The Shower Game: A Short Play

posted in: Day In The Life, Plays 1
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Image: Wikipedia
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Image: Wikipedia

THE SHOWER GAME
a short play by Mary Fons
(c) 2016

MARY 1 AND MARY 2 are sitting on a couch. MARY 1 looks at the time on her cell phone: 11:00pm. She sighs and lets the cell phone drop from her hand.

MARY 1: I need a shower so bad.

MARY 2: So go shower.

MARY 1: I’ll do it in the morning.

MARY 2: No, you should shower tonight.

MARY 1: It’s fine. I’ll do it in the morning.

MARY 2: You will sleep so much better if you shower right now.

MARY 1: (Dispirited.) I don’t want to be wet.

MARY 2: Look, you need a shower. You’re getting into a clean bed. You’re gonna get into a clean bed dirty?

MARY 1: I’m not dirty. 

MARY 2: What do you call two days with no shower?

MARY 1: I call it “need a shower.” I’m not Pigpen. I’m not like, leaving dirt everywhere.

MARY 2: There.

MARY 1: What?

MARY 2: You admitted it. I said, “What do you call two days with no shower?” and you said, “I call it ‘need a shower'” and that means you agree you need a shower. Now go shower.

(MARY 1 slides off the couch in a mock display of severe fatigue.) 

MARY 2: Knock it off. (She throws a bottle of shampoo and a towel at MARY 1. Blackout.)

END OF PLAY

*Readers may be interested in what happened here, speaking of night showers. — The Director

Food For Ze German.

posted in: Chicago, Day In The Life, Luv 1
German pastry, because there are no good pictures of weiner schnitzel. Photo: Wikipedia
German pastry, because there are no good pictures of weiner schnitzel. Photo: Wikipedia

When you spend significant quality time with someone from another country — a country that lies on the other side of an absolutely enormous body of water — there is an invisible clock in the relationship and the clock doesn’t leave you be. It’s there when you have have tea in the morning together. It’s there when you’re trying to get under one umbrella. It’s there when you have an argument about…I can’t remember what it was about, but the clock was there.

What happens when the research project ends? What’s the visa status, again? What’s gonna happen next? More specifically, what’s gonna happen with this German philosophy professor I have come to care about quite a bit when Germany calls?

I don’t know. Plans have changed a few times and they’ll change again and again as we both sort out what’s going on with work, life, the two of us. I’ve said before that I’m frequently surprised that I’m an adult and let me tell you: nothing makes you feel more like an adult (or a character in a Woody Allen movie) than rescheduling flights to Europe.

While I bide my time, I’ve been making German food. Like spaetzle, which was a lot of work and mostly worth it. I said to Claus, “I made spaetzle!” and I said it like an Iowan girl would: “I made shh-PAYT-zul!” He looked at me like, “You are so acutely American but I like you very much in spite of this fact.” He then corrected me in an attractive way, pronouncing spaetzle properly and my name like it’s French:

“Marie, no. It is ‘shh-PET-zluh.”

Shhpetzluh.

Make It Work, Designer.

Dress forms in spaaaaaace... Image: Wikipedia
Dress forms in spaaaaaace… Image: Wikipedia

I have entered into a relationship with a seamstress.

Right now, even as I write, Barb The Good could be in her workshop pinning pattern pieces and slicing through my fabric with heavy steel shears. I see scraps and paper and bits of feather and fur all over her floor. I see a bird in an ornate birdcage for some reason.

Barb and I met in Washington state about a month ago and got to talking. She makes clothes, I design fabric. One of the patterns in the McCall’s-produced Mary Fons pattern line of garments and bags* is a dress that I am ashamed to say I do not yet possess and Barb said she’d make it for me.

NOTE: Don’t take me not having my own dress yet as a vote of no confidence in the pattern, which I assure you is fabulous.  The task just kept getting pushed down for reasons that are dull and involve words like “email” and “invoicing” and “figuring out AirBNB.” 

I’ve always wanted to have a seamstress of my very own. I want a Bentley, too, but I want a personal seamstress more. Do you realize a person can just go to a place that sells patterns and buy a Vogue pattern for a few bucks and go home and make a dress that was in Vogue? Not all designers sell their designs to pattern companies (Calvin Klein, yes, Alexander McQueen, no) but I’ve seen many Vogue patterns and many of them are great, especially if you pull from the 1980s and early 1990s patterns because everything is cool when it happened thirty years ago, including Hammer pants. I’m 100% serious as long as you don’t go completely insane with the fabric choice.

It’s funny to think about having a “serious relationship” with a seamstress, but maybe it’s not so far from the truth. When a person measures your body cross, back, front, around, etc., you skip some of the early chit-chat needed to get a relationship going. I mean, Barb has my wrist circumference: we can move onto talking about sibling rivalries immediately. She’s got my bust size — my actual bust size — so it’s like, tell me about your worst breakup ever, Barb. We’re close, is what I’m saying.

Barb has the fabric, she has the pattern, she has the measurements. I guess I’ll have my dress within a few weeks and yes, Barb’s done work for people who could not be in the same room with her for fittings. I’ve seen her portfolio and I feel good about this.

When I realized that the second half of the word “seamstress” is “stress,” I told Barb there was no stress allowed in this project. She promised she wouldn’t stress out and I promise to post a picture when I get my dress and am sure I have the proper shoes to go with it. Tim Gunn, who I met a couple years ago, would be proud.

*Available at your LQS and online retailers like Missouri Star Quilt Co. 

Lilly’s Big Day Out: Part 1

posted in: Chicago, Day In The Life, Family 4
High tea. Lilly will not be having prosecco. Image: Wikipedia
High tea. Lilly will not be having prosecco. Image: Wikipedia

I’ve shared stories about PaperGirl readers doing beautiful work in the world, like making me monkeys and sending me candy pumpkins. And just before Christmas, while I was working in Florida, I finally got to meet friends I’ve had for almost a decade but had never met. PaperGirl doesn’t just yeild daily writing practice and a place for me to sort things out, it yeilds special relationships.

Rita is quilter, a writer, and a longtime PG reader. Rita is also a grandmother. She is Lilly’s grandmother. Rita wrote to me a couple months ago — we’ve never met — that she wanted to surprise Lilly with a trip to Chicago for her seventh birthday. (How is it possible to have an age that is a single digit?) Rita emailed because she knew I’d have some great insider tips. Totally.

I was delighted to serve as a tour director to the best of my ability, but then something wonderful happened: I saw that I’d actually be home when the girls came to town. I asked Rita if I could personally escort them around for a few hours on Saturday. The answer was “Yeah!!” and so it is that tomorrow, I get to hang out with Rita and Miss Lilly Herself. The following plan has been Gramma Approved:

12pm — Meet the girls at their hotel on Michigan Ave.

