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Three months gone

Feb 4th, 2013 by

So, I’m just about out of the first trimester, which is kind of weird. It should feel like a milestone, I think, but it really doesn’t. I think because I have been so fortunate and not had morning sickness, I hardly even feel pregnant, aside from my larger chest and, you know, having to pee every 45 minutes.

Outside of having to buy proper supportive brassieres for the first time, I’m still wearing my normal clothes. It’s too early to feel the baby move, though I saw it moving when they did the nuchal translucency ultrasound screening. That glimpse was the first time it really, really felt real. Now, it’s a matter of waiting and trusting that everything’s going right in there, which it probably is but I’m not terribly good at waiting, nor am I equipped to take things on faith. I always liked Emily Dickinson’s quip:

“Faith is a fine Invention
When Gentlemen can see —
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency.”

At this point there’s not a lot I can do – get my financial stuff in line, make diapers, and wait. I’m not going to embark on any especially ambitious sewing until I know if it’s a boy or a girl. Other things, like equipment aren’t necessary to lay in at this point, either, especially as the house is small and I’ve not yet excavated my sewing room and converted it to a kid’s room.

The only pre-baby prep work I’ve been able to do is removing wallpaper over at The Little House. The new, updated timeline is to have the place done before that baby appears on the scene, so we’ve gotta hustle! So, I’ve been working on my least-favorite home-renovation task in the world – scraping off old wallpaper. If you hear muffled, yet vehement cursing ringing up and down Ann Avenue, you’ll know I’m bustin’ a move on The Little House.

Posted in Home Improvements, Up The Pole | No Comments »

Prepping – ish.

Feb 3rd, 2013 by

Simplicity 8229

This is a 1969 Simplicity pattern which was one of two that my Mom or one of my aunts and one of her friends used to make beach coverups when they were in high school. They’d go to the flea market and buy cheap, brightly colored beach towels and then cut the front and one sleeve out of one towel, and the back and the other sleeve out of the other towel. The other pattern they used was a self-lined cape which would be cut in the same contrasting fashion and would be considered reversible. Because they went swimming in the Pacific at Santa Cruz, a terrycloth dress was a welcome layer after a brisk seawater swim.

Years ago, Grandma gave me all of the old sewing patterns she’d had lurking around in the drawer in her spare room, and those ones my Mom had used as a girl were among them.

I wasn’t sure that I’d ever really use this one, since I’m not normally an Empire waist girl, but now that I’ve pitched up pregnant, I’m seeing the potential in this pattern.

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The first is this sleeveless effort made out of an offcut of rayon-based jersey I got from a friend who’d been cleaning out her craft supplies stash. I really love the print, which is an abstract floral, perhaps stylized daffodils? I feel that it fits the spirit of a 1969 dress pattern.

For the second dress I made, I nicked the flutter sleeve (the middle layer from View 3) from another 1969 Simplicity dress pattern, seen below:

1969juniormiss
I once made up View 2 in white eyelet, then never wore it. I gave it to my sister, who used it for Halloween one year when she went as an angel. Even when I was 19, this look was too ingenue for me.

Anyway, this sleeve combined with the other dress will work out pretty well. I wanted one with sleeves, for when I am feeling lazy about shaving my armpits (which is usually). This is what I ended up with:

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Once again, I feel that I have managed to hit an period-appropriate note with the combination of fabric and style. This is a polyester based knit which I’d originally purchased to make a 1980s-style batwing top, but decided against because I remembered in the nick of time that I look like hell in big, drapey, cowl-necked tops.

Since looking “good” is more or less optional during pregnancy, I reckon these two dresses will see me through June/July. I recently picked up one proper maternity pattern, Butterick B5860, which features a wrap-dress as well as a simple trouser pattern. I have two nice pieces of jersey for the dress: one in a clever gradated polkadot pattern in teal-and-white, and the other a classic pattern of concentric rounded boxes in magenta, black, grey, and white.

