Why I Like Shopping With My Son

My son and I were on a quest on the day before Christmas. We needed to find a pair of winter boots. Yep, he's been wearing sandels and white socks to school this winter. So we started at Burlington Coat Factory, moved on to Famous Footwear, landed at Marshall's, and finallly bought the boots at Walmart. Along the way, we learned that boots are pretty much the same wherever you go. It took 3 stores to accept that there's no such thing as half sizes in boots. Famous Footwear didn't have his size, and if it had, we would have ended up buying two pair of something, taken 50% off the second pair, and then 20% off the whole deal in order to get the price down to what all the other stores were charging. So keep that in mind if you need to buy cheap plastic molded snow boots.

But Marshalls was where we had THE BEST TIME. Because we spotted the MOST AMAZING SHOES. I got so excited I had to try them on. My boy said there was no way I could walk in them, but I proved him wrong. We giggled and chortled and took pictures, and I have to say, it really is true that if you wear an extra five inches on your feet, you really do look taller and skinnier. Don't you agree?

Oh, come on, don't I look, like, 12 feet tall? I'm an AMAZON! and look at the shoes! My boy says they look like rat shoes. The funny thing is, they didn't even feel like fake fur. They were like threads.

Hey, do you like the way my socks really set off the look? I have a real flair for fashion.

I have to admit, if they had cost $5, I'd have bought them and would be clunking around the living room in them right now. But these precious gems were going for $90, so, sadly, no such luck.

Of  course, this reminds me of a recent trip to the hospital with my Mom. I guess it was on Halloween, because there she was, this itty bitty thing, all snuggled up in the hospital bed, with her feet sticking out, wearing the same socks. At least she wears hers on the appropriate holiday. We have a bit of a thing over here where my Mom buys holiday-appropriate socks for us girls for various events. I'm to the point now where all I own are holiday socks and hand-knitted socks.

Texans Have to Take a Cruise to Wear Nuno Felted Scarves

Yep, my sister-in-law lives in Texas. I've been there. Texas, that is. And just as I imagine many of you are wondering why anybody would live in New York State, well, some of us New Yorkers wonder the same thing about Texas. It's hot. Really hot. And it doesn't have super cool mountains like we have. And it's hot. Really hot. So when I made my sister-in-law a scarf, I had my doubts. I made it as light-weight as I could, given the inferno that it was going to reside in. But my sister-in-law figured a way around it. She took a cruise, where she managed to find a place cold enough to do justice to the scarf and its wonderful warming properties.

My sister-in-law Pat, suited up at a penguin colony somewhere not in Texas

I suppose she could use the scarf as a table runner during the steamy hot days ahead in Texas



something the cat dragged in?

I don't have a cat, but if I did, there's a chance my latest project might turn out to be something the cat dragged in, assuming the cat drags a blue fuzzy snood through the door.

It all started when I got all inspired last weekend and decided I wanted to create a scarf with a hood attached. I googled away until I found a pattern on the internet. I printed the pattern, and then, rather than cut it out and follow it, I eyeballed it.

Note to self: Eyeballing. Not a good idea.

With fervid industry, I cut out my pattern from a nuno felted scarf that I had made. I then pinned things together and asked my sweet husband to sew it for me. That clever, clever man! He asked me if he could see the pattern, and I assured him that it was unnecessary because I knew exactly what to do.

Note to self: Must stop lying to husband.

So, he got out the sewing machine, plunked down my project, and promptly broke the needle on the sewing machine running over my pinning.

Eventually, he got a new needle in and sewed things up. We rested the scood, for that is what we were making, on my head, and my husband said, "Umm... you look like Sister Bertrille. Was that what you wanted?"

Err... no, I did not want to look like the Flying Nun. My sweet patookie valiantly offered to take the stitches out so I could try again, but it seemed to me that it was only appropriate that I suffer for my eyeballing decision, so I took it apart myself. And then I cut out the pattern.

Note to self: Wow! What a huge difference cutting out the pattern makes!

From there, taping the pattern together seemed like the next most amazingly brilliant brain fart.

Some reconstruction was necessary for the next round of pinning, because I must confess that the first time I eyeballed the pattern, it seemed to me that the middle piece (there are three pieces) was too long, so I eyeballed it and cut off the extra stuff.

Note to self: Really?

So, I pinned everything together, including the piece that I had cut off, and set my sweet sweet man to work.

There was much sighing. Apparently sewing together a project like this from a loosely organized nuno felted conglomeration of fiber isn't easy. I can remember thinking "Three straight lines, snip snip, how hard can this be?" But my sweet sweet man was having trouble with the tension, or the thread, or the sewing machine, or something. Anyway, eventually he finished, and I had myself a snood.

If you were to look too closely at my snood, you might notice that one side of the scarf was longer than the other. My sweet husband and I concluded that it just made my snoody wrap more efficiently around my neck. And with the snood on, I no longer look like a nun. All in all, this is the ugliest thing I've made so far, but I really like it, because I like to take walks with my handsome husband, and so on cold days I can wear the hood until I get too warm, and then use it as a scarf.