Today had other plans for me, though.
The morning went something like this:
The Sewing Assistant figured since I was getting an early start, that he would get an even EARLIER start. Just so, you know, he wouldn't starve to death somewhere along the line. Which meant pouncing around the room and grumbling and complaining and crying and jumping and scratching and OK, I'M GETTING UP TO FEED YOU NOW. Then back to bed, since it was still o'dark-thirty. Then Son #2 surprised me by getting up before I did (the second time, anyway) - and he had another headache. Sigh. He hadn't gotten any sleep last night at all, which almost always is a recipe for a migraine. Only we'll be traveling to Ohio next week, then the week after will be spring break, so he couldn't miss his appointment with his teacher this morning. I felt lousy making him go through the motions, knowing he wasn't really in good enough shape should he need to take a test or something, but I had to make him go. I dropped him off, figuring that he'd be taking at least two tests since he is working on two subjects now - so I headed toward home and the fabric store. Halfway to the house I get a phone call from Son #2, saying he was ready to come home now and could I come pick him up?
Sigh.
U-Turn. Back to the high school. Pick him up. He's still feeling lousy so I need to get him settled and let him sleep at least a little bit before his rehearsal at 2 pm. Son #1 comes in from walking Girlfriend to school and asks for a wake-up call at around 10:30 or 11:00. (Do I LOOK like an alarm clock?) Husband announces that we can't go to Home Depot to get vegetables to put into the garden before I leave for Ohio, since he needs to tear out all the sprinklers he just installed in said garden, as the water pressure isn't working right and he needs to re-pipe everything.
Sigh.
Then husband announces that we need to go to Ikea to get something he wants to put together while I'm gone. He can't face that warehouse alone, and I don't want the hassle of having to return confused parts, so I go with him. We get the Ikea stuff, then head home. I go give Son #1 his first wake-up call and check on Son #2. He's still miserable so I get him something to drink and let him go back to sleep. Then give Son #1 another wake-up call. Then I go to the fabric store. I wander through the aisles and pick up a trim that I think will look perfect on the pocket of my backpack and am about to look for the cording, when suddenly a woman standing next to me asks me if she can ask me a question about some fabric she's looking at. She was Asian with a strong accent, so the conversation was a bit like a ping-pong match. We look at the fabric and I tell her my opinion about whether it matches the trim she's picked out, yada-yada-yada...then she's showing me photos on her phone of the qipao/ (cheongsam) / ao dai dresses she wants to make - similar to these:
 |
| A little more "wow" than what she sews, but you get the picture. |
Now, what the heck do I know about traditional Buddhist Temple wear? Nothing. She explains that she makes her own and wears them to the temple, and other women want to know if she can make something similar to it for them, but she's overwhelmed trying to make decisions about fabric & trims for someone else. I'm impressed, so I walk through the store with her while she is showing me fabrics and trims that she has already gotten, and is asking would this go with this? Or this? Or should I do this instead? And asking me what types of clothing that I make (which makes me want to crawl into a hole, really). As we're making our way through the aisles, she gets her cart stuck and we have to back out of that one aisle and take the next one. After about 10 more minutes of fabric comparison, she suddenly realizes that the 5 yards of white brocade she was showing me is now missing from her cart. We're in a discount fabric store, where piles of fabric tend to wander about while people are trying to make up their minds (they have a lot of flat-fold fabrics) - so she starts to panic and thinks maybe someone found it and might want to try to buy it from the store. After some frantic searching (and what would have been a humorous and confusing verbal exchange between the Vietnamese customer and the Czech women who work in the store, had 5 yards of expensive brocade not been the subject in question) and several retracings of our paths through the store, a few other customers start looking around as well. Everyone there is feeling her distress, since she'd already purchased the fabric and it seemingly went "poof." Some of us are on our hands and knees at this point, looking underneath the fabric bolt tables, and hunting between bolts in case it had slipped behind a few of them. Searching, searching, searching, and she's getting more distressed by the minute. Suddenly I got a mental image of her getting stuck in that aisle, and had an "a-ha" moment. I went to the aisle where she'd had to do the five-point turn with her cart, and sure enough, there was the fabric - the wall of velvet had yanked it out of her bag and it was in a heap on the floor under the bolts. I return it to her, everyone is happy, I pay for my trim and give her my business card (she wanted to take me to her favorite garment district store next time she goes), she pays for her buttons & notions, and we leave.
I go home. I pull up in my driveway, and realize that in all the commotion, I forgot to get the drawstring cord I went to the store to get in the first place.
Sigh.
The rest of the day: I wake up Son #2 at about 12:30. He eats lunch (a little). I drop him off around 2 pm at percussion rehearsal. I go in to pick up the four uniforms that have sewing issues and run into another percussion mom. We get to chatting. An hour later, I get home. And realize that I forgot to stop by the fabric store to get the cord again.
Sigh.
Back I go. This time, I get the cord and the clerk is looking very strangely at me, knowing I'd just been there a couple of hours earlier and in the middle of the fabric search. I figure it's more trouble to explain it all than to just smile and buy the cord.
4 pm. Back home. Son #2 really, really wants his new jacket embroidered before we go to Dayton, so I decide to set that up first, then start the backpack after that. I hoop the jacket. I send the embroidery file to the machine. I wind the bobbin and thread the machine with the grey he picked out. I insert the hoop and oddly enough, the needle isn't centered where the design template shows it should be. URGH. I realize that I've hooped the jacket incorrectly and take it apart again. Hoop it again. Bring it to the machine. FINALLY sit down to sew and the phone rings. Practice is done early, can I come get him?
Sigh.
6:00 pm, I'm on my way back to the school. I get a text that says someone brought pizza, so Son #2 will be out after awhile. I'm sitting in the car in the parking lot, cleaning the inside of the windows, because I'll be darned if I'm going to go home again. 6:30, he finally shows up and we go home. He's already eaten, so I stuff something in my mouth and get started working on the project again. Only it's another hour and a half before I actually get it started, and I have NO idea where all the time went. It finally starts stitching out at 9 pm. Finishes at about 10 pm. I take it out and clip the basting stitches, cut the excess stabilizer, shake it out, and realize that I'd. Hooped. It. Too. Low.
 |
| Looks great in this shot. Once he put it on, though, the hood rises up and the embroidery looks really misplaced. |
URGH.
He says it's okay for now, but maybe we can fill in at the top with some more embroidery when we get back from Dayton.
At this point, I may just hide somewhere while I'm there, and start a new identity.
No comments:
Post a Comment