I’ll probably make up the trousers in black for work. I also got two non-maternity but sufficiently tent-y blouse patterns that should make acceptably chic tops for my work uniform. Vogue V8709, which you can see via another seamstress’s interpretation here, is a “trapeze” line top with a collar, pockets, and buttons up the front. Vogue V1274 is a bit more dramatic, with an asymmetrical front closing and a handkerchief hem. I’m afraid I’m using nothing more elegant and lovely than plain old white cotton percale for these tops, but they are for my work uniform, and therefore must be washable-bleachable-and-dryable.

I’m holding off on the majority of my baby-based sewing projects (outside of diapers), as I’m wanting to find out if it is a boy or a girl. Not that I’m planning to be going all crazy-go-nuts pink-is-for-girls-blue-is-for-boys, but rather, I want to know if I should make the sailor suit with shorts or a skirt.

Posted in Fashion, Fashion/Sewing stuff, Sewing, Up The Pole | No Comments »

What we need more of is weird cars!

Feb 1st, 2013 by

Because I like Top Gear and because I have a lingering fondness for drastically odd cars, I find myself browsing around in some of the more British sections of the motoring Interweb and today came across one of the most fascinating reviews of obscure, British three-wheeled cars.

Now of course, even we Yanks know about the ungainly Reliant Robin, which looked like the unholy alliance of a Yugo 45 (Zastava Koral) and a wheelbarrow.

They were the bane of Mr. Bean’s life:

And we’ve seen all three of the Top Gear blokes do inadvisable things to them:

But there are other and probably better 3-wheelers out there, and to the point, much, much more fanciful.

The 3-wheelers discussed in the Telegraph article above are mostly kit cars, mostly based on motorcycle components. Starting anywhere from around £2,000 and ranging to over £30,000 for the Morgan, they’re a mixed bag of home-made hellcats and high-brown engineering. What they definitely are is interesting, which is something the motoring world needs to see more often.

If you’d like a high-res slide-show to go along with the original story, here it is.

And now, because it is just so insane that I think everyone should get a chance to see it, here Richard Hammond of Top Gear test-drives the outlandish Dutch Vandenbrink Carver which seems like something out of a very humorous science-fiction action movie.

You cannot tell me you wouldn’t like to have a go in this thing, just once, just to see how insane and unsettling it has got to be in action? It’s like a roadgoing carnival ride.

Posted in Cars as a hobby, Delight, Oh, for fuck's sake, Take A Look At This, Utter Silliness, Weird as Hell | 2 Comments »

I fully intend to mine this for comedy gold

Jan 25th, 2013 by

So. That happened.

Even ladies who wear horrible pink-and-yellow marbelized Crocs can get up the pole!

Even ladies who wear horrible pink-and-yellow marbelized Crocs can get up the pole!

Though it may surprise a few of my friends, this was completely intentional. I’d been ambivalent about having kids for a very long time (obviously, as I’m 35 and pregnant for the first time) but now that it’s happened, I’m actually really excited. Like no second thoughts, no “oh-shit-what-have-I-done.” I’m just totally stoked. I feel like a one-woman-science-fair-project and am fascinated by what’s presumably going on with the little parasite I’m hosting.

About a year ago, Joel and I started seriously discussing having a baby. I had my IUD removed. Then, I promptly freaked the fuck out and we tabled the baby-having-plans indefinitely. This past October, we decided it was fish-or-cut-bait time, and thus began conducting live fire exercises. Things happened a little (lot) quicker than I expected, considering as how we’re both kind of old and all. Given actual, you know, planning, I’d have tried to aim for a springtime baby, so that I wouldn’t have to contend with horrible winter weather when the baby was likely to be born, or to be gigantically pregnant during the dog days of summer. I guess I’ll get to miss out on most of August, though I reckon that will be cold comfort as July wears on.

Shortly after I came over all pregnant, I inflicted upon Joel a dose of my execrable sense of humor. He’d not ever heard the old chestnut about “what’s the best thing about banging a pregnant chick.” Every once in a while, I will make some comment so lewd and tasteless that it makes bits of his poor, beleaguered brain go “foom.” This was one occasion upon which he was rendered speechless.

