Sewing Tables and Reading Nooks

 

On Sewing: 

I have been given quite a bit of fabric lately and I have a hard time saying no.  There is just something wonderful about having all you need for a project right in your own home whenever the itch needs to be scratched.  And I have been able to make many a project for pennies thanks to the generosity of others passing things along.  

The key, of course, is actually using it.  

In one such fabric dump there was a very large piece of fabric (several yards!) that was a bit Christmasy, a bit Monet.  I thought it would make a nice bunch of matchy-matchy clothes for an upcoming Newman reunion.  

I made Ineke's first because...RUFFLES on the bum.  Exposed Squishy Thighs.  Cute baby bloomers.  Enough said.  

Everything was on hand so I could start on a whim and actually finish.   Lace trim was given to me and as I pinned it down, my thoughts turned to Aunt Nancy and her legacy and her passions that created beauty in the midst of darkness and isn't it amazing that she lives on even now?  In memory here, but gloriously redeemed above?    I didn't have enough of one trim so I alternated different trims for the bum.  Make it do or do without.  A good mantra.  A challenge of cleverness.

  The fabric was given to me...both the outside and lining fabrics, and I thought of another Nancy, who is cleaning out bits of her past even now as she copes with finding a new rhythm as half a person and the great struggle it must be to learn to live alone, after so many years of being 'us'.  Struggling to find beauty and see it when everything is colored in tragedy and loss.  

The buttons, though I have had them for years- matched as if meant to be.  What a perfect match!  And isn't it amazing that God coordinates things just so... everything is meant to work together for good.  Even if a particular button (or person or personality or tragedy or gift ) lies dormant for a while- there will be a time that it will be needed in your life.  And it will all make sense then and will bring you to shake your head in wonder.

Waxing poetic about a little romper, eh?  Boy.

The elastic was surely bought- using elastic handed down is a dangerous gamble as I well know.  I learned my lesson on that after I made elaborate outfits only to have the elasticity be dry rotted at the first wash.  Nothing poetic about that.  ;-)

Today the children (all but the baby) are off for a few hours of good old-fashioned country BookMobile with Grandma and Grandpa.  (Did you know book buses still travel country roads?)  If I time it just right, I may be able to start work on the next little outfit this afternoon while the baby naps.  The goal is to make each one matching but not the same.  It gets more challenging now that Corynn is older and not so inclined to wear 'cutesy' clothes.  I'll be making one for a cousin too. 

On Reading:

I'm reading We Had Everything But Money when I have a second here and there.  Memories shared by those who lived through the Great Depression.

Before bed, I pick up A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression.

I recently finished Something Wicked This Way Comes, in my attempt to keep expanding my reading genres.

And in the car or as I work around the house, I listen to Coolidge. 

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Now that I've bored you with a long post that could have easily been summed up as "Lookie!  I made a romper and oh yeah!  I like to read!"

I'll leave you with one more bit of excess...

In honor of a stretch of five days of hot weather with no rain (fingers crossed!), I give you the play by play of Ineke's first experience with a freeze pop:

She wants to like it...

but it's cold!

She braces for another bite...

and just look at that sheer determination.  

Conquered!   

She has since developed a deep and abiding love for the frozen sugar water.  And especially since, unlike her brothers and sisters, she doesn't have to do any hot and sweaty weeding in the garden in order to enjoy one.

crafting on...