Pockets & Pin Pillows

Second Post of the Day

Remember those bundles of fabric remnants that I was measuring and preparing for sale?

I kept some of the remnants to use for pockets.

There were leftover pieces of the camel/elephant block print that were big enough that I was able to get a pocket out of them. (And still have enough for a remnant bundle to sell.)

Having leftover fabric isn't a problem, it's having enough so that you can center a pattern strategically. In this case, I wanted the white camel stripe to be in the center where I would also put the slit so a hand could get access to the pocket's contents.

The same with the brown/red/blue block print - I wanted the slit down the oval prints and sandwiched between the narrow navy and brown borders.

That also took some finagling but at last I got it figured out successfully.

I'm pleased with how they turned out, but as I looked at the camel/elephant print, I realized that I was missing an opportunity to make something else with it.

Pin pillows.

Can't you just imagine a pin pillow or two with a camel or elephant centered on it?

I'm going to grab that remnant bundle and see if I can't do that later today. I think that would look really cool and sell well, too.

---

Last call on the September Give Away! Comment on any blog post published Sunday, September 13 through tonight (Tuesday, September 15) at 11:59 PM ET. I'll spin to win tomorrow or Thursday.

Stay 'tooned!

Susie was Here

First Post of the Day

Yesterday while working on some 18th century pockets, I needed twill tape to complete them. I walked over to the dresser where I keep it, and as I opened the drawer, something on top of the dresser caught my eye.

A tagged Stablemate?

Only very rarely do I tag a Stablemate.

I picked it up for a closer look. The tag was not secured around a leg or tail but simply draped over the model's neck. I had to dust off my teaching chops to read what was written on it.

"Susie. 3. Fav. Small."

Hmmm. Susie had tagged this model for some reason. 

Not only that, but I found a stick on top of some sewing supplies. That's Susie for sure - she is ways collecting things that interest her. (It's actually a long dried stem from my old fashioned day lilies.)

And, there were two origami stars. I keep origami paper and several books on folding various things on hand for the grands. More things that pointed to Susie's presence.

Susie and her family had stayed with us for a week in July while she and her sisters had gone to Camp Tecumseh. The sewing room had been used as a guest bedroom during that time and the origami supplies had been out on the upstairs overlook for the kids to use.

Kate and Susie had spent a lot of time with me and going through my collection, looking at pieces, labeling a few that they'd like to have some day, and even taking home Zulu (Kate) and the buckskin lying foal (Susie.)

Susie must've spied the mini Alborozo unicorn and decided it was one she'd also like to have. She knew where I kept the tags, filled one out, and put it on the model. Easy peasy, lemon squeezie, and Susie had let me know that she'd like to have that piece!

Sweet girl, I am happy that you want it and I will make sure that that happens when the time comes. And finding your tag, stick, and origami made me think of you and smile.

It's the last day to comment and enter the September Give Away!

Commenting ends tonight at 11:59 PM ET and I will spin to win Wednesday or Thursday.

Stay 'tooned!

The Teacher Got a D

Second Post of the Day

Last week our family did our Fantasy Football League draft.

My team's name is always the Powder Puffs. (A term that harks back to girls' football in the 1970s although Powder Puff football is still played.) 

Because several family members had other commitments when the draft was scheduled, they were on auto-pick. And that meant that, when it was their turn to choose a player, the computer added a name immediately, and it was the next family member's turn to pick.

That made the draft go really, really fast, dizzyingly so, and I had difficulty keeping up with who was available for my team. It was not one of my best years for choosing a team as a result.

ESPN didn't make me feel any better when it sent me this notice when our family draft was over:

 

Since when did they send out grades for our drafting? And I got a D? Seriously??

The other family members in our league were sympathetic, but not one of them had received any kind of grade, nor had anyone gotten a grade in past draws.

"Yikes!" I thought. "I must have a really, really bad team this year." And I began resigning myself to a losing season and telling myself that next year would be better.

