She's here! She's here!

Actually, she's been around for a week now. But she also came to visit! I couldn't write about her birth because I'd been given the "shush" word. But that ban is now lifted and I can show you this...

Loving her mommy and just an hour old!

And mommy loves her!

Taking a selfie with DeeDee

 She's a week old here and visiting her DeeDee and Poppa. Mommy needed help with Hamlet homework. 

Taking a selfie is difficult with a squirmy baby. Especially for a DeeDee that rarely takes selfies.

So people who know that I'm a grandmother want to know why I've decided to be called DeeDee by the next generation. The crazy kids in my family have this idea that, when one becomes a great- anything, they need to add "old" in front of the grandparent name. I'm not having that.

No. I do not want to be Old Grandmay. So, I've decided on DeeDee. That was my name when I was a baby. 

My older sister couldn't say "baby." She said "deedee" instead and the name stuck. My parents called me Dee until their deaths. There are times, when I miss momma and daddy, that I miss being called Dee. So this may help solve that problem, also. 

 Back to this cutie.  Amelia Renee was born last Tuesday weighing 8 lbs. 6 ozs. and 21 inches long. Not small.

She just looks very tiny when she's in my arms. And see those eyes? She loves to look at whomever is holding her.  I do believe she already has that eye squint down. Imagine what she'll do with those eyes will do when she's six! 







We loved having her here for a little while. She and I took a little nap, her mommy and Aunt Jolie stayed for supper, and Dusti got lots of homework done. Having an adult granddaughter with a baby is unbelievable. I am anxious to have some time to enjoy both mommy and baby.

Pleading Granddaughters and Sock Monkeys

Sometimes it just doesn't matter how strong a person is. Grandchildren know.  They just know.  They have multitudinous ways of knowing: DNA, parents, blood, love, heredity, consent, approbation, emotion and so on.  

You begin with an adamant, "no."  

You continue with this no for quite some time, eventually adding thought-filled, carefully crafted reasonable answers to "Why?" the "no."  

And you stick to the "no," albeit a weaker version.

You then move to the maybes and I-don't-knows and we'll-sees.

And at some point, the torturous pleading and begging and boohooing becomes unbearable.  You've lied, you've cried, you've blacked out, only to awaken soaked and bloody.


You relinquish in despair, ashamed of your weakness and exposure. The pleading and crying end, and you wonder why.  You'd known all along.  You've been through the pain and torture on numerous times before.  

Challenged by a grandchild, you've never beaten the gauntlet.  No one has.

In this particular case, the granddaughter and a new sock monkey, named Leroy, are happy friends.  Yes, she is 16, and apparently, she still plays with stuffed toys.

And a grandmother has lost (and won) yet another battle.  Merry Christmas to grandmothers and grandchildren everywhere.

Recycle More Tees

You know what happens when you make something for a couple of grandchildren and other grandchildren come along and discover your doings?  

They ask questions and make requests and before you're ready, you're recycling even more tee shirts than you originally planned.  
That's how it goes.  Especially with the older ones.  They know which buttons to press.  They have experience manipulating Grandmay.  Older grandchildren have a history of spoilage.   

Well, that's what we grandmothers do--spoilage.  So, spoil I did.  I showed Dusti and Jolie the shorts I made for the little grands and in two short seconds I was hunting down some tees big enough to make big shorts.  The problem is that I didn't have a big pattern.  I had to draft patterns, but that is a little glitch to big grandchildren. 


Now I'm waiting on two big girls to come back and try on these shorts before I make more.  I know from experience that cute is not enough with these grands. They expect perfection....spoilage, remember?  

Those little ones?  Oh, they are easy! They like every thing that Grandmay makes.  Everything!  And they wear it.

Sometimes too much.  


I say this after I spent part of the afternoon repairing Queen Elsa's Ice Queen dress.  Imagine wearing this satin dress with the long sheer train for 24 straight hours.  Yes, all day and all night. Is it any wonder that the sheer fabric ripped along a seam?  

