un-awesome

You know how some days you feel like it's barely worth chewing through the leather straps? And everything you touch turns to wet kitty poops?
And your internets won't work all day?
and then you're making miso soup and the boiling water breaks your mug with a crazy bang and slops water on your toes?
And you don't do up the the cap of your Diet Dr Pepper properly and it leaks all over your bed, through the duvet and onto the mattress?
And then you're in the bank and it turns out that Jack Layton died, and all that other stuff seems stupid and your heart is a little broken?
Today was like that.
I'll be back tomorrow, to show you my new shoes and this:

Pillowcases to Women's Shortie Pajamas Tutorial - OR MC Hammer Loves My Jam(mie)s

Not Hammer Pants

So. You know how sometimes you're getting your kid ready for bed - teeth are brushed, residual funk has been hosed off, softie chums extracted from who-knows-where - and it's time to wrangle an unwilling human into footie jammies? Yes?
And sometimes you're all,
"Break it down, OH-OH OH OH OH-OH OH OH OH. PAJAMA time. Can't touch this. WOAH WOAH WOAH OH OH OH OH. Can't touch this"
Because MC Hammer is hilarious and awesome, specially when you sing the lyrics to U Can't Touch This in a Jeeves and Wooster accent?
No? Just me?
Well anyway, this has nothing to do with that. This is a half-assed sort of tutorial on how to make a pair of womens shortie jammies from a pair of pillowcases.

So. Onward!
First you need to procure a pair of pillowcases. Mine came from the Dollarama, so yay for the cheapest ever. But it seems like random, last-pair-in-this-design-no-matching-sheets pillowcases are always around and on crazy sale.
Got yer pillowcases? Here're mine:

The first step is to unpick the stitching on your piller'cases. Have at them with the seam ripper; go on, you can give it some women's-tennis-grunting if you like, I don't mind.
Now you should have EITHER two great big rectangles or 4 smaller rectangles. We're making the top first, so put that other pillowcase someplace safe. But not TOO safe.
Hokay. So the next step is to make a few snips so your big rectangles resemble a camisole shape, sort of. Like this:

I eyeballed how wide the back piece should be and was off by prolly 4 inches. Because apparently in my head I have a giant Quasimodo hump? Maybe?
The front section will be gathered so it should be about 4/5 inches bigger than you are.
And SEW! Right sides together and whip up yer side seams. You could get all fancypants and french seam them for prettiness sake. Let's pretend I did that, kay?

So now you fold over and hem the raw top bits like this see:

And here lets pretend I folded them twice instead of leaving them raw edged like this. (Man, pinking shears made me lazy. Also, laziness made me lazy).

Ok. Time to do a spot o' gathering. And I'm using the sew-along-some-dental-floss method for this. I can't for the life of me remember where I saw this; but whomever invented it might need to go and collect their Noble Prize for Awesomeness. I've heard Stockholm is lovely this time of year.
Anyway, you sew a wide-ish zigzag along a piece of dental floss then gather it up all super smoothly. Like this see.

Then sew over your gathers to hold them in place.
Should be starting to look like a cami about now.
Time to add some straps. You could use a bit of bias binding, sewn over the gathers then extended to make straps (if you see what I mean).
But I happened to have this crochet trim and a powerful yen to use it. So I made straps like this:

Then stuck some more trim over the gathers and sewed up the bottom hem. An voila. Jammie top.

Now here's where the tute gets REALLY half-assed. There are about a million tutorials on making short out there in the interwebs. my very favourite is this one here by Dana of  MADE. It makes sense and has pretty pictures and everything. My shorts look like a pair of elasticated waist short shorts. Pretty uninspiring, they just happen to be made out of a pillowcase.  And there's not a power in the 'verse could convince me to model them on the intertubes.  But lookit, this is what the jammie top looks like on your's truly

And that's it. I'm going to have Cant Touch This in my head for WEEKS. Awesome.

This is it, for a winner Dance to this and you're gonna get thinner Move, slide your rump Just for a minute let's all do the bump, bump, bump 

Oh, and I shared here:

And at the new link par-tay over at Mine For The Making - DIY Diva Thursdays. You guys! FASHUN diys! I'm all over it like a bad smell!

