Long Live the Little Green Men!

You gotta watch out for people getting you back, especially the ones you didn’t even realize you “got” in the first place.

I’d left my dorm room unlocked.  I always left my dorm room unlocked.  There wasn’t anything valuable that could be taken with ease – my speakers were 5ft around – and my sorority-sisters neighbors were usually milling about that end of the hall.  But there was no denying that if I’d locked the door, I wouldn’t be dealing with this …. this what?  It wasn’t really a mess and was only slightly annoying.

Army men.  They were everywhere.  I opened my dresser drawer; army man.  I pulled down a shoe box; army man.  I put on a pair of pants and put my hand in the pocket; army man.  There was even one in the mini fridge’s freezer!  “He’s in Siberia,” my clearly guilty next door neighbor grinned.  I was finding those army men until well after I moved out of that dorm room.  Thanks Amanda.

But as I said, she was just “getting me back.”  Except, I hadn’t filled her room with army men.  No, the little green men first appeared elsewhere on campus, all over campus, thanks to another sorority sister, a trip to Leon’s and the dollar store that just happened to be on the way home. 

A tradition was born, and that tradition continues.

Mommy found one somewhere the other week.  Likely a remnant of   the attack of all attacks just before I left for Zambia.  There’s a lot of good hiding spots in a house with 3 floors.  They’re sneaked into the bottom of packages and carried along in suitcases on visits.  One of the original instigators’ daughter has her own toddler-appropriate army man.   Gummy army men were passed around for holidays and birthdays – I heard they were quite delicious.  One of my  sorority sisters even incorporated them into her wedding!

 

And this past Christmas, Alfred got me the most amazing and absolutely perfectly appropriate present.  A snowflake ornament made out of army men!  I love snow.  She found it on etsy.  It’s super cute and very ingenious.

A Pirate’s Life for Me

The waves crashed into the side of the boat with tremendous force.  A storm was brewing for sure, and it was only a matter of time before the pirate ships headed on a collision course would meet.  The larger ship had recently been captured and still held its precious cargo.  Unfortunately for the pirate captain, the ship hadn’t been transporting gold or even something useful like cannons.  No, this ship belonged to a zoo and was transporting a large menagerie across the wide ocean.

The smaller ship had no cargo, only a lone, fierce and brave pirate and her monkey.  The monkey had a small treasure chest of its own, but the pirate had nothing other than her wits and trusty combination-rapier-and-telescope to guide her through the menacing ocean.  She buckled down and prepared for battle as her tiny boat neared the massive zoo ship.

The pirate captain couldn’t maneuver the massive zoo ship, and the spunky little pirate drew close enough to attack.  A raging battle commenced, and as the pirate captain’s sword was chopped to pieces, she began off-loading her cargo, flinging tigers and raccoons and chipmunks at the little pirate.  The little pirate began filling her boat with the valuable animals-turned-ammunition, but she didn’t let up.  She continued her attack and seized the large ship pirate’s captain hat.  “Ha ha! Now I am the captain,” she cackled, launching animals back at the zoo.

The battle raged on and on until both pirates’ combination-rapier-and-telescopes were broken into tiny unusable pieces, the ocean was littered with swimming, floating and sinking animals, the pirates were too exhausted to keep fighting, and and the pirates had to summon their daddy to put the smoke detector back on the ceiling.

Ok, ok, so the ocean waves were only Mommy’s green carpeting, the small boat a Dell computer box and all the zoo animals stuffed, but for me and Munchkinhead, it was a real pirate adventure.  And one of our favorite games to play at Christmas time when wrapping paper tubes combination-rapier-and-telescopes are common.

Mousies for the Whole Year

“The mouse isn’t moving,” Munchkinhead said to me over the phone as I was walking down the street a few weeks ago.  It was March and I just couldn’t figure out what she was doing with the mouse at that time of year.  I mean, the mouse only comes out for Christmas.  

Mommy unpacks him on the day after Thanksgiving and he sits in the “1” pocket until December starts, his little bow tie peeking over the edge of the pocket.  Every day he hops over a pocket, “2,” “3,” “4,” all the way to “24,” slowly counting down to Christmas.

Mousie is my favorite Advent countdown calendar.  Even better than the ones with the little doors and the chocolates inside.  Growing up, we would clamor for it to be our turn, “I wanna move the mousie!  I wanna move the mousie!”  When I come home for Christmas, Mommy and Munchkinhead save the mousie for me so I can move him.  He’s just adorable with his big round ears and cute little poofy nose.  What a great little mouse.

