You may recall that, in addition to the workplace dramas, I have also been involved in a movie-like drama. The next episode of that is coming up.
So yesterday I cleaned out the high school Sunday School room. Some other people came to help me as time went on, and I had some boys carting random pieces of stage sets around, and girls doing creative things with the art supplies I brought in, and my co-teacher helping me throw out ancient debris from the cupboards, and it all turned out quite well.
I went home and scrubbed the kitchen and then went to lunch with my parents, and that also was a lot of fun. Then I took #1 son and my husband shopping.for clothes, and then came home and finished Pipes.
Here it is with its new long sleeves. I must get it up to #2 daughter while it is still cold enough to wear it.
If you ever want to lengthen or shorten sleeves, it is easy. It just takes a little math. Frog the sleeves back a ways. Then determine how many stitches you have, and how many you want to end up with at the cuff. Subtract the second number from the first. This will tell you how many stitches you need to decrease. Divide that number by the number of inches you want to add to the sleeve. For example, if you want to decrease 10 stitches over the course of 5 inches, you will need to decrease 2 stitches every inch. Then just do that and you will have the sleeve you want.
I also did some sewing, or at least preparation to sew. I was not ready even to do the muslin for the jacket yesterday, but I cut out an apron. I can hear you snickering. But I always wear an apron when I cook or clean, because it keeps your clothes clean and lessens the amount of cooking smells you carry around with you afterwards.
This pattern also gives me an opportunity to practice princess seams before doing the jacket.
The pattern is McCall’s 3979, a retro apron pattern, and the fabrics are from the clearance table at Hancock fabrics.
They are supposed to have a Provencal air, though perhaps that would give the impression that times are hard in Provence. As you can see from the snap in my kitchen, the colors work well, even if there is something a bit odd about the chickens in their medallions there.
I have a bunch of chickens in my kitchen. It is like the mushrooms of the 1970s, I fear, although if you think of it as a Gallic rooster, it is more timeless. I also have dragons in my kitchen, as you can see. I don’t think I will dwell on this any more.
After I had gotten these bits of needlework done, I was having my typical Sunday phone conversations with my girls, and my husband overheard me saying I would have to go to the Federal Building this morning to undertake the next step in the weird movie-like adventure.
This plunged him into madness. Or at least a loony outburst. He was modeling it, I believe, on the last appearance of Rumpelstiltskin. There were many implausible and fearsome predictions, maledictions, and incomprehensible questions, as well as stamping and pounding.
I offered not to go to the Federal Building, though I couldn’t resist pointing out the likely consequences of that. My husband stamped around some more.
Do you ever feel as though you would like to fast-forward through your life a little bit? Really, I am too old to want to do that. But I think I would like to be able to peer into the future, maybe just three months. Then I could remind myself, as I go through the various excitements of my life right now, that it would all be settled down by summer, and be stoical about the current uncertainties.
Given the impossibility of doing that, I will instead try today to embrace the excitements and uncertainties of the day and experience them as adventures instead of as irritations. I hope you can do the same. In the book I am reading — and I can recommend it heartily — I have just left the protagonists hiding under a desk with a naked woman. Chances are I won’t be doing that today. Otherwise, who can tell?
There’s nothing like some good spousal support during a movie-like drama. Best wishes to you during a potentially stressful day.
Frog the sleeves back a ways? ??? At least, when a cookbook says “Begin by deboning the bird,” even if I don’t know how to do it I know how it’s supposed to turn out. But “frog the sleeves” doesn’t offer me even that benefit. My ignorance knows no bounds.
May your movie-like drama go by quickly and without glitches, and may your resident Rumpelstiltskin stay reasonably calm as the drama progresses…
Yes, there are times I do wish I could fast forward a bit. Usually when I’m at the dentist.
Aye – I wish I could fast forward through things – like arguments with my spouse. It’s awful to go through (no matter how small and trivial), but things are always better on the other side. I don’t know the story behind the Federal Building – and the spouse’s concern – but I see that it is worrisome. I wish you luck.
Good luck and it will have all settled down in a couple of months or so as you said 🙂
RYC: I have *no* idea why I found Napoleon Dynamite so funny. Maybe it’s because the “saga of the geek” is timeless. Or maybe because there wasn’t any swearing to note (I think Napoleon said “crap”). Or maybe because I could relate to some of it. Who knows? Giggle.
LOL. It did not occur to me that I was talking to the same person, although I did think the dog looked a little familiar, and that it was very coincidental that there were 2 xangans from the same area in contact. You did that on purpose didn’t you 🙂 just to confuse me. And I thought I was suffering from a personality dissociation….you’re worse.