Best effort?

I guess it's just another in the line of setbacks associated with this project that I can't get this layout to go the way I want it to. Well, just a little more medicine for me. See, I was able to finish my tie one on apron on time. Then, I needed Ken to take photos of me in it, and that film sat in the camera until Saturday morning (6/30) when I realized that I could take the roll in for one-hour developing and still make the deadline for submission (which was Saturday). And I got the pictures and they were not. quite. what. I'd. hoped. for. I realized I should have been more specific with Ken and should have asked that more pictures, at different angles, be taken. I should have re-ironed the apron before putting it on. I should have been more specific about the pocket close-up that I was after (the one, above, is from my scanner). And to be honest, all of that disappointment was wrapped up in feelings that the apron that I loved somehow didn't, when viewed from outside myself, come out the way I'd imagined.

So with my own warped sense of perfection and all, I almost didn't submit it. I knew how good the other aprons would be (just look at any of the past galleries!) and didn't want my pokey, lumpy, wrinkly self up there with the top of my head missing. But I came to my senses, submitted it anyway (here's hoping after all this I made it in time!) and now I'm furthering my own public admission of not-perfect-indeed! by posting the whole business here. And the layout isn't right. Truth is, I still had fun doing this challenge, and I like wearing the apron! And I'm even thinking about the next one (an apron that represents your region/state/town). Maybe.

Another year

It seems as though it happens daily now -- I stop by a favorite blog, only to find its creator has signed off for the summer. It's not that I don't understand their good reasons, it's just that I'll miss their voices and hope they remember, come September, to return. We all have our own pattern to our year, to our seasons, our own energy levels associated with the weather and the quality of light and our social and growing and crafting seasons. I love all the different ways to count a 'year' -- as the school year winds down and finishes up this Friday it feels as though I've got a whole new chance at a fresh start. I love a fresh start.

Three packages, maybe even four, I've sent should arrive at their destinations this week; I'm always on pins and needles while waiting to hear that the post office has done it's job. I've just realized that if I don't get my film developed and my tie one on apron photo posted on flickr this week I'll miss the deadline since we head off on vacation this Saturday. So if I can, I'll get that done; I'm just delighted to have finished my apron. It reminds me that I had another epiphany last night -- it's either a digital camera or furniture to re-make my craft room this year but not both. I'm leaning toward the camera.

Before or after the ball?

Ken, of course, being the adult, refused to even consider participating the other night when I asked the boys, "if I were, you know, one of the princesses, which one would I be?" Ken tried to explain to Dean, via sign language, that a guy never answers this kind of question. Ever. The best Dean could come up with was "Mulan?" I think I was feeling kind of Cinderella-ish at the time....

A peek at my apron project:
Having fun with this one and, yes Helen, I really am making progress on my other project (thank you for keeping me honest!) and will surprise everyone, including myself, with an amazing update in about a month (I hope).

Meanwhile, Ken says the microwave thing is hooey, based on his thorough 10 minutes of Internet research. Says the science just isn't behind the claim and that more active research would be underway and available if there were legit concerns. Rationally, I can process that (and I, too, can be skeptical of what I read online). At the same time (and, perhaps, sparked by this little picnic scene), I think about a strong summer memory from my own childhood: mercurachrome. Were you subjected to this stuff? It went on every cut and scrape than I got -- a bright, neon-y orange/red color, it came in a little brown bottle and had a smell so unlike anything else that I can close my eyes and smell it. It stung to high heaven, but every mom in the neighborhood dispensed it to prevent infection in cuts. The thing was -- it contained mercury. So when someone finally figured out that introducing mercury directly to the bloodstream wasn't such a great idea after all, out it went. Ooops! Now gone the way of lawn darts, and margarine, and Pluto.

My point is just that while I can understand the lack, now, of scientific evidence against old mr. microwave, I wonder what we'll know 40 years from now that makes us say, "OH MY GOD!, can you believe people actually had these things in their HOMES? And cooked FOOD in them?" and I think of mercurachrome. No mom back in 1967 thought she was doing anything other than precisely the right thing by slathering it on her children. (Although I guess I'm still alive and don't know what the harm is, yet, that's been done, but I know I don't like to think about it too much, either!) Sigh. Ken also made the environmental argument -- fewer dishes to wash! less energy used! I was kind of liking the idea of getting the counter space back....

