Flypaper thoughts South Carolina edition

·      One week into our annual trip south

·      Have used up my data looking at patterns on the road

·      Or searching for style ideas for my new style

·      I am always looking for my new style

·      Currently I am working on one called

·      Whatever is still clean

·      My husband gets texts from my son

·      They share podcasts on the intelligence of mushrooms

·      Do you know that a mushroom fed oatmeal designed the  Tokyo subway system?

·      Don't feel bad a lot of people don't

·      I can send you the link

·      How could I have not have heard of this before?

·      Discovered the state park we are in in South Carolina has a snowbird monthly rate

·      For December, January, and February

·      Explains the Canadians

·      Folks in shorts and T shirts

·      Identifiable next to the locals in wool hats and gloves

·      Woman a few sites over is delighted to find out that the person in her next site

·      Lives on the same street as her cousin's uncle's sister

·      Back home in Moncton

·      I am in constant contact with my own network

·      I get texts of pictures of the snow storms

·      News my niece and her sweetheart

·      Who is also my son-in-law's nephew

·      Are moving into my basement

·      You would think I was from Moncton

·      My husband is in his element

·      He runs this rv like it is his own submarine

·      When I step in here it is more like enlisting

·      Things are stowed, not put away

·      I am seeing a lot of walking around with power tools

·      And a happy guy

·      Man loves his activities

·      Bought himself a vintage sewing machine yesterday in a thrift shop

·      It was $8.00 because it was broken

·      He actually took it apart and fixed it right there in the store

·      Attracting attention of a few older men

·      I went to look at glassware

·      I hear there is such a thing as food grade anti-freeze

·      Don't panic

·      But I am not kidding

·      He brings me dinner on a tray when I am writing

·      Every rv has a dog

·      Some have three

·      I lie happily in my bed here in my sub under the stars

·      And feel I am sleeping in a colony of dogs

·      Accompanied by their drivers

·      I shower in the bath house

·      With the other Canadians

·      Thrilled we don't walk there in snow

·      The sound of the shower in the rv worries Daisy

·      Sometimes it takes 15 minutes for the water to get hot

·      But I have the time

·      And when I walk back in the dark I look at the stars

·      And hear the dogs snoring

Flypaper thoughts somewhere in Nova Scotia sometime before Christmas version

• I have down tools on the sewing
• There are folks who will be coming expecting to eat
• My husband will take over Christmas cooking on the day
• In his male mind the only time to think about Christmas is for about 5 hours every year
• Now my own idea of Christmas is the equivalent of launching the invasion of Normandy
• Needless to say I do gifts
• His contribution is to say lots of time and they don't expect anything
• I am dealing with a crazy person
• Obviously
• I am not expecting Pinterest but focused eyes would be helpful
• Any guess what I got for my last birthday?
• A bidet attachment for the toilet
• If I had sat in a room for a hundred million years
• This is not something I would have thought of
• "It was your birthday and I was in Canadian Tire"
• "And I thought, can't be hard to plumb that in"
• Bingo problem solved
• But he makes a hell of a turkey
• Christmas is huge for me
• Yes I realize that many people don't like it
• But my Auntie Bonnie who was a glamour girl 
• In the dances at the beach during the war
• Who used to wear knee high nylons with her summer dresses in her old age
• Still believed in gloves
• And whose favourite saying was
• "In life you have to have your jazz band dancing"
• She was onto on of the great truths of life
• Nice afternoon yesterday
• Visited my friend who is now in a memory unit in long term care
• Early onset
• My own feeling is that he had so much life he kind of used his quota up early
• Lately he has said the dog's name 
• So I went with his wife, my old old friend, to do dog duty
• Folks who no longer were sure who they or the family are
• Still look at a dog and smile
• Soul to soul
• Can't take time too seriously
• Just some things are out of synch
• But never underestimate the ability of the universe to send you something to your heart
• Tomorrow our baby girl from California arrives
• She looks so much like her dad, my son, that it is eerie 
• Of course she is herself
• Sometimes like all mothers
• I think can I have them back just for one day
• And then suddenly here comes this one just like her dad
• And I have that day back
• Who would have thought?
• So to me that's what Christmas is
• You never know
• You just never know

Social media and we have to talk

First my complete apologies to those I may of offended in my last post where I wrote who smocks anymore? 

I was commenting on the state of the world not on why would anyone smock. Of course not. I have beautiful dresses made by a friend's mother that are as perfect today as they were 38 years ago. 

What I meant was who irons any more? I do and more people should. I travel in the rv with a good iron and full side ironing board. 

Who takes their hat off in a restaurant any more? You see where I am going with this.

No offence intended and you smockers keep at it. We are counting on you.