Lisa soon was texting me about my "grade."

"Don't worry about it, Mom! I was ranked really low last year and ended up winning!"

"Thanks, Lis. I don't have your knowledge about the game so I'm not hopeful, but I will still have fun trying."

The games began this past weekend. I was playing my sister, Jenny, who also knows a lot about football. Not expecting much, I didn't check my stats until Sunday afternoon. Wait, What?? I was pleasantly surprised.

I was ahead by 17 points! And I had two more players yet to play and Jenny only had one! Maybe I would win my first game of the season!

Another check early Monday morning continued the good news.

I was ahead by a comfortable margin of 29 points with one player yet to play. Jenny also had a player that would be playing Monday night, but ESPN was only giving her a 1% chance of winning our matchup while giving me a 99% chance that I would be the winner.

Ya wanna rethink that D you gave me, ESPN?? Go, Powder Puffs!

Stay 'tooned. And don't forget the give away!

The Mystery Basket

First Post of the Day

At the end of August, Lisa and I did some antiquing together. While I found a lot of HSOs, I didn't come home with any of them. But, I did come home with this:

Lisa and I both headed straight to it when we spied it - it sure looked like the hand woven baskets we see at 18th century events.

"Are you going to get it?" she asked me.

"Let me think about how much I am willing to pay for it first," I replied. I always do that when I see something that tempts me. Since I had never seen that style/shape of basket, I wasn't positive that it would be historically accurate. But, it clearly was handmade, and the squares were a familiar pattern from other 18th century baskets that I have. 

So, I fixed a price in my mind that would be my limit and flipped the price tag over. 

$20? Oh yeah. Mine!

It needed a lot of cleaning. The inside was full of dust bunnies that were embedded within the slats.

It took several cleaning sessions out in the garage

and two cans of compressed air before it was clean.

The pattern and shape is quite intricate and unusual - I have never seen this kind of basket before. What was it used for? 

Using a photo of it, I did a Google photo search - it's a buttock gathering basket. Yep, BUTTOCK. Because, well, LOOK at it! They were fairly common and used for gathering - eggs, produce, berries, and more.

(I looked again at my own baskets and several of them are also buttock baskets. Not sure I am glad I know that now - I'll never not see the cheeks when I look at them! LOL)

There is some writing inside the bottom of the basket but I'm still trying to decipher that. And I checked with a friend who makes baskets and she did not make this one.

It's not as well made as the baskets I already have in my collection, but then, those are all gifts from my mother who bought them from the top basket makers in the living history world, so comparing this basket to those really is not fair. Still, I like it and am glad that I found it.

Leslie has put out inquiries to her living history friends, so I am hopeful that I will get some answers as to who made it.

Stay 'tooned!

The September Give Away is underway! Tucked inside the book was a bookmark that really wasn't a bookmark.

A young girl's swim team results card from about 1980!

You never know what you will find when you open a vintage book.

Comment to win through Tuesday, September 15, 11:59 PM ET!

Done & Moving On

 Second Post of the Day

The trade shirt marathon is finished!

Eighteen shirts, all new and all ready to be sold. 

The remnants from each shirt have all been measured, folded,

and tied into bundles. There is a lot of usable fabric for smaller projects in them and they tend to sell out quickly at the Feast and Kalamazoo.

The last two shirts that I made were from the same block print but in different colors. Both are size 3X.

The green shirt on my dressmaker's mannequin. The shoulders on the shirt are wider than the mannequin's shoulders, so the arms hang down and look much longer than they really are.

Rather than sleeve buttons, I did a single button/buttonhole on the cuffs. The green shirt has flat brass buttons.

The other shirt is in red. (This pattern also comes in blue - it's on my order list for next time.)

It has a horn button/buttonhole combination.

