The Summer of the Soul is in December

One More Sleep Til Christmas!

Even as an adult I find it difficult to sleep on Christmas Eve.  Yuletide excitement is a potent caffeine, no matter your age.  ~ Carrie Latet

2 Days Til Christmas!

Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something besides ourselves. ~ Eric Sevareid

3 Days Til Christmas!

Teddy Roosevelt banned the Christmas tree from the White House for environmental reasons.

4 Days Til Christmas!

As reported in the New York Times on December 19, 2007, a Santa Claus flying in a helicopter and carrying toys to give to poor children in Rio de Janeiro was fired upon by suspected drug traffickers.  Mistaking him for a police operative, the drug traffickers hit the helicopter twice, forcing it to return to base.  Santa completed his delivery by car, braving the legendary Rio street traffic.  (From Stupid Christmas by Leland Gregory)

5 Days Til Christmas!

Christmas celebrations were banned in Puritan Boston from 1659 to 1681.  Anyone caught participating in any Christmas-related event or activity was fined five shillings.  Not sure what that would be worth today.

What Have They Been Doing Down On The Farm?

You may have noticed that there has been a marked lack of sewing-related activity going on around here lately.  Chez flyskim hasn't been completely devoid of sewing.  I'm about halfway finished with Vogue 7937:

Still needs a zipper, a facing and a hem.  But that shouldn't take more than an afternoon.  There's a skirt that's in a very similar fabric in the Talbot's Spring 2011 collection that inspired me.

And I've pattern-fitted and made a muslin for the bodice of Vogue 8615:

Please excuse the grainy photo.

I'm ready to cut the fashion fabric and have my purchased petticoat ordered from Petticoat Junction.  I'm lucky that they're in Lynnwood, Washington so that I have a shot at getting it on time for Christmas.  And that this dress is a Very Easy Vogue pattern.  Once the fabric and the lining are cut out, it should only take a couple of hours to put together.  I have a back-up dress just in case, though.

So, what else has been going on around here?

A little knitting

Our friends S and V had a baby girl in October, so I've been hard at work on a baby blanket.  Full details to follow shortly.

A little baking

Mmmm, duded-up chocolate chip cookies with peanuts, peanut butter and cinnamon.

 I've been keeping my co-workers in treats all month long.  I started with a basic chocolate chip but soon moved on to brownies, toffee bars, toasted almond cookies and a chocolate, peanut and cinnamon cookie.  This week's offerings?  More brownies and toffee bars and some chocolate gingerbread.  But these are going to our neighbors, not to work.  Then it stops.  Seriously.  I've probably put on five pounds, and I'm cranky all the time.

A little tree trimming

How're you gonna keep the cat down on the floor now that he's seen the tree?

And a little light carpentry

 

It's a window seat!  Really.  It's actually completed now except for the staining, but I want to hold off on the reveal until we've had a chance to get the finishing done.  However, this is probably the most expensive cat bed we'll ever own.

6 Days Til Christmas!

This, unfortunately, is not me.  I'm not sure what my mother did with all of my pictures with Santa.  She's not really the sentimental type.

The first department store to feature a visit with Santa was the J.W. Parkinson's store in Philadelphia in 1841.  No other department stores copied this even until 1890 when a store in Boston repeated it. 

On a personal note, visiting Santa is one of my most treasured Christmas memories.  My Nana (who passed away this last June) would take me into San Francisco on the train for the day.  We would have lunch at the counter at Woolworth's at the corner of Powell and Market and then go to the top floor of Emporium (where Bloomindale's is now) and wait in the huge line (it was like waiting for a ride at Disneyland) to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what I wanted for Christmas.  Some sort of Barbie, a Lite Brite or an Easy Bake Oven.  Then we would go out on the roof, and my Nana would let me ride the kiddie-sized carnival rides before it got dark, and we would take the train home.  Emporium stopped this tradition at some point (I'm not sure when) but started it up again in the 1980s and was still going strong when the store closed after 100 years on Market Street.

There's more information about the Emporium Rooftop Christmas Carnival here.  A history of the store itself written at its closing is here.

7 Days Til Christmas!

There is a remarkable breakdown of taste and intelligence at Christmastime.  Mature, responsible grown men wear neckties made of holly leaves and drink alcoholic beverages with raw egg yolks and cottage cheese in them.  ~ P.J. O'Rourke

8 Days Til Christmas!

It is estimated that 400,000 people become sick each year from tainted Christmas leftovers.

9 Days Til Christmas!

In 2002, 7% of shopping mall Santa and Santa helper applicants had committed misdemeanors or felonies in the last seven years.  The offenses included indecent exposure, soliciting prostitution and drunken driving.

10 Days Til Christmas!

I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely.  ~ Charles Dickens

11 Days Til Christmas!

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.  ~ Garrison Keillor

12 Days Til Christmas!

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December.  Female reindeer keep their antlers until the spring.  Therefore, Santa's reindeer are either female or magic.  I can't decide which I prefer.