Now we are on the subject of offences you might of noticed that my blog posts have tapered off a bit. There are several reasons for this:

1. Most of what I have made, and I have been sewing continuously, in the last few months has been for other people. 

2019 was a year that I had a lot of folks on my mind. My daughter, who is now doing really well, got her MS diagnosis. My mother had a fall. I had a granddaughter on the other side of the continent, and two boys and a daughter-in-law I am close to, in the US. I have sisters and I have friends. I think about them.

So 2019 was a year when I came to terms with the fact that sometimes you can't change the circumstance of someone else's life.

But you know you can always sew for them. 

So that's what I did. I used my sewing as my main tool of communication - as a connection between me and people I cared about but were not often near enough for direct contact, or dealing with things I couldn't resolve for them.  My sewing was my I love you and I support you messages.

This has been hugely helpful to me in making some life adjustments in a positive way. It allowed me to speak about my own life in my own language. My mother tongue.

Now this might have been healthy for me but it has been unhealthy for traditional type sewing blogging. I can't show surprises/gifts and these guys often don't get around to sending me pictures of the garment on them to post. I sew for busy people.

Right now, before Christmas, I have sewn my fingers to the bone but can't show you any of it, except maybe the picture above. This is not good for blogging.

2. I have started to send out what is now a monthly sewing newsletter. I had this idea in my head that it would be useful to fill in some of the blanks for new and returning sewists - to sort of tell them some of the important things pattern instructions leave out. To sign up just send me your email. This little project has diverted some of my sewing instructor energy I admit, but has been very gratifying. I got a lovely email today for instance from a young woman in Norway who is teaching herself to sew on her own and has found the newsletters helpful. That means a lot to me. I will say however that working on the newsletter has taken me away a bit from writing some part of that information here.

3. I have become increasingly interested in writing. I have just finished editing a novel for a local author. I have several of my own projects percolating. I want to do more writing out of my sewing life but also letting it reach into other areas. I really enjoy writing the flypaper thoughts a lot. I want to do more of that.

4. Social media is developing and its role in my life is changing. When I started writing this blog a decade ago sewing blogs of the I made this and these are my comments were a new thing. For a really long time I was one of those bloggers. To be honest it wasn't my best thing and it gets hard to keep up. Now I simply am not in a place where I can sew a garment or more a week and blog about it. Right now that would feel like a job and I don't need another job. The life roster is pretty full. I love to post a garment when I make one that can be an interesting topic of discussion, but I don't want to feel I have to keep up a schedule. I really feel other bloggers right now are doing a better job of that than I can.

Which brings me to my idea, the where we go from here.

How about this?

1. I write all my tech stuff in the newsletter and any other sewing publications I get organized.

2. I post the majority of my garment pics/makes on Instagram @bemodi. Just so much easier for me to do that on the fly than try to organize my husband to take a picture and then argue about why I am always shot leaning or with my head cut off. 

3. I use this space more and more to write flypaper thought themed stuff. A lot on sewing sure but more on life in general. The thing is the older I get the less serious I feel and the more random thoughts I have. Who is interested? Maybe someone out there might be. Maybe not. But maybe typing out my random thoughts and tying them to a virtual pigeon and tossing it out the digital window would help me get some of what's in, well out.

I think this is the point where it's over to you folks.

Does this make sense?

Flypaper thoughts illustrated from the production room

• Fairly certain that sewing to-do list for this season would be enough to get me committed
• Diagnosis totally out of touch with time and space
• Sometime tomorrow some folks are likely to be bumped from the handmade to Amazon delivered
• About to go into Titanic mode
• Women and children are saved first
• Or in this case sewn for first
• My oldest granddaughter has been invited to a family New Year's Eve party
• This is huge Babsie she said
• We are staying up to midnight
• Grown ups and kids will be there
• Pause
• Really fancy and I mean fancy
• There will be snacks
• So I made her a dress that in her ten year old mind will be glamorous
• Jalie's Bella, super easy

• As sparkly as I could make it
• As to there rest of them the production line has been conveying belt along

• You my people will know exactly what this is
• And what it represents

• In the middle of all of this my husband has decided to learn to sew
• Randomly he bought a Touch and Sew in a cabinet and is in love with it
• Some men buy red sports cars at this stage
• Or dye their hair and decide they haven't lost their touch
• Which is true only in their own minds
• And I guess other men are happy with a Touch and Sew
• He is pinning his patterns down with safety pins
• Which I haven't seen before
• A lot of things I haven't seen before
• You just never know do you
• Not to be dropped from my list is a request for a red velvet jacket with a white fur Peter Pan collar
• Every eight year old should have one
• Someone's mom has been watching White Christmas with the kids again
• How can I not make that too?
• For what a small sliver of life does someone want a white fur Peter Pan collar?
• Can't let that slip by
• In one month we will be on the road in the RV for three months
• If you live in the Southern US and SW I will wave
• We will trade one cocoon with dog to a smaller cocoon
• Still with dog
• I have to pack for that at some point
• Between the shortbread making and the Amazon waiting
• What are the chances that someone would be happy with half a sock?

