with needle and thREAD

I'm joining Elizabeth at In The Heart of My Home for sewing group today.

The year has started out rather quietly and I am inclined to keep it just so. I've not much to say, and that's alright. I rather prefer quiet to loud, calm to chaotic. It's just the "way I roll."

That said, quiet and calm can be very industrial if need be. I've been sewing and sewing and sewing. Mostly I've been hand sewing, but I put together a lovely pair of pjs for my husband's little Goddaughter Bridget. Of course, I knew I had a deadline of the past weekend to get them together. And of course, by Thursday I had not started. On Thursday afternoon, I went searching for the pattern I needed and then did a forehead slap when I remembered (looking at an almost-empty pattern drawer) that I had loaned out all my pj patterns to Faith's dance studio so they could find a pattern for some hiphop pants. Yikes! Of course (you can predict all this, right?), I did not want to go out in the cold and traffic to get to Joann's so, of course, I went online because I knew I would find just the right pattern to download and just "whip up" those jammies. I found just the right pattern, a really nice one, in fact, but, of course, did not whip them right up because you can never whip up anything the first time (not to mention just printing all 47 pages and cutting and taping it back together took an hour and a half).

A late night and an early morning were involved, but they are a darling pair of pjs, with a kimono top, and I have told all the children, at least three times each, that I will never make another style of pajamas again, and all the grandchildren (and youngest child) will get them every winter and spring forever more. (Quiet and calm is also capable of drama.) Now I must convince Oliver + S to make a larger size pattern.

Of course, the pattern is an Oliver + S, and it really is a nice pattern even if it took fifteen minutes or more of reading certain sections and then slapping the forehead and saying "Oh, I see!," just like this -- in character, of course, but to myself at the sewing machine, repeated over and over until I was, at last, distracted by the next step -- rinse and repeat -- a half dozen times:







The fabric is a snuggly flannel, and as soon as she saw them, Faith declared, "I really, really, really want a pair." Of course she did. I am waiting for another order of fabric to be delivered, and then I will have a lot of machine sewing projects in the queue -- three baby quilts, two pairs of pjs, and a half dozen or so pillowcases.

In the meantime, I have plenty of scapulars to sew, and rosaries to make.

I just worked up a new design for my Ave Maria scapular, much prettier than the old.

I have several books I am working on at the moment. Actually, I started The Secret Keeper on audio and decided I would like it much better in book form. Of course, it's a 14-day book so I better get started. I have two cookbooks, The Smitten Kitchen, and Not Your Mother's Make-Ahead and Freeze Cookbook, of which the latter is getting much more attention, for practical reasons alone.

Must stop sewing for a bit, and start reading.