Wait here for the present

"Wait here for the present." The picture of Ramona Quimby sitting all day on her first day of school waiting for the present always makes me laugh.
I like making things. I always have. And so holidays give me an ideal chance to give a handmade gift. Here are a couple that I made recently. Mom's pennant is made from vintage handkerchiefs. I just lucked out and found one with the monogram "J" for Jones in my estate sale hunting. The dress is from a piece of vintage fabric I was given and a vintage mail order pattern I fell in love with. This was granddaughter J's gift for her 4th birthday.

 And a couple of pix of Michael and me on Mother's Day with the gorgeous Calla lilies he gave me. He also got me a lovely planter full of dark purple geraniums to hang outside my kitchen window. In addition to phone calls I also received a beautiful coffee table pop-up book of flower bouquets. And, since this is Pennsylvania, the entire yard was in bloom for Mother's Day. Lilacs, cherry trees, narcissus, and the lilies of the valleys just waiting to open up. Sweet!

Sprinkles and Pins

We have already established that this is land o' sprinkles, I think. They must sell more ice cream sprinkles here per capita than anywhere else in the world. So natch, I had to take a picture of this ice cream store.                                                              

Now the other photo is my brilliant idea for fitting a pattern. You can't even afford muslin these days and since I'm twenty pounds heavier since the last time I did a lot of sewing for myself, I decided I'd better make a "muslin" of a blouse pattern I'm making.

So in lieu of muslin, I used one of my son-in-law's shirts. Sounds awful until you know that it had a rip in it and was unusable. My daughter had left it here last summer and I've not been able to throw it away. Such gorgeous fabric. But it worked great as a substitute for muslin since I was cutting out a shirt. My pattern was smaller than his shirt, so the pieces almost fit perfectly. (The pocket on one of the back pieces is kinda weird.)

The funny part comes after I baste the thing together in just a few minutes. (Wow, sewing goes fast if you can just baste everything and you don't have to finish seams or tie off darts! ) In order for Michael to have an easier time pinning me in the blouse, I stitch in a dark color the seam lines for the zipper on the back of the blouse. All he has to do is pin the lines together and I can test the fit. It was really cute. He asked me why I didn't just sew the back seam. I explained that I would have no way of getting into the blouse then.

So the pinning begins. The first thing that happened is that he stuck himself with a pin. I expected that. But then he struggled to pin me in and I kept trying to help him. So I wiggled and he told me to stop. And I tried to help him again. I wiggled and he told me to stop. This happened about three times. It brought back such vivid memories of me pinning patterns on my girls. I was much more impatient than the girls ever were. No wonder the girls had trouble standing still while I pinned a hem. It is BORING.

Come to find out, most of his problems were because I had cut the thing too small. When he got to the bottom pin around my hips, he just said "No way!" and he was right. I will be adjusting the pattern.

But he sure had a struggle with me. I was the worst mannequin ever. Girls, I apologize if I ever fussed at you for wiggling.

Branching Out

I noticed that my little Peach had opened up another Puking Pastilles shop. (The photo is from Christmas visit to the Reading Market in Philly--Maybe there's a puking pastille in there somewhere). I guess great minds think alike. I opened an Ecrater store yesterday. There's not much in it and I have no idea how you get people to visit it, but the price is right (free!). I'll give it a try. If you want to see my really pitiful efforts at creating a banner, you can visit it at Coconut Pie.

In other news, I am making progress on my middle grade novel. My little hero is a real trooper. I've decided to make one of the characters in the book a seamstress. It was a pretty common profession for a single woman in the 50s. They didn't have a lot of options. That way all this time I'm spending with patterns these days isn't wasted.

I mailed off "the dress" to my girl in Czech today. This is the pattern I had made for her when she was a little girl. It had triangle pockets and rickrack trim. Adorable. I made tons of dresses for girls but this one was my favorite. I think it came out well, but no photos today as it might be used as a birthday present. I'll post a photo when I get the go-ahead from the Czech Republic.

Photo copyright: Michael Denney