Yesterday was Sewing. The idea was to make some tiny trousies for the snortlepig based off some very fancy ones sent by her aunt from England. I footled around for several hours trying to construct a pattern out of calico, which made me feel pretty cunning until I realised it wasn’t working at all. So I went online and found this pattern, went Oooo!” and “Duuuuh” and went from there. A lot of adaptation later, I ended up (or will end up, when I finish ‘em tonight) with a pair of bloomery objects with elastic at the back, gathered at the piggy’s snortly ankles and generally puffy and pleasing. I’ll post a pic later if I can figure out how.
My only other sewing accomplishment was nearly finishing my ruffley cushion. Not the most productive day, but the dude hates me sewing; the only way she can be placated is by letting her play with my seam ripper, to the great peril of her eyeballs.
Mum came over in the evening to give me sage advice about waistbands, and I attempted to repair her lopsided cultural education by introducing her to Firefly. It was not a success. Making people watch or read things you love is always fraught (remember that scene in How I Met Your Mother where Ted showed Stella Star Wars for the first time?). I have in the recent past had my heart broken twice along similar lines: one friend who handed back The Dean’s Watch after trying to get past the opening chapter, and another who tried to read The Once and Future King after I enthusiastically recommended it, but hated the writing style to the point of anger. (Actually that was about five years ago, but the scar still throbs in cold weather. Anger. Not just apathy or “meh, it was okay” - actual rage. That’s kind of impressive. Smokering the Magnificent of the Rage-Inspiring Book Choices.) Anyway, I was a little dubious about Mother and Firefly to begin with… I’m not sure one can fully appreciate its uniqueness without having paid one’s clean-Enterprise-corridors-and-pips-on-the-collar dues, and the closest my excellent mother has come to Star Trek was objecting to my putting up a poster of Kirk and Spock on the outside of my bedroom door where, as she put it, civilised people would have to see it. (In my defense, the inside of my bedroom door was already covered with a tasteful collage of pictures from my Fellowship of the Ring daily calendar; but being a dutiful and seemly daughter I transferred the offending Starfleet officers to my wardrobe door instead.)
Anyway. Firefly. Not a success. Mother kept looking plaintive and saying things like “Is this the end?” and “I think I prefer Pride and Prejudice“, and the delightful humour of people being amusingly shot was entirely lost on her… in fact, I think she spent more time playing with the baby than actually watching the screen, which confers no favours on a TV program whose humour is largely based on visual irony. And scintillating dialogue, of course. Because it’s awesome.
Just for the record.
Mother Says:
Grumpy Miss Marshall Says: