Monday, April 9, 2012

Updates

Thanks, everyone, for your comments and links to my last Twitter post! I love my readers! I was very surprised to find out that there are a fair number of you who aren't on Twitter. It seems everyone is on something or other these days, and there are just a few of us slower folks holding out and still writing snail mail, or actually using our cellphones as phones, for instance. Good to know that I'm not the only one.

We were away for the Easter weekend and only got home late last night. I managed to squeeze in some replies to those Twitter comments to thank some of you, and check out some of those links, but I'll be able to really peruse everything now that we're home. Very excited, since I was feeling the steepness of the technological learning curve all last week and now actually have stuff that will help me not look like a total idiot. At some point, I'll put a Twitter gadget somewhere in my sidebar so folks can follow me more easily. Till then, I'll just try and tweet cleverly so you won't be bored out of your mind reading my updates.

Some updates on projects and stuff going on here -
I'm going to be off cardboard for a while, because my shoulder is aching from doing the Barbie house. I don't know if I ever mentioned this here, but I did my shoulder in last summer and had it diagnosed as a bad rotator cuff muscle strain. Like major league pitchers, but without actually having done any award-winning sports. I can take a lot of pain usually, but this was unfun. I think it happened because I was hauling the children around in their wagon and forgetting that they were getting heavier with each passing season. Then I did a lot of party cardboard crafting for Emily' and Jenna's parties and made it worse - cutting with a knife through thick layers of cardboard works the same muscle groups as dragging a wagon and throwing a baseball, apparently. Had a round of successful physical therapy, one side-result (apart from my shoulder being back to painless, I mean) of which was that I realized my posture had been vile for quite a number of years (after having kids). At first I protested, claiming dance training and deportment and whatnot, but the therapist poked me in the back and suddenly I gained 2 inches in height. When I told the husband, he said, "Yes, now that you mention it, your posture used to be much better." Eeek. One wonders what horrors I'd incorporated into my basic block, drafting it to fit my (lazy) hunched shoulders. Maybe it's time for a redraft - I don't look the same as I did two years ago, anyway.

So my shoulder's been perfect all this time till I worked on the Barbie house, when I felt it ache again slightly. Nothing compared to last summer, when I effectively became left-handed in every task except signing checks. But still enough to make me want to lay off ambitious cardboard projects for a while. 

Therefore, it's time for the much softer option - sewing! Here's what I am planning to get done this Spring/Summer:
  1. Swimming robes for the girls - not tie-in-front bathrobes, which I'd already made, but over-the-head coverup dresses, with hoods. Needs stretch terry -not regular terrycloth -, which I found in Mill End this weekend.
  2. A bag or two - already in progress.
  3. Something in linen. Not sure what yet, but I have a lot of linen, and it needs to be used.
  4. Trouser/shorts block draft for me. I think it will be fun. I did it for Emily, and use it all the time with her pants/shorts. 
  5. More Tshirts for me. I can't believe I'm saying this because I don't believe in sewing something I can buy from stores, but Tshirts are ridiculously fast to make when one already has a block/sloper and the one I made for the Singapore trip fits me so much better than anything I've ever bought, to the point where I'm washing and wearing it straight out of the laundry basket, over any other Tshirt. This makes me a hypocrite, but, well. And I found some very nice charcoal knit from Mill End (again), so am excited about this.
  6. Some dresses for the girls that might be different from their usual knit-casual variety. Kate is my best bet, because she's still young enough to be conned by pretty dresses in ways her older sisters will not (they all want "normal clothes", they say). Grandma left me all these French kid clothes catalogs (not even Butterick/McCalls/Simplicity!) from the 1960s that are gorgeous beyond anything I've seen, and I want to make some.
  7. Toys. Toys. Toys. So many in my head, but my children are growing up much too fast for most of them to make it out in fabric in time. 

Unrelated, I read Hunger Games. I made the mistake of starting it on Friday night, and finishing it on Friday night. Next day, I could barely function on the little sleep I had. Did anyone love the description of the fashions? Even the bizarre Capitol ones? And who doesn't love Cinna? That yellow dress! I haven't watched the movie, so any image I have is only in my head. Obviously there's more to the story than yellow dresses, but certain things stand out more than others. 

Off to cook porridge now. Then back to the mad chauffeur thing again, shuttling various kids to and from their schools.



6 comments:

  1. oh I am jealous of your linen stash! I have some but am having a hard time finding just a plain natural looking one to go with it (I want to make the oliver and S ice cream dress out of it!)
    will you also please post a pattern for those towel dresses you plan on making? My daughter really could use one for at the beach this summer :)

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  2. oh, those 1960's French kid clothes catalogs sound interesting ~ hope you'll share photos of them to us some day :D

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  3. OOoooooh, I read all three books in about four days just before the movie came out -- there was not much sleep happening there! -- and I was verrrry careful not to watch any previews or read any reviews of the movie before hubs and I went to see it. And now I want to go see it again to see what I missed the first time. Of course the movie could never have as much detail as the book, but they did an excellent job with it!

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  4. I totally agree with you. I read the Hunger Games today (I think I don't need to see the movie). Whilest reading I was actually thinking of you, Liar. I would love to be able to sew like you. YOU would be the one who reads the book on one day and the next day you are sitting at your sewing machine creating the lovely dresses from Cinna. You are a girl who is on fire!

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  5. -Ugh on the shoulder.
    -Hooray for linen! I have a bunch that needs sewing up too, hopefully I'll be inspired by your creations. Inspired enough to do something with mine that is, I'm always inspired by what you sew.
    -Just saw the Hunger Games today. The book (as always) was better. I found the way the camera shook through a lot of the movie very hard on the eyes! The Capitol fashions are fantastic although I think they were better in my head then on screen.

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  6. All 3 books from The Hunger games Trilogy were amazing. I read them in a weekend. I too was exhausted. It was worth it though. I am looking forward to more toys. I love your toys.

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