Now I am moving on to bed gowns. I have 4 in stock and while ideally I'd love to have as many bed gowns to sell as I do trade shirts, that's not going to happen before the Feast and maybe not even before Kalamazoo next March.

I've prewashed one of my favorite bed gown fabrics and have laid it out over the dining room game pattern-cutting table to keep it from getting wrinkled.

I made myself a bed gown from this fabric a few years ago. This version here is the block print with more teal than maroon. (That is also the version I am getting ready to cut out.)

And here is another bed gown I made where the maroon takes precedent over the teal. I like both fabrics.

It's a challenging fabric to use for a bed gown due to the block print pattern. If the two floral medallions don't match up in the center, it looks odd. But in the end, it's worth the extra effort.

I really need to make a few cloaks, too. And a couple more pockets. Two or three more petticoats...

Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick!

Don't forget the September Give Away! Comment on any blog post starting today (September 13) through Tuesday, September 15, 11:59 PM ET.

A vintage The Black Stallion book is the prize!

Stay 'tooned!

The September Give Away

First Post of the Day

It's time for the September Give Away! And this month it's a book that is familiar to most of us.

a 1968 edition of The Black Stallion by Walter Farley. 

That makes this book 58 years old so it's vintage. And it is in excellent condition.

There was a quirky surprise in it that I found when I got the book. I'll share that tomorrow and it will be included with the book when I send it to the winner.

As usual, comment to enter on this post and any other that is posted through Tuesday, September 15, 11:59 PM ET. I'll spin to win Wednesday or Thursday and post the winner then.

Good luck and stay 'tooned!

Just Playing with Numbers - Again

Yesterday I came across the following blog entry from my teaching years. At the time, I was teaching the gifted class of 4th and 5th graders. 

The experience I'd shared back then was not atypical for the kids in my classrooms. They were amazing thinkers, year after year.

Read it, think about it, try it, and then be amazed (like me) that a 5th grader figured it out while "just playing with numbers."

-----

WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 2010

"I was Just Playing with Numbers..."

... began a 5th grade girl this morning as she stood to tell her classmates something during class meeting. (I have learned that when a student wants to say something about playing with numbers or words or science or whatever, that that means something pretty amazing is coming.)

"I was looking for patterns and discovered this. Someone give me a number between 1 and 99 that isn't divisible by 11."

"26!" called out a child.

Teja continued, "I noticed that, if you write the number 26, then reverse the digits and add them" (and she wrote 26 + 62 on the board) "then the sum which is 88 is divisible by 11. And when you subtract them" (now she wrote 62 - 26 beside the first problem) "you get a difference of 36 which is divisible by 9."

We took a moment to absorb that information. 

"I discovered that that always happens. The sum is divisible by 11 and the difference is divisible by 9. But it only works with numbers under 100 which are not divisible by 11."

She took a few more suggestions of numbers, and she was right - they all held true to the pattern she had discovered. Even a single digit number like 5 worked:

5 + 50 = 55 (divisible by 11)

50 - 5 = 45 (divisible by 9)

(Teja explained that there is a zero in the tens place when you write the number 5, so therefore reversing the digits gives you 50.)

I am always looking for interesting Math things to do, especially at the end of the school year when it is too late to start a new unit yet the kiddos still need something valuable to do with their time. I think we will choose number pairs next week and work our way through 1-99 and see if the pattern holds true throughout.

And, I want to find out WHY it works, too. (I did.)

What an interesting puzzle! And even more interesting is that she discovered it while playing with numbers.

---

Teja was in my class for 2nd, 4th, and 5th grades and has stayed in touch. Currently she has finished studying medicine at John Hopkins University and is a... neurosurgeon, I think.

Teja and me in 2018. She had heard I was retiring and stopped by my class to thank me for being her teacher and to wish me well in retirement.

Anyone want to make and play with a mobius strip? Or learn how to cut a hole in a post-it big enough to step your entire body through?

Sigh. Sometimes I really miss teaching.

Stay 'tooned.