Golda is preparing for '50's Day at school, another 5th grade tradition. She and two friends have been working on a lip synch from Hairspray. They absolutely needed poodle skirts, so I bought all the trimmings, knowing full well that it would be a miracle if I managed to take the project from a pile of fabric to finished skirts. I'm just no good at patterns, in life or in sewing. Same thing with cooking...I skim the recipe, get a general idea and go from there. Sometimes it doesn't work. I love to sew straight lines, like on a baby blanket. But I got a C-minus in home-ec in junior high because of my inability to follow a pattern. A C-minus. Now I'm CEO of a household of seven, so there!
Anyway, my idea was to send the girls to Coco's house. My mom could be Vera Wang. She sewed all of her clothes as a teenager, without a pattern. She went to the expensive stores, looked around, and knocked off all their fashionable clothes. Even before that, she made so many sock dolls as a kid that her mom had to put a stop to the mass production because of the nightmares Mom had that the dolls were coming to life.
When I was little, my mom made dresses for me that my kids wear now, to things like pioneer day at school. How sad is that! Once, my mom made a dress for me that matched the cushions she made for the patio furniture. It was like cocktail party camoflage.
Anyway, Coco took over on the poodle skirts, whipping out one for Golda and one for her friend, throwing in a trip to the fabric store for zippers and the right color thread. (See, I would have just used what was in the sewing machine.) Just to display her sewing proficiency, Mom made a poodle skirt for OUR DOG out of the fabric scraps. (Golda's idea, of course.) So THANKS, Mom, for sparing me the humiliation of making a skirt that would have had the poodle upside-down and one side 3 inches longer than the other, all sewn together with black thread. Incidentally, there is a Beverly Cleary book where one mom makes an amazing dress and the girl's best friend's mom makes the same dress, only it turns out really dumpy. What book was that? The dresses had monkeys on them. I was so afraid Golda would have to experience the same thing!
On the contrary, we now have a poodle skirt that every 5th grader coming through the ranks can use and be proud of. Golda's friend has lots of little sisters, too, so both families are set for '50's day. Now, what's next...?