Sometimes retail therapy is OK

I'm finally getting over the stupid cold that has had me down for about 10 days. I've been writing intermittently while I've been sick, but it hasn't been going well, and the thought of sitting in front of the computer all morning just made me want to fuss and whine....so I went shopping. I did the chore shopping first (Target), and then made my way to the fabric store around 9:45....a *great* time to be at Hancock's on a Thursday. I was even able to get my hands on the Simplicity catalog without having a line of people glaring at me from behind.

I brought my coupons so that I could pretend I was getting some great deals...and, as it turned out, I got some great deals. I picked up some intriguing 60" blue shirting (it's not that often that you read "intriguing" and "Hancock's" in the same posting, is it?) at 40% off $3.95. I got 6 yards of it, washed it as soon as I got home, and cut out my first (of many, I hope) pair of Folkwear churidar pants (#119--the Sarouelles package). They took about 2 yards, so I think I can get a kurta (tunic) and possibly a couple of long-sleeve blouses for Astrid out of the rest of it.

(If you're wondering about the picture, I went looking for an image of a kurta and this is the first thing that came up. I dig this guy's sunglasses and no-nonsense pose. I don't, however, plan to make a kurta like his, awesome as it is).


My plan tomorrow is to use sewing time as an incentive to get some more serious writing done. (If I could only get past the 12 page mark--I'm at about 8--I'd feel like I was getting somewhere!)

Oh, yeah, I guess I should also say that I refashioned five of my old, stretched out, stained, or otherwise wrong knit shirts into spring/summer shirts for Astrid. I did two last night and three this afternoon. I'm getting my mojo back, I think.

IKEA confessions

I spent Saturday putting together a Leksvik china cabinet that I bought (gulp) 17 months ago. It's been sitting, unassembled, in its long, long cardboard box next to our dining room radiator--a probable hiding place for the mouse that has made its home with us, and a shameful reminder of my tendency to bite off more than I can possibly chew. (Of course, the shame factor has been multiplied by Astrid's tendency to ask, just about every other day, "when are you going to make that cabinet, Mama?") Before my spring break in 2007, I bought both the china cabinet and a long buffet. I put together the long buffet within a week of purchase...it was a blissful-ish winter afternoon, just Leksvik, me, and The Godfather, Part II. (If you look closely at the photo, you may see a buffet that looks sorta, kinda [well, not really very much] like the one I made that day). Somehow, my mojo completely left me after I finished putting that thing together--thus the IKEA box that would just not go away.

I am proud (*so* proud) to share the credit for our "new" china cabinet with my Ryobi lithium-ion powered screwdriver. This was definitely the most complicated IKEA construction I've attempted, and it took me half the time I expected it would--with no blistered palms, either.

Now we just have to get rid of our falling-apart old cabinet (scavenged from a moldy basement in Highland Park, NJ in the early 1990s), so that we have room for our tall, extremely well-constructed Leksvik china cabinet.

Check back in about 17 months, OK?

"Screw everything," she said....

I haven't gotten to try it yet (it's charging) but I do have my new power screwdriver. Elliot accompanied me to a doctor's appointment today, after which we hit Target (no good electric screwdrivers, or at least none I felt excited about, but they did have Pokemon cards....what a shock!). From there, we hit Home Depot, where one of the workers provided us with a nice wheelchair for Elliot. I don't think I realized how tired he would get from the limping and hopping he had to do before we got to Home Depot---he was *so* pleased and relieved to be able to take trip through the National Park that is Home Depot sitting down.

I don't know how other women feel about those "power tools for girls" that used to be advertised a year or two ago (actually, they're probably advertised all the time on HGTV and other cable channels, but we don't have cable). When I saw pink and light purple power tools at Michael's (I think), I nearly barfed; I also suspected (don't know if I'm right) that they weren't as functional as the kind of tools one can buy at a real hardware or home improvement store. Shopping at Home Depot today, though, I lifted the various electric screwdrivers and drills they had, and with every one, I found myself thinking, "Wow, this is heavy! Don't they have anything a little lighter, sized for a woman's smaller hand?" That's when I realized that there apparently is a market for girls' tools--though maybe not pink and lilac colored ones.

Anyway, I am prepared to love and cherish my bright green Ryobi electric driver, with its lithium ion battery. I will screw everything in sight with it.

Finally getting to type

Over the past two weeks, I have composed many, many blog entries in my head, but have gotten not a one typed into my machine. On my long drive to work, I cheer myself with the thought of stealing time away from my duties to get that blog entry typed up (and the pictures uploaded--always the dealbreaker when I'm working at home....). Then I get to my office and I either get so caught up doing (and, OK, enjoying) what I get paid to do that the day slips by without the materialization of the already-imagined blog entry. (I know--what a terrible problem to have--liking one's job.....)

