One of my Christmas cooking dresses

Last weekend I had an urge to make something asap. I had only a few hours and my soul needed something done from start to finish before I went to bed. So I grabbed some weird black velour with some white line designs on it (think it was a Fabricmart extra) and pulled out a basic T shirt pattern with those little gathering things at the centre front neckline and cut it out long enough to be a sort of an A line dress. Not going out Christmas wear, but Christmas Eve cooking wear that can get thrown in the washer and dryer once it has cranberries all over it (I need some bigger aprons.)

It is what it is, and it filled several needs. The only slow part was fiddling around with my Pfaff 5 thread coverhem which does a great job if you are willing to spend 40 minutes setting it up and waiting for it to start working right. I gave up actually and finished the job with my wide twin needle and decided I am going to get myself a dedicated coverhem that doesn't get me down to my last nerve every time I have a simple hem to do. The machine works great as a serger so I think I will leave it at that and make my life easy. I sew a lot of knits and am planning on investing as much of my precious time as I can in expanding the sewing space in my life and so this seems to me to be a sensible thing to do.

Any suggestions for good ones?

Aren't these pretty?

I have been making quite a few earrings and went so far as to borrow a book from the library on big beads. It's due back tomorrow so I took a few pictures of some necklaces that caught my eye and really don't look hard to make at all.

Imagine the dresses you could make to go with these.

What turns out and what doesn't

Of course not everything you intend, or expect, to happen does. That is probably the hardest thing about being the mother of adults. You know that and they don't. Not yet. And part of you doesn't want them ever to find out.

I have been very happy in my life but that has taken a lot more work than I expected, and some of the help I was expecting didn't come through, but what didn't happen easily I made happen. But it has been a lot of work and it still is.

Just turning 56 has made me think though how much work I want to keep doing. How many years do you go thinking there is not enough time in the day? Is this the pivot point where you realize its not about so much about not enough time in the day as time in the life? Is there a time that you think, hey wait a minute I keep investing in this career but now that the long term is the short term is it over investing?

I am not talking about fading out, but engaging in fewer things and most importantly letting those who are still trying to make it do that. One more academic year and I am going part-time.

It is worth thinking about aging and what you are going to do or how you intend to do it.

I have two stories.

When my former mother-in-law was exactly my age she made a strange announcement. She told us all that she had decided that she figured she knew all she had to know or in fact wanted to know and that she was just going to go on from that point working on what she had stored up.

As I write she is now being treated for dementia.

The other story is about my 82 year old current father-in-law. Some time last spring he announced that he was going to build a new house. Didn't like the old one, knew a nicer part of the countryside. What he meant was build his own house, like sit at my dining room table and draw it, drive around in a truck with wood and borrow an excavator. I was completely against this whole idea. For a start he has had several little strokes and this is a man who freely admits he doesn't remember last Christmas  "So tell me anything interesting happen?" I did a great job nagging my DH to put a stop to this crazy idea being planned by a man who was likely to kill himself and a few other people in the process and that if you couldn't remember Christmas it was not a sure thing that this new house would be some place he and my saint of a mother-in-law would be living in for too long.

My husband did what he is good at which was not argue at all with me and go help his dad make this happen. To my spouse it wasn't about common sense but about that fact that this was what his dad wanted to do.

Thing is, it's done. They moved in today and are planning a new garden and landscaping and to my father-in-law his future is just as large as anyone else's. Reminds me when the doctor told him to stop going into the woods fishing with his heart issues in case he had another stroke. "Don't care about that at all" he said "I love to fish and if I die fishing at least I would be fishing."

So this is what sense I am making of all of this. Keep doing what you love to do, keep trying to learn new things about it. Keep new ideas coming into that head, and never stop starting.

Never stop starting.

Babysitting again after a 40 year break

That's right, the kids are out and I am on duty sitting at DD's dining table listening for baby sounds. They're at a concert, the first time they have gone out since Miss Scarlett was born.

Babysitting hasn't changed, although the last time I did it I charged 35 cents and hour and 50 after midnight and this time its on the house. I can tell it will be the same, look around at someone's house, eat the snack they have left and try to keep awake until that you can hear that car in the drive way. I have different things on my mind though. In those days I used to spend the quiet time away from my busy and noisy home thinking about my life and where it was going to go, generally full of hopes and worries about boyfriends and jobs and school and money and where I was going to find a place in the world for myself and if, in fact, I was going to find one, or the right one for me. This time out I am thinking the same things but having these thoughts on behalf of kids who aren't settled yet, not like this one here with the nice husband and beautiful baby. Of course my daughter worries too much - if the baby only wants to sleep during the day in her arms does that mean she is spoiled, but if she cries will she have attachment issues. Yesterday Miss S. fussed for a time between 5-7 does that mean she will do that every night? I keep telling her don't worry it all goes away and resolves itself, they all turn out fine, don't waste these precious years worrying it away, enjoy what you can while you have it.

