated exit is pretty weird. 

However my daughter is settled right now and has promised a thousand times to let me know if she needs me. The neighbours are watching the house, and my niece will be staying here sometimes too.

I have packed up everything I need including three sewing machines, some pre-cut projects, a case of vintage sewing samples for Tulsa, and some knitting I need to be sitting down long enough to finish.

What we can organize we have. 

However this afternoon my 87 year old mother-in-law broke a bone above her wrist, but that is now in a cast and appears to be a clean break. Not the best time to leave her but she will go stay with my sister-in-law, so hopefully she will be OK too.

You should see it around here,

Currently the rv is parked in the driveway snowed in and attached by ice to the driveway. We put on our boots and winter coats and dash out to pack things away in it in spurts.

It is of course a mini house so there is a lot of just transferring things out of the relevant rooms into their mini editions in the driveway. Out go the comfortable pillow and the contents of my makeup drawer. Out go too many pairs of my shoes and books to read. Out go the spices and the coffee maker. Out it goes and we try not to slip on the ice as we do it.

My husband is project manager of this stage of our year. 

He does itinerary and tire pressure and filling the fridge. 

I do working myself up to my annual performance as Nova Scotian's most delicate ageing princess.

You see until we hit Virginia at least we will be surrounded by cold outside the rv. 

All the rv places to park and stay are closed off season. So we have to stop at night in places that let you do that like overnight truck stops - my husband has philosophical issues with paying for motels and dining out when we are so fully equipped on our wheels. And we do have lots of good heat, water nearly all the time (got to watch those freezing pipes), an electric blanket, a stove, and a fridge. 

I get it.

But really there are only so many nights that this princess likes to go to sleep next to the sound of a row of semi trailers running all night.

So I am putting a lot of effort into setting myself up to be comfortable on the trip down - until we get to Texas where it should be warmer and until we can get to our first laundromat.

With appropriately low standards set for photography I am going to share some marvellous back of the bathroom door shots of what I have made this week, with comments. I stuck to a few of the same patterns for efficiency sake. I am sure once we are on the road I will be glad I pushed myself to get all this done.

Here we go:

I made a series of Patterns for Pirates Favourite Tee. The first few I made were as per pattern with what was a fairly wide neckband. I used a lot of cotton lycra for these tees and the wider band sticks out just a shade as you can see here in a blue version I made previously and a couple that I did this week:

Isn't this confetti cotton knit just terrific? I am so into confetti fabric right now and I don't know why. Reminds me of those confetti angel food cake mixes my mother used to make us when we were kids for special occasions.

Eventually I realized the thing to do was to just make the band narrower - I did this by just stitching a presser foot distance away from the edge of the band, cutting off the excess.

This narrower band lies much better so I made another series in this amazing luxe cotton lycra with a nice smooth hand from Fabric Snob. Love this fabric, very nice to work with for utility type tops suitable for traveling down the road with the dog on my lap:

In addition to the Favourite Tee I also made some Classic Tees from Lovenotions. The neckline here is more of a crew neck and the shape straighter, but I really like the reassuring way this covered up and comfortable tee shirt makes me feel:

A weird and fuzzy picture of a classic tee in double brushed poly. I usually never wear synthetics but this fabric is so cozy and soft. 

Since I was going all out on comfort clothes I also made a couple of pairs of sweat pants from the Jalie pattern. These have an elastic casing at the bottom in the pattern but I wasn't feeling that retro so I just made them straight.

I have to tell you they have a beautiful leg but of course you can't really tell that to see them hanging on the back of the bathroom door- where they look like something your dad would wear until your mother yelled at him to change into something nicer:

When I have more energy and am not cozy in here in the big chair with Daisy I will have to put them on and show them to you properly. A roadside rv shot in the slush would be nice.

Once thing I really like about these pants is the nifty way the pockets are done, entirely transferrable to other patterns.

These are so much nicer than those dreaded inseam pocket bags. You know the ones that never quite line up right and tend towards a lumpy bump twisting away over each hip.

Instead these pockets are made by turning under a bit and topstitching along a sort of curve on the front pant leg at the side.

After you have done this you just lay a pocket behind it and top stitch it down.

This leaves you with a completed front pant leg with a pocket now in it. You then forget about and continue sewing up the pants as you would be doing anyway. Slick.

Finally, because I was on a comfort clothes roll I made myself some little boy at Christmas pyjamas in knit - the top made out of the Lovenotions classic tee and the bottoms made out of the Jalie sweatpants pattern:

Just so you know, sometimes when you are doing rv travelling the driver is pretty intent in getting out of the Arctic Circle to some place where they have rodeos and BBQ cook offs. This means he might want to get on the road again pretty early. 

The beauty of rv travel, as opposed to airline travel where you have to take off your shoes and put your watch in a tray so you can cross through security just in time to see your flight get cancelled, is that a person in pyjamas like these can move in a short straight line out of her bed to the bathroom, to picking up a coffee, to strapping herself and the dog into the front seat, without even taking off her slippers.

And if you are not quite awake it is also even possible to drag your blanket along with you to that front seat.

So if you see anyone looking like, that next week or so, through the window of a 32' rv with Nova Scotia plates.

Wave.