12-12:15pm — Ride the #3 bus down Michigan Ave. This is a specifically planned activity because both Rita and Lilly are very excited about sampling Chicago public transit. I can make that happen.

12:30-2pm — Free tickets to the Art Institute! I’m excited to present Lilly with her very own ticket. I know a guy, so I have passes for all of us.

2-2:30pm — Bum around on the steps of the Art Institute, check out the El train on Wabash a block away, take lots of pictures, work up an appetite.

2:30-3:30 — High tea at nearby Russian Tea Time! You know the whole fancy tea party game little girls like to play? The white glove, cucumber sandwiches thing? It’s mimicking something called “high tea” (I’ll do a post on that later, it’s an interesting topic) and I’m taking Rita and Lilly to one of the best spots in the city for it. The last time I had high tea it was intense and emotional. I think “intense” and “emotional” won’t play into it tomorrow, probably. Just fun and maybe funny.

3:30-4pm — If Lilly’s not tuckered out, we’ll all walk the couple blocks from the Institute/Tea Time to my condo. Lilly can see how a city girl lives and I can show Rita some quilts. (Note to self: get pantyhose off the shower rod, make bed, wipe counter.) The view from the top of my building is fantastic, too: all Lake Michigan and skyline, baby.

Lilly doesn’t know she’s getting a surrogate auntie for her birthday. I’m so excited!

Symbols, Marriage, Night.

posted in: Day In The Life 2
There was hydrangea at my wedding. Photo: Wikipedia
There was hydrangea at my wedding. Photo: Wikipedia

I do not think marriage is a bad thing. Not only do I not think that, what a stupid thing it would be to say, to say that marriage is unequivocally bad. Some marriages are bad, some are never bad, some are bad sometimes and get better, some are great and will become bad, and sometimes — most of the time, I hear — they fluctuate between good, sorta or acutely bad, mundane, and ultimately great even if it takes awhile.

Last night I had a dream I was to remarry my ex-husband, but I decided, in secret, as I looked for my dress in a U-Haul storage facility that I couldn’t do it. It was less about him and more about me, which is frequently the case in an identity crisis.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the top five google searches people do on me is “mary fons husband” followed closely by “mary fons divorce.” I get fan letters from prison, so I wonder if “mary fons husband” is searched by hopeful guys with just a few months left inside. It’s probably just run-of-the-mill curiosity though; in early episodes on TV I wore a ring and at one point, I did not. What happened?

Speaking about my brief marriage is unwise for a number of reasons, but it happened nonetheless; it’s my life and I can tell if I want to. But I don’t want to, usually, and there are/were two people involved, one of which has not decided to put his life into words in public.

I understand my ex-husband remarried and will soon have kids. It used to be that you heard news like that from the next village over, and at least a few days late. Well, the Internet you use is your village; the Internet I use is my village and now we hear or collect news from all the villages down the road whenever we please. I wasn’t looking for that news (honestly) but there it was, shared with me by Facebook, the town crier, the gossip, the one who travels far and wide and brings back all the stuff we probably don’t need to know and usually don’t want to know.

In my dream, I realized I didn’t have to marry again — not to him, but at all, ever, if I don’t want to — and that was the first time in the dream I didn’t feel scared.

 

Little Girl, Big Book.

posted in: Chicago, Day In The Life 0
She's actually looking up at Grandma for a chocolate shake, but let's say it's a shelf of books. Photo: John Trainor, courtesy Wikipedia.
She’s actually looking up at Grandma for a chocolate shake, but let’s say it’s a shelf of books. Photo: John Trainor, courtesy Wikipedia.

My neighborhood is the South Loop (that’s the bottom of the Loop Loop) but I’m a block over from Printer’s Row. Printer’s Row is a short stretch of Dearborn St. that many years ago was the heart of the Chicago robust publishing and printing industry.

Not much is left of that era; most everything is pretty condo buildings and storefront business and restaurants — but there is Sandmeyer’s Books. It’s a snuggly, warm bookshop and though I have promised myself that I cannot, shall not buy any more books until I read all the books I have, I should go give Sandmeyer’s Books some money because I don’t want it to go away. I’ll go there tomorrow and let you know what I buy.

Claus and I passed by the bookshop today and smiled when we saw the most adorable child in the Milky Way. She was maybe four. Cute little cap with blonde hair poking out. Nice warm jacket. And she had a book in a Sandmeyer’s Bookstore bag clutched to her chest. I was enchanted. Kids with books, man; they could steal my purse and I’d tell them to go have fun and be careful. In a very friendly-not-weird way, I stopped and said “Well, hello there! Did you get a book today?”

The girl looked up at me with big blue eyes. Her nanny said, “She found a ten-dollar bill on the street.”

If I found ten bucks on the street, I would freak out. I said to the little girl that that was really cool and very lucky. And she wanted a book, eh? Her nanny nodded and told me the little girl was going to give the rest of the money to her mommy and daddy. Yeah, right.

“And what book did you get little Miss?” I asked.

Her nanny helped produce the book. It was Home for a Bunny, a Big Little Golden Book by Margaret Wise Brown. A favorite of mine as a child and for my sisters, too. I told the little girl she had made a excellent choice. Claus and I waved goodbye and headed home, past old Dearborn Station, which was a passenger train hub from 1885 to 1971. Many, many people arrived in Chicago through that station; plenty of them bought their first book in this city.

Pigeons: It’s Us And Them.

posted in: Chicago, Day In The Life 1
Me, just hangin' by a two-story Alexander Calder sculpture by the downtown Chicago post office. Photo: Claus
Me, just hangin’ by a two-story Alexander Calder sculpture by the downtown Chicago post office. I have a picture of pigeons from the same day this picture was taken but I can’t bear to use it. Pigeons are just gross-looking Photo: Claus

I was on the No. 3 bus that runs on Michigan Ave., heading south. The bus was full, so I had moved to the front; my stop was coming up and I didn’t want to have to throw elbows to get out.. In close proximity to me was the silver-haired bus driver, this really tall black dude with a pick in his afro, a tiny Asian woman of about sixty, and another white chick like me, who never looked up from her phone a single time and she got on when I did, way up at Chicago Ave.

Our bus got stopped in traffic. There was construction and a couple busses ahead of us, so we had a long wait at the curb at Lake Street. This brief party found ourselves looking out of the bus onto the sidewalk at our right. There were people walking along on the sidewalk, as usual; we hardly saw the scaffolding criss-crossing our view of the sidewalk because that scaffolding has been on that block for nine thousand years. (Maybe they’re just building scaffolding.) And then we all saw a couple boys of about thirteen or so running around chasing a big group of pigeons. The boys were clearly brothers; you could tell by their likeness and how a woman nearby was yelling, “John! Jake! Get back here! Where’s your father?”

