I know that this is not a sewing blog. It’s not even a craft blog. And with good reason. But I’m going to talk about the sewing one more time because I made pants! Okay, shorts. Okay, pajama shorts. They’re lime green with white polka dots, and I made them approximately Owen-sized. This is good, as I’ve sewed bunches of skirts for the girls and Owen was not impressed with my “I don’t know how to sew pants” excuse.

I’d post a picture, but Owen put them on and went to bed the instant they came off the sewing machine, so… perhaps another day.

As he was getting into bed he pointed out that if I bought MORE of the green polka dotty fabric, I could make more pajama shorts. Bigger pajama shorts. Pajama shorts… for Daddy. Because it is beyond obvious to Owen that Dane not only wants but needs green polka dot pajama shorts.

“Oh yes,” I said before Dane had a chance to answer. “I can definitely make matching pajama shorts for Daddy.” (Dane, at this point in the story, was opening and closing his mouth as though perhaps he could not figure out what just happened.)

Now I just need to figure out which fabric store that green polka dot fabric came from.

Says Dane: “Would you take it the wrong way if I bought you a really nice iron* for your birthday or our anniversary?”

Says me: “What’s the RIGHT way to take that?”

*It would have been for sewing, see. To make the sewing easier. Instead I got an ipod and speakers.

So I had a birthday this week. Also our wedding anniversary—we’ve been married nine years. Yes, we got married the day after my birthday. No, that wasn’t good planning in terms of spacing out the gift-giving, but it works for us.

To recap: I’m married. And also older. The end.

Project of the week (okay, LAST week. I’m just slow with the pictures):

I made two of these, one for Audrey and one for Sadie. I used bias-tape for the hem, which is supposed to be simple. It was not, in fact, all that terribly easy. Or at least not easy to get started without the edge of the bias tape trying to migrate into the bobbin housing and getting massively tangled (and mangled). But it’s done now, and I may even try it again as soon as I forget how frustrating that bit was.

Next up… I don’t actually know exactly. But it will involve one of these fabrics.

Actually, the Drawstring Skirt That Wasn’t (or at least That Isn’t Quite Yet) is made of the dots fabric. I can’t decide if the birds one is too loud to be a skirt on its own. Should it just be trim? I’m kind of leaning toward using it for a skirt for me, even if it does turn out to be kind of… I don’t know… much. Thoughts?

This clip has been on constant rotation in our house for the last few days. How many days? One, two, three, four… I think four days. And I think it will be stuck in our heads for at least that many days more. (Thanks, Steph!)

The Sesame Street bit is based on the song 1234, which Time magazine named one of the ten best songs of 2007. They ranked it second, if you must know. Or at least that’s what Wikipedia tells me right now. The song was also—perhaps more memorably!—the soundtrack to an ipod nano commercial.

Do you think the extras in the video knew they were dancing to the second-best song of the year? You think when people ask what they do for a living, they say, all nonchalant-like, “Oh, well, I danced in the music video for the number two song of 2007. But I mean, number one wasn’t even a dance song, so really it’s like I was in the video for the number one song for dancing.” You think? Or do they just go with the obvious, “I was in the music video for that song from the ipod commercial.” Just wondering.

I want to take my kids berry-picking. Wouldn’t that be fun? Except not strawberry-picking, because at least one of my kids gets hives from strawberries. And guess what kind of Pick Your Own Berries farm is right down the road? A strawberry farm, of course. I think there are maybe pickable raspberries or blackberries on a farm to the northeast of us… somewhere… but we’re talking probably a hour’s drive to a very hot place that is unlikely to have bathrooms. This may not be the wisest of plans for this stage in our lives. I guess I’ll settle for berries picked fresh from a basket at the farmer’s market. That’s pretty much the same thing, right? Sort of? Not at all?

I am an annoying shopper. I don’t like to spend money at all, ever, unless I have researched all possible money-spending options and am quite sure that I am pursuing the single best money-spending option possible. This tends to mean that I waffle. Pick it up, put it back. Pick it up, put it back. Do I want this, or that? Or neither? Is something else better? Or is there a better price somewhere else? Clearly I’m okay with shopping taking a toll on my mental health instead of on my wallet. This may not be entirely rational behavior.

