Pink party frock

I needed a dress to wear to this party/awards thing tonight. A dress that fits. I have a couple dresses that would have been okay, but they're both black, and I just can't wear black to a writers' party. It's just too predictable.

So I took this very soft jersey bedsheet I'd been hanging on to and tossed it in the washer with a couple packets of dye, hoping for a nice deep cerise colour. No such luck: I ended up with fabric the exact colour of raspberry sorbet.

Decidedly pink. Not that I mind pink, but I had really been hoping for a nice red. There wasn't enough time for me to go look for more red dye, so I decided pink was okay.

Here's a picture of me in my new pink wraparound party frock. It's cold outside.

Very cold.

Here's an indoor shot with a better view of the nice vintage button details. And if you're thinking to yourself, "Wow, that dress makes her look about four months pregnant," well, that's because I am. Hence the need for a dress that fits. In a hurry.

This one should do me for a few holiday parties. I'm still getting used to sewing jersey, but gaining confidence all the time. At the moment, though, my darling Bear is wiping his snotty face all over my dress, so I should go deal with that.

Today, so far

There's been a little bit of this:


And a whole lot of this:

In Newfoundland, the word "crooked" means "cranky," rather than dodgy or dishonest or what have you. And when someone is extraordinarily cranky, they're "crooked as sin." And they look very much like the small Bear in the photos above.

Off to finish a party frock for tonight while Bear sleeps. Wish me luck.

Givin' it away

I already have about a hundred too many things to do this week, so I said to myself, "Why not participate in the Sew, Mama, Sew! December Giveaway Day?" I am completely out of my mind, I assure you. But, I had such a good time and discovered so many really lovely blogs and shops during the last Giveaway Day that I really feel I ought to give back a little something.

I'll let you know what that something is bright and early on Wednesday, December 2. I can tell you now that it involves scraps from two of my favourite refashion projects that have been featured in these very virtual pages and on Wardrobe Refashion over the last few months. And it will come in handy during this busy winter holiday season. Sound tempting? Make sure to check back and leave a comment!

In other news... sewing a frock from a bedsheet for a party tomorrow night, blew a pile of money at the Farmers' Market yesterday, froze my butt off at the Santa Claus parade this afternoon, was in a fashion show on Friday, and I seem to be allergic to my wedding ring! Is this possible? I thought nobody was allergic to gold. I'd post photos, but it's too gross.

I will post pictures of my party frock, though, with a bit of news. Exciting!

Jammies

Miss B's class had a "pyjama day" today, where they all got to go to school in pyjamas, bring blankets and books and teddy bears, and watch a movie in the afternoon. The school habitually rewards the students for not bludgeoning one another to pieces over the course of a day. Not like school when I was a kid (although it's the same school... administration is everything).

Anyway, we have no pyjamas in this house that are fit to be seen in public, so I had to make some from an old pair of my own pyjama pants, which had shrunk to hilarious dimensions, and a long-sleeved t-shirt which had been untouched in my drawer for practically forever. The two, by some kind of magic, match perfectly.

I used some of B's own pants and a similar shirt as templates, and it all worked fine, despite my unease sewing stretch knits. My machine has settings for knits - the "Flexi-Stitch," don't you know - but I've never taken the time to figure it out. I just use the zig-zag and hope for the best. I had to re-do the waist completely when Miss B tried the pants on, since I had made the elastic entirely too tight. You know when you're making something, and you know it's not going to work, but you don't want to slow down, so you keep going? Well, it was one of those situations. And when I tried to unpick the seams I ended up poking holes in the fabric. I had to cut the waist down, and I ended up making salvaging enough fabric for new waistband from the scraps of t-shirt. There was some swearing, but not much. And I think the pants are even better now than they were before. Miss B loves them.

I know I could have bought some new pyjamas for about $14, but the hassle of getting to a store without a car, with a baby, in the rain was just not worth it. It was much easier to pick away at a sewing project over the course of a day, and they look as good as any shop-bought ones. B thinks they're all the more special because I made them. Her belief in the superiority of handmade things is unwavering, at least for now. I hope to get a bit more mileage out of it before she falls for the shopping mall's siren song. It happens to the best of us!

Rrradio

Since I said I would post it, here's the radio interview from last weekend. I'm the chirpy one. Yeesh.

And then there was pie

Because my husband loves pumpkin pie, and because I love making pies. It's not Thanksgiving here - Canadian Thanksgiving is near the beginning of October, and even though it has the same name as the American holiday, it's more about harvest and less about colonial mythology. The foods are similar, but our vegetable selection is a little different, at least in Newfoundland. You'd be more likely to have turnip and cabbage than sweet potatoes and squash. And pumpkin pie is an altogether new addition to the menu. The dominance of American media here means that we have the television version of Thanksgiving dinner memorized, marshmallow-topped yams and men watching football and Pilgrim centrepieces and all. We can tell that the sitcom version probably isn't real, but hot damn, those pumpkin pies look good!

Now, I say it probably isn't real, but I did once have the great luck of spending Thanksgiving in small-town Massachusetts with a dear friend of mine and her whole extended family, and it really was like walking on to a sitcom set. Women preparing family specialties in the kitchen, talking over one another and laughing among the clatter. The husbands and brothers enjoying the camaraderie of sport spectatorship. Cranberry jelly out of a can. It was excellent. Good food, wonderful people.

Since I read so many blogs by American folks, and since they're gearing up for Thanksgiving, I've had pumpkin pie on the brain. After almost a year of baking gluten-free, I still haven't found a pie crust I'm really happy with. So I tried the recipe from the esteemed Shauna James Ahern (Gluten-Free Girl, who now writes with her sweet husband The Chef). I'll have to try the recipe again before I really get it right, because I screwed up a number of things.

• I freaked out about adding too much water, and as a result didn't add enough. I find that gluten-free flours often require more liquid than a recipe might say. I wonder if this might have something to do with the fact that most of these flours come from smaller mills, so there's not as much consistency between producers. I know that one brand of rice flour I use requires much more liquid than the brand from the bulk store. Also, there's a good chance that the flours I buy are older than ones you might pick up in a larger city, where there's more turnover. Has anyone else had this experience? Either way, the dough wasn't wet enough, and didn't stay together.
• I also didn't let the dough rest in the fridge as long as I should have. I should have made it the day before.
• As a result of these two factors, the dough wouldn't roll out into a circle, and I had to press it into the pan. So it ended up way too thick, and all the pressing probably melted the butter enough to toughen the dough.
• Which brings me to my final point: when it comes to pie crusts, I'm a lard girl. Butter just doesn't work for me. Which is funny, because I practically worship butter. But not in my pie crust. Next time, I'll try it with lard.

I like that I know enough about baking that I can identify where I've made mistakes and where a recipe doesn't work. As far as I can tell, the recipe is just fine. I'll give it another few runs and let you know.

Oh, and as per Shauna's directions, I used the filling recipe from the Libby's pumpkin can. I'm glad there was a link, because I don't think we can get Libby's pumpkin here. I did make one small change - I didn't have enough tinned milk, so I topped it up with the most appropriate-sounding dairy option in my fridge: sour cream. It was transcendent. Even Miss B, who was wary of the whole pumpkin pie thing, was impressed.

"You mean, pumpkin pie is really made from pumpkins? I thought it was just called that! I didn't even know you could eat pumpkins!"

"But what about the pumpkin muffins I make? And the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies?"

"I didn't know that stuff was pumpkin pumpkin!"

She did eat the crust after the photo was taken. She likes to eat things in layers. Oh, and the rest of us had whipped cream, but Miss B can't stand the stuff. I know, I don't understand it either. But I love her enthusiasm over a new food. I sent a piece of pumpkin pie in her lunch. She's awfully excited.

Buttermilk-yellow corn cinnamon buns (gluten free)

Apologies if my image-heavy post is gunking up your computer, but I had promised a cinnamon bun tutorial, and I wanted to make sure it all made plenty of sense. Because gluten-free doughs tend to be weird and sticky, I've had to tweak my technique accordingly. I've been making these forever, in their formerly wheaty guise. I could do it in my sleep (and on the odd weekend morning, I think I probably have). So if I miss some vital bit of information, let me know: I'm probably on auto-pilot.