Peachy Keen Mani - How To

I'll be posting a tute later today, with Jammies, and MC Hammer. (But sadly not for hammer-pant jammies, though the idea has merit). But I just wanted to coo a bit over my newest obsession. See:

Fingers!
No. Not Fingers, I've had those for ages. My newest obsession is quick-drying nail polish. Because... Awesome. Plainly awesome. Sally Hansen Insta-Dry I have (non paid endorsement) hearts for you.
And I wanted to share how I squeeze an extra couple of days out of polish if (when) it gets chipped at the ends:
Like ZIZ, see?

I think they look like slices of peach and the in these clashy colours they have an early Fresh Prince vibe going on (What? That's a thing right?)

They're also super easy to do. You wait til your base colour is looking kinda meh and a little chipped. Then you swipe a layer of contrasting colour over the tips at an angle. The insta-dry works brill for it cause it's REALLY opaque and pigment-y so you don't need two coats.  And done. 

And now for a long-winded anecdote!

So, I used to only ever wear two colours. EVER. Dark red on my toes and light pink on my fingernails. And that as the law and the law was... actually kind of dumb, but whatever. It's just what I did.

Anyway, I was picking up some polish to go with my Maid of Honour frock and trying to decide between Ballet Slipper sheer and Icy Pink sheer when Teddy was all,
"WELLOW! Mummy! Wellow! and Green and BLUE!"
 So I tried on a nailful of each and they were pretty and opaque-y and dried instantly, just like it says.
"Ooou" I said. But I bought the Ballet Slipper.
Then Teddy spent the rest of the day cooing over the pretty "Wellow" on the random nail I left painted.
So I picked up a "wellow".
Then a green. Then a bright bright pink. And a dark blue. And now I am powerless in the face of my addiction. (though I've been picking them up when they're on sale at like $4-5, which I justify in a "Hey, it's about the price of a Starbucks" way. Or by using my Drugstore points.)
My kid makes my life more colourful (and maybe braver) is what I'm saying here.

political animals

This is something I wrote way back in the first few months of the year, and didn't post, it's a bit personal, and it has nothing to do with the stuff I normally write about here. But given how the rest of the summer has gone for me and the bizarro situation at home (in England) just now-ish, I figured what the hell.  So that's what this is, the backstory is the revolution in Egypt, which I watched compulsively on the BBC for hours and hours...

I've been pondering some other things.
Like, do you remember the moment you became an adult? Or that you took your first steps to adultiness? (If the moment  you're thinking of is a nekkid one then that's prolly not the one I mean.)
I mean the minutes, hours or days when your horizons broadened exponentially and the world turned into a place to be observed as opposed to a place to move through mindlessly.
Yah, then.
What's going on in Egypt right now has me thinking about this. 
My moment came with a revolution too.
It was late December of  1989 I was 11 (just). It was the second Christmas that the Fat-Man-in-Red wasn't an unassailable truth for me; and I was still so practiced at believing that it almost felt irrational not to believe.
Both my parents, my sibs, my Auntie M and Uncle Ant and my brand-new cousin Gabe were ensconced at a villa in Centre Parcs (80's, English, middle-class Resort and Center O' Funtimes). 
There are a few things that I recall about that holiday. A new teddy bear with a stern/charming face (named Edward, natch). Riding on the back on my dad's bike "yah mule yah!". Taking the big water chute for the first time. And the fall of Ceausescu's regime in Romania and the subsequent days of violence.  
This is me then.*

We are a family of obsessive news watchers. And it was a big year for news.  We watched as the Berlin wall fell. (2 days after my 11th birthday and the same day my teacher had confidently informed me that the wall would "never fall".)  My mum let me stay up late to watch that, but what we saw reported from Bucharest looked different to Berlin; Berlin was all all joyous faces and mullets. The faces in Bucharest were a grim mix of blistering fear, and something that looked unstoppable, hope maybe. We watched tanks firing on Ceausescu's palace and my world got bigger,  the concept of freedom solidified for me. 
I, of course, had no idea what it was like to live anything but a life of privilege, no concept of what the realities of oppression were (thank goodness), but I could feel, and see - writ large on people's faces - the idea that some things were worth fighting - and fighting ugly and bloody - for. 
That Look is in Egypt now;  on the faces of women; and in my (over simplified) opinion, young men always seem to be shouting about something, when young women break down a lifetime of conditioning and start shouting on the streets, well that's when the world is about to change. 
So I watch. Compulsively. For hours. Hoping for the usual things for the brave women and men on the streets, you know, peace, freedom, lives lived well and happily




*Oh my god. The sailor dress. Wowzers.