But as much as I love that mouse, I still couldn’t understand why Munchkinhead was playing with it in March.  Then I realized she was on her computer.

 

Flowered Empress

Back to those fun Christmas presents.  Here’s a shirt I made for Mommy.   I’d had the fabric around for awhile, holding onto it because I thought it would look great on Mommy.  I’d even found the perfect pattern for it.   I decided Christmas would be the perfect excuse to finally turn that fabric into a beautiful shirt.

The pattern is an empire waist that ties in the back.  It’s one of the super easy Simplicity patterns, so it didn’t take long to make.  The flowered fabric is sort of silky, but heavy enough to hold it’s shape nicely, and it’s quite soft.  I added some lace edging to the neckline and sleeves.  Hopefully the lace on the back of the neck doesn’t itch too much.

 

Front of Shirt

 Back of Shirt

 

Pattern: Simplicity 2322

Pink Polka-Dots

It was my favorite nightgown, long, warm, cozy; it was like being wrapped in Mommy’s love..  White flannel with pink polka dots, delicate pink ribbon trim.  I have so many fond memories of wearing that nightgown; Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, curled up on the couch watching tv, snuggling into my bed, getting toothpaste on the sleeve…  I’m glad Mommy made it so long because that meant as  I grew it still fit.  I always considered that very “Little House” of her.  When I did finally grow out of that nightgown, when polka dots were almost gone and the sleeves came only to my elbows and my shoulders couldn’t squeeze inside, I was very sad.  I loved that nightgown.

So, when Mommy put “nightgown” on her Christmas list, I totally called dibs and immediately headed to JoAnn’s to look for some white flannel with pink polka dots.  The store had exactly what I was looking for, and some matching pink ribbon.

Mommy’s nightgown isn’t as long as mine was – she’s already tripping on her slippers, don’t need her tripping on the nightgown, too – and it has short sleeves.  It’s still cozy, though, like mine was.  And it’s very cute.  Well, I might be biased.

The pattern, being Simplicity, was pretty easy.  The lined yoke didn’t present any problems, which was good because I’ve done plenty of yokes where that wasn’t the case.  The rest of the nightgown is unlined, allowing it to be, I hope, the right combination of snuggly-warm and breezy-cool.  The pink ribbon I chose for the edging had it’s own decorative edging, which made it fairly easy to hide my stitches when sewing it down.  I hope Mommy’s gotten good use of it this winter.

Pattern: Simplicity 4048

The World (or at least the Museum) is Our Playground!

Long-time readers of this blog, and people who know my family a little too well, know that we love a good trip to a museum, especially the museum.  One museum tradition of ours is to visit the museum, the Milwaukee Public Museum, during the Christmas holidays. 

Why goldenrail, don’t you get board going to the same museum all the time; don’t you have all the exhibits memorized by now?  Never!  and, yes, sort of.  This year, Munchkinhead, her boyfriend and I visited the museum together.  There was a great traveling exhibit on Pirates.  Munchkinhead loves pirates, so we had to check that out.

When done arrrr-ing and checking out booty, we frolicked off to the rest of the museum for our usual antics.  We got to be lots of animals:

Deer! or antelope, or something like that…

…Bears…

… a Sloth (I’m the sloth’s branch)…

… Fish (I do a great sea bass impression)…

…even Dinosaurs…

…and of course, the howler monkey.

 

We also had fun being a few inanimate objects and people.

A Munchkinhead-Munchkinhead’s Boyfriend Totem Pole

Munchkinhead makes a great 9-yr old pirate boy

 

And we couldn’t pass up our absolute favorite photo op exhibit in the museum!  We got this shot with a whole lot of combinations of people playing the different roles.  This year, Munchkinhead’s boyfriend got to catch Munchkinhead.

2008 museum antics

2011 zoo antics

Monkey Pants

Some people just don’t need much, and Mr. Trizzle is one of those people.  It’s a very noble way of life and one many of us wish we could better emulate, but it’s a pain in the butt for happy little present givers on Christmas and Birthdays.  What do you get for someone who doesn’t want anything?

Well, there’s one thing I know Mr. Trizzle loves, and that’s his lounge pants.  Now, I suppose it’s possible to have too many pairs of lounge pants, but I didn’t think Mr. Trizzle was there yet.  And when I saw this adorable monkey-covered flannel on sale at JoAnn’s, I knew exactly what Mr. Trizzle was getting for Christmas.