Advice this old mother should apply to her 20 something sons who are lovely boys, just not settled, just like Miss S isn't between 5-7.

My babysitting days changed how I looked at sewing.

In the neighbourhood I was a teenager in there happened to be a colony of Swedish executives all over here working for a Swedish company and my sister and I were their on -call sitters. To us they introduced us to an exotic world. For a start they left us weird snacks, a long way from Mom's tuna casserole and Heinz soup can cuisine. Caviar on rye bread, raspberry whips and something called Jonson's temptation for dinners we sometimes ate with the kids, a sort of scalloped potato with tons of anchovies mixed in - like my mom would ever make that.

But most of all these Swedish mothers did non-stop handiwork and sewing. There were botanical cross stitches on the wall, bright living room curtains that they actually changed every season, getting brighter as the days got darker, and Bernina machines set up in the corners of kitchens and Burda magazines left on the kitchen tables for me to look at. One lady I sat for, Lillamore, had a different dress on every time I saw her and many of them, linen tent dress things, very 60s style, had often plackets of machine embroidery on them.

It was my first exposure to women who sewed recreationally, and constantly. It legitimized sewing to me as a style of living not something you did when the money was tight, or the child too large for store-bought clothes or because it was Hallowe'en.

I used to sit in these houses waiting for these couples to come home and think to myself that I am going to be like this when I have my own life. I am going to handcraft my own place and make my own clothes and have colour and have style. I am going to change my curtains with the seasons, and spend my time cross-country skiing and rolling smoked salmon to put on flatbread with dill sprigs, and I am going to buy Burda magazines and sew. Sew all the time.

Sewing time

I am taking today to sew myself something easy and useful. I need the break in the action and so do the people around me. Time for Mom to recharge. I have all my end of term marking coming up, plus some new semi-online courses for next semester to develop, the pre-Christmas move of the little family to help with, Christmas and a houseful of company, including a 10 year old niece who loves to sew. This is a funny kid. Her mom, my youngest sister, is deaf and this little girl got herself signed up for sewing classes this summer by email. She will appreciate my new sewing room and enjoy my stash, I am looking forward to sharing this with her.

Before I talk about sewing things, I want to say a few words of things I am grateful for this morning, still in bed with my laptop and coffee after my 7:30 a.m. wake-up call to watch Sewing with Nancy:

1. My granddaughter. Seeing the look on my daughter's face with her is amazing, as I can see that my child now feels the way about some little person as I do about her. The beginning of a lifelong connection.

2. That my son is alive. Not everyone makes it through a fall through a stairwell down onto a concrete floor. The ER folks made that pretty clear.

3. My family. Both my son from D.C. and my sister from Ottawa flew in for weekends after the baby was born to stand in the kitchen and make innumerable freezer meals for the new family. They are both awesome cooks and I am proud to be part of such a practical family. Yes it all gets a bit intense sometimes living as a group but they always come through, always.

4. My 82 year old mother for also visiting me and for giving me a good example of active aging - I should know so much about current events at her age.

5. My husband for being a sport, such a sport and for treating my children, who he didn't even meet until he was 48, exactly like his own. For serving my mom gourmet meals, lobster et al., every night she was here (and for my Prairie mom of the add a can of mushroom soup culture acting like she was used to such fancy treatment), for doing all the work to get DD's house to sell, and for all the times he says to me "don't worry about it, it will all work out" and for being right about that.

6. For my son-in-law. He knows me and so often he looks across the room at me and I know he just gets it. For explaining young men to me when I find being the mother of young men confusing being one of four girls myself.

7. For the dogs. Josie, Rascal and Birdie, mine, my son's and my daughter's. Often when things are busy I do the dogs and dogs always seem to me to have their priorities right. Lift your nose to the air and sniff, love a sunny day, rest when times are slow and always be ready for a fun time when it presents itself. 

8. For Birdie in particular. One of the incredible things about the place I live in is its generosity. Near me is one of those very old, establishment golf courses and when the season is over they open a hole in the fence for the neighourhood to use the course for dog walking. I did that yesterday and when I went back to the car realized that somewhere my car key had fallen out of my pocket. My DH was out of town with the other key so we walked the 18 again looking for the key - a pretty hopeless task but I told Birdie to find the key (he is a border collie and a good listener, the other two just major in random behaviour and fooling around). He ran around bringing me any stick he could find and but eventually after 36 holes turned up the key in a pile of leaves. What are the odds? A good dog, a very good dog.