But it is fun for whoever shops with me! Wait, no. No it is not. At least not according to my mother and my sister, who took me fabric shopping last week. Being experienced fabric artists, they know all the best places to shop, so they took me to a store hidden in an industrial park. I stood in the $3 a yard section for, I don’t know, hours, saying, Do I want this? Maybe that? Or no, maybe I better not, until my mother finally grabbed the bolt I was waffling over and threw it down on the counter and bought it herself.

My mother now owns a yard of kicky green floral-printed cotton. And I want it.

Sigh. I may never be able to convince her to shop with me again.

IF you should buy yourself a box of cupcakes, say. For argument’s sake, let’s call them Trader Joe’s chocolate cupcakes with fudge frosting. If you should buy such a thing. On a hot day. You might think to put them in the refrigerator so the frosting doesn’t all melt and slide off the side of the cupcake, which perhaps you know from experience is likely to happen.

HOWEVER. If your refrigerator is messily crammed full of goodness knows what and you shove the cupcakes in on the top shelf, and they wind up pressed against the refrigerator light bulb–even though they are still in the refrigerator– they will STILL MELT. At least the one closest to the light bulb.

Just thought you should know.

(On the other hand, if you forget to put them in the fridge at all and they do melt, you can always stick a fork right through the frosting and into the cupcake, and pull them out of the package that way. Not that I have experimented to find the cake-removal method resulting in least loss of frosting or anything.) (Okay, yes. Yes I have. I have done exactly that.)

I tried to make myself a skirt. I tried to put in a drawstring waist. Sounds easy enough, right? Sure.

Ahem. The opening? For the drawstring to come out? Somehow ended up on the inside of the skirt. And let me just say: Drat. (Though if I didn’t think a small child might read this over my shoulder, I would perhaps choose a stronger expletive. In case you were wondering.)

Well, you’ve all been busy! Or at least summery! Lovely. The random number generator at random.org tells me that the book ought to belong to… commenter number 4, which turns out to be… one, two, three… I can count… Anjali! Email me and I’ll get it right out to you.

Okay, one thing I decided to do while I had no computer: I decided to learn to sew. Now, technically, I always knew how to sew. When I was little, I used my mother’s sewing machine to make things like doll clothes and doll sleeping bags and doll blankets. And in fact, I have my own sewing machine; I asked for one for my birthday years ago, and my mother graciously provided one.

But it’s been sitting in its box in my closet. Because I was afraid of the bobbin. I didn’t really understand how bobbin thread worked or how/why I managed to tangle it so dreadfully each and every time I sewed. So I left the machine in the box.

But! Now it’s out, and has claimed a place on my kitchen counter between the stand mixer and the basket of Abigail and Owen’s school books. Obviously.

I bought this book, and I’ve been sewing skirts for my girls. As it turns out, I may have watched my mother sew many, many times, but there are a few key points I missed. DOUBLE-folded hems? Finished seams? I did not realize. Also: there should be an iron involved in sewing? In all my years growing up, I never once noticed there being an iron near the sewing machine, though whether that is due to my mother’s sewing technique or my powers of observation, I couldn’t definitively say. (Okay, it was me. I just didn’t notice it. She irons.) But now, now I know! And now I’ve read the entire sewing machine instruction manual, cover to cover, in English and Spanish, and I feel fairly confident that I have mastered the bobbin. I will fear you no more, little spool-thing!

So here’s what I’ve made so far:

Skirts with elastic waists. Not terribly difficult sewing here, but notice the rickrack trim at the hem! Ooh, fancy.

Tiered skirts with gathers! One for each girl. I’m very impressed with myself.

And with ruffles on the bottom! Audrey and Sadie wore these on the fourth of July.

I also made a swaddling blanket for Sadie. It’s just a white muslin square, unevenly hemmed. You do not want to see a photo of that. Up next: more of the easy kind with the elastic waist and no gathers! Maybe with bias tape on the hem, because that’s even easier! I think.