Ingredients

dough:
1 cup gluten-free all-purpose flour mix (I've been using Glutino all-purpose corn mix because that's what I have on hand, but rice-based mixes have worked fine, too)
3/4 cup yellow corn flour (not corn starch, which I know is called "cornflour" in the UK... confused yet?)
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut in small pieces
1 large egg
about 1/2 cup buttermilk

filling:
4 tablespoons very soft butter
1/4 to 1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

glaze (optional):
1 cup icing sugar
generous dash salt
2-3 tablespoons milk

1. Preheat your oven to 425F. Combine dry ingedients in a large bowl.

2. Using your fingers (or a pastry cutter, if you're nervous), work the butter into the flour mixture. You'll end up with some tiny bits and some larger ones. See the lumps in my hand? Yeah, like that.

3. Break the egg into a measuring cup, and add buttermilk until the contents reach 3/4 cup. Using a fork, beat the egg and buttermilk together. Pour into the flour mixture and stir it all together to make a stiff dough. If you find the dough looks too dry, add a splash more buttermilk; gluten-free flours can be unpredictably thirsty.

4. Turn your dough out on to a piece of waxed paper that you've dusted generously with corn flour. Sprinkle more corn flour over the top of the dough, and use a rubber spatula or other implement to shape the dough into a rough rectangle. You may need to dust the spatula with corn flour, too.

5. Place another piece of waxed paper over top of the dough and, with a rolling pin, roll the dough out to just under 1/2 inch thick. The rectangle should be about 18 inches long and maybe 6 or 8 inches high.

6. Slather your dough with melted butter.

7. Spread brown sugar over top. I opt for the ridiculously sweet 1/2 cup of brown sugar, but if you want to try to maintain some kind of control, you can always use less. Sprinkle the cinnamon evenly on top of the sugar. (Note: I leave the round-ish ends of the rectangle un-sugared, so that I can, in good conscience, feed those bits to my one-year-old. I'm not completely insane!)

8. Here's where it gets tricky: using the waxed paper as a "handle", gently roll the dough into a snake. Despite your best flouring, the dough may stick a little to the waxed paper; use a spatula to try and free it. Roll the whole rectangle up, and gently move it so that the "seam" is at the bottom.

9. Using a serrated-edged knife, very gently cut the "snake" into 1 1/2 inch slices. A knife with a straight edge is more likely to smush your slices down, where the serrated knife lets you very carefully saw away.

10. Arrange your cinnamon buns in a pie plate or other favourite dish. I find that an earthenware dish like this one gives them a really nice crust. When I use metal pans, the cinnamon sugar always burns on to the bottom, but that might just be my pans. Pop your cinnamon buns in the oven and bake 20-25 minutes, until dark golden brown and bubbling with buttery cinnamony goodness.

11. While the buns are baking, mix up your glaze, if you're so inclined (I am). Combine the icing sugar and salt, then add the milk a wee tiny bit at a time, beating with a fork all the while, until you reach the sort of consistency you prefer. Spreadable? Drizzle-able? It's up to you.

12. Remove your cinnamon buns from the oven and let them rest for 10 minutes or so before you dig in, otherwise your mouth may suffer unpleasant sugar-related burns. Trust me. Also, the glaze gets kind of absorbed if you put it on when the buns are super hot, and then you lose the whole glazey effect. So brew a cup of coffee or something while you wait. Then glaze 'em up and devour. You're pretty much obliged to eat them all at once, as they really are best before they get cold. I'm just sayin'.

Also, should you be interested, this dough (in its un-buttered, un-sugared, un-cinnamoned state) makes awesome biscuits, cobbler topping (with 1/2 cup more buttermilk added for drop-able batter), shortcake bases (with an egg glaze and some coarse sugar on top), and raisin buns. I applaud its versatility.

Frumpy pants to flirty skirt, good news, and congratulatory boots

Says I to Husband, upon looking at the photos he's just taken of my new skirt, "Why didn't you tell me that my sweater was buttoned wrong?"

Says Husband to I, "I didn't notice."