The boys were tossing parts of their sandwich bread to the birds and some of the bread landed right outside the bus door. The bus driver shook his head. I jumped back, even though the door was closed, and went, “Eee!” The Asian lady clicked her tongue and gave the boys a fabulously disapproving look, which they will unfortunately never see. Longtime city dwellers know that pigeons are dirty and annoying, that they spread disease and are capable of pooping on your head.  My bus friends and I — being the wizened, hard Chicagoans we are — knew this and watched from our place of wisdom.

“Pigeons,” said the bus driver. “Just rats with wings. Those kids are in from out of town.”

The boys were running directly into the swarm of pigeons that had heard Subway sandwiches were being served at Michigan and Lake. One of the boys tried to pick up one of the birds.

“That ain’t even right,” said the guy with the pick.

We all looked at the sidewalk scene, at the people, the birds, the metal, the concrete, and I felt for the 20 millionth time in my life a comforting certainty: I belong in a city.

 

Creation: It’s the Strangest Thing

posted in: Art, Day In The Life, Word Nerd 0
Spiderweb in scrappy browns and reds. Photo: Me
Spiderweb in scrappy browns and a consistent red, currently on my design wall. Photo: Me

It’s the strangest thing.

I teach patchwork techniques. I speak about quilts to audiences large and small. I write about quilts at least twice a month in my column; I even wrote a whole book about quilts and edited a magazine about them for several years. And then, at the end of the day, when I drop my suitcase or I turn in this or that, record for the podcast, or take care of this or that piece of quilt-related business, I want to sew. How can it be?

It must be the power of making. Creation can never be boring and is rarely something to which a person has to drag themselves. The temptation of adventure through creativity is hard to resist. That pile of fabric scraps, that template, that cutting mat. What will come from it? What colors will come together? What shapes?

It’s the same with writing for me. Playing with words came before playing with fabric in my life; before I was absorbed into the world of quilts I couldn’t stay away from the word thing and I still can’t. The only reason I miss days posting on PaperGirl is because the night comes and I am too tired (or am otherwise engaged) and I can’t plunk myself down and get it done. I don’t like those days.

There was a poster at the Atlanta show that asked, “What will you create today?” It feels a little poster-ish to repeat here, so I’ll rephrase the question:

What act of making is irresistible today? And what are you going to do about it?

 

“Ahm Frum a Town Cahled ‘Ninety-Six.'”

Not yet available on iTunes. Image: Wikipedia
Not yet available on iTunes, sadly. Image: Wikipedia

Being in Atlanta reminds me how much I love the southern part of this country. Women from all over this region came to the show; I met Tennessee ladies, girls from Alabama, and a South Carolina lady who stole my heart. You know how you just zap with a person, sometimes? It’s the face, the smile, or the laugh — it could be the accent — and you recognize it, somehow, and maybe you can’t say why, but you’re just happy to be there. I had that feeling with this lady. We’ll call her Sue. Here’s how the conversation went:

“Mary. Ah was so excited to get the chance to meet you. Ah just luve your show. Ah watch it ev’ry week. You and your momma are just so sweet together.”

“Sue, you’re too kind — thank you. Thank you for watching the show. I like working with my mom, so it’s not too bad of a job. Where are you from?”

“Ah’m from Ninety Six, South Carolina.” She gave me a warm smile as I cocked my head, which is what every person who does not live in Ninety Six, South Carolina has ever done to Sue when she tells them where she’s from. “That’s raahht,” she said. “The town ah’m from is called Ninety Six. Now, isn’t that funny?”

Utterly charmed and curious as everyone else, I asked her why her town was named after a number. Sue told me that as legend has it, a young Native American woman had a boyfriend in the British Army. I interrupted and said that did not sound like a good idea.

“Oh, you’ve got thaht raaht,” Sue said. “Mary, it’s just a legund, but ah lahk to think it’s true. Anyway, she rode nahnty-six miles to tell her little boyfriend the British were coming. And that’s how Nahnty-Six got its name.” Sue was quite proud of her town and its peculiar name. I’d be proud, too — especially because my town’s high school football team would wipe the floor with the team from Ninety Five.

We chatted. Sue told me she was a breast cancer survivor. I gave her a high-five and asked if she was staying on top of check-ups and things. Sue patted my arm and said quietly, “Well, ah’m afraid it’s back, honey. It’s in mah lung this tahm.”

My eyes burned. Dammit. She was just so awesome. Dealing with cancer at all, let alone again — the pointless, “Why?” lodged itself into my brain and nearly eclipsed the moment we were having. Sue said she came to the show to enjoy classes and exhibits, to spend time with friends and to meet me, too. “It’s been a wonderful tahm,” she said. “Ah told mah husband, ‘Ah’m going to that quilt show and if mah doctor says I can’t, you tell him ah’m goin’ anyway!”

Sue, it was a pleasure. Now you go wipe the floor with Ninety Five.

Atlanta Uber-alis.

posted in: Day In The Life, Work 0
Would that it were pink. Photo: Thomas R Machnitzki, courtesy Wikipedia.
Would that it were pink. Photo: Thomas R Machnitzki, courtesy Wikipedia.

I touched down in Atlanta this morning and had to find a way to get across town — way across. Here’s a travel riddle for you: There are 25 miles between an airport and a gig and getting a lift from a pal is not an option. What do you do? Do you rent a car? Take a taxi? A shuttle service? A limo service, hm? Nope, in 2016, you order an Uber.

Uber is a company that has created the perfect way to order a taxi. You tap a button on your smartphone that pings where you are, then you tap out where you want to go. You hit, “Request Uber” and a bubble pops up that tells you exactly how long it will be before your taxi picks you up (usually it’s two to four minutes.) You can watch on the map where your car is in real time. Your ride arrives to your exact spot on the globe, you verify each other by name — riders should check the license plate numbers, too — and you’re on your way. Oh, and there’s no cash; the Uber app keeps your credit/debit card number and the ride is charged after you get out of the car. I love this service.

You can order a regular taxi, a fancy black SUV — maybe even a limo — or you can order an UberX. UberX cars are driven by anyone with a car and the ability to meet Uber’s strict requirements for signing on as a driver. When you order an UberX, you don’t get an actual taxi: you’re getting picked up in Dan’s Ford Taurus, say, or Shonna’s Toyota Camry. UberX is cheaper than a taxi and way cheaper than a limo. Here’s the solution to the riddle: a “real” taxi to the convention center today would’ve cost me $100; shuttle service, $80. An UberX ride? Thirty-six bucks. I placed my order.

As my driver drove up, I waved. He stopped the car and got out and I was about to say, “Hey, I’m your Uber” when Glenn — his name was Glenn — who was already helping me with his suitcase, said under his breath, “We work together. Don’t get in the backseat, get in the front.”