Always thinking

Here is a corner of the tablecloth I unearthed yesterday from the slag heap that is my closet, and today I'm feeling better about the prospect of cutting it up to make an apron. The trip through the washer did it good, but it is still very heavily stained in some areas. It does not fit my table. The color scheme, ah, doesn't lend itself to anything else in my home (what was up with 50s design, when a spring scene like this would be rendered in these colors?). As an apron, it will get use and will not be forgotten. Making it will connect me with others in the project. That's the plan. I wish I had a pattern for an Aunt Bea style apron (I searched a few minutes to find you a picture -- you know, Aunt Bea, from the Andy Griffith show -- but weirdly am not finding one). It's the kind of apron that has arm holes (rather than straps), and really covers your whole front (to protect the dress you'd be wearing if you were Aunt Bea) -- more like a smock, I guess.

This isn't quite it (and these women are no Aunt Bea's, that's for sure), but something kinda sorta along these lines:

Well, these are a little fussier than what I was picturing, but I can't quite find the exact thing. That happens to me a lot -- I get some very specific picture in my mind and then can't find the like, so I don't know if I'm drawing from imagination rather than memory. Does it ever happen to you that you can't quite sort out if something really happened or you dreamed it? I've had times when I've seen a friend, or co-worker, or family member, even, and thought -- ohhhh, I'm really upset with this person; but then when I stop to think about why, I realize it was something that happened in a dream so I can just calm down. Maybe it's just more proof of my own weirdness.

Yesterday I drank my morning coffee (elixir of the gods) while watching the flickr slideshow from Tie One On's rick-rack apron challenge. If you haven't seen this yet, I can highly recommend sitting down (with a cuppa joe, ideally), and watching the slideshow. Aside from being impressed by the range of interpretations and utter creativity, the gallery made me think:

1. I love when people show themselves wearing their aprons -- their whole selves, so that you can see their faces and even little glimpses of their homes. It's not that I don't understand people's privacy concerns, but it's disconcerting nonetheless to see all of the headless torsos. Also, it's interesting to me (but maybe there is no connection?) that people are willing to show their children, faces and all -- but maybe the people taking pictures of their children are the same ones who are willing to show themselves...
2. Given that some aprons, too, are shown without a human in sight, it's hard to know for sure, but I wonder about the seeming lack of cultural diversity in this group -- surely there are more crafty blogging types out there without white skin? I just notice how homogeneous the community seems to be and I wonder about that.
3. In as much as the "studio" like shots are gorgeous, I do like the pictures where you see, again, the real person wearing the apron in her real home -- maybe a little messy, maybe lots of other stuff going on -- just a great little slice of life.

I considered making an apron for this theme but not doing so was the right decision (laugh at me, please, those of you who've been reading for any length of time and know how many projects I'm juggling at once as is). But then the next theme, pockets, has me seriously considering. Which takes me to more of yesterday's activities and the image, above.

I spent some time working on cleaning out a closet. Very slow, depressing work -- we just have too much stuff, and no amount of spiffy organizers or rearranging will solve it. We need to get rid of some critical mass of stuff before effective cleaning can be done. Anyway. I've inherited/accumulated a really large collection of old linens. I've been known both in my own family and by my husband's family as someone who appreciates/keeps/uses old linens, so those drawers full of stuff that no one uses but no one can bear to throw or give away all come to me, along with the things I've purchased over the years. Oh, I've got drawers in the house where I keep the linens I use regularly, and there are some in the upstairs linen closet, but this closet of yesterday (my bedroom "clothes" closet) features a large laundry basket heaped full of MORE. So much handmade lace, like the sample above, so many hand towels and napkins and things that I don't even know WHAT they are, but they carry some little bit of embroidery or lace or other handiwork of the women who have come before me. I'm trying to think realistically what to do with some of this stuff, other than leaving it heaped in a basket in a closet. So ONE of the things is a vintage tablecloth -- 50s, most likely -- really too stained to use, not with any handmade-ness to it, and I'm thinking about cutting it up for an apron featuring some kind of magnificent pocket. Again, even though it is not handmade, I'm a little hesitant to cut something up, but this could be just the ticket.

Speaking of cutting things up to make something else, one of the aprons in the rick-rack gallery was made partially from an old pair of jeans. It inspired me to pull the pair of jeans I put in the give-away pile yesterday (maybe this is not a good thing). Stuff made out of old jeans has so much potential to go wrong, but this apron was a lovely example of seeing it done right and made me think I was too hasty in giving up the old pair. Well, I'll give myself a deadline and if I don't do something with the jeans they'll go back to the give-away pile. I have this image in my head of a beach-worthy bucket tote, made from two legs of jeans cut and sewn together....