But it's a cute skirt, isn't it? I made it yesterday from some flood-length trousery jeans that were really spiffy in theory but which looked tragically frumpy on me. Just really sad. I think they were made for someone with much more generous, shall we say, rear-end proportions. Which normally I have, but over the last little while, due to various factors (into which I shall not go at the moment), my formerly-ample arse has all but vanished. If there were one part of my body from which I would choose to lose inches, it would not be my rear end. You know why? Because sitting on wooden chairs when you have a bony arse is no fun. And I like sitting. And we have wooden chairs. No wonder skinny people are always running and climbing things and standing on their heads and going to the gym and doing interpretive dance and stuff. They can't sit down! 'Cause it's unpleasant! I'm looking forward to the return of my bum one of these days. Until then, jeans with no back pockets are not an option.

So anyway, I cut the legs off maybe two inches below the crotch, opened up the inseams, trimmed off the crotch curve and re-stitched the seams straight. I cut four strips from one of the remaining legs, made them into a sort of tier to add to the very-short body of the skirt by stitching them togther (angling the seams that would join at the sides to make a slight A-line), finished them off with bias tape so that the hem wouldn't be all bulky, and did some topstitching to match the original detailing on the jeans. I couldn't find proper jeans thread in the right shade, but you really have to look closely to determine that the topstitching at the bottom of the skirt is a smidge thinner than the topstitching at the waist, and really, who's going to do that? It's not perfect, but I like it well enough for it to end up in regular rotation, which is more than I can say for many of my more experimental refashions.

Unfortunately, my sewing machine seems to be skipping a stitch every now and then, so I'm going to have to sit down and give her a good clean-up and tinker. I don't think it's anything that some much-needed maintenance won't solve.

The bit of good news I got is this: my poetry manuscript has been shortlisted for the Fresh Fish Award, which is an annual literary prize here in Newfoundland. I'll bet you didn't even know I had a poetry manuscript, huh? Yeah, I don't like to go on about it, but in real life, I write poetry. There, I've admitted it. Anyway, I submitted my manuscript for this award, and I made the shortlist! Very exciting business. I did a radio interview with the other two nominees at the CBC studio yesterday; they'll be airing it on Weekend Arts Magazine on Sunday, and they do stream live but if you're anywhere west of Newfoundland you'd have to get up heller early to listen. If the interview makes the podcast, I'll post a link.

On top of that, I've just received a grant from our provincial Arts Council to begin research on a second collection of poems. Yay! So I can write poems and buy groceries at the same time. It's nice not to have to choose.

So I bought myself some nice boots. To celebrate. I made a cake, too, but that's gone now. The boots should last a while. I did buy them new (I never, ever find cool boots in thrift shops), but I got them from a locally-owned boutique, and not some multinational outlet store, so I feel good about it.

And the sun is shining! Hooray! I'm actually standing in one of the raised beds in my front yard in this picture. I'm hoping to tear it up and put in some vegetables in the spring, but I'm not sure it gets enough light early in the day. I'm trying to figure if there's anything that will grow well in mostly afternoon light. It's a decent bit of square footage, and I love the idea of veggies in the front yard. Right now, it's a jungle of various ground covers, including something that smelled really good when I stomped around on it in my new boots. If anyone has any experience gardening in a spot where you only get sunlight in the afternoon, drop me a line, will you?

Sweater hat: the how-to

Look, it's another sweater hat! And I made it just for you, so that I could create my first-ever tutorial. I hope it at least kind of makes sense.

1. Find a tube of felted wool that fits on your head. For my grey hat, I had a felted turtleneck sweater, and the neck just happened to fit my head perfectly. For this hat, I used the body of a child's sweater. It was a bit too big, so I took it in at the sides until it fit like a hat.

You'll want your tube to be a bit taller than a hat should be, like in the photo. If you want to put it on your head and take ridiculous photos, do so now. Even if your photographer makes fun of you. Chances are, he or she just envies your mad hat-making skills.

If you've used a piece of wool cut from the body of a sweater, make sure the finished edge (ie the bottom of the sweater) is the edge you're using for the brim of your hat, otherwise it might curl up. That might not be a bad thing, but I haven't tried it, and so I can't take any responsibility for what curly-brimmed-hat meyhem might ensue.

