A trip to Paradise

They keep telling me they hope the weather improves (warms up) while I'm here, but gee, it's January and I'm running around in shorts and short sleeves. What's a little tropical breeze or occassional showers?

Lunch yesterday was a box of sushi and haupia malasadas (think doughnuts filled with coconut pudding). Dinner was more vegetable tempura than I could finish because Paul, Millie and Edwin all gave me most of their tempura from their combination plates. They are having trouble with understanding how I get enough to eat on my vegan diet. And I found dark chocolate covered macadamia nuts that are vegan too!

Paul's doing well recovering with surgery. The doctor cleared him for most activities except lifting/pushing/pulling. That means he's home in his place, but cleaning up and replacing kitchen gear after the remodeling effort are off limits. I wiped out the cabinets yesterday. We'll start putting things away after his nap. (I've been working on school stuff all morning, and he was ready for a rest by the time I got that part done yesterday.)

When Becky called yesterday, she asked if I'd gotten the bathroom done too. Gee, Bec, who's the bossy one? Three thousand miles away and she's still telling us what to do! (Love you bunches!)

It is good to have this opportunity to spend time with Paul, and to be able to give back some small measure of what he's given us over the years. It's interesting how this came up as I was considering what it means to be family, both in who is family and what we do with and for each other. But that's for another post.

"Can I tell you 'sumping '(something)?"

I've enjoyed spending the last two days with my niece and nephew, Aria and Evan. Evan is the one who enjoyed the miraculous improvement in his epilepsy after his surgeries last November, and is still doing physical therapy four times/week. Thus, when both Mom and Dad have to work, they need to find more than day care, they need a chauffeur! With this being my last week of winter break before I head back to class, I got to play "Aunt Mary to the rescue!"

I also cleared a box of books that our kids have outgrown and were ready to share with their cousins. At just four years old, Evan read me two books this afternoon. He was thrilled to find some books that looked interesting to him in that box. Most of the books on his level had already migrated down there for Aria when she was at that stage.
Now in kindergarten, and just turned six at Christmastime, Aria is a voracious reader. She discovered the Magic Tree House books-chapter books at a 3rd grade independent reading level, and devoured the first one in less than an hour and a half- all by herself! I took advantage of a few minutes while Evan was occupied with his trains to have her read for me. She sight read the first few pages of one of the American Girl books, totally new to her, with great expression. This is NOT a kindergarten or even first-grade level book! I don't know how her teachers can challenge her at all in the regular classroom! While her class is learning to count to 100 by tens, at dinner tonight we were working on counting to a thousand by hundreds, and then taking it all the way to a million. The kid is a sponge!

Meanwhile, Evan never stops talking or singing. And, being very polite, he checks to make sure you're really listening. . ."Can I tell you sumping?" "Did you see my fish? Isn't he cute?!"(complete with a cute squinch of his face and shoulders) "Can I tell you sumping?" "I love my new Little Blue Engine that Could." "Can I tell you sumping?" etc. (Lots of etc!)

It's so much fun to live close by, and to be able to enjoy watching them grow up!

Evan, can I tell you sumping? I love you! (And you too, Aria!)

More project pictures

I've been busy working on more projects! (James is making comments about how productive I get when I'm avoiding things. Whatever paper could he be referring to??? Certainly not the divorce and mental health paper I have hanging around. I deliberately choose not to work on that one when the family's home!)
This is the skirt I made for Tori, out of the remainder of the fabric from her Ball dress. There are 16 panels, so it's almost a circle, or a circle and a half!, skirt. It should twirl nicely when she's dancing.

I hope she'll enjoy dancing in this skirt! And if she doesn't, Miriam has already registered an intention to borrow it, so I'm sure she'll be glad to take it off Tori's hands.

We had a lovely time dancing with her and the twins at the contra dance at Glen Echo on Friday night. Miriam's knee was bothering her a bit, so she didn't dance as much as the rest of us did, but Samuel and James and I had a blast! Our friend, Steve Hickman, was one of the band members, and when Steve's on fiddle the music's always fantastic!
Here are the six zabuton pillows I got covered on Saturday afternoon, before we ran over to Columbia to hang out with Lee & Jon and their kids. I do so enjoy having family (by blood or by choice!) nearby, and being able to be a part of their lives as the kids grow up! It's hard to believe the twins are almost six. I remember when they were tiny and we propped them up with their giant teddy bears and took a picture of all the twins together! Now even baby Daniel's almost two, and the twins are reading!

