Happy New Year

I had a great time last night and intend to do everything I can to enjoy 2011 as much as I can.


My husband and I did a little babysitting, and rather than going out later to parties he made a wonderful supper, lobster and a fruit plate. He then lit firecrackers on the front lawn, enjoyed by the little boys down the street, and afterwards we slow danced in the kitchen in our pajamas.


I figured that was just about a perfect evening.


Now this morning I am starting in implementing my New Year's resolution. Here it is:


Sew more. A lot more.


Enough with fitting sewing in around all my other duties. I am putting it back on first. See enjoy 2011 as much as I can above.


This is what that is looking like:


1. Major organization of the sewing room, started this morning in the same outfit I wore dancing last night. I will be posting some pictures of this. Right now it involves putting the fabric I actually think I will be sewing, like all my white shirt fabrics, out on shelves and putting what I am calling "all that weird shit" into boxes for the moments when that is exactly what I need.


2. Learning to use the very nice camera that my husband gave me for Christmas after having reviewed my blog. So I can take better pictures of what I sew.


3. I upgraded my PMB software to version 5 yesterday. I had fabulous success with a well-fitted sheath a few years ago with version 3 but got bogged down getting the pants to work, probably user error more than anything. Some women in the local sewing guild say the new version is easier and more effective. It's not so much that I have fitting issues as it is that I get frustrated sometimes trying to find a pattern in a style I see in the collections or magazines. For instance I really want a slimmer pant right now, not a trouser and not a skinny jeans. I think a couple of us locally are going to be working on getting proficient on the software.


4. I'm going to buy more fabric in 2011. Yes, I love fabric and living in this fabric purchasing wasteland I just need and want more on hand. See enjoy myself above.


5. Get those shirts going again now the Christmas production cycle is over. Dying to get this started.


Now I have a major question for you. Any great ideas for a good shirt collar interfacing? I prefer a sewn-in and don't want one of those cardboardy kinds you find in so many men's shirts.


What works for you?

3:40 a.m.

Well the first thing you should do is go over to Carolyn's blog and read her thoughts on accepting the changes of your life.


It is funny but I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep tonight. So I sat down with a snack and started to read and there were her words - just saying the things that had woken me up in the night.


Thank you for that Carolyn.


I have also been thinking how important it was to let relationships change. 


This is really hard to do, and in fact I think it has been a theme of my life to try to keep that from happening. It is particularly hard when the relationship, from your own point of view, has been just about perfect.


I have probably spent too much time in the last couple of years trying to hold on to times in my life that were very happy but leaving my life. I think for example of that terrific feeling I had when I put three kids to bed and knew they were completely content with their lives and their home and I could head off to the sewing room for some time by myself with the same kind of peace in my heart. A lot of times I just wanted that back.


But lately I have been accepting that relationships just change and you have to let them. This takes some effort when the person who has initiated that change is not you. It has taken me some time to come to terms with my middle son leaving not just home but this country too, and that the kid who talked my ear off and shared everything is going to be a visitor, not at home, where I am anymore.


But the funny thing is that the more I have accepted the changes in our relationship the more it feels like it did between the two of us again.


I have also just realized that there is change too in the relationship with my husband. In our partnership I have also been the one who did the talking, had the schemes, and asked for support. My husband has been the anchor man - the one who fixed things for everyone and provided the kind of steady backup that we all needed.


With him off to work in the US this year all that has changed. Now he is the one with the stories, and the buck has been stopping with me for all the things that have to happen to make a household work.  In some ways it is making me feel like a single mother again and that's not a feeling that makes me particularly happy.


But I recognize that this situation is temporary, but more significantly, that it is just his turn to be the one with the adventures for a bit and he really deserves this, after all he has done for everyone else for so long. So it's my turn to do some adjusting, to be the anchor man.


I suspect, no I know, that as I get older that life is not going to get more settled as much as require me to experience many changes, including in my relationships, even the ones that were just the way I wanted them.


As this unfolds I have to say that I am just so glad I have my sewing. That is one relationship that is constant for me and has been my whole life and because of that probably makes all the other transitions just that much easier.

It was a merry Christmas

Here is a requisite picture of myself and my granddaughter at Christmas. We had a blow-out 14 people dinner at my daughter's with lots of food, little kids running around, and general chaos.


My daughter kept saying, "Is this too wild?" and of course it wasn't and can't be. My husband did the major cooking, turkey, stuffing, gravy and all the pies and cooked for us again yesterday. Here he is in the middle of carving, just before he hit the couch:

I know that there are a lot of folks who don't like this time of year, but I love it.


First of all Christmas allows me to go all out on family doting which I need to do, so I really enjoy myself. Things change of course. Operations moved from my place to my daughter's this year, and that felt right. I am very happy to be doing back up and glad I have the time to do it.


Secondly New Year's really is a time when I review my life and see what I want to get done and if I am still steered in the right direction.


I have been thinking some preliminary thoughts on that one over the last day or so.


I think for many of us in this much busier world the key is becoming as much what we are not going to do in the new year as what we are going to be doing. 


It seems to me that this is not a time for me so much for self-improvement as self-focus.


One thing that I have been thinking about a lot is how important my sewing life is to me. What that looks like as I move forward bears some consideration and I am going to have to decide what I am going to be letting go of to move what matters more into focus.

Merry Christmas

Wherever you are tonight and tomorrow, I wish you a Merry Christmas.

I hope that something happens to you over this holiday that makes you smile, that reminds you that yes there is joy in the world, and makes you feel loved and useful.

I do realize that not every year, at the same time, is great for everyone. There are those Christmases where not everyone you would like to be with you is there, for example, or for some reason just happens to be one of those holidays you figure you are just going to have to get through.