Dumb luck

How great is this? I asked my mom if she had any old apron patterns she could send me, and in a box filled with frog and mouse parts (the fabric kind, along with those patterns) she sent me this. Tie One On Apron fans, do you see that rick-rack? Right in the pattern -- it calls for rick-rack! While I've yet to make an apron, this business has been a one-thing-leads-to-another challenge that has me a little hung up. (I find a big, juicy hunk of nice, heavyweight cotton purchased from Laura Ashley years and years ago and think it's a nice weight for an apron, but then am loathe to cut it because it is such a nice coupla yards of material and I think -- is this how I most want to use it, to make an apron? -- then I start imagining the thing I'd really like to make from it [a kimono-style top] and I find a pattern for same [although not exactly as I had pictured it, but close], then I wonder if this top with this fabric is too ambitious -- will the linear pattern of rows of perfect little tulips show off my lack of precise sewing skills so that I end up with no apron and a kimono-style top that I'm embarrassed to wear because I've made such a hack of it? And at this moment on my dining room table is the fabric with half of the kimono-top pattern pinned to it and I have to make a decision because we're having company for dinner tonight and I STILL haven't made an apron. Plus I never accurately measured the hunk of fabric so I don't even know yet for sure if I have enough of it for the top.) Ah, the dark side.

And I have all these dark thoughts particularly because I have been under one of my dark clouds of stupidity the past couple of days. I did some weird mixes of laundry, even thinking to myself, "hmmm, should I really toss all of this in together?" and then I do it anyway and of course now I have a tablecloth that's been dyed, unintentionally, a really weird shade of pink/red. I *think* that the dye transfer was even enough that I can still use the cloth (you know what I mean? how sometimes when things over-dye they look all splotchy and horrible and sometimes you do manage to get a nice, even coat of the color?) but every time I see it I will remember that I knew I shouldn't have washed it with that other jacket and that I did it anyway. To my family, I will pretend it was time for a change. And this one -- yesterday, I bought a yard of white, 100% wool felt (I was at Joann's for the kimono-top pattern and had a coupon that expired yesterday so I HAD to) and I brought it home (drumroll, please) and threw IT in the washer and dryer thinking I'd felt it -- but it already WAS felt. Oh please. Re-felting felt is, ah, not recommended. And oh, did it smell awful when I pressed it with a too-hot iron, trying to bring it back to some usable condition. It'll be interesting to see what I come up with for that. Don't try this at home.

It's not so much that I mind when I make mistakes. That seems human enough. But when I stop before doing something to consider if I really should do the thing or not, and then I go ahead and DO the stupid thing anyway -- this drives me insane. "I knew I shouldn't do it!" I moan, and I have the depressing knowledge that this will continue to be my story -- if I haven't stopped by now, I don't expect there's hope. I think I have this inner sense of luckiness -- that I can do things and get away with them because there is a measure of truth there, too -- but I wear it thin. Here's hoping today goes better.

Slogging ahead

Whatever it is we are going to be doing today, springing ahead is not an option. Daylight savings has us losing an hour -- at risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I'll admit that I despise the twice-a-year time changes. Just leave it alone! (No one listens....) But anyway, we all seem to have lost the battle overnight to some nasty colds after having had a fairly healthy winter. Today will be spent trying to rest up so we're in better shape for our Mondays.

On the delightful news front, I've heard that both my swap partners received their packages and both seem pleased with what I sent. Helen's package included some African-themed fabrics (I managed to distort the first image here; sorry about that):
While Dawn's package was more on the whimsical side:Again, without a digital camera I am at the mercy of my scanner, which gives the idea but doesn't do much for presentation. Both packages included some other treats and trinkets as well. I haven't decided yet if I'll keep swapping, but am glad I made this venture out into that aspect of the blogging world. I'm considering an entry to the latest tie one on project (I hear the siren call of rick-rack) but want to be careful that I don't line myself up with lots of reasons not to finish up on and move ahead with my own projects. Ah, the lure of distraction! In and of itself, a component of spring for all animals, I believe. I hope I feel well enough today to do some project work so it takes my mind off of not feeling very well.