The Tie Issue

While clearing out my folk's house, we of course encountered my father's ties. This is only a selection of the older ones. I displayed them spread out on the floor like this just to document them.

There's such a huge array of different styles from all the different eras he lived through. Very very skinny and long 50's style, extremely wide and short 60's, wild fabrics and prints 70's, and boring 80's.

Look at the extremes in styles here. 

Some truly wild stuff.

My mom politely declined my offer to make her something with all of these. I agreed, it would have been Too Crazy to wear. 

I don't think I could have made these all work together in one piece. My mom said that my dad would get positive feedback or interaction from people when he'd wear unusual ties, so it kind of became a thing for him.  I think he figured that if he had to wear a tie, it might as well provoke conversation kind of thing.

We all picked out one or two ties to take with us to remember him by. My DD took the really skinny ones to wear at her bartender job, my DS took the Tweety Bird one, and I took the Peace & Love one at the top in this picture and a couple of the wilder paisleys. 
 

A video version of the above photos, just for fun and dizziness.

Mom's Sewing Room

 

After a whirlwind few weeks of getting my mom moved out of her home, I'm unpacking the treasures I brought back to my own home. There wasn't a lot in the sewing area that I nabbed as she'd already been generous in sharing a lot of the fabrics and stuff from her mother. But there were of course a few items, as seen above. I wrote about her sewing room back when we were fire-evacuated and staying at my parent's house. So much has happened since then!

These are the type of pin I really like to use, and they're "the quilter's pin" so that's so very official and all. I'm probably going to toss the cute and somewhat vintage box. But maybe I'll make something with it.

There were two pincushions, one the red traditional tomato (or strawberry) red and the other a mid-70's wild floral in the same shape. Some of the pins are rusty, so I tossed those. And a silver thimble that maybe fits my pinky finger, but it's really pretty. A wooden box with wooden spools of thread that are likely too old to use. But I'll try them out to see. Some empty wooden spools that are just lovely all on their own. A box of miscellaneous buttons, one heavy duty zipper and some cotton-polyester threads in dark colors that I can use.

And lastly, I brought home an unfinished hook latching project from my rainbow-obsessed preteen years. I was willing to part with it, but my daughter said she wants a pillow made out of it, so I'll have to actually finish the project after 50 years. Polyester yarn is of course-- forever.

Where It All Began

 

While staying at my folks' house during our evacuation, I took these pictures of my mom's sewing machine. This is the very one that I learned on way back when (nearly fifty years now,  pretty wild).

 It looms so much larger in my memory and in my mind. It was one of the most expensive and important tools in the entire household back then as far as kid-me knew. I viscerally remember the Christmas my Mom was gifted it by my Dad, back in our old house. She was shocked and thrilled and very happy. There was even some surprised yelling which was super unusual and probably why I recall it so clearly. I remember my Dad being very pleased that he'd chosen a good gift. So to me, it was such a big deal to get to use it as a kid.

There were many many rules I was to follow. I wasn't supposed to use it when Mom wasn't home, that's the main rule that I specifically recall. Probably a safety/supervision thing. I was sorely tempted many times when I had those after school at home without Mom hours I could have been sewing. The one time I was a rebel and did it anyway, I screwed up threading the machine and it got all tangled up and thus I was found out. The ban from sewing didn't last long. Thankfully, Mom understood how into it I was. I had free range to use her fabric scraps, which I certainly took advantage of having so many choices. And every time we visited the library I checked out any and all "Patchwork" books they had. 

It was a much more complicated machine compared to my grandmother's and once when she visited us for a week, she brought along her own with her to sew my brother and I clothes. I quizzed her about it and I remember her saying she only had so much time to get it done, and it made more sense to sew on a machine she knew well. Truer words, right?

I eventually learned how to use the machine and all its stitches and was even able to help my Mom sometimes because I was a more frequent user. One of the only times I ever heard her swear as a kid was when she was working on a beautiful gown for herself out of Qiana, which was a super slick and slinky synthetic nylon knit. It was the famous "Infinite Dress" and once she finally got the right needle, it came together and boy was she ever beautiful in it! Ahhh the seventies...

That pincushion in the first picture is her second one, because my brother ruined the traditional red tomato one by poking the emery strawberry pouch too many times. The emery leaked out like so much playground sand and that was the end of that. We got her that one as a replacement and there it still is in all its wild 70's glory.

Doggie Diner

The very first thing I was drawn to last weekend as we headed into the fabulous Maker Faire was a trailer that had three of the iconic Doggie Dinerheads.

They were just sitting there being iconic, probably ironic at the same time, and beautiful in their own strange way. I thought maybe they'd be modded out to do something unexpected (this was the Maker Faire after all), but nope ,didn't seem to be anything other than decorative. Good enough for me, just getting this picture of the three dachsunds with their crisp little chef hats and cheery bow ties was a great blast from the past.

.Such expression for fiberglass. So many memories too, as there was one on the way to my grandparent's house. Every now and then if we began the begging and pleading early enough we'd stop and get a hot dog. But usually we'd be going to eat at my grandparent's house, so the question always was, "Didn't you eat enough of grandma's cooking?" Of course we had, but the lure of Doggie Diner was strong, stronger even than the competing Der Wienerschnitzel chain. All because of that rotating dog head. A vivid, textbook example of how marketing works!

More pictures of Maker Faire over the next couple of days to come...

Fabric of Memories

In my opinion, these are the best kind of scraps to get.
All these came to me recently from my mom.
Here there is some Jonathan Livingston Seagull fabric (remember that book and movie?),
the purple trim from my curtains,
the embroidered Mickey Mouse pocket from my dad's old shirt that I always wanted to steal,
the yellow I think is from my roller rink skating pants
and more bits containing memories small, unremarkable, but still precious.

What ever will I use these for?
Who knows at this point, but they'll get put into something, at some point. Maybe an intentionally autobiographical piece?
And I have to say that I like having them around, helps me to realize how tied up my memories are in fabric. Thoroughly immersed I am! Thanks for passing them on Mom.

Inspiring Fuschias

Feeling the need to make something to do with fuschias. This freebie picture from Dover started it all. That and seeing how well my fuschia plants are doing this year (very unusual, as they're normally fried out from heat by this time of the season). I keep taking pictures of all the blossoms that continually are produced by these productive plants.
I have an early memory of a fuschia in our entry way courtyard garden when I was a child, there was a bench and you could sit on it and the fuschia plant was behind it, and it would wrap itself around you like a loving friend. And then all those tantalizing, dangling, juicy flowers would tempt you to just squeeze them to hear that pop and see what would happen. I don't remember if my mom got mad at me or not, maybe she wondered what kind of strange pest was attacking her fuschia flowers??
I think that something simple like this stained glass design would work well, but I'm not sure if I want to go in that literal of a direction.