This was unusual. As in Sketch Town, USA unusual. And hey, man. I’m from Chicago. You can’t hustle me. “Woah, woah,” I said, putting my hand on Glenn’s arm so he couldn’t get my suitcase further into his trunk. “What is this? I’m looking for my Uber.” Glenn said, just moving one corner of his mouth, that UberX cars weren’t allowed to pick up at the airport and the cops were looking at him.

Great. Thirty minutes in Georgia and I’m breaking laws. But I rolled the dice; I got in. Most of the time in life, you’re not going to get kidnapped and tossed in the Chattahooche. Besides, I needed to get to work.

On the way over, Glenn asked me if it would be okay if he stopped to pee (he said “pee”) and get fuel. Sure, Glenn. Besides being repelled by his hacking cough there in the front seat, I actually enjoyed the ride. We got to talking; Glenn was a world-traveler. He’d been to Kuwait, Somalia, Afghanistan, many others. I just asked him about his big trips while I was on this small one.

 

Atlanta, Silk Pajamas, and A Twist At the End.

posted in: Day In The Life, Story, Work 0
It could be an ad for silk pajamas. It could be an ad for something...else. Either way, image courtesy Wikipedia.
It could be an ad for silk pajamas. It could be an ad for something…else. Either way, image courtesy Wikipedia.

This coming week has me heading over to Atlanta to teach and speak at the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo. This is one of my favorite gigs to do because I get to see Marlene. Marlene is the brains behind the Atlanta operation among other, similar operations and has been a friend and mentor to me for years. She was most publicly my friend when I went down in flames in Atlanta a number of years ago; without her help, I might still be casting about in the halls of a hospital in Georgia, filling out endless forms in triplicate and not getting the good kind of pain medicine.

Whenever I go to Atlanta, I am reminded of the first time I went to Atlanta. I was traveling with Bari; like Marlene, Bari is the sort of person you want around when the zombie apocalypse comes. It was awhile ago, but I remember Bari needed to drive to St. Louis to deliver something to her grandmother. That sounds like a cover for something, but I think it was legit. Bari grew up in the Atlanta area and her parents still lived there; for some reason, it made sense for her to drive to Atlanta and then go on to grandma’s house. Bari and I were living together that summer and she asked me if I wanted to go. I had no plans and I loved Bari. We got in her SUV and got on the road.

Bari’s family home was the finest house I had ever been in up to that point. The architecture, the interior, the grounds — these people had impeccable taste in every area in which impeccable taste matters (e.g., food, art, dogs, etc.) And they were all so nice! Within an hour of being welcomed inside, I got used to the fact that there was a grand staircase in the front of the house and a back staircase in the back of the house. I wanted to live in the kitchen and could have, perhaps with ten or eleven other people.

Bari showed me to my own guestroom where I had my own bathroom and my own balcony, I think. There were silk sheets on the bed and I had packed silk pajamas. When I got into bed that night, I really slid around.

All the comfort of that home was thrown into sharp relief the week after: I went to visit my boyfriend Dan in New York City and we heard a dog get shot. Dan lived in Bushwick, Brooklyn, a decade before Bushwick began to be remotely cool or safe. I didn’t like being there, but I really liked Dan. One night, we were going nuts listening to this dog bark and bark and bark and bark and bark and then we heard a gunshot and the dog didn’t bark anymore.

In life, as in patchwork, contrast is what makes things interesting.

Wellington On Smartphone.

posted in: Chicago, Day In The Life, Story 0
コーちゃん、オーちゃんと Photo: Wikipedia
コーちゃん、オーちゃんと Photo: Wikipedia

Yesterday’s story about quitting a restaurant job in the name of making no money in the name of art reminded me of other tales, all from my early twenties. I did not sleep well. Thinking back on my early days in Chicago, I am filled with a 2:1 ratio of compassion and chagrin: I love the girl who moved to a major city alone, knowing no one, having only a vague idea of what she was going to do once she arrived; I wince when I think of what bar she thought was cool and which lampshade she chose to wear on her head while she hung out there. Youth is wasted on the young — and youth was wasted last night, too.

I moved to Chicago before smartphones. In black and white, here, right now, I am officially “dating myself,” which is something that until this moment, other people older than me did. Well, here we go: I’m dating myself, but I remember what it was like to move to a new city and not have a magical electronic map in my pocket that talked to me. I had a foldout thing I got for graduation, a wing, and a prayer. Just one wing? When has one wing ever worked?

I did not know my way around the city. At all. And I didn’t know anyone, either. I got off the Brown Line train at Wellington a couple days after I had gotten my apartment. The Wellington Brown Line station is on Wellington Street of course. But my apartment was twenty-six blocks west of that station. All I knew was that I lived on Wellington St., so I was like, “Oh. Okay. Well, I don’t know where I am but I live on Wellington, so I’ll just call this one good.” I got off the train. And I walked twenty-six blocks. I realized I was really far away from where I needed to be, but I was on Wellington and the numbers were going up, so I just kept going. I couldn’t spend money on a cab. I didn’t know the bus lines. If I had had a smartphone, that never would’ve happened. Because GPS is watching.

I’d like to say, “And I’m glad I didn’t have a smartphone! That was good for me, that horrible, hot, summer day in Chicago, walking miles and miles.” But it wasn’t good for me. It was bad. I was sad, lost, and alone. There’s no other way to say it. It took so long.

The image above conveys perfectly my disorientation that day. The word “Wellington” always reminds me of “Paddington,” as in Paddington Bear. After seeing WikiCommons’ offerings for the Wellington El stop, I searched for images of Paddington Bear. Nothing good there either, so I went for “Wellington boots.” This image of a Japanese theme park came up on that page. That is actual Japanese in the caption. I have no idea what it says.

My point is that thirty-six is is better than twenty-two; thirty-six with a Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is better still. I will try not to be twenty-two in tomorrow’s post.

 

“You Can’t Have Both.”

posted in: Art, Chicago, Day In The Life, Story 1
It was kinda like this place. Image: Wikipedia
It was kinda like this place. Image: Wikipedia

When I was new in Chicago — this is fifteen years ago, now — a friend of mine helped me get a job as a hostess at a downtown restaurant. The restaurant was a citywide chain so popular, Saturday night at the host stand felt straight-up dangerous. Elbows were thrown. Twenty-dollar bills were passed to the maitre-d’ for special treatment (woe betide the tipper if the guy from out of town waiting three hours already spied the exchange.) Wine was sloshed. It was loud. And it was an hour commute on the train from my tiny apartment in the middle of nowhere.

