Round Robin: Dig the New Threads!

For this week's Round Robin Challenge: Threads, Carly asked to see, well, threads! Hmm. I can show you my sewing box...

...but I actually had a few other ideas in mind. I'd love to show you the entire thread cupboards my late stepmother Ruth had in Wilmington, with spool after spool organized on rows of spindles; but I was actually between cameras when I was at Dad and Ruth's old place for the very last time this past December. Too bad, because it was amazing! And I say that as someone who got a D in sewing in 8th grade Home Ec!

I was also thinking about the old hippie-era slang term threads, as in clothing. I had to buy some new threads this week, because a) I gave away almost all my short-sleeved tops last year due to weight loss, and had basically nothing left but Hawaiian shirts, and b) there were VIPs coming through at Job #2 on Wednesday and I needed to look presentable. So I got these:

But I'm not the only one I know who got new threads recently. Mother Clare at St. Michael's got a set of new vestments from the Benedictine Sanctuary a week or so ago. St. Michael's had lots of vestments already, in different colors for different ecclesiastic seasons; but they're all for tall men, not somewhat-short women. Mother Clare needed something she wasn't going to trip over. Here she is in her new threads at Easter Vigil:

I think the Benedictine Sisters did a nice job on these threads. They certainly used a lot of threads to do it!

Oh, and by the way, the people on the right, the ones dressed in white, are also wearing new threads here, in honor of their baptisms a few minutes before these photos were taken. But they're just in albs, nothing fancy.

Now let's go see some more threads:

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As of 2:49 AM MST, April 6th, 2013

Karen - Posted!
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I will try to make the rounds this weekend, but I'm going to be fearfully busy. Thanks again to Carly for hosting this week!

Karen

Round Robin Photo: Leaves of Cloth

For Round Robin Challenge: Leaves, I asked to see any kind of leaves. I was sort of hoping that on one of my walks I would find some really pretty leaves to show you, but really, Tucson isn't generally the best place for this. Then tonight as I changed into a T-shirt for my walk, I had a very different idea for this topoc.

Over the past fifteen months and 125 pounds or so of weight loss, I've given away or thrown out many, many pieces of clothing, box after box and bag after bag. Now that I'm hovering around size 18, I'm wearing clothes I last fit into 10 to 20 years ago. It shouldn't surprise me that a lot of the surviving clothing is Aloha wear, tropical or Hawaiian shirts. Nevertheless, I'm a little surprised that there are so many of them - all with leaves in their printed patterns.

This is my one true Hawaiian shirt, from the Hawaiian manufacturer Hilo Hattie. It is my second or third shirt in this pattern. I got this one at the company's only mainland store at the time, in Orange County, CA. That store is long gone. The shirt was way too small for me for several years. Now it's way too big, but I love it too much to give it up. Look at all those big teal-colored leaves, some of them looking a little like fish! Love it!

Another shirt I'm rather fond of is as inauthentic as the Hilo Hattie one is authentic. It also came out of a trip to California. This one I bought cheap in a Southern California grocery store! I waited more than a few years for the day when I was able to wear it. Those pale green leaves go perfectly with a pair of pale green slacks I bought recently.

I think this one and the other Caribbean Joe brand shirt I still have dates back to my days at Worldwide Travel (1993-2005). The leaves on this one come in several shades. I got it at Dillard's, before they stopped carrying the larger sizes.

Here is the newest tropical shirt in my collection. I got it at Disneyland in May. Leaves aren't the most important element in this one, but they are in there. I may be passing this shirt on to John.

Now let's see everyone else's leaves!


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as of Saturday, October 20th, 1 AM

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 Karen

EMPS: A Harvest of Hangers

Carly's topic this week for the Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot this week was Happy Harvest, and she allowed for metaphorical harvests. That's good, because my photo of John's box of pomegranates would be really boring! Instead let me show you what I've been up to this weekend.

New clothes, one size down.

At the end of July I went on a low carb diet, part of getting my life and health in order while I still have time. For the first time, I had a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, which I didn't have when my weight was lower. I've lost 35 pounds since then, and counting. On Friday I decided that I'd earned the right to get a new, smaller pair of pants and get rid of the ones I was wearing. I also bought a few new tops.

Starting to refill the closet after emptying it out.

But what about the clothes I had already? Surely there was something I'd dieted down into. It was time to take a look!

Friday night I started going through my clothes, sorting into too big and/or stained and/or worn out (get rid), too small (box up in boxes labeled Summer 2012) and stuff that fits now or is about to fit (hang up or put in a drawer). Most of the clothes in my closet, it turned out, were in the category "It was too small but now it fits, just about!" But it had been so long since I'd tried them on that they had dust on top of them!

So I pulled them out and started doing lots of laundry. And you know what I ended up with? Piles of clothes, yes...