Lounge pants are one of my favorite things to make because they’re so quick and easy and there’s so many fun fabrics out there for them. I should start buying 1” elastic in bulk.  I have a great lounge/pj pants pattern that I’ve used before for other lounge pants and jammie shorts.  I seem to modify it a little every time in some way.  This time, I added pockets and fly flap.  Not my best fly flap, but I tried.  The pockets turned out great.   And Mr. Trizzle finds them nice and comfy, which is the most important part.

Pattern: Simplicity 2317

Fun and Easy Slippers for Mommy

One of the lady’s at knitting pulled two objects from her bag.  One looked like a warm, thick and cozy tube sock with cable detailing up the front.  The other looked like a flat rectangle.  Yet they clearly belonged together, knit from the same soft grey yarn.  Sock with matching coaster?  Mitten with matching single-shoe rug?  Baguette holder with matching hotpad?  Slippers!  Very neat and very fun slippers.

The lady at knitting at found them in some stash somewhere, and curious about them, had deconstructed one.  It turned out that what appeared to be cable detailing was actually a crocheted chain lacing up the slipper.  That flat rectangle was the slipper body.  The long edges each had eyelets knit into them, knit one, yarn over, knit two together, repeat.  Lace up the rectangle, and it becomes a slipper.

“Why, how perfect,” I thought.  Mommy had sent her Christmas list only a few days before, and on that list, she had asked for slippers.  Plus, I was just finishing the shawl for Mr. Trizzle’s mom. 

As soon as I could, I ran to JoAnn’s and scoured the yarn aisles for the perfect yarn.  Mommy’s favorite color is red and there was one red yarn that particularly stood out to me, a nice chunky yarn.  The slippers the lady at knitting had were knit with one strand of yarn, but I wanted to give Mommy’s slippers extra thickness and firmness to keep out the cold from the floor.  So I picked out a matching white to go with the red.  Both chunky, both tweed, with little speckles of colored yarn mixed in.  As I knit, the resulting fabric reminded me of a rag rug Mommy used to have in the kitchen at the old house.  Maybe that’s why I picked the yarn…

The slippers are long, so they cover her ankles and form a cute little cuff at the top, like elf shoes.  The toes of the slippers are sewn together by threading a piece of yarn through the end of each row and pulling it tight.  I used two strands for strength and used the yarn to add a cute little bow detail.  Of course, the best part is, Mommy loved them.   And I hear that if she gets a good running start, she can turn the kitchen floor into her own playground.

 

Mommy trying on her new slippers.

 

 

Yarn: Serenity Chunky Tweeds, Premier Yarns Deborah Norville Collection in Claret and Aran, 2 skeins each

Pattern: Using two strands of yarn, cast on a row about as long as you want your slipper, from the tops of the toes, around the heel and up the ankle.  

Next row, knit one, yarn over, knit two together, repeat until you reach the end of your row.  If you don’t have exactly enough stitches to end the row, knit the last few stitches; this will be the top of your slipper. 

Next rows, knit.  Keep knitting until you have a rectangle of desired width.  When placed under your foot, with the rows running parallel to your foot, the rectangle should be able to wrap around your foot to cover just under a third of the top of your foot on each side.  The rectangle will stretch when you lace it up so pull a bit as you try the size out.

Do another row of knit one, yarn over, knit two together, making sure the yarn overs line up with the other side of the slipper. 

Bind off.

Using a crochet hook and one strand of yarn, knit a crochet chain long enough to lace up your slipper and tie at the top.  I suggest threading the chain through the slipper as you go to make sure it’s long enough.

Lace up your slipper.

Thread two strands of yarn through each end stitch at the slipper’s toe.  Pull tight and tie in a knot.  Hide the ends in your stitches or tie into a decorative bow.

Enjoy your slippers.

Wrap up in a Rainbow

Christmas is long past, so I can now share all the fun knitting and sewing projects that turned into Christmas presents.

I really liked the Fiesta La Boheme Easy one-skein triangular shawl pattern that I’d used on my Shoulder Shawl and thought a  full-size shawl would be the perfect present for Mr. Trizzle’s mom.  She’s a very bright and bubbly person and I knew I needed something with lots of color for her.

I found a nice multi that was bright but not garish or overwhelming.  The tones were more along the fall spectrum.  Usually, I’m not a fan of boucle, but it worked perfectly in this pattern and laid beautifully when draped over my dummy.  This skein was much larger than the one I’d used before and the shall came out to a very nice size.

Pattern from Blog.NobleKnits

Yarn: Sensations Multi Casual Boucle in Color # 4670 (this is a JoAnn’s brand yarn)

My Christmas Suit

And for those few of you who might be thinking it, no, a Christmas Suit is nothing like a Birthday Suit.

