This story would be better with some pictures of these mishaps. But when you are in the midst of things sometimes you are overwhelmed and stopping to take a picture of your own stupidity isn't first thing on your mind, you know?
I had the bright idea to make some weighted blankets rather than purchase them. That way they could be the exact fabrics that the kids wanted. Etc and all the other reasons why I have a craft room in the first place!
Then it was on to Pinterest to research how these things are made. You have to know how much weight is correct for the size/height/weight of the person using it. Then it was a matter of figuring out what to use for the weight; the plastic weighted things (like in Beanie Babies) or something else. Rice, flax seed and corn are good things because they are natural and can be heated or stuck in the freezer for cooling treatments, too. But those items are not washable. If they get damp they can mold inside the blanket and have to be thrown away.
Then I discovered cherry stones. They are also a natural product, they come from Michigan the land of cherries, and believe it or don't they can be washed and dried. Who knew?!
Cherry stones sounded like the perfect answer to the question. I was really intrigued to try this project. Anyhoo, we got the fabrics and I washed, dried and ironed them while waiting on the cherry stones to arrive. And I watched tutorials on how best to sew these up.
Basically, you sew the fabrics together on 3 sides with the right sides facing in. Then you trim it and turn it right side out. You will then decide how many little segments you want to have with the stones evenly divided throughout the blanket. Got it?
For the size I am doing for a 2 year old who weighs 30 pounds the weight of the blanket should be between 10 and 20% of total body weight. We were shooting for 4 pounds of total blanket weight. The size of the blanket evenly divided into 6 x 4 squares. Six segments down the long side crossed with 4 going across. I then took the blanket sewn on the 3 sides and marked it into the six and sewed there creating six channels. I took the cherry stones and divided the 4 lbs into 24 equal-ish bowls.
So far, so good, right? But I looked at the fabric and thought how flat the color was. And then it dawned on me that I had NOT FLIPPED THE FABRIC RIGHT SIDE OUT!!!!
Oh good Lord. So I got my seam ripper and carefully took out all the channels that I had just sewn in. And then I cleaned up all the bits of thread and flipped it correctly and remarked all the six channels again and sewed them in place.
I took the first 6 portions of the cherry stones and poured them in and pushed them down to the end and pinned across to sew them in place. This is working out! Yay!
I did the next row up and pinned and then sewed that row. Then on the third row I started having a little trouble because of the weight of the whole thing and the stones wanting to shift around. But I got the 3rd row done and as I lifted it and cut the thread from the machine I heard the sound of falling cherry stones. That was closely followed by the sound of my heart also falling into my stomach.
That whole 3rd row was not closed because I had run out of bobbin thread. Son of a BITCH!
So I got down on the floor gathered up all the cherry stones and divided them up again and set all of this on my work table. And I got my bobbin out and refilled it and got my machine ready to rock and roll and turned everything off and left the room.
You can only make so many mistakes before you realize it is time to take a break and come back to this project tomorrow.
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Random thoughts
I have had so many different things swirling in my head that I thought I would get some of them down in black and white. Here goes!
1. My son has a lovely girlfriend who has 2 little boys, so they are like my almost-grandchildren. I went and picked up the 5 year old and spent the weekend with him. He had finished kindergarten on Friday and had his very first graduation. We played Legos, colored, drew pictures, read books, swam, counted fireflies, and made homemade ice cream.
1. My son has a lovely girlfriend who has 2 little boys, so they are like my almost-grandchildren. I went and picked up the 5 year old and spent the weekend with him. He had finished kindergarten on Friday and had his very first graduation. We played Legos, colored, drew pictures, read books, swam, counted fireflies, and made homemade ice cream.
It was a pretty perfect weekend, actually.
2. This whole debate in social media about the child who climbed into a gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and the gorilla was shot and killed is horrific. Everyone is vilifying the mother of the child. From the accounts I have read BOTH parents were there, why are we blaming just one? I don't like the blaming and judging that goes on from women on other women and their parenting. We are all guilty of it. My first thought was "why did the mom allow her child out of her sight?" I took a step back and can see all sorts of judgment and blaming in my own mind. It's a fucking tragedy with enough responsibility to be spread around. Let's hope all the parents who know of this will now educate their children on how to act appropriately in a zoo setting, and that the zoo officials will find more ways to keep the animals safe from this happening again.