Here's a picture of Miriam wearing the new lounge pants I made for her after I finished the skirt and before I changed to the navy thread to make the zabuton covers and our curtains. I have another pair of pants to make for her, and a pair for James, and several for Samuel- who is growing like a weed and needs comfy pants to sleep in.














I made the blue curtains for our bedroom yesterday, and then got to tease James because he hadn't obtained the cup hooks to hold the tiebacks by the time the curtains were finished, and he'd had a whole week's notice. He said something about my not usually finishing a project that quickly, but I must be mistaken! . . .Okay, so how long ago did I finish the red bedding set for the library (since back in the time when Kyle was visiting regularly!), and have had the fabric for the curtain sitting around since then. But I got that finished this afternoon too!

The curtains did a wonderful job of darkening our room, and kept it warmer, too!

The red curtains in the library will block the streetlight and let our guests sleep without hanging a towel in the window!

Projects galore!

After completing much of the last curtain panel at the Christmas Country Dance School (aka CCDS, while in seated classes or gatherings), I finally tied it off on the 5^th. Here is a picture of the first and last panels for our bedroom, hanging in the window. I made the second and third panels wider, and then had to make this one wider still for balance. It’s still not exactly the same, but that’s the delight of handmade, right?

Being on a crocheting binge, I stopped by Joann’s to pick up some other yarns to make a couple of vests. I got this one finished in about three hours. Two strands of yarn and a big hook make things go quite quickly. I love the depth of colors that comes from combining the two different blue yarns. If I use this pattern again, I’ll make the shoulder straps shorter, and probably approach it a bit differently, but I rarely follow a pattern anyway.

I’m working on another vest, made with black chenille with little specks of color. I’ll post a picture when I finish that one. It’s rather bulky, so I’m still carrying my ball of thread and the tiny needle when I go out. I am almost finished with a doily that I started in Meeting for Business on the sixth. I’ll post a picture when I finish it. I don’t use doilies around the house, so if someone wants to use it, let me know. If not, I’m thinking about putting it in the auction for the scholarship fund at this year’s CCDS.

The major project for this week was Tori’s gown for the Midwinter Ball. The theme is the Roaring Twenties, and she wanted a flapper dress. Now, if it were that simple, she could have borrowed Aunt Lisa’s flapper dress, but no! Being the princess (or whirling dervish?) that she is, Tori wanted it to have a twirly skirt that hid when she was standing still, so that the dress maintained the lines of the flapper style! Okay, have you ever tried to find a pattern for a flapper dress in January? Maybe in August or September, when people are working on Halloween costumes, but not January. No big deal. I am an old pro at making costumes, and it’s basically a sac, right? We found a delightful fabric in the red tag section on Saturday, and all those fabrics went on a further 50% markdown with the new sale on Sunday, so we set it aside.

I used muslin to make a mockup, and it worked pretty well. I was awake for hours two nights in a row, waking from dreams trying to figure out the geometry of a hidden twirly skirt. (The things we do for our kids!) After trying two (or three, depending on how you count it) variations on the muslin skirt, we were ready to cut the real fabric.

Lots of pressing and trying it on, (the fabrics hang very differently!), we ended up with a quite satisfactory dress, and I made a little clutch purse to match. I think the socks really make the outfit, don't you?

(Sorry about the gap on the page. I can't figure out how to make it go away.)

I didn’t have the right serger thread, so Tori took Miriam out to get that, and bought her flannel to make lounge pants and a soft top to sleep in. Then there are Samuel’s lounge pants, and the curtains full-length blue curtains to hang over the café curtains in our bedroom, and the ones that have been waiting to be made for the library/guest room so we can take down the towel to keep the streetlight from shining in that window, and the covers for the zabuton (floor pillows) because we like to sit on the floor, and need them if we’re going to host teen parties very often, and . . . etc.

Where has my break gone??? School resumes in another week and a half. I’ve missed having the time to do these creative projects during the semester. It’s fun to look at something I’ve made and think “I did that!”