13 Days Til Christmas!

The worst gift is a fruitcake.  There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.  ~ Johnny Carson

14 Days Til Christmas!

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the average North American gains seven to 12 pounds.  Or a little over one pound depending on which study you read.  So, I guess the one you believe depends on how badly you want that extra slice of pie.

15 Days Til Christmas!

Santa Claus was declared a Canadian citizenship on December 23, 2008.  Canadian officials have reasoned that Santa is more Canadian that any other nationality because he dresses in the colors of the Canadian flag.  Additionally, NORAD's annual tracking of Santa's journey has shown that his flight consistently originate from the Canadian region of the North Pole.  Obviously part of the Canadian plot to gain sovereignty over the North Pole.  I wonder what Russia, Canada's main rival for the North Pole, thinks of all this.

16 Days Til Christmas!

At least as of 1999, Kris Kringel lived in North Pole, Alaska and delivered pizzas for the local Pizza Hut in a 1984 Ford Tempo.  Kriss Kringle lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  She drives a maroon Cadillac Escalade.

17 Days Til Christmas!

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.  ~ Norman Vincent Peale

18 Days Til Christmas!

The practice of hanging stockings over the fireplace comes from England.  St. Nicholas was believed to have thrown three bags of gold coins down the chimney of an impoverished man in order to provide dowries for his three daughters.  The bags fell into the girls' stockings which were drying by the fire and were discovered by the man and his daughters the next morning.  However, in many countries, this actually occurs on St. Nicholas Eve, December 5th and not on Christmas Eve.  The feast day of St. Nicholas (December 6th; yes, I'm a day late, but I brought cookies to work) is celebrated with gifts to children in many European countries, seafaring festivities in Greece and masses.  In the United States, children in some families leave their shoes outside of their bedroom doors on December 5th and wake to find small gifts and treats left behind.

19 Days Til Christmas!

Seven out of 10 English dogs get Christmas gifts from their doting owners, and 56% of Americans sing holiday songs to their pets (Pip likes God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen).  Oh, and 27% of pet owners have their dog or cat photographed with Santa.  (My source for this is somewhat sketchy:  "a survey."  So take this as you will.)

20 Days Til Christmas!

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?  It came without ribbons.  It came without tags.  It came without packages, boxes or bags.  And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore.  Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.  What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store?  What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?  ~ Dr. Suess

21 Days Til Christmas!

Oregon (Yes!  Home state pride!) is the leading producer of Christmas trees in the United States, mostly Douglas and Noble firs.  However, Christmas trees are grown in all 50 states, including Hawaii.

22 Days Til Christmas!

In the Thomas Nast cartoon that first depicted Santa Claus with a sleigh and reindeer, he was delivering Christmas gifts to soldiers fighting in the U.S. Civil War.  The cartoon, titled "Santa Claus in Camp," appeared in Harper's Weekly on January 3, 1863.

23 Days Til Christmas!

Christmas trees are edible.  The needles on pines, spruces and firs are actually a good source of vitamin C, and pine nuts from pine cones are a good source of nutrition.  In spite of this, I don't think we'll be cooking the tree for dinner on Christmas Eve, although it would be the ultimate in recycling.

24 Days Til Christmas!

According to the PNC Financial Services 2010 Christmas Price Index, the total cost of all of the gifts listed in The 12 Days of Christmas is $23,439.00, a 9.2% increase from 2009.  This increase is due, in part, to an increase in gold prices, but the cost for poultry is rising, too.  French hens are up a whopping 233% from last year.  If anyone is interested in further exploring the economics of Christmas, Mr. flyskim's favorite gift from last year was Scroogenomics, an impassioned argument for why we shouldn't give presents, especially during the holidays.

The Season of Advent

One of my favorite childhood memories was the annual Advent calendar my parents would bring home for me.  This was many decades ago before the commercial calendars starting coming with daily chocolate.  Or maybe there have always been candy advent calendars but I lived in blissful ignorance because I never got one.  (And to be sure, if there had been chocolate involved, I would have gotten one.  Although my father would probably definitely have eaten all of the candy before he gave it to me.  I'm not kidding.  This is a man who eats whole cakes in a single sitting and then claims he didn't eat that much.)

I've been feeling a little nostalgic lately, wishing for holiday traditions that my family never had and that Mr. flyskim has little interest in cultivating now.  I think it has something to do with how dependent on me my father has been since he was sick earlier this year, this longing for childhood comfort.  Absolutely no way getting around being a grown up now.  So I am returning to something I love:  the countdown to Christmas.  I know that Advent started Sunday, so I'm a little late for counting down based on the liturgical year, but oh well. 

Look for my Advent posts each day until Christmas.  I did this outside my cube at work a couple of years ago, and it was a lot of fun.  I hope you enjoy it.

Also?  I have a skirt that should be ready for the end of the week for those who are checking for sewing content.  And this week, I start fitting the Christmas dress!

We Gather Together

There is one day that is ours.  There is one day when all we Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it used to.  Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.  ~O. Henry

Yes, that is a deep fryer.  And yes, the chef is wearing a Ghostbusters costume.

