Sewing Together

Even while recovering from the dreaded "VBS Virus" during the last couple of days, I managed to finish a second, fun Simplicity 7229 skirt and two shopping bags (using the www.morsbags.com pattern) with a friend on two afternoons. The boys played, shrieked, and intermittently ran through our sewing space while my daughter sewed something of her own and occasionally needed help. The black cat pranced through the room chasing a rubber ball underneath the furniture.

It started to rain and storm just a little while we worked by lamps turned on for more light. The dog, nervous because of the thunder and rain, hung-out close to my feet. My friend worried about her own dog who is also afraid of thunderstorms. The calico cat came inside to escape the rain in the kitchen.

The fabric for my bags came from recycled curtains I had made for the house in West Point, MS. After toting these curtains around for several years and organizing it in valuable closet space, it will now help me tote around and organize other things. I like that.

I also like that I was able to share a new-found love of sewing and creating with a friend who seemed to find as much frustration, challenge, joy, and accomplishment in the craft as I. For two beginners finding our way through buttonholes, patterns, and sewing machine manuals, I think we did a great job.

Favorite Summer Spots

. . . watching 12-year-old Nellie who stays outside almost 24 hours a day this summer unless I go out at night to bring her inside. She hangs out in the front yard, often underneath a vehicle in our garage or in the neighbor's driveway. She has always been aloof and touchy-- characteristics that seem to come with calicos. In early June, the vet removed most of a cancerous tumor, so we are waiting and watching daily to make sure she doesn't enter a painful stage. When I bring Nellie in at night, she purrs like crazy on my chest while I watch a show or knit and stays there until I go to bed. Or I put her on my daughter's bed, and she sleeps there until mid morning.

. . . loving 12-year-old Bailey who is always happy to be with people and especially loves having the children and me home every day for most of the day during the summer. He hangs out all over the house and likes to stay inside where it is cool unless it is time to go for a walk in the morning or evening. He follows me into our small bathroom and rests on the bathmat if I haven't taken him for a walk yet in the morning. During the day, he likes to look out the front windows. He follows me to bed at night, and sleeps for the first part of the night in front of my bedside table. If I get up at night, however, he may be found on the futon in the den-- his little secret.

. . . listening to 2-year-old Charlie purr as he reclines on sewing pattern instructions I was going to read while dinner cooked. He is an indoor cat by day and an outdoor cat by night. Lately, though, we have to put him outside at night because he seems reluctant to leave the safety of the house. We switch him with the other cat because they need to exist in separate spaces. If we left him inside, he would wake us up to play at 2:00 am and 5:00 am, and we are done with that kind of schedule in this house. He sleeps almost anywhere in the house-- any bed, any chair, any sunny spot. And he sleeps a lot. He purrs when you look at him-- even when he is sleeping and he hears someone approach but is too sleepy to open his eyes.

Summer Concentrated

From yesterday's farmer's market, we gathered fresh edamame, lady peas, peaches, figs, and golden and green zucchini. My son bought an already treasured cactus, and my daughter bought a sedum for our butterfly garden.

We made progress on summer reading. My daughter and I are reading Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli together. This book surprised me with its sophistication and treatment of some serious issues. It surprised my daughter, too, because she didn't even want to read it at the beginning of the summer. Now, it has both of us laughing and crying and thinking and talking. It is a transformative book and deserves a post of its own for my Tiger Tales library blog.

My son and I read another chapter from Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins. He loves the relationship between Gregor and his two year old sister Boots. It is a page-turner that makes me want to keep reading to the end, but I'll wait to share it with my son.

Friends came over in the afternoon for a skirt sew-along. The girls sewed while the boys ran through the sewing room in various warrior costumes of power and might. We took a break from sewing and saving the universe to eat popsicles and to look at a frightened bat hiding beneath the deck umbrella.

From our own garden, we harvested basil for a double batch of pesto making. Nothing tastes more like summer to me than fresh pesto and tomatoes.

Everyone finished the day with some reading in bed. The first thing my son said to me when we got up this morning was, "I stayed up until 8:33 pm reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid!" I love that.

Changes : 5

Our "Vacation Bible School" ended on Thursday night after 5 days of wandering through the desert to the "promised land." I helped with "arts and crafts" where we made paper-plate tambourines and coffee filter flowers for celebration, painted stones to symbolize the gift of "the 10 commandments," and layered sand art to help us remember our time in the desert. Much fun was had by all, and it was a joy to watch the littlest ones of our church navigate their way through the strange and wonderful mixture of Episcopal tradition and frivolity.

While looking at the mid-July dates for VBS at the beginning of the summer, I knew that its conclusion would mark the beginning of our journey out of summer towards the beginning of school. And true to form, I couldn't sleep on Thursday night because of the lists my brain kept making about school supplies, uniforms and shoes, summer reading, and all those cleaning projects both at home and work that haven't been completed yet. Our promised land has been this summer, and I don't want to leave it. I need to find a way to carry it with us through the busy, hectic days of the school year when dinners start late, homework is difficult, and it's hard to find the time for a walk or the gym.

Seasons change, and summer will turn to fall. I just wish that the first day of school would wait till closer to fall, too.

One more change: it was one 9-year-old girl's last year to be a VBS participant. Next year she is a "helper," and oh, she is excited about that!

Changes : 4

passing shadows and vines creeping and clinging
through the fence with sustenance from recent rains

ripe poke berries eaten by birds

sunlight and shadows dancing through the morning kitchen

mostly green Japanese maple leaves

Changes : 3

late Wednesday afternoon: pre-pupa stage

shriveled layer of fresh skin beneath the chrysalis

the chrysalis on Wednesday night--
still light green from a recent transformation: early pupa stage

the light brown chrysalis on Thursday morning,
blending in with the pine branch and hanging by a thread

Now, we wait and watch for a black swallowtail butterfly in 9 or so days! For photos and information of the life-cycle of black swallowtails, check out these links:

http://www.pbase.com/rcm1840/lifecycleofblsw

http://www.pbase.com/spicebush/black_swallowtail_life_cycle

http://www.butterflygardeningandconservation.com/butterfly/st/black.php

Changes : 2

after weeks and weeks of no rain,
a stormy and dark Tuesday morning

preparing to pupate

emerging eggplant