Made entirely from scraps and left-over fabric, this suit took me several years to make. It was put aside often for many, many other projects.  I started it on the antique treadle machine I bought when Mr. Trizzle was around. He hated the noise my electric machine makes so I bought the only super-quiet kind of machine I know, leg-powered.  The jacket was made pretty much entirely on the treadle, but by the time I got to the skirt, I was back to the electric.

By October, I realized the suit was almost finished and decided, by-golly, this would be my Christmas Eve outfit this year.  And it was.

It’s a Butterick Retro Pattern from 1936.  The skirt sits at the waist and is mid-shin length. It’s fitted, but not super-fitted, so there’s room to move in it and it doesn’t pull at the hips.  The jacket is tailored at the waist and hits just above the hips on me.  It has a large collar and rather high neckline.  And the whole suit has lots of hand-stitching detail.

I used grey wool left from Mr. Trizzle’s Barristers Ball suit (I had bought a lot of extra in case I messed it up really bad) for the outside of the suit.  This fabric frays a lot so I went through a bottle plus of fray-check and reinforced every seam with stitch-on black seam binding.  The lining of the skirt is tan silk left from a pair of under-trousers I made for Mr. Trizzle.  It’s trimmed with hand-stitched rows in a nice, light grey button-hole twist thread.

But the really fun part is the jacket lining.  One lower sleeve is part of an old skirt that Mommy got rid of after it got to stretched out.  The other lower sleeve was a very badly done skirt I made many years ago for Munchkinhead out of scraps from a dress Mommy made for Alfred.  The upper sleeves are black suit lining from a zoot suit I started for my college boyfriend and never finished.  The center back is part of an old worn and torn vest Mommy made as part of a three-piece suit for Daddy.  The side-fronts are suede cloth left from the gloves I made for my Jessica Rabbit costume.  And the side-backs are pieces from an old pair of Mr. Trizzle’s boxers that no longer fit.

Inside-out jacket, front.

Inside-out jacket, back.

After finally finishing the suit, I figured I’d wear it for Christmas and it’d wind up sitting in the closet with my other homemade suits.  But, it turns out it’s one of my favorite suits.  It fits well; I love the style; and it works great for leaving my trench coat at home.  I often treat the suit jacket as an outer jacket and look nice and professional in the skirt and a pretty blouse.

Christmas Dresses

It’s almost Christmas and I’m soon headed back to the land of milk and cheese to celebrate with my wonderful family. In the spirit of Christmas and family and all that fabulous stuff, I wanted to share one of my favorite holiday traditions: new Christmas dresses.

New Christmas dresses are extra special.  Not only are the new and for Christmas Eve at Grandmas, they’re made with tender loving care.  Every year growing up, Mommy would take us to the fabric store a month or so before Christmas to pick out our patterns and fabrics.  Christmas always had the fanciest fabrics of the year, velvets and satins and rich colors. 

We’d sit at the pattern table pouring through books, me driving Mommy nuts with “could you change this to this and remove this and add this?”  And Alfred driving us all nuts complaining she didn’t like the color of the dress in the book.  (For those who don’t sew, you can make the dress whatever color you want.) 

After we finally picked our patterns, including Mommy picking out her own, we’d head into the fabric section to continue driving Mommy crazy by either picking out the most expensive or most difficult to sew fabrics, slippery fabrics that would slide off the machine, patterned fabrics that would need to be lined up and crazy fabrics that were not suited to the pattern we’d just picked out.  Mommy would talk us into something more reasonable or somehow make the fabric work.
My sisters and me in our slippery fabrics. (and the only time you’ll see Alfred in better shoes than me.)

Sometimes, Alfred and Munchkinhead and I would all match.  Sometimes, Mommy would match, too.  One year, Mommy made Munchkinhead and Alfred’s Barbies Christmas dresses to match their own.  I was Mommy’s Barbie because we had matching dresses, too.

And there was that year I wanted my dress to be just like one of my Holiday Barbies’.  Poor Mommy; that must have been an extra headache.  That particular Holiday Barbie wore a long, poofy, green velvet frock with detailed beading all up the bodice and sparkles from the hem up.  Mommy did a pretty good job coming up with something close.

Barbie is the one on the left.

The dresses didn’t always turn out perfect - there was that one year she put my skirt on Alfred’s bodice and vice versa.  Alfred had a very beautiful flowy gown, and I had a mini-dress. And my size in high school and college fluctuated so much dresses often barely fit by Christmas – but we always loved our Christmas dresses.

