Hooray! I posted to one of my favorite forums at crafster.org. Checkout my nifty vintage inspired cold water wash bag I learned about this great site from a Lori podcast at Sew Forth Now.

Notes from Dogpatch

Here we are outside of the D.C. award ceremony.  I'm wearing the cute dressy outfit that I sewed as part of my sewn-with-a-plan mini wardrobe. Part of my plan was that it will also work for other festive spring and summer occasions. I’ve already worn it once back here at home. That also means I’ve successfully hand-washed both pieces.I was a little nervous about that.  Part of my wardrobe plan was to wear all three different tops with my tried-and-true black palazzo pants. This pattern is an out-of-print Butterick that was originally for capri pants. I’ve altered the pattern over the last few years. First it became the base for a wide legged divided skirt (I shot out at a diagonal from just below the pocket and also straightened the inside leg). I liked that so much that eventually I got brave and did a lengthened version for very wide-legged, elastic waist pants. Boy these pants are great. I make them all the time, particularly when Joanne’s has their 100% linen on sale. They really suit my life style and my figure. I go in very little at the waist and I don’t go out much at the hips.

 Luckily I checked my most recent pair of  good black linen pants I had made a few months ago in time, I had spent my time sewing   the cute top and jacket as well as two other tops and a pair of nearly knee-length black linen shorts/skorts (same pattern shorter!). Of course I knew those pants would be fine, so I simply put them in with the dark cold water wash on delicate and then hung them on the line to dry without paying them much attention.

 Was it the washing machine or is it just that I need to start interlining?

 As I went to pack I found two GREAT BIG HOLES right in the REAR END of my wonderful pants I can always count on! Of course first I tried to mend them by fusing scraps of black linen underneath the holes. How noticeable could it be? Well I looked exactly like somebody from Lil' Abner.  I could just imagine walking around W.D.C. having people think I came from Dog Patch. Luckily I had time to go to Joannes, buy more black linen and quickly sew a new pair. 

Sewing for D.C.

I'm focusing on sewing black and lime green for the summer. I've got a bit of copper in my hair so it's a good color combo for me. Inspired by many of the SewForthNow podcasts, I sewed a mini wardrobe with a plan for a recent trip! I've been enjoying wearing my new clothes since I came home too. I've since added a pretty black and white toile purse with a flower and some other embellishment bits in lime green. I got a lot of compliments walking through the community college where I study piano when I was wearing my new black and white toile shell top that matched the purse. I never seem to get to old to enjoy compliments!

I thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Washington  I have never had the opportunity to go to D.C. before and we managed, despite  work commitments (!), to slip in just over two days of tourist experience before the event that sparked the trip.  Visiting the Supreme Court and seeing the Lincoln Memorial, and the World War II and Washington monuments lit up at night, was like seeing the social studies textbooks come to life. We were also able to fit in  time at the American History Museum, National Gallery of Art and the National Portrait Gallery, as well as a very thorough visit to the Natural History Museum. We spent a fair amount of time admiring the rocks and minerals collection. I also searched out all the fossils I could locate. They are a lot easier to find behind glass than they are when you work as a volunteer field assistant. The trilobites there are gorgeous.

One of the many monuments we went to was the Vietnam wall. Though we are the right age, we fortunately  didn’t know anyone who died in Vietnam. Thinking geneology, we looked for family names to see if there might have been any very, very distant cousins. Again, happily very few possibilities, though I forgot to look for 'Jost' which might have turned up a candidate given my mother’s six boy cousins who could have had a child of the right age. Nor do I know the name of the family who Mama's grandfather married before the second concurrent wife. Yes, he was a bigamist. 

I did find an "Issac Taggart' born in Chicago Ilinois April 1 1947. Did grandmother Mary Taggart have any male relations who came over to this side of the pond and might have had children at that time? Was he a cousin many, many times removed?

