Kilt By Association

Of the three Scott daughters and the two Scott daughters-in-law in my family, I am the only one who can sew.  This is a dubious distinction, since it means that the care and keeping of the kilts worn by our clan has fallen exclusively to me.  I'm not complaining; I love Scottish clothing, and everything about the way it's made.  I count myself as one of the keepers of my family history, and this is the way I do it.  Some people archive photographs, some trace geneology.  I look after the tartan.

I am fortunate to have learnt at the knee of some pretty fine tailors in my time.  Some of them taught me to bag vest linings, One taught me to tie a ballet tutu (highly guarded trade secret: don't ask), from one I learned the gentle art of kiltmaking, and still another taught me to shorten a man's sportcoat sleeve in ten minutes or less.  Be advised that this last is more about being swift with the needle than any clever tailoring tricks.

These skills, I felt confident, should have prepared me for altering the sleeves on my brother David's gorgeous new kilt jacket.  For the uninitiated, a kilt jacket is very special, in that its proportions are specifically designed to follow the rules of kilt-wearing; namely that it has to be the perfect length in relation to the length of the kilt's pleat stitches.  Too short and the lad wearing it looks like a bullfighter, too long and he's a Catholic school girl.  David procured his stunning specimen in Scotland last year, where his tailor fitted it to his kilt with precision.  The tailor was too behind on work though, to perform any sleeve magic before David had to go back to the U.S.  Knowing what shipping a jacket from the UK would cost should he leave it for further work, and knowing that his sister loves him, David brought his jacket home to me.

Here is the first thing that happens when you have to shorten a kilt sleeve (okay, second; the first was a medicinal belt of Single-Malt to put me in the proper spirit):  You gut the thing.
 

Here's the poor wee beastie with all 8 of its gauntlet cuff seams torn asunder.  If you are at all clever, this process will cure you from any further interest in kilt-jacket-cuff-gutting.  Nasty piece of work, that.

The next part is simple, but not easy:  You have to cut into the perfect Harris Tweed fabric with your long shiny shears.  You need both confidence and fortitude.  Having cut open a few hundred sweater steeks is good preparation for this moment.  So, in my case, was a second draught of Single-Malt.  I needed it for spine-stiffening purposes.

Here's the poor wee beastie with all 8 of its gauntlet cuff seams torn asunder.  If you are at all clever, this process will cure you from any further interest in kilt-jacket-cuff-gutting.  Nasty piece of work, that.

The next part is simple, but not easy:  You have to cut into the perfect Harris Tweed fabric with your long shiny shears.  You need both confidence and fortitude.  Having cut open a few hundred sweater steeks is good preparation for this moment.  So, in my case, was a second draught of Single-Malt.  I needed it for spine-stiffening purposes.

This is a picture of the Tailoring Gods laughing at me to the point of Snot Bubbles.  My hand, in this picture, is neatly inserted into a specially-finished slot in the kilt jacket lining.  Prior observation of this slot's existence would have saved me opening and closing ALL 8 SEAMS.  That's right, Gentle Readers: The brilliant Scottish tailor (factory seamstress, probably) who built this jacket had the cleverness to recognise that its gauntlet cuff faced a high probability of alteration.  He/She cunningly included this inspired lining device, in order to save me and my ilk from preforming the very surgery that I had just done.  I cannot believe the sexiness of this lining slot.  I have seen many things that tailors do in order to save (and yes, torture) their brethren, and this one takes the shortbread.  If only I had SEEN IT in time. 

I'm blaming the Single-Malt.  Everybody knows drunks can't sew.

Looks pretty yar, if I do say it though.  Calls for a congratulatory dram, I think.

Full-Time Job

Would you believe that being a Mom was a full-time job this week?  Of course you would.  I mentioned earlier that this was the last week of school for Lindsay, Campbell. and Phillip.  What I didn't tell you was that Lindsay was graduating the from the fifth grade, and commemorating the move from elementary school to middle school.  Both she and I have been a bit in denial about it.  Transitions are always difficult, but the big ones can be more than we expect.