The Right Stuff - or Teddy's ROCKETSHIP Party

My kid was born in February. You know, coldest, darkest, stinkin'est month of the year February. Lounging around on my balcony in the sunshine and warmth - which is totally what I'm doing now -  I can barely remember how lousy it is to be cold.

So Teddy's parties will probably always be of the indoor variety (unless he adopts an official birthday, like the Queen. Which actually isn't that bad an idea, come to think of it).

Without the option of bouncy structures and water-based outside shenanigans, themes are where it's at. His first birthday was a Mustache party. His second was  Monkey V's Robot. And never happened on account of copious amounts of sick (yay for birthdays in flu season. No wait, not yay.) And his 3rd was a ROCKET SHIP party. And it went a bit like this:

There were magnetic invitations to stick to the fridge, like this:

'Member the magnetic photo-backing stuff from this post? I loves it (in fact it might be my new favourite medium. It's my new clear plastic chopping board or contact paper) 

And star cookies like this:

And planet-decorated water bottles like this:

And an extraordinary cake, (made by my good chum Sarah, whom, it turns out, is a bloody genius cake decorator) like this: 

 This lousy picture doesn't do justice to the extreme awesomeness of the thing, or the fact that it was three different flavours of deliciousness and had marshmallow fondant and a picture of my kid on it.  For reals.

There was a photobooth wall, like this:

Made out of a plastic dollarstore tablecloth; with white stars and red planets -cut from plain white printer paper and recycled (as in, from the recycling pile) card - and double-sided taped onto the tablecloth.

There were (dollar store foam-core board) cut-outs of astronaut helmets, like these: 

 And a felt helmet for the birthday kid. Like this.

There were COSMOnauts  for the grown-ups (see, like cosmonaut, but with Cosmopolitans, see? see?You guys, that still makes me smirk) And Cosmo-NOTS for the non boozing crowd (that makes me smirk too! hearts for puns.)

We made the cocktails by the pitcher, using  large slugs of vodka, triple sec, lime cordial and low calorie cranberry juice, over ice, the cosmo-nots were orange juice, cranberry juice and a dash of lime cordial over squished up ice.

There were, I vaguely recall, other decoration type things too, and food maybe? But I (of course) forgot to take pictures.
At any rate, Teddy was fairly thrilled, and hijinx were had and the photobooth pictures turned out well. So I'm calling it a win
My sweetheart turns 40 (!) in a months time and I'm scrambling for an idea for that (his last two parties were superfuntimes, with secrets and red balloons and Grumpy Old Men).

been a while...

So, I accidentally neglected my blooge for O, 'bout 6 months. But here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to distract myself with a picture of my kid, get a bit caught up, THEN... pretend it NEVER happened.
What never happened?
EXACTLY!
So here's my kid and me driving a tractor - you may not recognise him on account of how he's turned into PRACTICALLY AN ADULT.

So. there's that, now about the catching up part. Expect a slew o' posts that make not-a-lot of chronological sense. 

And some politics. 

I have, up to now, avoided politics 'round here but it's been a very politisised early summer for me so I'm going to talk about it. And some of it is contentious; so I won't be offended if you're all 

"WHAT THE DEUCE? This woman is the worst kind of wishy washy liberal. I must unfollow her IMMEDIATELY, if not sooner."  

But before that there'll be a picture heavy write up of my kid's 3rd burfday party.  And me bragging on my HOLY-COW-I-DID-A-TRIATHLON! prowess. 

So, consider yourself fore-warned. 

Also? you guys? I've missed you and I hope your summer has been BLOODY BRILLIANT so far.

x

Waterloo Sunset

Well hi! Did everybody have a smoochy and super romantical valentines day? Ours was pretty magical.

Hey, did you know that my sweetie and I met on Valentines day? We did. 14 years ago. 14! By random chance at the end of a night. You know the Pulp song Something Changed? Like that.
Instead of going home we wandered around London; from bars to cafes and from Leicester Sq to Waterloo Bridge. It must have been cold but I don't remember that; I remember laughing until I snorted and never wanting the night to end. When the tube started running the next morning I was at least halfway to being madly in love.
We were practically babies. I was 18 (a cynical, city-bred-riot-gurl 18, but still 18). And of all the things that I chose then, (dubious outfits, terrible hair, the WRONG degree course) my sweetie was the best choice I made. Maybe ever. And I would choose him again and again. Then, and now.

