Day Four Hundred and Sixty-Six

I rarely steal from myself quite this blatantly, but my Facebook posts pretty well summed up this drama so I am going to put them here and let them speak for themselves.  Every year since my children were born, I've made them a pair of Christmas pajamas, usually from matching fabrics, the same as my mother did for my sister and me when we were small.  The idea is that they can open ONE present on Christmas Eve (which always, amazingly, just happens to be the pajamas), and then they can wear the present to bed and wake up on Christmas morning in their new jammies.

I forget, EVERY YEAR, that I do not in fact have until Christmas Day to finish them.  They have to be finished on Christmas Eve, and for some reason this always takes me by surprise.

Last year's Christmas jammies turned into such a saga that I had people asking me in the middle of December if I was going to post running commentary about them again.  I tell myself that it is because last year's posts brought so much laughter and joy into people's lives.  I suspect, however, that it actually has more to do with the number of friends I have who appreciate a good dose of holiday schadenfreude, which says something about my sewing - and probably something about my friends.

December 22 at 6:52 p.m. - Christmas pajamas for the kids.  Red-and-black plaid.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

December 22 at 9:22 p.m. - Christmas pajama update: When you're making two pajama tops and you notice that you have made precisely the same error not once, not twice, but FOUR times, where part of the front doesn't quiiiiiite line up with the back ... check the pattern before you just trim that bit to line up neatly. It is JUST POSSIBLE that you'll need that extra bit of material for the neck binding.

December 22 at 11:13 p.m. - Plaid. Why'd it have to be plaid?

December 23 at 12:23 a.m. - If you are a creature with one head, one arm, and two torsos, I have a pajama top for you. SIGH. I am going to bed now. (On the bright side, the plaids lined up.)

December 23 at 6:10 p.m. (This accompanied the picture that is posted below on Day 461.) - On the positive side, I now have an iron-clad excuse to watch another episode of MI-5 while I rip out the seam that made this garment suitable only for aliens! (whistling "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life")

December 23 at 10:47 p.m. - Christmas Pajama Update (since I know you were all waiting with bated breath): I narrowly avoided making pajama pants for a creature with two very skinny torsos and two (possibly four) legs. I am sure there will be some disappointed little aliens somewhere out there on Christmas morning.

December 23 at 11:53 p.m. - Good quality loose leaf tea (decaf, sadly), crackers, double Gloucester, and a bit of Cotswold cheese. It may not HELP me sew Pajama Pants For Humans, but it certainly can't hurt.

December 24 at 12:15 a.m. - Do you think that anyone will notice if the fronts of the pajamas are inside out? That frazzly-edged connecting seam between the plaid and the black accent material isn't THAT noticeable, is it? It is? I was afraid of that. (Here is me not chopping them into tiny bits with my lovely sharp scissors, hurrah me!)

December 24 at 1:54 a.m. - We will all pretend that I did not just sew the entire waistband of Peter's pajama pants using the random spool of thread I'd been using up on another section for basting thread that would be removed. PINK thread, did I mention that? Aaaaand that's my cue to go to bed.

December 24 at 7:31 p.m. (since I had forgotten that we had a 2-hour family event an hour's drive away) - I don't believe in jinxes. But I am starting to think that if I post ONE MORE WORD about these dratted pajamas on Facebook, I will discover that I have made a pair of jammie pants suitable only for a three-headed octopus.

And finally, after far too much ripping-out and sewing-back-together ...

December 24 at 9:56 p.m. - Imported British tea, crackers, Double Gloucester, Stilton, white Irish Cheddar, kids in jammies (with proper number of heads, legs, and arms), and Polar Express. Quite nice. (I mean the jammies have the proper number of appendages, not the children. Well, the children do too, I suppose, but I hoped that was a given.)

Day Four Hundred and Sixty-Four

Remember Items #4 and #5, in which I will supposedly learn French?

I got the Pink Martini album "Hey Eugene!" for Christmas, and fell entirely in love with the song "Ocala".  I am completely inspired all over again to learn at least minimal French, if for no other reason than to be able to sing along with this song with correct diction.  (If I did it right, the name of the song is now a youtube link to it.)

If you get it stuck in your head for the next three weeks, c'est la vie.  You've been given fair warning.

Day Four Hundred and Sixty-One, Part Two

Happy Christmas to me - I paid off my car!  This completes Item #38.  I wish I'd paid attention to when it would normally have been paid off - I'm not sure how early I paid it off, but it's at least a year ahead of schedule and maybe more.  Woohoo for little bits here and there!

I was also quite pleased to get a personal note from the lady at the credit union who managed the final payment.  I've never regretted switching from a big cranky bank to a credit union, and things like this are why.

Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I am sorry to say that I do not in fact drive a silver Transformer robot car.

Day Four Hundred and Sixty-One

In pursuit of Item #78 (sewing for the kids), I stayed up past the point of grogginess working on Christmas pajamas. 

I just made a pajama top for a creature with one head, one arm, and two torsos.

I think it is time for bed.

Day Four Hundred and Sixty

Remember this, about music and good black boots and things not turning out the way you expect?

Here's the final product of that photo shoot. ( <== That whole sentence is actually a link to the site where I'm featured, but Blogger is being irritating and it won't let me underline it so you can tell.) You can ignore the picture where I sort of look like a surprised toad, and just look at the ones where somebody finally, finally took a picture of my hands the way they look to me when I play.  I am so very pleased with those.  This doesn't really fall under any of my 101 Things, but I thought you might like to see it anyway.

Day Four Hundred and Fifty-Four

Here's one more for Item #33 (knit or crochet 20 items for the homeless).

I really enjoyed making this one.  Some shades of brown are not so nice, but I really like many of them - the deep chocolate browns that are nearly black, rich warm browns, soft tans that look like coffee and cream, such friendly colors.  I've used Buddy for my model in this picture, since I have finally, regretfully, accepted the fact that I look perfectly horrible in brown.

It's not for lack of trying, either.  I had a brown silk shirt in college that went beautifully with a silk scarf my mom had given me, a watercolor-inspired blend of leafy greens, warm gold, and soft browns.  Nope ... not even with a scarf.  My natural hair color darkened in my late twenties from a dark ash blonde to a not-very-interesting medium brown, and I thought maybe then I could wear brown.  No dice.  I rebelled against the encroaching strands of silver in my mid-thirties and went back to what I consider my natural color (i.e., the shade my sister's was in her early teen years, which I coveted with a passion that probably walked the fine line between venial and mortal sin).  Surely with my lovely, shiny, expensive golden hair, I could wear brown!  But no.  Successfully wearing brown was simply Not Gonna Happen.


It all comes back to the original brown silk shirt in college.  (Don't laugh at the next bit - it was 1993 and I make no apologies.)  I would get all dressed up for class in my light blue straight-leg jeans, my brown suede ankle boots, and my brown silk button-up shirt (tucked in, of course).  My beautiful silk scarf would be arranged just so over my shoulders, my hair would be braided back and secured in a coordinating olive green silk scrunchie (QUIT snickering), and my treasured earrings made from some beautiful rich Eastern wood.  I'd wear warmer-toned makeup in a final effort to coax my pale skin and blue eyes to get on board with this whole earth-toned experiment.

It never failed - I'd get to class and someone would take one look at my complexion and ask, "Oh my gosh, are you sick?  You poor girl, you look awful!"

Hopefully someone out there in my city will be happy for a warm scarf this winter.  My first goal, of course, is to do something kind for someone who needs a little extra warmth and personal effort poured into their life.  But if this scarf helps them to stand up a little straighter and smile a little more because it also makes them look fabulous- mission more than accomplished.

Day Four Hundred and Fifty

I should have said in Item #28 that I just wanted to go to a major museum, not specifically the Portland Art Museum!  My mom, sister and I are all going to the Picasso exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum over the Christmas break as our present to each other.  I am very, very excited about this.  Then again, if I specify the Portland Art Museum, it's another excuse to go when they have an exhibit I want to see.  So, good call after all, self.

Nobody ever writes letters any more!  Well, not NOBODY nobody, but not very many people.  I have a few friends who occasionally write, but with the advent of Twitter (short! cute! incessant!), texting (i m 2 old 4 this), and Facebook (everything out there for all to see including your socks and your cookies and your niece's ballet recital), you're lucky to even get a decent email these days, much less anything with a stamp on it.  I've been re-reading Robin McKinley's novels again, and I think when I finish Sunshine (for the fifth time, I think) I will write her a letter and take care of Item #45.

My goodness, I want to see a Shakespeare play.  I haven't seen one in years!  It looks like if I want to drive down to Ashland some time in 2011, I can see Measure for Measure (which is being featured at this year's Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Julius Caesar, Henry IV (Part Two), or Love's Labor's Lost.  Hmmm.  What do you think?

I was going to go for a walk this morning (sort of working on Item #56), but it was raining.  It has been raining for three days.  It is supposed to rain every day from now until December 21st, which is as far as the weather forecast goes.  I love rain, but I would love it even more if we could have a half-hour sun siesta at 2:30 every afternoon.

So, did it work?  Did I successfully obscure the fact that I have not in fact done much of anything at all on this project this week?