Sewing My Own Clothes

Today I feel especially grateful that my mom taught me the basics of sewing when I was young.

My sister-in-law came over today to play while her husband and my husband busied themselves with a game called "The Realm of the Mad God." We decided it would be fun to make her a pair of pajama pants. I had already made two pairs of pajama pants for me in the last year, and I made some pants for the Squeaker (in fact, we had matching Christmas Jammies this year!), but she hadn't sewed anything since she was in Young Women's.

We smoothed out the flannel fabric and laid out the pattern pieces and cut them out, pinned them together, sewed them. I say we, but my sister-in-law did most of the work. I walked her through it, but mostly re-threaded the needle on my sewing machine. Here is the final product:

I think they turned out nice! That's the Squeaker she's holding. Isn't he cute? She wore her new pants for the rest of the day, partly because she said they were comfy, and also because she felt proud that she made them herself. And I think that is really great. I always love sewing my own clothes. I haven't done it very much (so far) but every time I do, I feel empowered that I have the capacity to thwart the evil forces of consumerism. I'm glad I could share that sense of empowerment with someone else. My sister-in-law told me that this was the first sewing project where she didn't get frustrated and annoyed with the whole thing, which I took as a very deep compliment.

My Christmas present from The Husband was a sort of unofficial gift certificate to the fabric store of my choice. I hate shopping for clothes at the store because it's so difficult to find something in a style I like in a size that fits, and that's also a decent color. When I make my own clothes, I feel like I have a lot more control over those variables. I bought a pattern for a blouse and enough fabric to make two articles of clothing. I made this:

 

Truthfully, the fabric isn't my favorite color. I just happened to have it lying around but I thought I'd experiment with the pattern on it before using my beloved blue paisley. All the girls in Egypt were wearing this exact same style in 2004. Since I was making this blouse myself, I raised the neckline about an inch and a half. Because that is what Mormons do. 

Wanna know what else I did today? I darned some socks!! Way back in 2008, I knitted some socks for my brother-in-law. When he came over on Monday to visit, I saw that he had worn a huge hole (about the size of a 50 cent piece) in the heel of one of the socks.  Obviously he really liked them. So I looked up how to fix them on the internet. 

"Do you want me to try to fix your socks?" I asked him. 

"Maybe," he replied in a tone of voice that reminded me of Edna from the Incredibles when she says, "Oh, you push too hard, dahling!"

So I did. I used red embroidery floss. I wish I had taken a picture; it looked kinda neat. I hope it holds up for at least another two and a half years. Apparently he really likes those socks.

Christmas Eve and Lack of Sleep

This year has gone by so quickly, I can hardly believe it. Didn't I just barely blog about New Year's?

I haven't been blogging much this month, as I'm sure you've noticed. My time has been busy with a myriad of other activities. I baked an obscene amount of cookies, for example. I never thought I'd get sick of cookies. We still have a bunch crammed into two gallon-sized ziploc bags, and that's after giving a whole lot of them away as Christmas treats. I also made matching Christmas Jammies for me and the Squeaker. The Husband did not feel it necessary to participate in the Jammy-Matching Extravaganza, but that's ok.

We have a lot of Christmas traditions at my house. When I was growing up, one of these was that all the kids would sleep in one room (usually mine) on Christmas Eve. That was a lot of fun, until we grew up and some of us (not saying who...) started snoring and others of us (not naming names) began to groan in our sleep. I usually have difficulty sleeping on Christmas Eve because I get too excited, so the additional ambient noises didn't help very much.

I remember one Christmas in particular, the first time I came home for Christmas after my first semester at BYU. My family was living in Kuwait at the time, so in addition to the Christmas Spirit, I was also horribly jet-lagged. I lay awake in my bed, staring at the ceiling. I heard my sister stir.

"Hey! Hey, Meryl*!" I whisper.

"Wha?" she says.

"Hey! Meryl! Are you asleep?"

"No."

"How awake are you?"

"I dunno."

"Well, I can't sleep. Wanna play a game of cards?!"

". . .Ok."

So we play a game of go fish or war or something. After a measly two games she says, "Ok, I'm ready to go back to sleep now."

"Are you sure? I'm still awake."

To which she replies, ever so eloquently, "Zzzzzzzzz."