So this week I decided that whatever needed doing, I would be the mom on hand, ready for action, and that's exactly what I did.  I attended the awards assembly.  I chaperoned the field trip.  I went to the band concert.  I took Lindsay and her special dear friend, Colin out for a special graduation dinner at the restaurant of their choice (along with both kids' families).  I attended graduation.  I came to the talent show assembly, and sat through all the acts, even though mine was the only kid I really wanted to see.  And then I went home, drank a cup of coffee, told myself that it was a good job well done.  And then I sobbed my ever-lovin' eyes out.  Snot bubbles and all.

See, this is the kid I have in mind every time I mention the Smallies:

But this is the way things really are:

Lindsay is the 3rd from the left, clarinet employed (note arrangement of Birkenstock-clad feet for maximum musical efficiency).

Here are Lindsay and Colin, dressed to the teeth and sporting Lobster bibs.  I was thinking that the blackmail opportunity was too good to pass up - putting bibs on fifth-graders.  But it turned out that it also saved their swell outfits from death by drawn butter.  They elected to split a pile of crab legs.  Not much in the world cuter than that:

When you are result-oriented, it's hard to remember that the human being in front of you is the proof of your hard work.  You parents know what I mean.  Here's what I really accomplished this week:

Fifth grade, elementary school, and all that comes with it:  Done and Done.

I'm sure that I could have accomplished more knitting, but at what cost?  Sometimes the thing in front of you is what really matters.  Blink an eye and you'll miss it.

Thank you God, for making me available to do my REAL job this week.  And thank you, Gentle Readers, for allowing me a self-indulgent post about it.

Next week:  Camping in the back yard, Spinning with a dear friend, and teaching in Snohomish.  Same thing we do every day, my friends:  Try to Take Over the World.

Rayon and Rockets

At my house, the only time of year more stressful than Back-To-School in the fall is School-Letting-Out in the spring.  My Teacher husband and my Student children pretty much cease to function in any meaningful way, and we are so awash in school-related commitments that we meet ourselves coming and going. 

How appropriate, then, that while our heads are barely above water socially, the weather here is in full Monsoon, to match.  I know I will be complaining and missing the cool rain when it's miserable in August, but I could do with a bit of brightness at the moment, to cheer me up.

Forecast for Fairview:  Wet, Wetter, Wettest.  Primordial rain forest.  Blah Blah Blah.

I resolve to make my own sunshine:
 

Ain't it sparkly?  It's so slinky and sexy - Absolutely screams "Take Me Out To Dinner!"  I hear and obey.

The day I bought this skein, another lady bought the same yarn in a different colorway.  We helped each other pick, and laughed about who should get which color.  They had only one skein in each.  Because I was traveling, I knew I wouldn't be using mine any time soon and decided to wait till I got home to wind it.  Oh Ye Merciful Yarn Gods, Thou art, occasionally, good to me! 

The other lady elected to have her skein wound by the two gentlemen working at the store.  Why two?  Because by the time all of her 550 slippery, sparkly, rayon yards had backlashed and slipped down around the bases of both swift and winder, that's how many people it took to untangle the mess.  I chatted and knitted, there in the store, for about two hours, watching the horrible process out of the corner of my eye.  Then I heard there was a shoe sale across the street and had to leave on an emergency recon mission (and lo, there were cute clogs).

When I got back an hour later, the would-be winders were still at it, while that poor lady was stranded there waiting to reclaim her yarn.  Here's the best part:  Another customer in the shop mentioned to me that the woman who so patiently was waiting for the guys to hand over her yarn is an actual rocket scientist.  That's right.  She could not only legitimately verify that ball-winding is not rocket science; She probably had worked out about fifty ways to solve the problem while she waited.  But she never said a word, or tried to hurry them up.  Just patiently waited, without any signs of the stress and/or agony I was showing.  And it wasn't even my yarn.  This lady was an island of calm, while I developed an eye twitch.

The winding was still in process when I left the store, fully four hours after the debacle began.  I will remember my friend the rocket scientist for as long as I live when I think about patience.  I should get some of that.  And Soon.

Today I'm going to attempt to wind my own 550 yards of slippery gorgeousness, using only two hands and my own swift and winder.  I'm pretty scared.  O benevolent Yarn Gods, bestow your favor upon this skein and let it tangle not!  I have neither the patience, nor the mental fortitude of a rocket scientist.  If things go sideways, I don't really like my chances.