Sewing

I really want to get back to making my own clothes, as I did from my early teens to my early 30's. I stopped because I had children - boy children who seemed to sap all my energy, who didn't care much for pretty clothes, would rather have comfortable, practical clothes, and whose births changed my body shape to one that I didn't like enough to spend time and energy on.

My friend Jenny sews beautifully and when I said I would like to start sewing again, she took me shopping for material and patterns, and then spent a considerable amount of time re-drafting the patterns so that the shirts would actually fit my strange body. There was a time when I could buy a size 12 pattern and make it up with no alterations - but that time is past. Alas, despite all this help, I still have not made the shirts. Somewhere in the last 20 years I have lost confidence.

So I decided to start on a simple beginner's project: the first thing we made in sewing class at school, an apron. I have to admit, I have been lusting after Kate's gorgeous aprons and wanting to make one for quite a while. Well, mine isn't up to Kate's standard, but for a first effort after 20 something years, made out of someone else's left over bits of material - it's not bad.

Okay, so I'm on a roll. Next up something else that requires minimal fitting - just one measurement - a sun hat.

Not sure if I'm ready for the shirts yet, but I'm having fun!

Felted bag

I finally finished a pair of knitted and felted slippers for Jeff - AND a knitted and felted handbag for me!


The handles are pretty even - they just don't look like it in the photo!

Life's Slipping By

Well, the grandbaby came, and is growing fast, surrounded by love. The wedding came and went, with all the anxiety behind us now, leaving behind memories of love.

Womad was a wonderful experience once again. It amazes me that each time I go it is a totally different experience, yet always joyous. This time I went with my two middle sons and their friends, and without my husband who didn't want to go this time. I was very nervous about that, feared I would spend most of the time alone - which I don't cope with very well - but the 'kids' (aged 17 - 20) included me all the time, gave no sign of wanting rid of me. In fact, if I wandered off on my own they would text me to tell me where they were and ask me to join them. I got to spend some time one on one with each of my two boys as well, which was wonderful, especially in the case of #3 who has moved to Wellington to live.


Just four weeks later, #3 was back up for a week for his 21st birthday party - how did he get so old? And now #4, my 'baby' just got his full driver's license and is two weeks away from turning 18!

#4 has been working full time, temporarily, for nearly four months, though he is now back to just casual work. It has been a lonely time for me after 27 years of always having my children around. Although I have a million things to do, I am finding it very difficult to adjust to having no one around. Living out in the country makes it harder in that I can't escape this isolation easily (especially since I let the van registration and WOF go till the last minute, and then discovered that the guy who does it for me is off work for several weeks after an operation!) On top of that, despite enjoying learning to dance, my pleasure was somewhat diminished by a young friend of #4 son saying how old women shouldn't be dancing, that it was horrible having to dance with people who can't move properly (he didn't have his own partner for the class and was assigned a partner about my age.) He hastened to (over) correct, saying he didn't mean me, but it did hit me hard in the guts. Am I being a foolish old woman to think I can learn to dance in my late fifties? Is it time to throw away the dancing shoes and settle for slippers?

(At least I had 'old women's fun' knitting and felting these slippers myself!)

I am reminded of some lines in my favourite poem when I was in my last year of school: T.S. Elliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" -

"I grow old...I grow old...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me."

But damn! I'm not ready just yet to give up on hearing the mermaids sing to me! Is it really too late to turn my face from the waiting dark earth, rather towards the sun?

Showertime

It was January 2000 when we moved onto our land at Kauroa, and for the first year and a bit we lived in the double garage and attached room. Gradually we moved into our house (still unfinished), and I had the bright idea of making a mosaic of a nikau palm on the shower wall in the new bathroom. I started. Then the arthritis in my knees started playing up. Then I got seriously depressed. I developed a kind of obsessional mystical thinking where I believed that it wasn't possible to sell our house and land with a half finished mosaic, and therefore if I didn't finish it, we would never have to leave.

So for the past 8 years we have been showering in the garage, meaning that for 6 1/2 years we have had to go outside in dark, cold, wind, rain, hail, frost or what ever else the weather threw at us, to shower.

But I got over my mystical thinking, and finished the mosaic a couple of days ago and we are now showering inside!

The funny thing is, I know I'm going to miss that daily trip out to the shower in the morning: even when I was cursing myself on cold, dark, rainy mornings, I was aware of pleasure at being forced daily to reconnect with the earth, with Gaia. Truly, there is something magical about the stars on a frosty winter morning with just that thin apricot rind of light on the eastern horizon signaling a new day approaching.