I had learned to eat well in college. I worked as a waitress at a cafe there in Iowa City and got my culinary education — and dating the head chef for most of that time meant I got, you know, tutoring help and stuff. By the time I got to Chicago, I actually knew a little about wine. I could make a pan sauce all by myself. This small-town girl not only knew what sweetbreads were, she would order them if she found them on a menu. Aside from the occupational hazards, being a hostess just felt wrong. I was in a restaurant but not doing what I could do. I knew a restaurant job was what I would have for awhile, but the role and the restaurant had to change.

There was an ad in the Chicago Reader for a waiter at a two-star (Michelin stars, that is) restaurant on Taylor Street. Let’s call it The Fancy Napkin. This place was gorgeous: an upscale French bistro owned by a Moroccan man who looked like a swarthy James Bond. The cafe sat sixty, tops, outfitted in impeccable white linen; the waiters wore impeccable white bistro aprons. Each wine glass was spotless and the lights from the chandeliers glinted off them all. Steaming bowls of boulliabaisse. Crusty baguettes. And if you wanted to spend north of a grand on a bottle of wine, the restaurant would be happy to help you do that.

I applied. There were no female waiters, just three dudes, one of whom had been there over ten years. I had to take a wine test. I had to answer serious menu questions. I forget what the owner asked me, but it would’ve been things like, “What is canard? What is mille-feuille? Pair wine with the caviar plate for me.” I got an hour with the menu and then had a quiz. I did very well on everything and the owner offered me the job. But I had a problem.

The theater company I was a part of was producing our first show. I had a small part in the second act. There was zero money. And I had rehearsals at night. As a hostess at the chain restaurant, I could be in the play: I’d just work the lunch shifts. But not at The Fancy Napkin — there was only dinner six nights a week. I told James Bond I would be thrilled to take the job and then gently broached the little matter of needing Wednesdays and Thursdays off for awhile, then swapping those out for the Friday and Saturday nights I’d need for the play. But not for long! Just four weeks or so? Sir?

This did not go well. After expressing his extreme displeasure over taking so much time to vet me, he told me something I will never forget: “Marie, you can be a poor artist. Or you can make a lot of money at this restaurant. But you can’t do both. Decide now. Do you want to be poor and in a little play? Or do you want to live?” I was speechless. I needed money. But the play. Theater was the reason I came to Chicago. But money. But art. But rent. But love. Oh, no, no, no. I was twenty-two years old.

So you know what I did? I took a walk around the block. Someone had told me once that if you have to make a big decision, take a walk around the block and say to yourself firmly, “By the time I get back to where I started, I will have my decision.” It works. You speed up the decision-making process. You get closer to the end of your loop and you’re still in a quandary and then bam! The solution presents itself. The whole way around the block, walking slowly, I didn’t know what to do. But when I got to the door, I did.

I quit the job.

 

 

Airport Rules, Famous Scones.

posted in: Day In The Life 1
The scone and the damage done. Photo: Me
The scone and the damage done. Photo: Me

The first time I come to the Seattle area and it rains all weekend. What are the chances?!

After a phenomenal experience at the big Puyallup show — thank you to the event hosts and the hundreds of great quilters I met — I’ve come here to the Sea-Tac airport. My flight is in about an hour-and-a-half, but I am at my gate and have been at my gate for a little while. Here are three rules I live by:

1. Never eat Taco Bell, ever.
2. Do not buy deodorant at the drugstore because baking soda is much better.
3. When you’re flying someplace, arrive at the airport as early as you can without camping out overnight, which makes you look like you’re homeless and require aid.

What being early to the airport does is make it impossible for you to be running late to the airport. Running late to the airport is the worst. If you like prickly heat up and down your back for an hour — or more, depending on your proximity to the airport — this is not true for you. For most of us, though, prickly heat is suboptimal. If you straight up miss your flight (e.g., oversleeping, miscalculated departure time) you’ll experience shock and denial. But to just be running late means you might be okay and it’s that “We could make it… We may actually do this…” feeling that is its own special kind of hell. Traffic, ticket counter, security lines — they’re all blocks to your goal. So I avoid all that and get to the airport two hours early. Besides, I get work done at airports because I can’t go clean the kitchen in the middle of writing emails. I can’t decide that I want to work on the couch for awhile and then fall asleep. I must stay alert.

There’s a famous food item on offer at the Puyallup State Fairgrounds. It’s the Fisher scone and there’s only one kind, and it is only sold at the Fair. You can try to make the scones yourself from the mix Fisher sells on their website, but if you want the real, warm, raspberry jam-filled deal, you need to go to Puyallup and get into the fairgrounds. The Fischer flour company started selling these scones over a hundred years ago.  Everyone I met in the first hour of being at the show was like, “Didja get a scone?” and “Have ya heard about the scones?” and “Oh, you gotta get a scone while you’re here.”

Obviously, I got one. Now, I stay pretty far from gluten (this goes back a long time, now) but from time to time, I remind myself that inflammation in my janky abdomen is bad, two bites of a scone is not going to put me in the hospital. So I took that modest-sized, warm, jammy scone from the wax bag and bit into it. Wow. I took another bite. Still good. I put the half-eaten scone on the bag, took this picture, then put the leftover in my tote bag for later.

“Later” was five seconds later. Thanks for a great time, Washington state. Time to board.

.

 

Bummed Out, New Phone.

posted in: Day In The Life, Story 2
Michigan Avenue AT&T store not pictured. Photo: Wikipedia
Michigan Avenue AT&T store not pictured. Photo: Wikipedia

It’s been a tough few days. Battling anacondas. Liquidating a Fortune 500 company. Quashing a pandemic seconds before it’s unleashed on the Earth by a villain. Seriously, though: it’s been a tough few days. 

Canada has been cancelled. Peru has been cancelled. Let’s call it health reasons and leave it at that. Bon soir, Montreal. Adios, Cuzco. (Balls, I say, and that’s plain English.) But life is consistently weird and often lousy and what can you do? Well, fun things. You can do fun things and try to not be as lame as you were yesterday. That’s all you can do — and that’s advanced stuff.

I walked up to a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and got done early. Feelin’ blue, I did what any red-blooded American would do in my situation: I went into the AT&T store to see if I could get a new phone. It turned out that I could, provided that I promised my firstborn child to the ghost of Alexander Graham Bell. Sure, dude. Do I sign with my finger or the stylus? Doesn’t matter? Right on. 

The upside of getting a new phone at the phone store is that you don’t do any of the data transferring. You punch in your password and the tiny magic doo-dads are synched by someone who won’t ruin everything. The downside is that it takes a very long time. If you amble into the phone store and think you’re going to amble on out with a new phone in twenty minutes, you are incorrect. I learned today that “getting a new phone” may be something I procrastinate about when time comes to do it again. It’s not a “Let’s play hooky and go get a new phone!” proposition; it’s an errand. 