On Thanksgiving Day we acknowledge our dependence.  ~William Jennings Bryan

Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don't unravel.  ~Author Unknown

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.  ~William Arthur Ward

 

Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.  ~Edward Sandford Martin

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.  ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

It's artistic.  It's supposed to be blurry.  This has nothing whatsoever to do with champagne.

Thanksgiving was never meant to be shut up in a single day.  ~Robert Caspar Lintner

Thanksgiving, man.  Not a good day to be my pants.  ~Kevin James

Happy Thanksgiving!  Here's hoping that you spend this day surrounded by your loved ones.  Even the ones you occasionally want to strangle.

Best Laid Plans

So, here is what was supposed to be my Thanksgiving dress as it currently stands. It just needs a hem, and it's done. The problem is that I don't think that the skirt is particularly flattering.

Hmmm, now that I see a picture, it's not so bad. So confused now. And why did I bother to put on shoes?

I suspect that this is due to the fabric not having much (or any) body, so this goes at the end of my growing list of garments made with bad fabric choices.

I have to remember to stand further away from the camera.

The good news is that the pattern comes with a straight skirt option, and there is enough fabric in the skirt to make it. The bad news is that there is no way that this is going to be worn on Thanksgiving. I just don't have enough time between now and then to remove the zipper and skirt, fit the pattern, recut the skirt and reassemble everything by Thursday. So, we'll hit this hard again after the holiday, and I hope to have a new dress for my work team's holiday happy hour bash.

We Part To Meet Again

I have a new pretty that I wanted to share.  Two weeks ago, Mr. flyskim and I spent the weekend in Hood River with sister-in-law V, her husband G-man and his cousins M and R.  (Don't worry.  I forgot my camera, so you won't be subject to the blog version of vacation slides in this post.)  I was just starting to get sick on Saturday (ask me how pathetic I've been the past 10 days, by the way), so the planned wine tasting was out of the question for me.  I compensated by shopping.  Two new hats, a couple of catnip toys, a Christmas present for my mother's dog, a new liquor decanter.  And this!

It's an old wax seal that has been imprinted into sterling silver.  Around the scissors is inscribed "We Part to Meet Again," and while I know this refers to people parting and reuniting, I love the scissor reference.  I haven't taken it off in days.

On the sewing front, I've all but finished Simplicity 2588.  It just needs a hem, but I'm wondering if I should bother as I don't think it suits me.  I'm going to take pictures and post a full explanation before the holiday.  Unless we can't dig out from the massive snow storm in the morning.  (Please note the sarcasm.  Nothing's sticking out at chez flyskim.)

The Other Line Moves Faster

Downtown felt a bit like a carnival yesterday because the new H&M opened up.  It's been broadly described as the Ikea of clothing stores, and that's pretty apt.  They're both Swedish.  They sell modern products at a low price point.  And there's a lot of bargain material choices like press board and acrylic fiber.  The only real difference is that at H&M, you don't have to assemble the clothing yourself.  Then it would just be a 25,000 square foot fabric store.  Actually, now that I think about it, that's not such a bad idea.

 Much like Forever 21, I don't really have much use for H&M other than the accessories, but there's always something a little thrilling about people sleeping out on the sidewalk just so they can have a shot at winning a $300 gift card and getting a free t-shirt.  The store opened at noon today, and I heard that the first person staked out their place in line at around 3 p.m. the previous afternoon.  When I walked by at 5:30 p.m. yesterday, there was a group of about a half dozen future shoppers in sleeping bags and camp chairs and two tents full of people shivering on the pavement.  By the time the store opened, the line went all the way around one block and over to the next one, and about 800 people charged the doors when they opened.  Okay, maybe not charged so much as entered in a fairly orderly fashion before ransacking the displays. 

 

I took a quick trip round the three floors before I met Mr. flyskim for dinner, and I can report that it's exactly the same store I remember from London, Edinburgh and San Francisco.  The restocking that must be going on is amazing because the racks and displays, while a little tossed about, were still full to the brim with a complete range of sizes as of 6 p.m.  Can't help but admire the planning that went into that.

And of course I brought my camera to document the non-carnage.  I guest with more than 2000 stores world-wide, H&M has this down to a science.  Not like when the Macy's opened three years ago, and they had to close down the streets because no one thought of a line and the mob just charged the doors when they opened (as an actual eye witness, I can report that this was pretty amusing and just a little scary).

 

I'm still plugging away at Lady Gray.  Both the fronts are now pad stitched, and I've interfaced the back and side back pieces.  I've also started my Thanksgiving dress, Simplicity 2588.

I actually already own a sleeveless ready-to-wear version of this dress (full-skirted view), but now I'm making it in a more fall-like fabric with sleeves.  I want to have this done before the end of next week because I need to decide whether or not I need to get new shoes.  The bodice is done, so just have the skirt left.  If I'm really on task, I'm going to make a black, lace-trimmed petticoat for underneath like this one from Anthropologie.

Gertie has a great tutorial on how to put together a crinoline without a pattern, and I think I'd get a little charge out of having a lacy layer peeking out from underneath my skirt.