3. While thinking about this zoo/gorilla/parenting debacle I have been going over and over in my mind how would I have acted. What would I have done differently so that my kids would not end up in that life threatening situation? I don't know. I do know that I was really strict and clear about what behaviors were appropriate in public venues. I see friends and family who parent differently than I do/did and I try not to compare. But we all want to justify and validate our own decisions so some comparisons are going to happen. My hard and fast rule with little ones was always if I am not touching you or holding your hand we have to be able to see each other's faces. If you can't see my face you are too far away. I think for me this came from living in a city on the border where we were told on the news damn near weekly about children being abducted from under your nose and taken across the border before you could blink. So a fair amount of paranoia and fear were at play here. I hope like hell that my kids don't feel scarred and smothered by this. They haven't ever said so and they are both pretty great and well-adjusted adult people now. That's the thing with parenting, you really just have to go with your gut and good intentions and hope that the love and care come through.
4. Are any of you watching Outlander on Starz? Season 2 has been confusing me mightily so I have started reading the books. I am now on book 2 which seems to be different than the show. Jamie is fantastic, both in the books and the show. Why Claire would think twice about that dry, boring Frank especially knowing his psychopath great grand relative Black Jack is beyond me. But Claire does bug, irk and annoy me.
5. And while on the Scotland topic I am doing more and more research on Ancestry.com. And Scotland and Ireland are both difficult countries to do deep research on. I need to get more details on names, locations and dates so that I can plan a trip to see what all I can find. I am more than a little afraid that I will get to Scotland or Ireland and never want to return. It does call to me.
6. After getting my DNA done on Ancestry I came up with a vision of a tattoo I would love to get. I keep picturing it in my head of what the components are and how to do it. Then I get on Pinterest and what do I find? A whole bunch of people have come up with similar visions! WTH??? I was so thoughtful on what I imagined as a very original idea. Good Lord. Now I am unsure about it. I don't want it to be what everyone else has since I may be chicken and it could very well be my one and only tattoo.
7. It's been a month since my good and dear friend Jon died. It seems like yesterday. The pain and grief are still so very fresh and my feelings so raw. I need to find a positive way to honor him and deal with my sadness. Any ideas?
That's it for now. This is my closing thought.
Friday, April 29, 2016
Saying goodbye
I don't even know what to say here. One of my very best friends has died. No, that isn't even a good description of what our relationship was.
We were friends first, then he was my first love.
Then he broke my heart and I thought I would never recover. And of course, I did. I was 15 and he was 18 at the time. And I know it's easy to look back at that say "you were just 15, what did you know of love?" But I can tell you now looking through the lens of 42 years that yes, this was my first love.
We didn't see each other for a really long time and our lives continued on their independent paths until one day about 6 or 7 years ago we reconnected via social media. And we have spoken to each other at least once a week since then. He lived in the same town as my Grandma and when I went to be with her and care for her he became my support and cared for me while I was there.
In 3 days time he would have had 40 years of sobriety to celebrate. 40 years. Let that sink in for a minute. And in the past 40 years you would not be able to count the number of people he helped, he saved and the ones he impacted through the ripple effect. And one of them was me.
There was nothing he enjoyed more than helping someone else. I could never have gone through the therapy that was our phone conversations with anyone else. He led me gently (or forcefully) to the place I needed to be whether I liked it or not. And I was always grateful.
When he saw that I needed help he got me in touch with a therapist that he knew and trusted and I spent years with her working through issues. When my Grandma needed me he made sure that I was cared for so that I could care for her. And when my brother was in need of help and intervening, my friend dropped everything in his life to come facilitate that for our family.
He came to visit a couple years ago and we had such a good time just being together. I think my favorite memory of that trip was us sitting on the couch watching Jeopardy and yelling the answers together. We were more than friends, more like kindred spirits.
And we had plans to see each other again. We were going to go to a concert this summer that would have been a revisit 42 years later of our very first date. Now, how fucking awesome is that? My heart is shattered over his death. Not for him, but for me. And for his children and his precious granddaughter who will no longer have the sweetest, kindest, funniest and most interesting person in their lives.