"Dangit," I mutter. So that was about three am or something. Our parents decreed years ago that seven am is the cutoff time for getting up and opening presents. It was a very long night.

2003 was about the last time I was so excited for Christmas I couldn't sleep. I spent Christmas of 2004 in a hotel room in Amman and had a weird dinner that involved poorly-prepared fish (I hate fish) so that wasn't exactly memorable. Oh, and that year the only present I got was a thing I got from a white elephant party that included a container of pepto bismol. The year after that I was married, and since then I was just a regular old grown-up. Grown ups don't have as much fun as kids. It's the law.

But now? Now I have a kid. I have a kid who loves balloons (known at our house as "boom-booms") and bubbles and blocks. And balls. Lots of things that start with B. So The Husband and I blew up about fifty balloons "from Santa," and he is also getting a thing of bubbles in his stocking, and three things of blocks under the tree. I cleared off a bunch of space on my camera so I can record the look on his face when he comes downstairs and sees that Santa brought *gasp!* boom-booms GALORE! And it's only 11 pm. Why can't the morning COME already?!

*Not her real name. She hates it when I blog about her.

ReWriting

They say that all writing is re-writing. I say "They" in the ambiguous sense, kind of like how "They" say that you're not supposed to go swimming until a half hour after you eat. No one knows who "They" are, but you had better do what "They" say, or risk the consequences.

But anyway, they say that all writing is re-writing. I think that's true. After NaNoWriMo I decided to return to my other book, the one that I started writing in 2004. After letting it marinate for a month, I got some really good ideas and interesting and awesome ways to close all those pesky plot holes.

Unfortunately, this means a complete re-write. And that means I have to start at the beginning. Again. Interestingly enough, this also means that I've managed to snip off a good five thousand words in the last two days. Sure, it's shorter, but it's also more interesting to read. And it's also less embarrassing, in that if someone were to read the first twelve pages, I would not feel a desire to hide in the broom closet for a week.  That's something, right?

As recently as June, I let people see the working draft, which included some really embarrassing material. When I went back and read those parts, I kind of wanted to die. "I can't believe I showed that to anyone. Please excuse me while I cover my face with a paper bag."

In the most recent draft, the heroine has a little something I like to call a backbone. There's nothing I hate more than invertebrate heroines.

Amusing Anecdotes from my Past

It's been a while since I posted an Amusing Anecdote from my past.

Unfortunately I can't think of any. So I'll just have to tell you this one.

There was this one time when I was about twelve or something, I took apart a hair dryer to see what the insides looked like. I won't say I did it to "see how it worked," because a thorough examination of the insides gave me zero insight into its inner workings. I later collected the copper wire from the motor and used it to re-root the hair of one of my barbie dolls.

I cut off the cord part, the part that plugs into the wall. I noticed there were two bundles of wire, so I separated these and exposed about an inch of it. Then, sometime around 11 pm when my parents were asleep and I knew I could get away with it, it struck me as a good idea to plug the cord into the wall and touch the two ends together.

I was greeted with a shower of blue sparks and the electricity in my room went out. I spent the next twelve hours or so freaking out. "I BROKE THE HOUSE!" Luckily everything was fixed with a simple switch of the circuit breaker. My mom, who looked very much as though she was trying very hard not to chortle, impressed on me that a repeat of the experiment was not a good idea.

I never played with electricity again. But I started taking apart things. I made jewelry out of it. And also a playset for my star trek action figures.

Door-to-Door Salesman

I forgot I wanted to mention this story.

So a couple of nights ago a guy came to our door trying to sell a subscription to "your local church news." He told me about how desperate he was for funds so he could buy presents for his family. I told him that we didn't need a paper subscription because we had the internet and he tried to tell us how inconvenient the internet was. "It hurts your eyes. You can take a paper anywhere. It's really portable!" Obviously no one had told him about the iphone.

I ended up just telling him that we weren't interested. After he left, The Husband pointed out that it was probably a scam, especially seeing how he was trying so hard to tug on our heartstrings.  Later I thought, "Well, obviously he was talking about Mormon church news...but why did he automatically assume we were Mormon?" I don't like people making assumptions about me, even if they are true. I wish I had messed with his mind a little.

"Which local church?" I could have asked.

"The Mormon one," he'd reply.

"....Oh," I'd say, looking uncertain. "We're [Seventh Day Adventists/ Theravada Buddhist/ Raelians/ Bahai], so...."