But the amazing thing about Christmas is that despite those times there can and in fact will be a Christmas, if not now then soon, that just gives you some gift you just weren't even expecting. And maybe that's all Christmas is - a time when we are more aware of those moments and more able to see in them what life is trying to give us.

So may the spirit of Christmas find you wherever you are tonight.

May it give you a glimpse of the goodness and rightness of the world, help you see the generosity of other people, and connect you again to that realization that yes all that really matters are your family and your friendships.

And may you enjoy yourself. We were meant to do that, it is a gift we give ourselves.

Thank you

I have officially put my feet up and, except for the wrapping, have announced to the family that they can take it from here. 


DH flies in tomorrow night, DS in from DC tonight. Momma is off work until the new year and going to enjoy herself.


I also am going to start to put together my year ender. This will come in stages.


First of all, thank you 2010 for good things that happened in your year:


I started blogging regularly and really found I enjoyed it. Thank you to my commenters who are like other stars in the universe, letting me know I am not the only one who feels this way about sewing.


Thank you to the other  bloggers I read, daily most of them, for letting me connect with them. I watch and learn ladies. I read and listen. And most of all I have verified that distances of any kind don't mean damned a thing.


Thank you to my students. Sometimes the adult administrative world of education is a pain, but you guys make me laugh, make me think, make me learn. Sometimes I walk into that classroom and feel like a standup comic and wonder, am I going to bomb today? Thank you for always being so generous and gracious to me and reminding me that you can be young at any age and old at any age too. Thanks for letting me be young.


Thanks to the dogs (I write this with three under the table, Rascal and two of the kids dogs) for reminding me that differences between species are not that important either. Thanks too for letting me still mother. OK I said it, I am not done fussing yet and these guys take all I can give out.


Thanks to opportunities that have allowed my son and husband to both work in the US this year and given me a chance to get to know that country better. I miss them both but we have all as a family benefitted so much from the reminder that national boundaries don't really matter either. At all.


Thanks for the projects that turned out. I have tried enough new things this year that I have faced some failures and some monsters (red jacket I am talking to you) so I really, really appreciate the garments that let themselves become successes and supported me as a sewer.


Thanks to my mother who just yesterday said to me "the secret of a good visit with your cardiologist is to wear your colours."


But here is the first part of a list of hopes for the New Year:


Right now one of my big hopes is that Sarah Palin completely winds herself down. She is the Paris Hilton of politics and my hope is that, without any real content, she just runs out of steam. Because I used to work for a politician, I follow this stuff, but that woman is one nasty piece of work.  Enough already.


More later.

That SWAP thing

I am a SWAP dropout.


I think I have participated about three times and only finished once. That one time involved clothes that all matched and met the criteria but I never wore. The next two times ended prematurely because I became completely overwhelmed with trying to make it all coordinate and kept wanting to veer off because some new style caught my eye. 


It felt more like production than creation, but that is just me.


The trouble is the whole SWAP thing makes so much sense but it just isn't how I sew. No apologies.


It has taken me a long time to understand that you can't lead someone else's life, no matter how smart it is.


Just like I have learned you can't teach someone else's course at work. If I try to teach a new course working from someone else's syllabus it just doesn't feel right. You can't tell someone else's stories, say someone else's jokes, project what someone else thinks is the most important thing, when in your own heart you have other priorities.


You can't live someone else's lifestyle either. 


I received an e-Christmas letter today from someone I knew years ago who seems to have spent her life having lunches in Tuscany and visiting galleries. She looks elegant in the pictures. I am sitting here in a purple housecoat this morning tired from watching Chris Rock's Good Hair till midnight (which I loved - he is often as wise as he is funny - his old line that minimum wage is what an employer pays you when he wishes he could pay you less has always seemed to me to be profound) and knitting socks while trying to disguise a few stitches I had to add in to make up for not having cast on enough, with a copy of 101 homemade dog food recipes on the table beside me.


I am not sure that this particular traveling circus is ever going to make it to lunch in Tuscany.


Which brings me to SWAP at Stitchers Guild , a site I drop into every now and then.


This year I can do it because it fits me. My six tops are going to be six of my white shirts, and the four skirts I want to make to wear with them. I need a mid season "car coat" length coat and that will be my eleventh item. 


I may actually finish this one, in fact I know I will.


Now off to buy the turkey. DH is flying in from Tennessee on the 23rd and he only cooks fresh turkeys. He and I have agreed that I go off duty when he comes home and picks up the next shift.


Off I go.

Felt food

The felt food is done. I apologize for the crazy yellow pictures but something is up with my camera, that's got to be fixed soon.


I had a lot of fun doing this.


Of course not a lot of it really looks like the real thing but close enough for a 15 month old I think.

I think Santa's workshop is going to go slow for the duration now. The socks are going to be one and a ball of wool and my good intentions. We are moving onto the cooking and talking and visiting part of the holidays over the next few days.


I have many other things to consider, like I may be doing SWAP this year, and what I need to do to make life as easy on me as I can make it in 2011.


Some of you may be wondering why I have been so involved in Christmas production this year. 


I try not to make sewing a deadline thing if I can help it, but as you can see my holiday sewing has been pretty much playing around.


I took some time off before Christmas this year and I have really enjoyed being in my house and doing things that I have not had time to do for many years. 


In fact the last 10 years at least my Christmases have had work intensive lead ups. You know the kind. Online ordering from an office computer where the best thing was a bill to and a ship to address that were different. In my case sometimes getting my boss's holiday organized, his Christmas speeches and columns written, spending money because I didn't have time.


I was overdue to make felt food. My New Year's resolutions will involve deciding what to let go in my life, because letting go this last week has felt great.


More later.