Now onto sewing.

Today I need some instant sewing. I am going to make myself a velour knit dress for practical around the house holiday wear. A tights and Clark mules outfit for what will really be going on around here. Usually my Christmas outfit is for my husband's company's party which has always been a very dressed up and formal affair, long dresses and the whole bit, but for some reason they are doing a hayride thing at a farm, how hopeless is that, and we aren't going.

A comment on one of the things I have missed most during my sewing absence - something new to wear. Usually I have a new garment every week or two and having something new is a lift isn't it? I really missed that and have been forced en route to other things lately to go into the stores. With money in my pocket I have bought nothing and have come away feeling that I just can't dress myself at all unless I sew it myself. Here are the reasons:

1. Fabric quality. I am amazed at how chintzy the fabric is in even fairly pricey clothes. Polyester in everything - if I wouldn't invest in this fabric on the bolt why would I pay so much to have something made up in it? We don't in Nova Scotia have those outlet centres like they do every 10 miles on the US highways so maybe my choice is limited but is there nothing being made these days in quality fabric? My only purchases this year have been online from Landsend and if anyone has any other ideas for quality simple clothes I would be interested.

2. Too much decoration. I am facing the fact that the only clothes I really am comfortable in long term are pretty simple in nice fabrics.

3. Too much money for too little. OK there may be good reasons to spend $200 on a cotton blouse but I can't think of them. Not when it is $8 a meter fabric at the most and nothing special.

4. Fit. A jacket that is tight across the bust, too short and has a baggy neck and sloppy sleeves. No Ms. Sales lady it doesn't look great on me. I need a size small neck, a tall length, and a FBA and medium to large waist. What rack is that on?

OK that's it. Off to the sewing room.

So what happened to me?

There has been a lot going on in my life between me and this blog lately. Here is a short list in no particular order:

1. Grandbaby- I work full-time and my sewing time has recently be transferred into being part of the baby support unit. Very gratifying.

2. A son on the DL- my youngest is a student working part-time as a carpenter while he is at school. He was involved in a workplace accident that could have easily been very, very bad however he walked away with only a smashed shoulder and other less serious injuries. He is back at home with Birdie his dog and has needed some attention.

3. DD mother of new baby and her husband had a chance to buy a much bigger house in their area which required a 10 day window to repaint and totally redo their place to sell. Both the buying and selling missions are accomplished thanks largely to my husband who did nothing but paint his heart out for a full week straight. She will be moving in to her new place one week before Christmas.... part two of the saga.

4. Visitors - my family likes to go through everything together and so the sheets from the spare room have been in and out of that washing machine non-stop. Good to see people but no time to SWAP.

5. Oh yes the job, for some reason my career has gone into overdrive. Anyone free to help me mark the 110 term papers that will hit my desk Monday?

For the first time in probably 30 years it has been about 2 months since I have sewn anything. It is a crazy feeling.

Thanks though for Ruthie who put me on to earring making. I have been able to hide out in the basement for a minute here and there and have been churning them out, one at a time, and without this minor release valve on my creativity I probably would have exploded all over the walls. Thanks Ruthie, from me and from my family.

However I have thought many deep sewing thoughts in the interim and will be posting those as soon as I can. I am on my way back I hope.

Biarritz, not so much

Busy week but here as promised is a shot of my Biarritz jacket. When it was done, in some nice beefy rayon as per Loes Hinse, paired with my black straight skirt it reminded me of my dad's comments years ago when my mom brought home a black suit that she wore with a white blouse,

"Well," he said, "You look very nice, for a nun." Yes this suit turned out pretty dull for me too so I added some giant snaps to try and get the nun out of it, but generally I am not happy with this at all and you can see why. There just isn't enough support and structure, or lines in this for me. And even with my interfacing in the collar and on the facings and my taping the neck edge it is just really droopy (even without the weight of the snaps -actually it probably looks better in real life than in this photo which picks up every wrinkle.)

The Loes Hinse thing just isn't working for me in jackets and this is the third one I have tried. For me I think an unstructured jacket needs to be fuller to pick up the attributes of drape or flow or made out of a knit, and a jacket with a bit more structure needs to be lined and well more structured.

I will probably wear this a few times, until I feel I have my time back, and then ditch it.

I loved the tweed suit I made a while ago and that has me thinking I should try some more risky shapes and maybe focus on comfort shapes in jackets for a while. I can feel a style shift of some kind coming on. You know it might also be time to nail down a sweater set.

So Loes Hinse may connect with some folks but did not mesh with my own approach.

Not to worry 400 other projects on the runway, including some nursing tops for my daughter this weekend.