Wait, where was I?
Oh yah! So Monday was SUCH a romantic night. We put the bear to bed. My sweetie cooked a feast. I put on something swishy. We used a tablecloth (swanky!). And we necked on the couch while watching Downton Abbey. It was PERFECT.
Part of my sweetie's giftie was kind of dumb but funny (at least in my head it's funny). He was in desperate need of new sockies, so I got 7 pairs (one sockie per year!) wrapped them up and made him a card with a pear on it that said WE are my favourite pair. Then totally chuckled to myself. A lot.

(You can't really see it but the paper is shiny and the pear has gold leaf on it. MAN I love shopping for swanky paper. I completely crack out and touch everything. Sometimes I sniff it. But Curry's frowns on licking the paper goods. Or, uh, so I've heard. )

royalty and poetry

So, this is what I've been doing with my paws just recently, 

It's for my sis (don't look Sarah!) and it's only half finished. The pattern is from Claire at the Crochet Spot  (love those guys!), and it's way easier than it looks and SUPER instant gratificationy (my favourite.) I'll be overdying it, maybe yellow, maybe tourquise; something springy at any rate.

The other thing of note (well, to me) is that my bear has discovered rhyming. When left to his own devices he will roll words around on his tongue, making up rhymes or finding them and making himself laugh out loud, 

"tree, snee, PEE".

Which, you guys, makes me ridiculously happy. See, I am a person who likes poetry. A LOT. 

I like to write it (don't worry I won't inflict it on you). I like to read it. I like to memorize it and the say it out loud to myself when I'm in the shower (what? that's a thing!). If I have a particularly strong feeling I like to read poetry that resonates with it. I don't have a favourite poet and I don't even have a favourite era but if it's meaning condensed into the succinctest form then I'm all over it like a bad smell. 

I particularly like an anthologie, because, you know, eclectic = awesome; and it's like being allowed a peek into its editors head. (if you're similarly inclined then two of my favorites are the Staying Alive and Being Alive by Neil Astley (this isn't one of those buy-it-and-I-get-cash things, I just loves them)).

normal

Hoo boy! How did 3 weeks go by? What have you guys been up to? Obsessively watching the coverage from Egypt? Snuffling down and avoiding the snowy snowiness? Brick training for yer triathlon? Rearranging your wardrobe? No wait, that's what I've been doing!

And I finished my TBI story. Done. It was so difficult that I got stress blisters on my hands (my own personal brand of crazy) but it's done and I hope that it will be useful. I might stick all my TBI stuff on one page and whack it in my sidebar. In case anybody is curious or (oh man, I hope not) in the same sort of situation. On the plus side, writing a novel with smooching and a happy ending seems like cake in comparison.

I haven't made anything! In fact I haven't even finished the stuff I was working on, but I'm slowly getting back on track.

And my bear is turning 3! THREE! I have no idea how this can possibly be; but apparently TIME just happens.
We have a rocket ship party planned and I've been making magnetic invites with a kind of MCM, nuclear-age thing going on. And planning theme cocktails; COSMOnauts for grown-ups and COSMO-nots for the non boozy crowd. And a photobooth with space suit helmet cutouts. And dressing our door as a space ship hatch. I may get all crazy and make Teddy as space suit, but we'll see.
And my ma is going to be here! Which is so awesome on account of Teddy has been talking about her constantly since September (Grammie makes cake? We make a cake for grammie? Grammie reads stories? Grammie drive a van? A Wolgs-wagon van?)
And we're all potty trained around here! (Wait, TMI? Maybe? I DID mean Teddy.) Bribery is an ugly word. But you guys, it was straight bribery.

And that's pretty much it. I've been wardrobe remixing like crazy on account of The Big Cull. I'm keeping track of the whats and wheres (and wears); if I can't work something at least two ways it's OUTTA here. (I'm LOUSY at this though so it's taking some willpower.) And let's see, this post needs a picture so it doesn't look all nekkid...
How about some FEET? Two pair. Kind of matching.

x