From the vaults: Dopp

Hey y'all - I've been working like crazy for the last couple weeks on my kinda-secret new website project aka "Codename Linty Toast". I'll have lots of beans to spill about that soon.

Here's a project from the vaults - a toiletry bag ("dopp kit" if yer manly) I made out of a nylon advertising banner. With, of course, generous application of pink piping. Note my bungled-up corner? I'm still pretty happy with it as a first real sewing project - and with a zipper to boot!

New Digs!

I moved! I no longer live in a sprawling, falling-down victorian with a gash in the ceiling, two of my closest friends, their son (my godson), my cats and their stinky dog with a rotating cast of crazy ladies and juvenile delinquents squatting and smashing things upstairs from us on the second floor. Whew! Don't get me wrong, it was a lot to give up, but for the last week or so I've had that Celine Dion song stuck in my head, but in a happy way ... all by my se-e-elf ...

A few years back when I was taking color photo class I took a picture of an electrical outlet in my bedroom wall. You just moved, didn't you? the teacher asked. Um, yes, how did you know? 'Cause by next week you'll have five plugs sticking out of each socket.

So here's the shelter-porn before the new-apartment smell wears off:














































can you find in this picture?

my cats (there's a reason we call them the little lumps)
candy darling (it's an athony and the johnstons album. crappy album, best photo ever)
my bowl of pretty
great grandma mary's dresser cloth
the b.v.m.
my first patchwork quilt (made in '02)

Grandma's pincushion

My grandfather died last week. It wasn't altogether unexpected, but it was very sudden. He had a lump, which turned out to be bladder cancer that came out of remission as cancer of the everything. Two weekends ago my sisters and I met my parents at the old folks' home slash hospital to see him for what we all knew would be the last time, and this weekend we were back again for his funeral.

I'm not all that close to my family, and I was never very close to Grandpa. When the grandkids got together to write a eulogy, I realized my strongest memory of him is half remembered and half home movie - we were playing in a kiddie pool, and Grandpa put our plastic backyard slide over it and slid us down it into the pool. I remember a grown-up, probably Dad, wetting the slide with the hose so it'd be slippery for the kids to go down. Then Grandpa climbed up and slid down himself. It was a tiny little pool - he splashed just about all the water out of it when he landed. This was the best home movie ever. I remember watching it on our chucka-chucka 8mm projector with the family. We'd watch him slide down and splash the water out, and then beg dad to play it backwards, over and over again.

He could be really happy-go-lucky. Growing up I was fascinated with the fact that he had come to America on a boat when he was 6 years old, and I asked him if he could say something in Czechoslovakian. He had this little rhyming ditty that my aunt can still recite, that translates into "something something, something, knocking on your door, something something something, or I'll pull down my pants." All us grandkids remembered him as fun to play with - he played tackle football with my cousin Michael and his step-brothers. There's this awesome picture of him rocking out on the swingset next to great-grandson (my nephew) Ethan. And the big narrative of the weekend was about how last spring he and a scooter-bound friend had made a net out of a yardstick and a plastic bag so they could catch butterflies by the pond near the old folks' home.

But Grandpa was really blue, too. My grandma died suddenly and way too young when I was five years old. It was the same year Grandpa retired, and he didn't seem to know what to do with himself. He went into a funk that he only recently got out of. A really, really deep depression. I remember visiting him in my teens, and grandma's dresser being just as she had left it, as if she'd be right back to rearrange her things. As if she still needed her hairbrush. He didn't cook, so he went out for every meal except breakfast. He stopped cleaning his clothes. There was nothing in his fridge except milk and creamer. A few years ago I heard he was picketing Planned Parenthood, and my first reaction was oh, good - I'm glad he's getting out some.

Eventually, though, he did come out of his funk. He moved by his own decision into an independent-assisted living place where his sister also lived, and it was great for him. He started to get excited about things again. I saw him over Christmas, and my aunt had made a video out of old pictures she had, and he really engaged when we watched it - he took over telling the story of his double wedding - two sailors and two war brides, and a too-short honeymoon. Apparently, too, he was the life of the party at the old folks' home. I overheard one of the ladies saying to my uncle, someone just told me he used stay at home all the time - I can't believe it's the same person, that just doesn't sound like our Emery.

On his dresser in his room at the old folks' home, Grandpa had Grandma's pincushion. It's hard to express how odd and out of place it looked there. It was on one of those manly dresser trays where he'd empty out his pockets at the end of the day, and I thought it was from space. I took it to the beach Monday to try to express how out-of-context it felt to see it there. I'm not sure if there's a particular memory attached to it, and I never got to ask him what it meant to him, or why he chose a pincushion as a distillation of all the Grandma stuff he used to live among. That's not the kind of conversation I'd have been able to have with him, anyway. But I can guess at it.

It's chaotic and personal and intimate - the pins are all higgledy-piggledy, and there are hundreds of them, which means among other things that Grandma held this object in her hands hundreds of times. There's something to the pattern of the pins - like in the art class exercise where everybody draws a single line on a piece of paper, then hangs them up and looks at how different they all are. Somehow, the simplest, most everyday artifacts can be so full of a person - my own pincushion looks totally different. And it's an object that begs to be picked up, to be handled.

And to be used. I inherited the pincushion, and as an heirloom, it scares the crap out of me. There's a huge power in the fact that it's 27 years of un-touched, just like she left it, but the only way I can think of to honor what it means is for me to use it. I love that it's something of Grandpa's and something of Grandma's at the same time. And I love the idea that I'm picking it up after all of these years, like I imagine Grandpa imagining Grandma picking it up. It's a symbol of doing and undoing at the same time - if it's mine, is it still theirs? How long will it take, I wonder, for it to look like something of mine instead of Grandpa and Grandma's? Years, I'm sure, but that's how grieving works. How well will I use it? When I die, who will pick it up and think of me?

related, kinda sorta and randomly -
this yarnharlot post with knitting in the wild; Gorky's button memory in ararat; and fragiletender for teaching me the word "plinth"

EDIT January, 2008: The ditty goes:

Vincujem, Vincujem
Na pesu kolace vizim
A ked mi nye daze
Spuscim na vas gace

which means

I greet you, I greet you
On the stove I see kolace
And if you don't give me some
I'll drop my pants before you!

(kolace is a slovak sweet)

Thanks Aunt Betty Ann for sharing and Great Aunt Betty for translating!

A Saddlebag Like no other

Here's some snaps of the gigantical saddlebag I made for the big trip. I already have a handlebar bag and a pair of Ortlieb panniers for the front where I'll carry my heavy stuff - I'll carry my clothes on the back under my bum in the bag.

It's held in place under the seat with a wooden dowel I sharpened with a pencil sharpener - it fits exactly into a groove I made in the top of the bag. Then it's bungeed to my back rack so it won't bounce around too much. I have a re-purposed leather belt that I'm planning to shorten and poke extra holes in to put where the bandana is now.

Materials: an old yellow raincoat, an old curtain, a zipper, 2 bungee cords, 1 bandana, a strip of reflective tape off my fireman coat, and of course, 6 feet of pink bias tape and some white squiggly stuff.

The bag is pretty huge - it's got all my clothes for the trip in it - two pairs of spandex, 2 jerseys, socks, undies, a wool hat, a jacket, a towel, the works! And spots for 4 water bottles on the sides.

I took my loaded-up rig for a test spin around the park this evening, and it felt really great - all the heavy stuff is up front, which works well with my old french bike's geometry. Also, the big, tall Mercier bike feels totally plush even loaded up. It's like butter, if butter would take you down the backroads at 11 miles an hour... The real test comes in 10 days - cross your fingers for me!