A little dress

A week ago my youngest granddaughter turned one in San Francisco. I sent her a doll from my mom, a pair of moose hide Mukluks (she will be here over Christmas) and I decided to go old school and send her a plaid dress too.

I have a terrible time imagining weather in places outside my window (which is why I am the world's worst packer) but I had enough sense not to send velveteen or wool to California.

Fortunately I found some plaid in a very nice rayon and hopefully that counts as winter wear on the west coast.

For a pattern I pulled out this out of print Jalie that I got on a sale of their old stock a while ago. I really really enjoyed sewing it and seeing practical but traditional baby clothing details. There is a double folded hem with the potential to add nearly another 4" in length and a back that opens full length for easy dressing.

The pattern also came with some cool bloomers, big enough to cover the biggest diaper, and I made those too. We'll see about the fit but one of the reasons Jalie is my go-to for kids clothes is that there are so many sizes in one pattern - this one has 10 baby/toddler sizes.

I am sewing a lot for family these days (this has had an impact on the blog I am trying to figure out - I might block family members!) because I want to show things that are also surprises.

Right now most of the time I am sewing requests. I realized that rather than having family handle the fact that my kids probably don't want to wear what I would wear, everyone is happier, including me, if I make to order. This also expands my own repertoire and experience by introducing new territory to me.

That said every once in a while I enjoy sewing something that is just a sewing indulgence for me, like this traditional little dress.

It reminded me of the smocked dresses my friend's mother made for my daughter years ago. Who does that these days? Who has the time? Beautiful party dresses with smocking patterns that must have been decades old, giant hems like this one.

Even babies have history.

Dark November flypaper thoughts

• In the background my husband has the TV on
• Impeachment hearings take me back to ironing
• When it was Nixon's turn we used to go home to my friend's house after school
• We watched her mom, an ashtray on the ironing board, doing her ironing and watching
• Like many Eastern Canadian families they had family in the States
• Including the famous Auntie sister who was such a drinker she set her alarm to get started
• There was also a person called Uncle Brother who retired early. Real early.
• So when I hear the TV voices I am thinking I should get out the ironing board
• But am not likely to do the sheets
• Or the underwear
• Like my friend's mother did
• I am also thinking about craft
• My youngest son's girlfriend takes picture but uses film
• She waits for them to be developed
• Waits
• These pictures are gorgeous
• This girl knows craft
• No digital
• No editing
• No filters
• No tricks
• No instant Instagram fame
• I gave away my top-of-the-line machine
• And now sew on old machines that rely on my hands
• Not a circuit boards
• This month I put the knits on hold for a bit
• And made bound buttonholes
• French seams
• And careful binding
• It was stress less not stressful
• Like yoga breathing
• Or ironing

Red boiled wool coat

Before you all fall over when you see a blog post from me let me show you a red boiled wool coat I made. 

Despite my vacancy from the blogosphere I have been family event busy and sewing my brains out. So much of what I have made is off to the recipients, unphotographed. Sometimes real life makes it to the front of the line before recorded life.

Not shown here are the yellow wool socks I made for a new girlfriend up from Texas. We didn't want her to go into cold weather shock and write off Nova Scotia just because it was November, a fairly miserable month outdone only by February, you know that time of the year I personally will be thawing out in Texas. I figured if her feet were warm she would feel at home here. This is something we want.

There are few issues in life I do not think have a wardrobe solution.

Also not shown are mended snow suits, a cross back apron for my florist sister's nice co-worker at the home and garden store, a birthday dress for the now one-year-old in San Francisco, and two warm velour pullovers for my daughter.

If you come to this blog I am sure you have given up a long time ago that you would find beautifully coordinated outfits photographed on a regular basis and more likely to find flypaper thoughts from a life dressed for those kind of thoughts.

So here we go.

I had some neat patterned boiled wool from the local Fabricville. I decided to make a cozy sweater coat thing out of the stand collar version of this pattern:

In recognition of the loft and texture of this fabric (essentially this jacket is a high grade polar fleece jacket) I decided to make bound buttonholes. I have a no brainer method for these that makes them easy - got to get instructions done).

For the same fabric reasons I also sewed the pockets on by hand (backstitch on the wrong side, slip stitch on the right side).

Also because the fabric was thick I put in a false hem and a chain to weigh the hem down.

Really a nice cozy coat and this time of year that's essential.

Now I am up for a breather watch this space for more posts. They will be coming!