2. Lay your woolen tube flat, and round out the top so it looks more hat-like. Don't make it too pointy, or you'll end up with a conehead effect.

3. Pick up your tube, open it up, and then flatten it with the side seams lying atop one another. Lay it flat again, like so.

4. Cut your tube again, this time making a "cat-ear" effect.

If you open up your hat now and put it on, it will have four floppy points, like a very silly crown. I did this, but I didn't manage to get a picture. You can use your imagination, though.

5. Sew each "cats' ear" to the one next to it, like so. Using a machine, this will take about 90 seconds. I find that it's easier to get the points to match up neatly if I stitch from the top down, but that's just me. You might want to try on the hat now and make sure it fits properly. If it's too pointy, trim the "ears" down a little and re-sew.

6. Trim your seams neatly; because felted wool won't ravel, you don't have to leave too much of a seam allowance, and untrimmed seams will be bulky.

7. Turn your hat right-side-out, embellish as desired, and give your photographer a really dorky thumbs-up. Go out in the cold and keep your brain toasty warm.

It actually took me longer to upload these photographs than it took to make the hat. This is a great way to whip something up really quickly if, say, it's snowing right now and you haven't taken your winter clothes out of the basement yet. And it would make a great, quick Christmas-or-other-winter-giftgiving-festival gift for someone who likes warm, wooly things.

If there's any part of this that doesn't make sense (aside from what would possess me to post the "thumbs-up" photo), let me know and I'll try to re-phrase it. If you make your own sweater hat, leave me a link so I can check it out. Happy hat-making!

And did I mention

... that the dear husband and I are going to see Billy Bragg tonight? Hooray!




Oh my goodness this video is so old. He's just a puppy! As amazing now as he's ever been, though. Can't wait.

Hat, and a question

Look, now my head is warm. I was in serious need of some toasty head-covering. It's cold where I live. So I made this last night from the turtleneck of a felted wool sweater. It's a bit conehead-y, but I hope that it will ease up with wear. Or that I'll just get used to it. I think it's pretty cute.

I did the sewing by hand last night while snuggled up on the couch watching Rushmore with Hubby C. I love projects that can be completed over the course of a movie.

For the centre of the bow, I picked a nice, old button from my button tin. And here's my question: is this a vintage button? By which I mean: how old does something have to be in order for you to call it "vintage"? Is there a cut-off? This particular button came from a bag of buttons I grabbed at the thrift store. I would say that most of the buttons in the bag were from the 1970s and 1980s. To me, a button from the 70s does not count as vintage. It's just an old button. But if you go on eBay and look up, say, "vintage bed linens," you'll find things like "vintage 1992 Super Mario bedsheet." 1992? Definitely not vintage, if you ask me.

I'm interested in this partly because I might like to sell the items I make one of these days, and I don't want to call things vintage if they're not. In my own mind, anything from, say, the 1920s to the 1960s would be "vintage," anything older than that would be "antique," and anything of more recent make would just be upcycled or recycled or whatever.

But I wonder whether my reistance to calling things from the 1970s and 1980s "vintage" has more to do with my own anxiety about aging than anything else. If an item from my childhood is vintage, does that make me vintage, too?

So, crafters, what do you count as "vintage"? And to buyers of crafts, when you see the word "vintage," what does it mean to you? Has it just become a buzzword? Are you suffering from vintage fatigue?

Anyway, I made a hat. With an old button. And I like it.

Everybody shantung tonight!

That's what I was singing the entire time I was sewing my wedding dress, having learned that the fabric is called shantung. To the tune of "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" by Wang Chung. Because, yes, I am that kind of a dork. Seriously.


I've promised a comprehensive post on the dress, but really, I'm not sure how comprehensive I can get, since I did the whole thing ass-backwards, and without any notes or progress photos. It was what you would call an "organic process", "organic" here meaning, "I have no idea what I'm doing until after I've done it."


When I started, I had a pattern in hand, but, as is often the case, the pattern was completely unsuitable for my body type. Tulip skirt and sweetheart neckline? Not remotely flattering on me. I have pretty much no waist, and I'm not all that well-endowed in the bust area, either. So I scrapped that pattern and started to think about all my favourite articles of clothing, the ones that make me feel like a million bucks. And most of them have ruched bodices. Makes sense: when you have no waist, ruching can help you fake it. Well, ruching and some highly supportive undergarments. I opted for both. And as for the bust area, my favourite tops are all ones with Grecian-style necklines. Again, I needed a little support here, but between the padded, underwired, stick-on strapless "hoverbra" and the gathered, deep-V neckline, I managed to create the illusion of cleavage. But it is an illusion, I assure you.


The first thing I did was make the circle skirt. This part was all about math. Based on the width of my fabric, I determined that I would need six panels in order to make a circle. So I laid my fabric out on the floor, got a protractor, some pins, and a length of string and made six triangle-shaped panels. I decided that it would be easier to make the circle first and cut the waist out of the middle, rather than try to measure out the waist ahead of time. I know, bad drafting, but that's how I did it. I sewed my six panels together, leaving one partially open for a zipper, and then I measured my waist and cut appropriately.




I used French seams so that it would look nice and tidy. Shantung is rather shreddy, but it's really lovely to work with. The slubbiness means that the fabric kind of sticks to itself, so you don't have to go overboard with your pins.


After the skirt was done - oh, and I cut it extra long and then trimmed it to the right length once I could try it on with the petticoat - I attached the bodice lining. I did a lining and then the ruched layer on top. I used the same material for the lining as for the rest of the dress. This is the one bit of the original pattern that I decided to hang on to, because it actually fit quite nicely. So I attached that part to the skirt, with the seams pressed nicely and facing the outside, so that when it was all put together, I wouldn't have raw edges on the inside. Does this make sense? I also cut the bodice a little tall because I knew that I would be trying it on a hundred times before I got to the point of finishing that bit, and I knew it would shred a bit.


Okay, so I made the skirt and the inner layer of the bodice, and then I put in the zipper. I had never put in a zipper before, and I didn't want to mess it up, so I stitched it in by hand. Because I am a little less than brilliant sometimes, I bought a zipper that was just a wee bit too short, so I really have to shimmy to get in and out of the thing. But it worked out nicely.


Once the zipper was in, I started on the bust. This was by far the fiddliest part of the process, and if anyone with any sewing experience were to take a close look at it, they would have a great laugh, I'm sure. I measured and cut and pinned and stitched and ripped and resewed and added darts all over the place until I was more or less happy. And that was just the front. Same process for the back, only minus the darts and gathers, so it was slightly less forgiving, and is, in fact, slightly askew.




Finally, after all that, I did the ruched layer of the bodice, which was much easier than I had anticipated. It meant re-sewing the zipper (in order to attach the ruched layer over top), this time on the machine, but I mustered my courage, snapped on the zipper foot, and made the thing happen. It worked fine. The ruching was comedically poofy at first, but after a pressing it looked pretty sweet.


The hem is also on the comedic side - somehow I managed to cut it about three inches too long in the back, and a bit too short in the front. So it's kind of a mess. But you can't really tell by looking: the fabric is forgiving enough, and the swingy circle skirt, on top of the petticoat, has enough dips and ripples that the wonky bits are more or less disguised.


Which brings me to my major point in all this: for all that a wedding dress is special and magical, it only has to hold up for one day. This is not a hard-working garment we're talking about. You put it on for a few hours, you look like a princess, and then it spends the rest of its days in a closet, unless someone else wears it for a few hours, twenty-five years later. It's really just a step up from a Hallowe'en costume in terms of how much wear it's going to get. So if the hem is a little uneven, what's the big deal? None of my wedding guests asked to inspect my seams or my darts. They don't know that I had to use three different kinds of seam binding, none of which really matched my fabric, because I kept running out. They don't know that I messed up the straps and ended up taping them to my shoulders. And if they had known, they wouldn't have cared.


All this to say that if you find yourself getting married, and you want to make your own dress, don't let anyone dissuade you. Let me give you these few hints, based on my experience:

• If you can get lots of extra material, do. You won't be so nervous about cutting into it if you have plenty to spare.


• Know what your skill level is. This dress was pretty simple, with no boning or piping or any of that complicated stuff, and the gathers and ruching covered up a number of errors. Anything more complicated than that, and I would have thrown the whole thing out the window.


• Measure yourself like mad, and be honest about the numbers.


• Choose a forgiving, easy-to-work-with fabric, and a design that suits your shape and style, otherwise you're bound to be disappointed with whatever you make.


• Give yourself plenty of time and, if you have children to wrangle, make sure there's someone else there to do the wrangling.


• Remember that the day is not about the dress. If you think your wedding is going to be ruined if you don't get your dress just right, then take a deep breath, run yourself a bath, and repeat, "I am in love, and I would marry this person in a feed sack," until you feel your priorities returning to normal.


• Choose a cheesy 1980s pop song for your theme, and sing it endlessly. It's virtually impossible to get stressed out while the dulcet strains of Wang Chung are echoing through your head.

So there you go: that's all I know about making a wedding dress, based on the one time I did it. I'm still super happy with the way it turned out, even though, it's true, I would have married Hubby C in a feed sack. I'm glad there's a more stylish alternative to the feed sack, I'll admit. Now Miss B insists that she wants it when she someday gets married, but a lot can happen to your taste between grade one and marriage, so I'm not holding my breath. I have a fantasy that maybe some day a young woman not unlike myself will come across this very dress in a thrift store and take it home, planning to refashion it into a wedding dress for herself, and that she'll have a good laugh at my uneven hem and my inexplicable armscyes (are they still armscyes if you don't have sleeves?) and all the other little weirdnesses hidden in the seams.


Either that, or I'll be buried in it. I haven't decided yet.

Hot chocolate and conversation

Miss B and I didn't make it downtown in time to catch the Remembrance Day parade yesterday, so we grabbed some hot chocolate at our favourite hangout, then headed home to eat pomegranates, play with Baby Bear, and watch The Sound of Music, which neither she nor Hubby C had seen before. I managed to forget how long a move The Sound of Music is. Supper was late. But it was a grand day.

Wow and thanks and sun

Well, first of all, I was completely floored this morning when I got an e-mail from my pal Sue, letting me know that my wedding dress had shown up on Craftzine! I've been giddy about it all day. I think this must be what it feels like when a popular girl at school invites you to her party. Only, instead of trying to be all cool and nonchalant about it, I'm all, like, "Yes! Yes! Yes!"


I've been getting so much wedding dress love, I'm all in a spin. The comments over on Wardrobe Refashion and here have been so kind, I'm just blushing and blushing and blushing. So thank you, everyone, for all your sweet words and wishes for me and my family. It's at once strange and very magical to think that people I've never met, all over the world, are thinking about me and my husband and our kiddoes and getting excited on our behalf.


And finally: sunshine! For two days straight! Well, partly cloudy, but enough blue sky and low, orangey fall sunlight to soothe people's jangly nerves and remind us that there is something out there beyond the greyscale. I should have taken photos, but I was busy attending Miss B's school's Remembrance Day ceremony, then warming up in a coffee shop, then meeting a friend for hot chocolate and a book browse, then walking Miss B home from school. I did manage to snap a few photos of some berries across the street before I lost the light. Maybe some more tomorrow. And actually, this shot doesn't look all that sunny. It was almost sunset. Whaddaya gonna do?



The side effect of all this attention over my dress is, of course, that I now have to keep up the good work. I have a few projects in mind that I would like to get done over the next little while, and Christmas is on the horizon, so I shouldn't have too much problem maintaining momentum. But if I start slacking, send me some encouraging e-mails, okay? Or nasty ones, if you see fit. Please? It's for my own good.

Crafts - but not mine

It almost looked like the sun was going to come out today, but no such luck. Everyone has been nuts here, in no small part because Miss B has been in the house for four days straight, recovering from a fevery-shivery flu bug. I am so very much looking forward to escorting her out the door and off to school tomorrow. We've been fighting for two days now, and I'm not sure which one of us is more stubborn. Well, I'm stubborn, she's stubborn and oppositional. Great combo when you add a little cabin fever into the mix. And the Bear has been driving me up the wall, too. He's hit a phase where he takes one look at me, throws his arms in the air and just starts to whine. If I'm sitting down at all, he wants to nurse, but not really - he's too impatient to stay still for more than ten seconds. So then he tries to throw himself off my lap, and when I help him on to the floor he just whines to get up again. If I'm walking around he wants to be up in my arms, just so that he can try to hurl himself out of them. Between the two of them, my nerves are absolutely fried.

That's the magic of children, isn't it? That the very people you love most in the world can drive you absolutely batty so very easily. And no matter how much they whine or fight or moan or complain or run up the stairs in the dark with their glasses smeared with buttery fingerprints so they can't possibly see, or wipe snot on your sweater, you keep loving them. Simply amazing.

Naturally, when my friend Dana asked me if I wanted to hit a couple craft fairs with her, I said, "Oh sweet merciful heavens yes, take me anywhere, just get me out of this madhouse for the love of all that's good in the world!" I left the kids with Hubby C and off I went. Dana is just back from a whirlwind trip to New Zealand and LA, and I got to hear all the details, all the while being OUT OF MY HOUSE with NO CHILDREN! It was beautiful.

First, we hit up the annual International Food and Craft Fair, which is put off by the Multicultural Women's Organization of Newfoundland and Labrador. Ah, it's a lovely event. The crafts tables were great - some traditional crafts from hither and yon, as well as contemporary crafts, books, jewellery, and all that kind of stuff. And I even bought myself a couple things.

Again, sorry for the crappy quality of the photo - snapped while children were whining, and in clearly insufficient light. But you get the point.

Up top is some beautiful lavender spritz and soap made by a high-school-mate of mine, Suzanne. She's started up a little business called Cosmos and there was a fine cloud of soothing lavender scent all around her table. She makes beautiful candles - I should have bought some, but I was so overwhelmed with everything going on that I was hardly thinking straight. I did buy the bottle of spritz in the hope that it would help knock out the children, and I think it worked, as they were both asleep by 8:15, a new house record. Suzanne slipped the soap in as a gift. Thank you so much! It's like breathing pure relaxation.

And below is a super adorable little pouch and card made by my friend Ethel. She and Karma, both of whom I have known for years and years, had a table, too. They've both just returned to St. John's and it's excellent to know they're here. I'm hoping for some craft dates, as I really need someone to whip me into shape on the doing-things front. They're both super awesome ladies, and, seriously, look at that little birdie! I'm particularly excited about it because I lost my wallet, oh, over a year ago and have yet to replace it, which means that my bank card is always lost in some pocket, and that important things tend to go missing. Which is why I have to go and get Miss B's health card replaced tomorrow. Ahem. And then I am going to put said card in my new cute bird pouch, zip the zipper, and not lose it again.

But shall I tell you about the food? Booths from India, Pakistan, Myanmar, the Philippines, Liberia, Nigeria... oh my. I ate as much as I could pack in (including the best curried chickpeas I have had in a long time, from a group of people who are opening a restaurant downtown in two days!), then brought a selection of tasty, meaty things home for Hubby C to enjoy.

Next we headed over to the much more high-profile Fine Craft and Design Fair, put off every year by the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador. Ah, if I had some more of that "money" stuff, I would have bought so many lovely things. But it's so very expensive. And it's expensive because it's all well-made, from quality materials, in small numbers, by real people and not machines. And I know this because I am also a real person who makes small numbers of well-made things from quality materials, and so I can recognize and appreciate why fine craft items cost as much as they do. And it makes me crazy that the people who are most able to recognize this - other artists and craftspeople - are the ones the least able to buy nice things, because they are artists and craftspeople, and therefore probably broke. Aaaagh!

Perhaps I should go huff some more lavender spritz.

But you know what I mean, though, right?

Anyway, a grand day, running into so many people I know, eating good food and chatting and taking home a couple nice presents for myself. Returning to crazy, cagey children and a remarkably un-rattled hubby, who made us all pasta Alfredo and with whom I am now going to have an uninterrupted adult conversation about anything but children. Bye-bye!

Matrimony!

(Photos by the amazing Ryan Davis.)