Based on my wearable muslin, I made some changes to my Seamwork Jo pattern pieces to get the fit I wanted. Click through to see the finished shirt and for a rundown of the pattern hacking.
Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of Teenage Wizard, by Echo Brown, is a book I found in my 13-year-old’s stash of library books from our last pre-lockdown trip to the library. She admitted she hadn’t read it.
I have been missing having a good book to come back to in between all the “work” reading I’ve been doing, and a YA book was just the ticket.
These days, I’m missing respite.
We live several hours from our nearest relatives and have a spotty social network in our area (life is busy, and it’s hard to make new friends post-college), so each time we added to our family, it was with the assumption we’d be doing the parenting by ourselves.
Mostly, we have. The Chaplain and I figured out how to ask each other for what we needed to keep our tanks from running empty, and we made it work. That was when I had out-of-the-house activities a couple of times a week, and so did the Chaplain. Those out-of-the-house options narrowed to one during the pandemic: The Long, Solitary Walk.
If it had to be just one thing, the Long Solitary Walk is the best. But there comes a time in an introvert’s life when she just wants to be home alone. And when everyone has to stay home all the time, that just isn’t happening.
Last week, the Chaplain came home, saw my face, and offered to take the kids to the pool and leave me home.
It may have been my first time home alone since lockdown started.
You have seen How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi, recommended across social media and on every list of books about racism. In the weeks after George Floyd, it felt like reading Kendi’s book was the action point to start with.
I made a wearable muslin of the Seamwork Jo. It’s the kind of shirt with pretty details and lots of ease that needs a little finessing to get just right.