That is, unless someone groovy helps you. Then it’s a blast. Bekie, an extremely pretty Hispanic girl with hair that I will never, ever have and could never even fake, greeted me at the door. I told her what I was after and she walked me through my options. I could have a dinner plate-sized phone or a turkey platter-sized phone. I went with the dinner plate, but it was tough choice.

While we waited for Samsung to transfer all the information it has on me from one X-ray spy machine — sorry, phone — to another, me n’ Bekie got to talking. We talked about men. Boys, really. We moved through relationship drama, jobs, other jobs, past lives, patterns, dreams, annoyances. We covered territory like we hadn’t seen each other since college, but I was just a customer, she was on her shift.. 

The tables at the AT&T store on Michigan Avenue are high-tops, so when you’re sitting down you have the feeling you’re in a bar. Several times over the course of my two-hour relationship with Bekie, I had to get over the uncomfortable feeling that our waiter was really slow bringing our drinks. It was just that friendly there in the AT&T store. Bekie told me her eight-year-old daughter recently turned eight. 

“Oh, that’s great. I’ll bet she had a princess party. Is Frozen still cool?”

“Yeah,” Bekie said. “It’s still cool, but she didn’t want a party like that. She wanted to go to this adventure place, like an activity place. I took her. It was really fun.”

When my phone was done, I gathered up all my things and gave Bekie a big hug.

Anna Renderer, Booty-Shaping Ray of Light.

posted in: Day In The Life, Paean 3
Who's got spirit? Me, but I can't jump that high. Photo: Wikipedia
Who’s got spirit? Me, but I can’t jump that high. Photo: Wikipedia

I realized late in college that running regularly on a treadmill made me slim and chipper. It was because I had these jeans. They were tight. And white. They were tight, white jeans. I wanted to wear them so bad. After a month of working out, I tried them on and they didn’t just fit: they looked killer. I’ve been keen on exercise ever since.

But the gym is smelly. Shortly after moving to Chicago, I abandoned the gym and became a Serious Yoga Person and enjoyed my Serious Yoga for many years. But yoga is expensive. So not long ago, I found myself a rudderless ship. I needed a captain. Who would stretch my hammies? What mode of exercise would I find that would make it possible for me to still eat the frosting off of donuts and have bacon?

Well, a few months ago, a new day dawned for my hammies because I found love. I found a woman named Anna Renderer and I love her in my living room, all alone.

Anna Renderer is the lead fitness instructor-slash-host of PopSugar Fitness, a division of the PopSugar lifestyle brand. (Like you, I barely know what that term means.) There are hundreds of exercise videos on PopSugar Fitness’s YouTube channel, all around 10-60 minutes. Bikini body workouts, circuit training, ballet, weight-training, pilates, yoga, cardio “blast”, dance — any workout you want to do, it’s likely PopSugar has one for you and Anna is going to be there when you click over. Sometimes she’s the lead trainer, sometimes she’s one of the students taking the class from a guest instructor. Either way, Anna is there, smiling with those endearing dimples, calling out, “Yeah, guys! You’re rockin’ it! Wow, this is really gettin’ at those abs, right? I’m feelin’ that! Oh, my goodness! Come on, just one more, guys, I know you can do it! Awesome!”

My favorite thing is when Anna’s leading the workout and she turns to the other two girls in the room and uses her conspiratorial voice. During a tricep kickback she’ll say, voice a little quieter than usual, “Do you guys feel that? In the tricep? Isn’t that awesome?”

Never in my life have I enjoyed death by squat jumps so completely. Anna is tireless. She is cracking with energy the entire time and you don’t hate her. It’s not fake. She is actually cheerful and she actually wants you to succeed in your exercise today. How do I know? Oh, I know. I’ve hosted hundreds of video tutorials. Hundreds. I know what level of energy it takes to do that sort of work and I never taught jumping jacks in my how-to videos. The girl is legit — and when you’re doing knees-and-toes, you need legit. You don’t want to know what knees-and-toes are because they are very hard.

PopSugar isn’t paying me to write this. (The videos are free and I don’t advertise on PaperGirl so I don’t know how they’d pay me if they offered.*) I just want Anna Renderer to know that she’s doing a good job because her job involves a black hole and that can really feel lousy. The black hole is the unblinking eye of the camera and I know it well. There’s no way for Anna to know what/how people are really doing at home when she tapes an episode. There’s no real-time audience feedback. When you tape a class for the Internet, it’s just you, the red “Record” button, and what you hope is happening in the void. Anna, it’s happening. You torched my quads, girl. You’re doing a great job and you make me want to work out. Use that conspiratorial voice more. It’s the best.

*If there is PopSugar promo merch, I would absolutely love a hoodie. Just in case you have some of those things in boxes someplace, I would wear that thing everywhere.

Quilt Your Heart Out: Pithy Advice For Patchwork & Relationships (The Podcast!)

posted in: Day In The Life 2
Me and Mom. Photo: Joe Mazza, BraveLux.
Me and Mom. Photo: Joe Mazza, BraveLux.

All right, Fons. Out with it.

Mom and I have launched a podcast. It’s called “Quilt Your Heart Out: Pithy Advice for Patchwork & Relationships” and it’s a weekly call-in advice show for quilters. Quilt Your Heart Out is now available at QuiltYourHeartOut.com and on iTunes.

We will take your calls on the air. Yes, we are waiting for your problems! It could be a problem with your borders, it could be a problem with your boyfriend. We take all comers.

There will be a celebrity guest each show — sometimes we’ll just chat about life, sometimes we’ll focus on a new project they’ve got going, sometimes they’ll take a whack at a listener question — maybe yours. There’s a trivia question each month, too; if you answer right and your name is drawn, you get a prize from one of our advertisers. There’s a recipe each week, too; not all quilters like to cook, but all humans like to eat, so we feel a featured recipe will be well-received.

There’s also a feature called the “Social Media-Shout Out.” This is a nod on the show (and in the blog) to someone doing notable work in the quilt world online. The Internet was good for a lot of communities (Trekkies!) but it’s been especially good for people who want to share their begging-to-be-photographed, colorful, meaningful, functional art with as many people as possible.

You should call in with a question right now. Call 773-273-9120. Or you could email your question: questions @ quiltyourheartout.com. Visit the website to get all the instructions, though: there are instructions!

CRUCIAL NOTE: We’re new at this. The only way we could be newer is if we didn’t know what a podcast was, but we do know that. The team is me, Mom, and Heather, our intrepid producer. But we are starting at zero. Mom and I lecture together and we do TV together, but radio is surprisingly different. And learning how to record and mix sound, well, turns out there are colleges that take four years to teach you how to do all that. But we jumped in, because that’s how we are. We’ll iron everything out (hey-o!) and we so want you to jump in with us and enjoy Quilt Your Heart Out each week.

