As promised + uinnnk

Happy little free-form flowers just for the spring fun of it. I cropped an unfortunate word (not a bad word, mind you-- just poor execution) and a bit of a sorry bird. Now I need just the right dimension of frame to do the same!

I spent too much time looking for this little "tutorial" on how to fold your fabric. It's something I never thought I'd worry much about. No kidding-- I was doing dishes and thinking up Google search terms that would help me find it. Then Jojo over at Stardust Shoes fortuitously posted the link and now I just have to go do the folding. She also, in the same post, showed the cute baby balls she's been working on, talked about Timtex (oh, Timtex-- what am I going to do about you?), and wrote about her frustrations with Blogger (yes, yes, Blogger, although we've had a good thing going I'm deserting you soon for different waters). Odd when someone's thinking/doing something so very similar to you. I've mentioned our teeny, tiny house and probably don't mention that it's darling too and in a great little neighborhood. I love it but there's absolutely no room. The playpen and stroller have to live in the trunk of the car because our house is so tiny (an extra closet in the Honda!). Anyhow, I'm trying to tidy and reorganize and so the fabric is now going to be housed in my closet. Yep. I'm giving up clothes for fabric. Well, not really, but the clothes are kind-of arrayed around the fabric center. Folding the fabric in a good way will help with the campaign.

The other day the boy kept pointing to my hair saying, "Uinnnk! Uinnnk!" It took me a few minutes but I finally realized I had a pink rubber band holding my ponytail in place and, ta da!, the boy evidently now knows the word "pink!" When I was in junior high school we lived in Japan. My parents taught English in junior high and high schools, my sister went to public elementary school and I went to a public junior high school. I've since gained a little perspective and realize that junior high is just a hard age in general, but I had lots of fun growing pains as a curly-haired blond American kid in a very traditional Japanese school. I just didn't fit in, you know, and I didn't want to be lost in language all the time. I didn't want to wear a navy-blue, pleated "girly" uniform. I didn't want the Peter Pan, starched collar or the same shoes as everyone else. I wanted to use hairspray and have big bangs (80's influence, of course). I hated the uniform and all it embodied.

Back to "uinnnk." I don't think of myself as someone who loves attention. One day as I was putting on my navy-blue jacket in Japan with my navy-blue, pleated romper and my starchy, white shirt I also put on bright pink socks. I don't even know where they came from? Maybe they were my mom's... Anyhow, I don't think there was a lot of thinking that went into it. It was a basic, instinctual urge about defiance. Independence. Individuality. Color.

The aftermath was horrifying in the short-term and hilarious in retrospect. Swarms of students approached me before I even got to the school gate, urging me to reconsider. They were shocked. Girls giggled uncomfortably. There was a meeting with all of the heads of the various grades, with my homeroom teacher, the Japanese as a second language teacher and with my parents. I remember sounds of sobbing (I think it was me). I wanted to be different and I was.

All through my 20's I think I (ironically) happily adopted a bit of a uniform of my own with similar pieces that went well together, that I didn't have to think about, that presented the teacher part of me in a very upscale district well without being cost prohibitive. It was all about black. And beige. Off-white. Gray. Black again. More black. In my mama existence I wear jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt just about every day in the winter (give or take a sweater) and capris and a short-sleeved t-shirt in the summer (give or take a skirt). It's a uniform of sorts. Since the boy though I have so much color in my life. Wearing color makes me happy and being surrounded by color just feels better now. Pink is back, Baby.

I was thinking about all of this while I worked on Purse #2 last night (I'll finish -and iron it again- after 8 tonight, of course). It's got a lot of pink in it and I love it.