Now that I’m too big to live at home, I make my own Christmas dresses.  It doesn’t always go well and they’re never as pretty as Mommy’s, but it’s still fun.

Incidentally, that dress was from last Christmas and it no longer fits, but the dress Mommy made me in 1998 still does.

Got a Hat, Hat… Or a Coaster

There’s this adorable holiday tune by Bob and Doug McKenzie, truly Canadian rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas that includes many items as baffling as the original song’s activities.  (Why are those lords leaping? What on earth is 2-4?)

Recently, thanks to a lovely Canadian, I finally learned what those “fi-ive go-lden toques!” are. And once, I knew they were just those adorable hats with the pom-pons on top, I had to make my own.  So, I set out with a set of size 5 knitting needles and the most golden yarn I could find.

And I wound up with a coaster.

Oops. It’s a very lovely coaster. In fact, it’s now my favorite coaster. I’m debating about making more so I have a set, but I’ve other knitting projects to finish first.

I used a hat loom to make the golden toques.

The Magic of… Wait, What Magic?

A child sits on Santa's lap, whispering into his ear her deepest desires, telling Santa exactly what she wants this year because she's been so very, very good. She knows Santa's watching her every day from his home high above her at the North Pole.  Even though she can't see him, he’s watching.  She's been told so often that he knows when she's been good or bad, knows if she's naughty or nice. And if she's good, she'll get nice presents, but if she's bad, she won't. She must please Santa to be rewarded.

The same child kneels before her bed in the evening, whispering her prayers to God, thanking Him for the good thinks in her life and telling Him what she wants. She knows God's watching her every day from his home high above her in Heaven.  Even though she can't see Him, He’s watching.  She's been told so often that He knows whether or not she has been behaving, knows if she has thought bad thoughts or wanted to do bad things. If she's good, she'll go to Heaven, but if she's bad, she won't. She must please God to be rewarded.

Then one Christmas Eve, the girl tiptoes down to her Christmas tree long after she should have been asleep and sees her mother putting more presents under the tree, eating the cookies on the plate nearby. There's no reindeer on the roof, no fat man in a red suit, heck, there's not even a chimney.

Why wouldn't she also question God's existence?

 

Christmas. Adults. Nope, they just don't go together. By the time we're adults, most of us have one of two standard perspectives of Christmas, both equally sad. Either the Christmas Story is nothing more than a story, no more real than a jolly man who lives far above us at the North Pole with his helper elves. Or, the events surrounding Jesus' birth are so familiar and comfortable that we can no longer see the miracles in them - those events, why that's just the way things are.

We learn about Christmas as young children.  The story is broken down so we can understand it: Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem on a donkey.  There, the Virgin Mary gave birth to a little boy in a stable, because there was no room at the inn. She put him in a manger and the cattle lowed. Three wise men came to visit and brought him gold, frankincense and myrrh. This baby was Jesus, that guy hanging on a cross in other pictures. God's son, an important person who would become a leader.

As children, we don’t know what a virgin is.  Even if we do, storks bring babies, so so what?  We don’t know that a manger is a food trough, that animals smell and are filthy and can be really mean.  We don’t understand that hay is itchy and can be full of bugs.

As children, we expect people to visit new babies; we expect birthday presents.  We know gold’s nice.  We probably think frankincense and myrrh were normal baby presents back in the day, like diapers and strollers now.  Even as adults, we probably don’t stop to think that these are items used to prepare a body for burial.

As children, it seems perfectly logical that someone who is going to be a great leader starts off very poor and regular-seeming.  Look at Abraham Lincoln, Einstein, Nelson Rockefeller, Obama!  and every other great person we’re encouraged to be like when we’re young school children.  We are taught that the way to success, to become great, is to start off with almost nothing and pull ourselves up by our boot straps.  For Jesus to be born poor and be the Son of God that will save his people, that is no miracle.

And yet, as adults, when we should be able to look at these pieces in the context of biology, of history, of society, when we should be able to understand that a unmarried woman who has never had sex just can’t suddenly become pregnant, when we should be able to understand how awful it would be to sleep in a barn with some animals, or how scary it might be for a mother to receive burial ointments at the birth of her son, when we should be able to contemplate how much it would suck to walk for days and days, how uncomfortable it is to sit on a donkey or how difficult it is to get a donkey to do what you want, when we should be able to really get all the many miracles and the hardships in the story, we don’t think about them at all.  It’s Christmas; it’s normal; it happens every year.  And the magic is lost, as lost as if we didn’t believe at all.