Eventually she took it off to go swimming.  While she was in the pool, I sneaked the dress away.

After making repairs for Queen Elsa, I added pockets to the LSU shorts.  Aren't they cute?  I love the white pocket with its gathered top.  The other one?  Oh, that was a pocket on a tee shirt.  I stole it, rounded the bottom point and stitched it onto the shorts.  Quick and easy.  

After repairing Queen Elsa's dress and adding pockets, I finished the last four of the little shorts.  Then Jolie saw these shorts.  She started jumping up and down, dancing to the tune of "make me some, make me some."  She's 11. That's almost too old to want to wear something "homemade."  But hey, if the shorts are cute enough and the kid is spoiled enough...

After repairing Queen Elsa's dress, adding pockets, and finishing the last four of the little shorts--that would be the shorts in red, pink, solid purple and another LSU--well, I was on a roll...

So I rolled right into the big girls' shorts.   

After repairing Queen Elsa's dress, adding pockets to the LSU shorts, finishing the last four of the little shorts, and designing and making shorts for two of the big girls . . . I think I should be tired. 

At least I'm sure that I did my grandmotherly duties of spoiling my grandchildren.  They should be absolutely rotten in a few days--at least as rotten as the tomatoes that I did not can this afternoon!

The Elsa Dress

Our granddaughters are three and four years old.  They are infatuated with the Disney movie, Frozen, and more than just a bit.  No, they are crazy infatuated. 

It does not help that all three girls recently went to Disney World and two of them saw Elsa and Anna.  In person.  Hugs included.  And let's not forget that one set of sisters was able to chat up the other set of sisters.  Oh, yes, we've got it bad.

Enter Grandmay's abilities as a seamstress, sewer, sewist, whatever.  Well, make that costumer because I've spent most of the last three days costuming one of those three girls.  I'd say it's the spoiled one but, let's face it, they are all spoiled to some degree.

I may as well have made the real thing for a grown up.  Momma spared no expense.  The deal was she purchase the fabric, notions and pattern; Grandmay would make the dress; Marley would reap the spoils.  Somehow this is how it works most often.  

But if Grandmay is able to get away with NOT spending the moola, she is thrilled.  I'm not sure that I benefit in any way, except I get to keep the extra fabric and pattern.  Well, it turns out maybe not.  We'll see.

Now, the problem with 3 and 4 year olds is that they know too much.  For example, they know that Elsa has "triangle" sleeves, not the straight ones in the pattern.

And they know that Princesses and Queens have lots of "fancy stuff like necklaces," which to mommas means trim.  Lots of trim.  

And they know that the dress is long in the back and drags on the floor and twirls when Elsa dances.  This, of course, all means that Grandmay has to take the real pattern and make it more real so that the sleeves are triangles and the neckline is trimmed out, and the train is, well, a train that drags on the floor.

Let's just redesign the dress why don't we?  I mean, really, a cathedral train for a four-year-old?  Oh, it's cute.  It's just stunning.  It's just a three day project with all manner of insanity.

And there is not a doubt in Grandmay's mind that one little red-head will wear it to shreds.  Starting with an 8 o'clock princess party for her dance class.  Twirl, baby girl.  This is dress to twirl in!

Easter Fun

This is a post from 2012 but I thought you might like to know how to get these beautifully dyed eggs, so I'm reposting.

We managed to have a couple of days of fun for our Easter vacation.  Although we go back to school tomorrow and face state testing this week, I was able to forget the stress of work for a few days.  All three sons and their families visited on and off over the weekend.  

As I write this, the local news is reporting the egg knocking competitions in our parish.  The children did get an opportunity to go to the Cottonport Egg Knocking on the Bayou for the egg hunt.  When they returned, we took naps then woke to our own egg fun.  We dyed about seven dozen yard eggs.  

The little girls really had fun with egg dying.  Jenny brought a kit that the grandchildren used to dye their eggs.  I, however, dye way too many eggs to play with dying one at a time.  Instead, I've perfected my own egg dying technique, which I really like because I'm able to get brilliant, rich colors.  

To dye eggs, I first place a towel in the bottom of a large gumbo or stock pot.  Carefully putting the eggs in the bottom of the pot, I add hot tap water to cover the eggs and turn the stove on high.  Once the water comes to a boil, I turn the heat down to keep the eggs from moving around.  When the eggs are cooked, I move the entire pot out to a table on the lawn where I've already put some large glass bowls, Wilton food dye, and vinegar.  The recipe of one/eighth cup vinegar, 1/8 teaspoon food dye, and hot water to cover the eggs in the bowl seems to work very well.  I like to dissolve the food dye in the vinegar with about one cup of water before adding the eggs.  I use the hot water from the pot because the eggs and water are the same temperature and the eggs are less likely to crack.  

Note that most of my bowls are deep rather than wide, so that I can put in four or five eggs without having to add a great deal of water.  I also gently stir the eggs so that they are evenly dyed.  When the eggs are dyed to my satisfaction, or I simply get tired of waiting, I put them on the table to dry.  I've found that placing them in the crack between the boards is especially useful since the eggs don't roll around and the space allows for faster drying.  I also like to store the eggs in a carton because they are less likely to break or hit against each other.  

Why all this egg dyeing?  Because knocking, or pocking as many people say, is a tradition in central Louisiana that is fun.  I love that the elderly people enjoy it so much.  When our children were young, we spent most of our Easter Sunday visiting from house to house, Easter eggs in tow, so we could "pock" eggs.  This photo is of my grandmother, who died 20 years ago.  She is on the porch at my parents' house with both hands full of colored eggs, apparently going to pock with someone.  That smile is the reason I still dye eggs.  I think of her every time I dye eggs.  The tradition of dyeing and knocking eggs runs deep in both mine and Richard's families. 

A Pretty Pillow

I've had this old chair in the studio for some time.  I got it from my mom's house but it once belonged to my grandmother.  She kept it in the bedroom where her treadle sewing machine was stored and used it when she sewed.  When she wasn't sewing, the chair was placed against the wall close to the door.  My aunts and uncles put their bags and luggage on the chair when they visited, and my sisters and I climbed on the chair when we needed to reach for anything higher than out little hands could touch.    


It is now worn and tired looking and, as you can see, the seat is just not safe.  Richard has agree to put a board on the bottom so that if someone does sit, we don't have to worry about a crash.  the board will give a solid seat to the center and stabilize the chair.  I wanted to remove all the old fabric, plastic and stuffing, but he insists that I leave it since I remember it this way. I've agreed, for now.  

Regardless, I've decided to make a new cushion so that I can remove that hideous green attempt.  This cushion will be rather comfy since I'm using this 3 inch thick NU-Foam.

I chose three fabrics from the decorator samples my sister gave me last summer.  Two match fairly closely and the third matches in color, but I'm using it for the gussets so it won't show much.  Although I'll use the pillow for a while, I haven't made one of these and wanted to practice on these cheaper fabrics.

The thing that worried me about the pillow is that it's so boxy and I wanted to figure out how to get sharp square corners.  I started out just sewing the pieces together to form a circle, then sewed an opening closed.  After stuffing the form into the pillowcase, I just tucked the corners in and pinned it in place to make sure I had the correct placement.  A stitch to hold those corners in place, and I was ready to close up the other opening.

I close it up with pins then ran it through the serger.  Of course, I don't like that seam, so I created a French seam using needle and thread.  First I tucked the corners in, and stitched them down as I was sewing.

I added some braiding to tie it down and included a button over the braiding so that the braid won't pull loose as easily.

 These are the two different fabrics.  They have the same print but one piece is a little lighter than the other.  Since they are opposite sides of the pillow, that will show only if someone is looking at the whole pillow.

My grandmother loved that I sewed: I think she would really like this project.  Tomorrow I will wash the wood with some saddle soap to clean it up, then add a little luster with a good polish. Then the chair will have a place of honor in the studio alongside the treadle machine we are refurbishing.  It's come full circle without going very far.
Mary