It's official: I hate sewing.
I got the bright idea to make some large bibs for NS (she's outgrowing the "Got Milk?" and "Drooling is Cool" ones). Sister-in-law AL graciously agreed to let me use her sewing machine Saturday morning. Armed with a few pre-stained tea towels, bright orange second-hand trim, and a vague pattern in my head based on homemade bibs I'd seen around my mom's house long ago, I hunched over my task.
An hour and a half later, my back hurting and neck aching with tension, I was reminding myself to breath deeply and fighting the urge to literally throw in the towel. The pattern in my head wasn't materializing as I'd hoped. I didn't have material for the tie in the back, and the seam kept veering aimlessly off the trim and into maddening oblivion. (I was having flashbacks of grade school standardized tests--the section ominously entitled "Spacial Relations" that required identifying a 3-D object turned on a different axis, producing panic as the time limit approached.) It didn't help that the machine kept sticking and I'd promised to be home by noon.
"Maybe you need an 'I Hate to Sew' book," brother DH suggested helpfully, referring to the life-changing
I Hate to Cook Recipe Book that my sister GG made for me for my 14th birthday at a time when cooking engendered the same pain in the neck that sewing still does.
Believe it or not, I walked away from Christmas at my parents' house with a
nifty apron sewed by yours truly from my recently deceased grandma's cape dress. This was only possible, however, because sister CJ sewed one, too; she thought up the design and demonstrated each step, dashing headlong with characteristic disregard for the possibility of Messing Up, while I tagged timidly behind. When it was getting late on the last day of the visit and I was frantically trying to finish, Mom took pity on me and did my buttonholes and buttons.
"If you
had to learn, you could do it," Mom tried to reassure me when I ranted over the phone about my more recent clash with sewing. It's true; my lifestyle does not require sewing as a basic necessity, which is probably why I abandoned the art that she so valiantly tried to teach me. Even so, it would be nice to have the skills (like certain people I know) to create something useful and attractive--let's say, a handmade gift or simple article of clothing--without a dangerous spike in blood pressure.
The unfinished bibs lie on the dresser along with the additional trim and scrap material that I later bought in a burst of determination to get the pesky things sewn. I guess some people are just cut out to enjoy sewing, while others of us occasionally get suckered into it and end up in a tangle of chagrin.
NS tries on my sneakers:
On the first night, Auntie A and Uncle D braved the icy streets and came over for pizza, rummy and a movie. They had both had the day off, too:
NS helps Papi tune up his new bike:
NS plays in the snow. Note the bags over the shoes. (In fact, she was more interested in climbing the still-icy steps than playing in the white stuff.):
CP plows through Gone with the Wind, while NS peruses a favorite from her shelf, This Little Piggy:
*A quick snow shower dumped a white frosting, no more than an inch thick, prompting me to listen to Vivaldi's Four Seasons (winter) and resulting in an early release for CP's school. Now the sun's back out.
*The broker called to inform that our offer on a country farmhouse has been accepted. We're meeting to sign a contract today!
NS lounges nonchalantly on the sofa after laboriously hauling herself up via the footstool...while I wasn't looking!
Inside back cover:
Sample pages:
Romping by the toasty woodstove after bathtime:
Playing with the jack-in-the-box:
Playing outside:
Helping Grandmommy with dishes:
