Connecting and reconnecting
Oops! A mini unintentional blog break just happened. But let me explain…
Jack and I took a spur of the moment* trip to Washington DC this past weekend. It was a holiday weekend in the U.S. as most of you know. It’s only taken me four years to learn this valuable lesson, but holiday weekends are the worst for me as a single parent**. The entire city of New York empties out. Jack’s playdates disappear, Jack’s cousins are often out of town, and I am left with three days to fill with activities for a four year old boy. After several lonely holiday weekends in the past, I was determined not to be caught with my pants down for a long weekend ever again. Since our tentative plans to rent a car and go out to the country were postponed for another visit, I had to come up with a last-minute plan on Thursday for a fun weekend for Jack. Facebook came to my rescue when, after my status update inviting myself to anyone’s home/city for the weekend within drivable distance was answered by no less than two people right away for the same city. Washington DC. Trena and Sara totally came to this single parent’s rescue. ***
I booked our bus tickets right away and we were off early Saturday morning for the nation’s capital city. I had grand plans for this grand city. Jack and I would go to 10 museums, tour the mall, see the Lincoln Memorial (my favorite president), see a play, all while visiting our friends. Forget about sleeping or eating. Yeah, well those grandiose plans were just a wee bit ambitious and over-reaching.
In actuality, we only saw two museums, The National Building Museum at which Jack played in the Lego room and The National Art Gallery where Jack participated in the Stories in Art program on Georgia O’Keefe. We’re going to save the new Lincoln museum and memorial for another visit soon. Hopefully we’ll have some fellow travelers next time too.
Jack in the Lego Room at the National Building Museum
Jack learning about George O'Keefe at the National Art Gallery
Sara and Pete treated us to an awesome production of P Nokio, a hip hop version of the Pinocchio story. Very creative and funny! We loved it.
Sara and Pete in their beautiful DC home (photo taken by Jack)
Trena met us up and took us to Exquisite Fabrics in Georgetown. However, a very rare thing happened to me. I didn’t buy any fabric. Not one piece. I thought I might be ill. In fact, I do have a cold, so maybe that had something to do with it. My “illness” didn’t stop Trena from buying some lace though. But I will let her tell you about that on one of her Stash Confessionals. Oops! Maybe she wasn’t going to fess up to the purchase. Sorry Trena! Oh and we also met up the next night for dinner. Although the service left much to be desired, the food and company were great. I wish I had more time to spend with Trena and Michael, but it was late and way past Jack’s bedtime when we finally left the restaurant.
Mostly though, we visited our friends, ate lunches, dinners, and brunches, and walked around Washington DC. It was a fabulous weekend, connecting with my son and reconnecting with friends. Jack was a great traveler for the most part with only one temper tantrum (that thankfully did NOT occur on our 5 hour bus ride home) and a good trouper about the museums. While we did not make it to the Lincoln Museum or Memorial, I do have a great blurry, from-the-car evening shot of the Washington Memorial for you.
Let’s pretend that I meant to take the photo that way, ok? And a BIG THANK YOU to Sara and Pete for their spontaneous generosity in opening their home to us, taking us in and entertaining us in grand style. And also a BIG THANK YOU to Trena for treating us to a delicious dinner and making time for us in her busy weekend.
I can’t resist posting a gratuitous Jack picture from one of our DC meals with the artwork he made at the George O’Keefe presentation.
* My close friends and family know that I am not usually a very spontaneous person. Taking a spur of the moment trip is practically unheard of for me. My BFF Cayce will probably never recover from the shock when she finds out that Jack and I went to DC this past weekend. I’ll let you know if she lands in the hospital.
** Amy McCracken, a fellow single parent who I know from her on-line blog which she co-authors with two others, inspired me to take this trip. Her post (third one down) about a trip to “China” with her little boy brings me to tears every time I read it. I only hope that I can be as good a mother as she is to her son, Buddy.
***I know I could plan a similar fun weekend for Jack in NYC as well, but it just isn’t the same as doing it in a different city for many reasons.
Ideas = Lack of Sewing
I did some sewing last night people, but not enough. Between two lengthy phone calls and different ideas for Katie’s dress that I was contemplating, all I ended up finishing was interfacing the facings and stay stitching the neckline and armscyes.
*sigh*
I love sewing. Really, I do. And I love how sewing my own clothes gives me so much control over the outcome. I love having total control. Oh, did I just write that out loud? The little design decisions you make along the way make each garment one of kind and completely of your inner vision. But sometimes all these design decisions that need to be made slow me down and take me out of my sewing zone. Do any of you ever feel like that? Or are you the type of design person who revels in the choices? I tend to get stymied by them. I love making a decision but not 20 of them one right after the other. It’s exhausting and distracting from the task at hand.
Ok, enough of my whining. Here are some of the choices right now…
False ribbon placket with buttons
Ribbon empire waist
Plain, no ribbon trim
And the final option (not pictured) would be some patch pockets at waist or hip level with the green ribbon trim. Lindsay T gave me the idea by way of the link to Lily Pulitzer dresses she sent me this morning.
Which do you prefer? I think I know which is my favorite, but I am still curious to hear your opinions.
Also, tell me! Do you revel in having many design choices to make or do you just want to get on with the sewing already?
Happy sewing everyone!
Late as usual
I think I have definitely started an unfortunate trend with my SEWN gifts the last year with everything coming late, sometimes months late. Thank goodness Baby Chloe is small!
My niece Katie’s birthday party was this past weekend and I had only managed to order the pattern, and buy the fabric and trim for her dress. I am pretty excited about this dress. I just love the cotton print I picked up with my Living Social coupon last week. Remember this gorgeousness?
I found the perfect pattern to showcase this fabric. With a fabric so bold and colorful, the dress pattern should be very simple with few design lines to cut up the print. The fabric will be the star of the dress. I have had good luck with the Simplicity/New Look patterns for kids in the past and found this great canvas for my paint, NL 6504, and it’s on sale right now!!!
I’m making View A which is on the model, but without all that applique crap. Katie is a very mature, sophisticated 6-year-old. I think she is way above wearing applique at this point. 
I cut it out last night and, after I pay a little visit to P&S at lunch today for some thread to match it, I will sew it up tonight.
Hey, I just realized that Katie’s actual birthday is this Saturday. So maybe, her birthday dress won’t be late after all. Of course, I could be jinxing myself now.
Happy sewing!
Valentines from Jack
Thanks for the enabling comments on my last post about my fabric strategeries (or flagrant against-the-rules buying habits). It was interesting to hear everyone’s delusional rationalizations, I mean thoughts on the matter. Haha.
But back to crafting… Last night I realized I needed to get a jump on Valentines Day. All of you who have school-aged children are probably scrambling to find the last box of valentines cards at the store to address to all their classmates next week, or you are, like me, crazily making them from scratch for your beloved child to “decorate”.
Yep, that was me last night, at 11pm, realizing that I needed to make Jack’s valentines so he could decorate them after school today. I was just gonna glue some hearts on rectangles and be done with it but then I got all fancy and sewed them on. Fortunately, these are really simple to make, and fast! I was in bed by 12:30am. I probably would have been in bed sooner if I hadn’t futzed around for a while.
Here’s the how to (I won’t glorify it by calling it a tutorial). There aren’t any in progress pictures as I was trying to just get them done so I could go to bed. You can make these with whatever materials you have on hand, construction paper, wrapping paper, etc. I used felt since I have a supply of it back from when I thought I would be a crafty mama and would do all sorts of appliqué and embroidery projects. NOT!
- Using pinking shears, cut out desired shapes. I cut out hearts in various sizes and colors and then cut out rectangles for backings in contrasting colors.
- For this next step, you can either glue the hearts to the rectangles or you pin the hearts to the rectangles in preparation to stitch them down in coordinating or contrasting thread.
- Write the name of the receiver and the giver. I tested out different markers on the felt and Sharpies worked the best.
- Now they’re ready for your kid to decorate with more felt/paper/glitter/etc.
Mine are all ready for Jack to decorate.
Happy crafting!
Fabric Strategeries
First off, thank you so much for the great comments on my teal Burda top. I really love that top. I’m glad you all did too. 
So, as I mentioned yesterday, I have been thinking about my past fabric buying strategeries. (Yes, I know that is not how you say or spell strategy, but I love fake Bush-isms, so I’m sticking with it.) My closet is filled to the gills with fabric. See?
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This picture is from April 2011, so my fabric closet is actually a lot fuller right now, truth be told. (Can’t help tattling on myself again.) But if you’ll notice, there isn’t a whole lot of mass quantities of any one fabric. It’s all 2 or 3 yard pieces and a lot of them are prints at that. I think I may have mentioned my fetish for prints once or twice or twenty times.
After finishing my Burda top last week and noticing that I have 3/4 of a yard left of the teal knit with which may or may not be enough to make another top, I had a minor epiphany:
If I buy many yards of neutral, staple, solid colors that I know I love
and in fabrics that I use often, I will have a more “usable” stash.
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I loved my teal top. I think that’s a color that looks great with my complexion, if I do say so myself. In fact, I wore this color for my senior high school picture!
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I can’t figure out why I haven’t worn it again in so long. Has teal really been out of favor for that many years?
Anyway, long story long (with gratuitous picture of myself in high school and not even on a Wednesday at that), I think I need to change up my fabric buying habits and get more strategery. I’m considering the following:
- Buy more solid knits in colors that work with my everyday wardrobe and that I like
- Buy in larger quantities if buying a solid (who can’t use a variety of black tops made up in different shapes/patterns?)
- Buy less prints, I have tons already.
Today I made an impromptu visit to the garment district as I had a Living Social coupon to Mood burning through my wallet. I was on the hunt for a heavier than voile weight cotton to make up my niece Katie’s birthday dress. I found the cutest print (I know, not on my list up there, but this is for Katie, not me). I found a perfectly matched grosgrain ribbon to add as trim if needed too. Isn’t it perfect? Katie has greenish eyes, so this will look particularly good on her.
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While there I did manage to pick up a little sumpin-sumpin for me too. A red burnout knit. Love. This. I see another date night top in my future. Maybe one with a drapey neckline?
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Then I stopped in at Chic Fabrics where I have always had good luck. I came across their selection of stretch charmeuses and just had to buy these too. I have grandiose plans of making myself some button down blouses with these or maybe some peasant blouses. I’m not sure yet.
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Yeah, so you might have noticed that I didn’t exactly follow any of my fabric buying strategeries today, huh? Well, there’s always next time.
Happy fabric buying!