Please be super-fans and do the Facebook thing, click the “share” button. Tell your friends. Subscribe on iTunes. Leave comments, follow, all those things that make or break a project in 2016.. We are having so much fun already; the more momentum, the more fun you’ll have listening to QYHO for many, many happy hours in the sewing room.

Yo! Quilt’cha haaaat out!!

“Eye-Eye, Doctor!”

posted in: Day In The Life 1
Optometrist appointment reminder postcard, c. 1935. Image: Wikipedia.
Optometrist appointment reminder postcard, c. 1935. Image: Wikipedia.

I got to go to the optometrist today. I love going to the optometrist. I always have — and I mean that in two ways: I have always loved going to the optometrist and I have always gone to the optometrist because since I was in second grade or so, I have required vision correction. Whenever I see a shorty with glasses, I get a pang. Kids under six look adorable in glasses but most of them don’t think so (I didn’t.)

The optometrist is great because there are so many interesting tools used to examine you but none of them are sharp or contain fluid. You sit down in a comfortable chair. You put your chin in a cup. The doctor comes close and shines a tiny light directly in your eye but for some reason this is not a problem. You look at letters on the wall and try to read them. Whether or not you read the letters correctly, the optometrist gives you praise: “Okay, great. Let’s look at the next one.” You don’t know if you’re right or wrong about the letters and you don’t care that much. You’re just in a quiet place with someone who cares about your eyes.

You’ll think I’m kidding, but I’m not: the sound of test lenses dropping into place as the doctor goes, “Is 1 better? Or 2? Is 3 better? Or 4? 5 better? or 4?” — that entire sequence is my favorite sound in the world. There’s something calming and drowsy about it, but it’s impossible to explain. (Probably an ASMR thing, if you’re familiar with that.) If you’ve never been to an eye doctor, you have no idea what I’m talking about. If you have been to the eye doctor, you do know, and I’ll bet you love that, too.

It took some time to tweak my slightly-changed prescription, so my optometrist and I got to chatting as I swapped out this and that contact. Did you know optometry school takes four years? It take four years after an undergrad degree. I don’t know why I was surprised; a person who works exclusively with the health of freaking eyeballs should probably study for awhile before they do that.

My right eye has felt tired, lately. I was hoping it was because I was straining to see out of it, that I needed a stronger prescription. As that is not the case, I am still mildly concerned about this. But it only happens when I wear my contacts; when I wear my glasses, I’m fine. I’m not excited about wearing my glasses all the time, so I hope this tiredness goes away. I’d like to have options, which is precisely how I felt when I was six.

 

Mmm… Foot.

posted in: Day In The Life 1
A 100% innocuous picture. I think. Photo: Wikipedia
A picture of sprinkled donuts: the safest picture there is. I think. Photo: Wikipedia

I’m not sure if I’ve ever had a better example of a person putting her proverbial foot in her mouth than when I posted about Beyonce yesterday. It’s hilarious, except not.

Apparently, there is a big controversy surrounding Beyonce right now. It has something to do with her Superbowl performance. I had absolutely no idea about this. I’m serious: I had zero knowledge that Beyonce is all over the news and that indeed, that her team of lawyers is extremely busy right now. Perhaps you don’t believe it. Perhaps you think, “What are the odds? How could it be that you wrote about Beyonce and litigation and not know that at this very hour, there are angry mobs calling for her head?”

I didn’t know because I don’t have a television and I don’t watch the news. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a Superbowl in my life. It’s fine if such broadcasts are your thing; it’s just not mine. I watch stuff on my computer when I sew (I like Hoarders) but as for network news, televised events like the Grammys or basketball championships, it’s dark around here. And I don’t read the newspaper much, either. Irresponsible? Idiotic? Maybe, though there’s a good argument that the more you watch the news, the less you know. Outside of ensuring you have enough information to make an informed choice when you go to vote, it’s been my experience that you don’t need to watch the news all that much to know what’s going on in the world. You just have to pay attention, talk to people, and keep your eyes and ears open.

Today, I wonder if this is the correct approach. To anyone who was horrified that I would support Beyonce after a ruinous concert, I assure you, I didn’t know a thing about it. Coincidences are weird. And hey, I might still support Beyonce after a ruinous concert — if there can be such a thing — but you know what? I’ll never know! Because even after I saw folks upset about the post, I still haven’t googled anything about Beyonce’s cultural dust up. I don’t want to know and I don’t have to. I assure you, in one week, Beyonce will slip from the front page and go back to the celebrity page. Sometimes, I can’t even tell the difference.

p.s. A friend said I should link to this.

Some People Get All the Cool Jobs.

posted in: Day In The Life 1
Beyonce performing in Barcelona, 2007. Photo: Wikipedia
Beyonce performing in Barcelona, 2007. Photo: Wikipedia

I was walking along yesterday, looking down at my feet and the brick sidewalk underneath them when out of the clear blue, I thought: “Someone is Beyonce’s lawyer. That’s their job. When someone asks them, ‘So, what do you do?’ that person actually says, “I’m Beyonce’s lawyer.'”

This thought kept me occupied for at least forty-five minutes. I had to go to CVS. I decided to get a hamburger. I almost went in to the library to renew my library card but decided that was too much work. But all of these activities took place in the background of my brain as I thought about someone whose job it is to be Beyonce’s lawyer. It was bitterly cold, so I had my wool hat pushed down low and my big scarf wrapped around twice and pushed up high, so all I was was a walking puffy coat with two eyes blinking out, thinking about Beyonce’s legal team.

It’s a team for sure: there’s definitely more than one lawyer servicing Beyonce. I googled “how many people on Beyonce’s legal team” but nothing turned up. There’s got to be at least twelve: two senior attorneys are in charge of contracts, probably, and they both have at least two assistants. Another guy leads the team fielding all the lawsuits against Beyonce, Inc. from serious ones to wack-a-doo ones; another pursues lawsuits Beyonce, Inc. is filing against other people (probably legit) — and they’ve got their own assistants, too. And maybe there’s just one lawyer who serves as her advisor only; Beyonce’s consigliere, whispering in her ear.

The more people the better, I thought, because then there are more people on the planet who can say, “Oh, I’m Beyonce’s lawyer” as they take another cheese cube from the snack table. If I was the one who asked that person, “So, what do you do?” and they said, “Oh, I’m Beyonce’s lawyer,” then I would say:

“Wow! Seriously?? That’s amazing! Wow! Beyonce’s lawyer. How about that. Do you like it? I mean, that’s a really exciting job description!”

He (I don’t know why it’s a he, here, but it is) would shrug and say, “Well, it’s a job. I mean, long hours and the usual stuff like anybody else, I guess.”

My eyes would get big and I would say, “No.”

“No what?”