But the thing is, I’m not the beauty-and-magic-of-motherhood type. I consider the whole business of making other humans almost tragically ridiculous and can hardly believe that it’s a real “thing” though I am manifestly experiencing that reality at the moment. Ah well, as the Wife of Bath was wont to say:

“Experience, though noon auctoritee
Were in this world, were right ynogh to me”

So as far as any factual content in this post, I suppose it wouldn’t be amiss to say that the baby is meant to put in an appearance on or around August 10, 2013, which is perilously near my youngest nephew’s 8-12 birthday. My family is thick with August birthdays, including my Mom, my sister, her son, one of my Mom’s younger sisters (they share the same birthday, but five years apart!), one of my Dad’s younger sisters, that aunt’s husband, another uncle, and a cousin. And, presumably, this one. Initially, because I am inexcusably shit with numbers, I had reckoned that this kid was liable to be born about 9-10-13, but as it turns out, I apparently counted a month twice or something. When they told me the proper due date at the doctor’s office, I started cackling like an insane hen. I’m pretty sure the ultrasound tech thought I’d lost my giddy biscuit. I then had to explain both my arithmetic error and my family’s overwhelming dominance of the month of August. When I told Mom that I was adding to the August Army, she began gloating like a gloating thing. When I’d previously thought it was going to all happen in September, she joked that perhaps if Baby got in a hurry, he or she could celebrate her birthday with her (8-28). It doesn’t look like that’s going to be happening, but I have a feeling that my nephew’s birthday week might end up being a bit eventful.

Posted in Delight, Distractions, Oh, for fuck's sake, Up The Pole, Weird as Hell, Well I'll Be Darned | 14 Comments »

Power, speed, luxury! Feh. Who needs it?

Jan 21st, 2013 by

I’ve long been interested in utilitarian, economy cars. Since before I was old enough to drive, I considered the cheap, serviceable runabout fascinating. Of course, I was inclined to be biased; my Dad worked on air-cooled Volkswagens as a sideline job, and we had one as a family car from the early 1980s on.

I remember first hearing of the Citroën 2CV when I was probably about 10 years old. I’d been reading the Noel Streatfield “Shoes” book series and sympathised with petrol-head Petrova from the Ballet Shoes novel. At a point in the story, she’s been obsessing about a revolutionary Citroën car she’d read about in a magazine (I’m guessing it was the TPV prototype, the forerunner of the iconic 2CV) and she strikes up acquaintance with a couple she spots at a filling station who happen to have one. These eccentric motorists turn out to be connected to the world of ballet, and Petrova’s automotive fascination turns into a networking opportunity for her older sister, who is a gifted dancer.

Anyway, I was curious enough about the Citroën make to go back to the library and check out some books on old, foreign cars, and, at that point in time (late 1980s) the Citroën 2CV was still actually in production! I thought it would be very cool to try one out someday. I also learned a lot of motoring terminology that was uncommon in the USA, such as the appellation “saloon car” which we here in the States would call a “sedan.” The 2CV particularly caught my attention because it had an air-cooled engine, as did the VW, was known to be odd-looking and underpowered, like the VW, but was overall a fairly sophisticated cheap car, with its four wheel independent suspension, hydraulic brakes, and standard-equipment heater.

Some years later, as a physically unfortunate Junior High student, I found myself in an orthodontist’s waiting room about to be fitted with braces and headgear. To pass the time, I leafed through a Car & Driver magazine, which was mostly full of boring family cars, expensive sports-coupes, and comparisons between one dull BMW and another stodgy Mercedes. Bleh. But on one of the news-snippets pages, there was a column announcing the end of production of the Citroën 2CV. I remember feeling a bit sad about the end of an era, thinking that another so interesting car would probably never again be produced.

And this post wouldn’t be complete without a bit of video hijinks so here you see “TV’s Oz Clarke” offroading one:

And here is Bill Bailey recounting the misadventures he visited upon his first car, which was a 2CV:

I still haven’t gotten a chance to test-drive a 2CV – they’re a bit thin on the ground here in the States, but I expect that someday I will.

Posted in Cars as a hobby, Delight, Distractions | 3 Comments »

Heat-Seeking Varmint

Jan 14th, 2013 by

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When I woke up this morning, it was kind of cold in the front rooms of the house. That is because this rotten beast was plugging up the main heat vent between the kitchen and dining room.