Syncopation

Just finished practicing piano alternating between McDowell's "To A Wild Rose" and a boogie-woogie version of "Frankie and Johnny" both are big favorites of mine. What a great contrast shifting from the syncopated, B-flat, F&J to the slow, romantic A-centric Rose. And getting that syncopation down by next Wednesday is a nice challenge. I'm due to play F&J then. Wild Rose is my final class piece towards the end of May. There the big challenge is all the notes in the left hand, lots of movement and getting the lovely roll in my left hand at the point when my left hand just won't stretch across nine notes. Often I get the roll but then my right hand gets lost, so I have to really focus on engaging that muscle memory with lots and lots of single hand repetition.

Hold on and Bloom

Erignyum or fleabane daises growing in concrete on El Camino Real. Where's the dirt? What's making them not only grow but bloom luxuriantly?

They remind me that some people manage to come out great with no nourishment at all.

They makes me humble.

Alcatraz Part 2 of 2

New to me, it wasn’t only stereotypical bad guys like Capone and Machine Gun Kelly who were incarcerated in Alcatraz. Political prisoners and people of consciousness went as well. On a brief ranger-intern led walk we learned that Hopi parents who refused to send there children to culture-negating boarding schools were also taken there. Though I knew that those schools attempted to change native children into different people, I never heard before that there was a fifty percent mortality rate. That’s something to read up on.

                                  ………

In January I virtuously purged the house of maybe a fifth of our books and managed to eliminate and repurpose several book shelves. We have a small house and the sheer mass of stuff is overwhelming. I forced myself to donate even books I might, just maybe read again reminding myself continuously that if I really wanted to read it again, I would very likely be able to find another copy to check out from our marvelous vast county library system. I purged the house and piled box after box into the back of the car. I know I made at least five trips over to the donation zone during the week. Since then I’ve been awfully good about not buying every exciting book that I hear about on a talk show or in a podcast. And I have found all but one in the library system.

 

But did I follow through on the Alcatraz trip? Oh no… I brought home two new books from the Alcatraz gift store. However when we’re done with them, I’ll give them a year and then send them off to the book sale unless they’ve been reread or dipped into. OK maybe two years.

                                   …….

For the trip I wore the new Passover fleece vest I created. I used my tried and true jacket pattern, the bodice of which I always double. Here I cut it longer but left vents at the sides and I like the way that fits. The swallow design I put over my front pockets, and on the back, was the same one I had created on a fleece blanket I recently made for someone I love. (See April 1 in this blog). The swallows flying free and safe up above feels right for the celebration of the festival. I didn’t make a pocket bag on the inside under the two front swallows, just an opening into the lining. That way I can drop in camera, sunglasses, and my cell phone. I sometimes have to dig around a little to find what I need but it works pretty gosh darned well. I also made a little chapstick and cell phone pocket  high up on the inside which seems to work for the way I live. My main challenge was the closure on the pockets. At this point, I just put on Velcro. After wearing it for a week of unusually cold weather I sewed in some hardware store magnets. They are better than the velcro. I think if I do the same kind of appliqué/flap another time I will line the inside of the appliqué and weight the hanging-down part so that I can just flip it up, grab my camera, and then let it drop. 

Finding the right note

I can go there and higher, when I'm working on technique but rarely have I hit that note when I'm singing with other people. On a recent Sunday, Easter the Christians call it, I went along to help fill out the sopranos in a small congregation, sixteen voice choir. I practiced on my own, and went to three rehearsals with the group. I was very sure, however, that I would not achieve that beautiful high note in a hymn called Majesty. Only one of the four sopranos could. Nancy told me she was sure I would pull it off too. I tried to believe her but I practiced the lower E!

During all the different melodies, which included other hymns and choruses from Messiah, I focused on all that good technique; my breathing, resonance and manipulating my cheek bones while NOT raising my tongue or tightening my throat. Also I thought about singing out to the people who were listening, about the message they were listening for. During their prayers and sermon, I thought about the uplifting story of Passover and focused on my own Jewish blessing, Baruch Ata Adonai Elohainu. 

The swell of shared singing experience took control and Nancy and I hit that A flat.