...but also a harvest of hangers!

It got even more full of hangers later that evening.

Look! A bushel basket of harvested hangers!

Karen

More Bad Clothing, But That's Not Important Right Now

Weekend Assignment #185: What's the worst clothing ensemble you can recall wearing? I expect we'll get a lot of bridesmaid and prom night nightmares in this one, but anything's up for grabs, and in deed, if it was something you thought was fashionable at the time and now have come to regret, so much the better. Confess! You'll feel better.

Extra Credit: Are you kidding? Pictures, people!

As many of you know, I'm in crisis mode at the moment, and this Weekend Assignment isn't quite eliciting my best efforts tonight. Aside from Tuffy's health crisis, there's the fact that it's a near-rerun. I previously wrote an entry called My Mom Dressed Me Funny in response to a Weekend Assignment about teenage fashion disasters. Yes, I've worn bad clothing before and since my teenage years, but I don't have much by way of pictures to prove it. So here are some photographic reruns from that older assignment - but yes, I will tell you of some other glaring instances of, well, less than successful clothing worn by me.


I previously complained online about the blue polyester pants and the textured turquoise pantsuit, the black and white houndstooth slacks and the polka dot culottes (above). My mom was big on polyester, and on Lane Bryant mail order. I'm not saying that Lane Bryant didn't have any decent clothes in the 1970s, but if they did, my Mom ignored them in favor of stuff that made me that much more of a pariah in a school full of denim-wearing students.


Here's the second best of the many capes and caftans, shawls and ponchos I had over the years, most of them purchased by my mom.

The very worst clothing disaster, though, was in I think fifth or sixth grade. Maybe fourth. Don't ask me how or why, but one or both of my parents brought me back a sarong from someplace or other. Actually, I don't know it was a sarong, but it was something of the sort. Basically it was an almost-skirt with a bunch of extra fabric at the top for wrapping around the upper body and tying closed. There was hardly anything sewn on this large piece of red cloth. It was exotic and pretty, and way too daring for an elementary school student to wear in a white bread suburb, especially a socially inept kid with glasses, braces, and only a vague idea how to keep the sarong on her body. Having been tortured all day for wearing the thing, I got stubborn and wore it AGAIN a year later, with the exact same result. It was an experiment, but I no longer remember the reasoning behind it.

In the mix-and-match department, a la Athena, the oddest combination of clothes was on my wedding day. My friend d had made me an off-white wedding dress with a hood, based on a medieval pattern I selected. I arrived at the reception with my new, waist-length denim jacket over it. Here I am in that same jacket (but not the wedding dress) on the honeymoon.

*****

I copied down the info from the voicemail, and talked to two vets' offices today. The consultation with the animal oncologist is Monday morning at 11:30. Tuffy has something called a squamous cell carcinoma. From everything I read and heard, the treatment is surgery, period - as in do it quick, and hope it hasn't spread yet. This kind of cancer is associated with ultraviolet light from excessive sunshine, something Tucson has in abundance. I don't know that Tuffy's tongue tip has been specifically exposed to a lot of sun, but I suppose it has, given all the panting dogs have to do in Tucson summers. John is at least as freaked out as I am, probably more. Mostly I'm just depressed, and consequently wasting hours on mindless stuff to try to distract myself.

Today was my official first day as an employee of Famous Vehicle Dealer instead of a temp, now that the screening is over with. I worked an extra hour in anticipation of time lost on Monday due to Tuffy. My boss was very supportive, and made a point of saying she's glad I'm there. Aww. It helps.

Tonight I went out to get gas, deposit a paycheck and buy the 2008 Novel and Short Story Writer's Market, this time mostly for the literary agent listings. I'm not prepared at the moment to get serious about that, but when things ease up a bit I'll send out some queries. and I'm still thinking of possible ways to market myself and my work, to improve my standing with people who don't want to take a chance on an unknown writer. One thing I need to do is get serious again about posting fiction on a regular basis, probably both in Messages and on Ficlets. But again, I need a little time to get over the news about Tuffy before I'm likely to want to work on such things again.

Karen


Update, Monday night: on Sunday afternoon I went to Lane Bryant, not for the kinds of clothes my mom used to be but for something decent for the office. Unfortunately, this is one of those "earth tones" seasons, full of dull greens and browns. There was very little in the store that I'd be willing to wear, even if they had it in my size.

The photo above is of one shirt I tried on. I liked the silver fabric and the shirt was in my size. But when I tried it on, I noticed those horrible, awful, grotesque tie straps on the sleeves. Yuck! Just what I need: some bizarre embellishment to draw attention to my scarred and flabby arms. Now, that would have been a fashion disaster! Needless to say, I didn't buy it. I did find a nice blue top, though. - KFB