"Ah." At this point he'd act supremely embarrassed and attempt to withdraw gracefully.

Maybe next time.

OK, So I lied.

I know I said I'd start blogging three times a week. That was on Thursday last week. Since it's now Friday on the following week, this makes me a dirty, rotten liar. So shoot me.

I've been up to a lot of exciting, interesting things. I saw the Sorcerer's Apprentice, a delightful movie. I think I would have liked it much better had it not been so derivative. It seems like no one can make any reference at all to magic without mentioning Merlin and Morgan la Fey.

I got out the ol' tatting shuttles. I'll post pictures later.

I've been extremely preoccupied with the wikileaks business. Whether you agree with the release or not, the fallout has been fascinating. It's a true cyber war, with the US Department of State on one hand, urging its employees to avoid accessing the cables on their personal computers (despite the fact they have been splashed all across the NY Times and BBC and The Guardian); and the collective consciousness of Anonymous on the other, wreaking general havoc on the 'net. I like to imagine little cyber siege towers creeping inexorably onward to assault the iron gates of Amazon.com.  I'm surprised that the US Department of State was able to announce World Press Freedom day with a straight face.

I've also been obsessively following the reaction to the new TSA "security" measures. I direct you to Bruce Schneier, the nation's foremost expert on security and counter-terrorism.

Also I've been reading the Mistborn books by Brandon Sanderson. I just finished the second one, Well of Ascension, this afternoon. That has kept me very busy indeed.

Christmas!! And some other stuff

I know very few people who do not love Christmas. Ebeneezer Scrooge is one. And I can't think of anyone else.

I put up my tree on the day after Thanksgiving, and we've been singing Christmas Carols in my house a lot. By we I mean me, because the Squeaker isn't old enough to sing them, too. Sometimes The Husband will hum them because I effectively got them lodged in his head.

I've been giving more thought into working towards becoming a published author. As in, actually getting a manuscript cleaned up enough to send out to agents and publishers. To that end, I understand that the best way to sell books is to create a brand around yourself as an author. This makes me feel conflicted because marketing myself like that seems a) egotistical, and b) uncomfortably close to prostitution.

So I dunno.

I have decided that I want to blog more regularly, though. We have enough people in this world that update their blogs on Monday/ Wednesday/ Friday, so I have decided to update on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Now that NaNoWriMo is over, I'm turning back to my other novel, the one I started six years ago as scribbles in my notebook when I should have been reviewing Arabic verb forms. Since It's had a month marinating in the back of my mind, I have lots of ideas for revisions. I edited chapter four yesterday, for example. When I showed it to my buddies in my writing group, I got some really enthusiastic feedback.

And there is, of course, the LDS Christmas Story contest, which has a nice little widget in the sidebar. I want to write something for it, but I can't think of anything good. I want to write something funny and interesting, and decidedly not sappy.

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Speaking of Mormon culture and sappiness, a friend of mine is letting me borrow a book (Eve and the choice made in Eden). I decided I didn't like it, not because I disagree with it, but because of the flaws inherent in most theological Mormon Scholarship. Those flaws are threefold: 1) too much reliance on quotes from Hugh Nibley, 2) Too much reliance on Bruce R. McConkie, and 3) an overenthusiastic love of all things Hebrew.

The first two are self explanatory; when you just say "Bruce R McConkie said this, and he said that, and he said this other thing, too," you end up  just sounding derivative. I should probably expound upon the third one.

I think we, in the Church specifically and also the Christian world in general, feel a special affinity for Judaism. I think it's because Christianity sprang out of Judaism and out of Jewish culture, and you can discover lots of cool things about the Gospel by going back to the original Hebrew text. But Judaism did not and does not exist in a vacuum. Judaism is just one branch of a very rich theological environment that is the Middle East. A study of Islam and the proto-religions of ancient Mesopotamia can yield just as much insight into gospel principles, and yet these are largely overlooked. It makes me sad. I don't have any problem with referencing Ancient Hebrew scholars in Mormon academia (I did, after all, take two semesters of Ancient Hebrew at BYU), but I think it is done to the exclusion of other faiths.

ETA: It might interest some of you that reportedly anti-Christian books like The DaVinci Code and The Golden Compass come to the same conclusions about Eve that are outlined in this book written by a Mormon.