“You are Beyonce’s lawyer. Beyonce. You are her lawyer. That is amazing. You help Beyonce. You help her live. Beyonce is your boss. She pays you money. You have Beyonce as your boss. You’re a lawyer for her.”

The guy would stare at me and swallow his cheese cube before he was completely done chewing it. “Y-yeah, I mean… It’s definitely cool. Absolutely.” Then he would say it was nice to meet me and lift his glass as he took off. “Cheers, nice to meet you.” He would move quickly.

Then I would stab a strawberry with a toothpick and eat it, shaking my head. “Jerk,” I would think. And, just to be petulant, I’d use the same toothpick to stab another strawberry but I wouldn’t eat that one.

Swinging From Metal Vines.

The 11 train, NYC Metro. Image: Wikipedia
The 11 train, NYC Metro. Image: Wikipedia

There was a time not so very long ago when I had moved to Washington, that I figured out a few slick subway train transfers within the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which is called “WMATA” for short, which sound’s like something Tony Spaghetti’s big brother says to the pipsqueak who’s lookin’ at him funny:

“Ey, yew! Yeah, yew, kid. You keep lookin’ at me and my brotha like that, I’ma wamata ya right in ya gavone face. Capishe?”

Anyway, there I am in Washington, and I’m stepping out from the Red Line to Shady Grove to the Gallery Place/Chinatown station because I need to transfer to the Green; you can catch the Green Line there, as well as the Yellow Line. As I did that, I recalled how I know the NYC Metro 6 line pretty well and the Q, and that I used to take the 1 train up to the Upper West Side to get to The Yarn Company to sew because there was no room to sew in the tiny, tiny, I-hate-you tiny apartment I was living in with Yuri.

A few weeks after the WMATA moment, thinking deeply about two cities’ subway systems, I was in Chicago for a weekend and, wow, I know the train system here like the back of my hand, which, after at least thirty years (do two-year-olds consider the backs of their hands?) I know pretty well.

All these train maps in my head and the solid knowledge I have of navigating them came together and I felt like a monkey swinging from one big vine. Shoop! The L train in Manhattan that crosses the Lower East Side over to the west side. Shoop! Down from Cleveland Park in DC to get the Orange Line to Eastern Market. And then, that first, peaceful ride on Chicago’s Orange Line to go to Midway to catch a flight, knowing I’d be coming back on the same tracks.

The other day, though, I went down into the lower level of the Chase building because I thought there was a post office down there; I realized when I couldn’t find the post office that I was thinking of a post office in the basement of a building in Penn Quarter in DC. That was weird.

This One’s For You, Baby.

posted in: Chicago, Day In The Life, Family 1
Unidentified man with unidentified object that is too cute to be human, puppy, or kitten. Photo: Me, carefully.
Unidentified man with unidentified object that is too cute to be human, puppy, or kitten. Photo: Me, carefully.

My mom is in town for the lighting of the first (or “beta”) test of The Wabash Lights. We had plans to meet at the new Maggie Daley Park Ice Skating Ribbon. Mom and I love to skate; we both love it enough and are good enough to have our own skates. Stand in line for rentals? Not these girls. We just lace up and go.

Mom lost her phone, though (first time in her life), so she had to deal with that this afternoon. The last time we communicated was earlier in the day via email; as of then, the plan stood. So I went to the Ribbon at the appointed time, but no Mom. I couldn’t call her. She couldn’t call me. So I skated by myself until she showed up. For an hour, with no headphones, no pal to chat with, I skated round and round that magnificent ribbon. It’s less of a “view” you get than a “movie” you get on that thing. You get a moving picture and you’re the thing moving and the air is crisp as can be. The city of Chicago is the sky below the sky and the endless blue of Lake Michigan rounds out the whole world. They did a really, really good job with this thing.

I love this city so much. The Ribbon is one more reason to be a jerk about how much better this city is than any other city now or ever. But what I really want to talk about is that baby.

There is good in the world. Because nothing could be cuter or more wonderful than this baby. Strapped tight into its little snuggly, winging around on its dad’s back as he deftly — and carefully, I assure you — maneuvered the Ribbon, this baby is everything. I have other pictures. I tried so hard to not be weird, but I had to take pictures of this baby. This is the best one I got, I think. I’m on Instagram, so follow me for more of the Perfect Ribbon Baby images that I cannot stop looking at. You will not be disappointed.

Sometimes, I do want a kid.

Small Wonders Wednesday: Random Blog Winner Takes All

The accessory pattern: tote, wristlet, and plucky headscarf.
The accessory pattern: tote, wristlet, and plucky headscarf.

In 1870, a Scottish immigrant named James McCall — odd, because “McCall” doesn’t sound Scottish  — put out an “illustrated guide” to a pair of gloves he was manufacturing. The McCall’s pattern was born.

Fast forward nearly 150 years, and I’m posting a picture of a McCall’s pattern on a phantasmagorical thing called the Internet. What would James McCall think? He’d probably go look at the books and see how his company was doing and whether or not it was being publicly traded. (I think it is, but it’s confusing.)

When the Small Wonders line was shown to the nice people at McCall’s by the fine folks at Springs Creative, they liked it a lot. In fact, they were immediately inspired. They felt the line could be put to use in their business. When making garments and the sewn accessory, larger-scale prints may be harder to work with for folks who don’t do these things on a professional level. Matching seams becomes a bit trickier; a large flower gets chopped in half and suddenly looks like something from Little Shop of Horrors and you just hope no one looks at you from the back. A toile can give fits. A damask languishes in the stash. Projects stall.

The small print is a lovely choice for an apron, say, or a painfully adorable romper outfit for a baby, because these problems cannot occur. Besides, tulips are cute. So McCall’s and Springs joined together and I worked with McCall’s to create an 8-piece pattern line for sewists. These are bag, accessory, and clothing patterns and I’m so pleased with them because I know you will be, also. And I’ve never claimed I was a garment-sewing person; I’m not, though I’ve made bags in my day. No, I’m just the fabric designer and pored over patterns until I found the ones that fit the best. It’s interesting to note that these are the first patterns McCall’s has produced for independent retailers in…ever.

Today, I’m giving away a 3-pack of these patterns — which, again, are available only at local quilt shops and independent online retailers like Fabric Depot, Missouri Star, etc. The 3-pack goes to Ms. Lou, who made an adorable bag of her own from the China group of Small Wonders. I think you’ll like the bag patterns you’ll be receiving in the mail soon, friend. You’re getting the pattern above, plus the painfully adorable romper outfit, plus the girl dress with matching doll dress one.*

Congratulations, Ms. Lou. Send me your mailing address (smallwonderswednesday @ gmail)  — and you keep totin’.

*I was never the girl with a dress that matched my doll. So I’m passing my pain onto the world to fix. Everything always works out. 

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