While it’s annoying as hell, I do kind of sympathise with the little brute. When I was a kid, my folks heated their house with a woodburning stove, so there were select places in the house that were pleasant to occupy during the winter. Within a 10′ radius of the big stove in the basement was choice. The corner between the chimney and the kitchen wall in the living room upstairs was nice, too, because you had all the south light from the row of old schoolhouse windows that formed the main feature of our front room, plus you had the nice, warm chimney to lean up against. That was one of my principal wintertime reading hangout spots when I was a kid. To this day, whenever I re-read The Wind In The Willows or The Secret Garden, I lament the lack of a warm chimney to lean against.

My other little hideout was on top of the deep-freezer in the basement. If I curled my toes over the lid, I’d catch a draft of warm air coming up off the compressor, and if Mom was running a load of laundry, I could point the dryer vent hose at myself and bask in the warm, damp, Downy-scented dryer exhaust.

So yes, I completely understand Griswald’s impulse to plug up the furnace register, but I absolutely do not support it. He’s not the only creature in the house who likes to have warm feet!

Posted in Cats | No Comments »

Maybe the best-worst thing I’ve ever made

Dec 30th, 2012 by

“I wish the diapers came with poop already on them..”

Said no parent, EVER.

doody diaper

So, of course, I had to make one! Apologies for the doody sloping downhill – I should have pinned it rather than free-hand stitched it in place. Then again, how anal do you really want to get about something that’s only going to be crapped on?

This is the culmination of a project I set for myself, which was to learn how to make decent re-usable diapers. I think this design is going to be pretty nice. You can close it with just one safety pin, or two, if the baby gets wider and needs more room. They’re adjustable, is what I’m saying.

It is interlined with waterproof ripstop nylon to minimize seepage, and being as I was using my thinking brain, I applied the applique to the outside layer of fabric only, so the little turd on the rear won’t be the failure point.

I’ve got a friend with a 6-month-old daughter lined up to give these a try-out, so we shall see if they actually stand up to real world conditions.

Whoop-whoop!

Posted in Art Projects & Making Things, Delight, dumb things I have done, Sewing, Utter Silliness | No Comments »

The Infamous DX

Dec 27th, 2012 by

the famous DX by Meetzorp
the famous DX, a photo by Meetzorp on Flickr.

The 1.5 litre 1988 Honda Civic DX has enough pickup through the lower range of gears that I can get annoyed at other drivers for being slow on the takeoff.

In fact, it is just sprightly enough that I can combine impatience and enjoyment in almost equal measure. It is a capable freeway car, though acceleration in fifth gear is negligible at best. It is a true overdrive, and if you get bogged down by, say, a lumbering bread truck cutting you off from an on-ramp, you are best to shift down to fourth and get on by as quickly as possible, preferably with a maximum of cathartic swearing.

Posted in Car Drama and trauma, Cars as a hobby, Holidailies 2012, Recommendations | No Comments »

As promised/threatened

Dec 23rd, 2012 by

Here is the other horrible dress I rescued out of a trash heap.

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It is in such great condition and it is such an excellent example of the fashion of a very specific point in time (very early 1980s) that I had to keep it. It may be ass ugly. It may be a color that is completely wretched with my complexion. It may be an utterly unspeakable garment. But in all of its awfulness, it manages to be rather spectacular.

This one I have yet to wear in public. I half-assed considered wearing it to Joel’s work holiday do, but I really don’t want to embarrass him in front of his co-workers. At least not because of my dress sense.

Posted in Dumpster Diving, Fashion, Holidailies 2012, Weird as Hell | No Comments »

From the department of The 1980s.

Dec 22nd, 2012 by

Untitled-TrueColor-01

This dress. I own it. I have worn it in public. I found it in an enormous trash heap under a bridge in the West Bottoms.

I think that pretty much says it all.

Oh, not quite. Actually, I have another, worse dress, but in order to spin out this Holidailies thing, you have to wait until tomorrow to see it.

Posted in Costumes and disguises, dumb things I have done, Dumpster Diving, Fashion, Holidailies 2012, Utter Silliness, Well I'll Be Darned | No Comments »

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