Yesterday, after getting my spring grades turned in, I rewarded myself by using lunchtime to find the JoAnn Fabric store that Google Maps suggested was fairly close to my office. I've been looking for an iron-on transfer pencil, because I want to embroider some of Astrid's drawings, and the website said that JoAnn's carried them. (I had already checked my nearby Hancock Fabrics and Michael's stores, without any luck). I don't like to drive on the expressway, so I basically ignored Google's recommended route to JoAnn's, and, of course, I got a little lost. My lunch hour turned into 90 minutes away from my office--not a huge deal, as we're in the week between spring and summer classes--but I felt sheepish.

Especially, I should say, because I didn't really have much fun shopping. I searched high and low through the store to find the transfer pencil. When I'd completely given up, I found it--right where the cashier said it would be. (I *swear* it wasn't there the first three times I looked in that exact place.) I also thought their fabric prices were really high. Granted, I don't pay full price for many fabrics--I buy things on sale--but the regular price on the kind of denim I'd use to make pants for Elliot and me, for example, was $12.99. It was on a 50% sale, so $6.50---not what I'd call a deal. I could understand the price if it was an independent fabric store where customers can get good advice from the employees--but the store was understaffed and a lot of the fabrics were on high shelves. Some of them I couldn't even reach!

The happy part of this whiny little story is that I have a better appreciation of my local Hancock's store now. I've always kind of liked listening to the staff bicker with each other, or hoping that I can get my hands on the Butterick catalog when it's a 99 cent pattern day. (I *don't* like finding out that my size isn't in the metal drawer, though.) I don't think I'll go back to the JoAnn's store, not least because I now know it's too far to do in my lunch hour.....

Happy Birthday to Me

Sunday was my birthday (#42!). On a bit of a whim, I decided to go to the International Quilt Festival at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. (People who live in or near Chicago may have the same Rosemont associations that I have: it's a mob town, it has lots of strip clubs because of its proximity to O'Hare Airport [I'm not sure why stripping and big airports seem to go together, but it was the same way in Denver, where I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s....].)

I've been wanting to go to a big sewing or quilting expo for a couple of years, but the timing has always been bad--either Elliot had two baseball games in a single weekend, or my boss needed me to attend meetings for her on the days when a convention was in town. I found out about this one just a couple of days before it happened, so there was no opportunity to worry about whether I'd be disappointed at the last minute.

Cut to the chase: I had so much fun! I was there for about five hours, totally on my own (though I found myself wishing that my sister-in-law Carrie was with me--I think she would have had fun looking at the amazing art quilts, especially the nature-themed ones). I loved the quilts--even though I'm not a great (or disciplined) quilter--and I got ideas for new quilts to work on. I'd be lying, though, if I said that the exhibits (which were *totally fabulous*) were the high point of my trip. It was definitely, definitely the shopping I enjoyed most. There were vendors selling everything from the divine (Burmese silks, vintage Czech glass buttons, sewing patterns from the 1890s on) to the tacky (Poo Pourri toilet deodorizer, rhinestone studded reading glasses, lots of American flag-themed quilt patterns) to the intriguingly technical (YLI fusible thread [which I bought], $7000 long arm quilting machines, environmentally friendly batting made of corn).

My favorite booth by far was Color in Stitches, where I bought cloth-covered buttons by Lilac Bow Yoke. It took me forever to decide which sets of buttons I wanted to go home with; not surprisingly, I bought too much. At other booths I bought a grab bag of vintage cloth, fat quarters of Judie Rothermel's Art Deco series, plus some fat quarters of Japanese cottons and smaller bits of cotton kimonos.

The selection of vintage (and antique) patterns at one vendor's booth (and I'm blanking on the vendor's name) was amazing. I came away with one for me , and one for Astrid (I can't get the photo to load, but it's an early 60s pair of clam diggers and a "shallow necked sleeveless over top with patch pockets"--the kind of thing I might be able to adapt to make it reversible. I will do almost anything to avoid having to make facings....I hate wearing clothes with facings, so it seems like useless work....)

Perhaps my favorite moment of the day--the one that made me feel like I'm part of a real, not just virtual, community of sewers--was when a 20-something young woman said, "Hey, Mom!", and at least five women answered "What?" Only one of them was *her* mom, but they were all mothers of daughters. Everyone was laughing, and then I heard an older voice call out, "You should hear what would've happened if she'd said, 'Hey, Grandma!' We outnumber all you moms!" I thought about the summer playclothes I was dreaming up for Astrid at that very moment, and I felt close to all those mothers and grandmothers in a way that I usually don't, because I don't usually get to talk with them.

Speaking of mothers who sew with and for their kids, today I received my very own copy of Amanda Blake Soule's new book, The Creative Family. Thanks, Carrie and Tony! I can't wait to read it.