When I said my heart is shattered over his death and not for him what I mean is that we had many conversations about what death would look like and how prepared he was to meet his Lord. I know that he was not ready to leave his family but was very much looking forward to knowing an afterlife. He had become much more spiritual in recent years and always thought in terms of what God would want him to do. How his Higher Power would expect him to respond was always uppermost in his mind.
The last couple of years have been terrible years, health wise for him. He has been through so much. And he endured it with very little self-pity. The hardest part of being sick for him was that then all the focus was on him and not on others. He always wanted to turn the focus back to helping someone else and not about him having to accept help. I told him several times that this was going to be his most difficult lesson.
I would like to think that our relationship was reciprocal with me giving joy, love and friendship to him and not just him always pouring out to me. He frequently said it was, but it was so natural for him to keep shifting things around so that he was giving. It's hard to know.
I love you Jon. Now and forever. You are my friend. My kindred spirit. My guide, my mentor and my sponsor. You have done for me what I didn't know needed to be done. And I am a much happier, saner and healthier person now and my family is directly impacted by this.
I don't know when I will be able to stop the tears flowing. I can't imagine how I am going to get through without you and our talks. Even if it was 20 years from now I would still say it is too soon.
We were friends first, then he was my first love.
Then he broke my heart and I thought I would never recover. And of course, I did. I was 15 and he was 18 at the time. And I know it's easy to look back at that say "you were just 15, what did you know of love?" But I can tell you now looking through the lens of 42 years that yes, this was my first love.
We didn't see each other for a really long time and our lives continued on their independent paths until one day about 6 or 7 years ago we reconnected via social media. And we have spoken to each other at least once a week since then. He lived in the same town as my Grandma and when I went to be with her and care for her he became my support and cared for me while I was there.
In 3 days time he would have had 40 years of sobriety to celebrate. 40 years. Let that sink in for a minute. And in the past 40 years you would not be able to count the number of people he helped, he saved and the ones he impacted through the ripple effect. And one of them was me.
There was nothing he enjoyed more than helping someone else. I could never have gone through the therapy that was our phone conversations with anyone else. He led me gently (or forcefully) to the place I needed to be whether I liked it or not. And I was always grateful.
When he saw that I needed help he got me in touch with a therapist that he knew and trusted and I spent years with her working through issues. When my Grandma needed me he made sure that I was cared for so that I could care for her. And when my brother was in need of help and intervening, my friend dropped everything in his life to come facilitate that for our family.
He came to visit a couple years ago and we had such a good time just being together. I think my favorite memory of that trip was us sitting on the couch watching Jeopardy and yelling the answers together. We were more than friends, more like kindred spirits.
And we had plans to see each other again. We were going to go to a concert this summer that would have been a revisit 42 years later of our very first date. Now, how fucking awesome is that? My heart is shattered over his death. Not for him, but for me. And for his children and his precious granddaughter who will no longer have the sweetest, kindest, funniest and most interesting person in their lives.
When I said my heart is shattered over his death and not for him what I mean is that we had many conversations about what death would look like and how prepared he was to meet his Lord. I know that he was not ready to leave his family but was very much looking forward to knowing an afterlife. He had become much more spiritual in recent years and always thought in terms of what God would want him to do. How his Higher Power would expect him to respond was always uppermost in his mind.
The last couple of years have been terrible years, health wise for him. He has been through so much. And he endured it with very little self-pity. The hardest part of being sick for him was that then all the focus was on him and not on others. He always wanted to turn the focus back to helping someone else and not about him having to accept help. I told him several times that this was going to be his most difficult lesson.
I would like to think that our relationship was reciprocal with me giving joy, love and friendship to him and not just him always pouring out to me. He frequently said it was, but it was so natural for him to keep shifting things around so that he was giving. It's hard to know.
I love you Jon. Now and forever. You are my friend. My kindred spirit. My guide, my mentor and my sponsor. You have done for me what I didn't know needed to be done. And I am a much happier, saner and healthier person now and my family is directly impacted by this.
I don't know when I will be able to stop the tears flowing. I can't imagine how I am going to get through without you and our talks. Even if it was 20 years from now I would still say it is too soon.
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