November 03, 2005
mental block
I am not one of those moms. The kind that make their kids' Halloween costumes. Wanna know why?
Because I have a mental block.
I can make just about anything in the whole world, but I have little mental blocks about certain things. Just talking to a friend about this the other night at a kid birthday party; her mom had made a lovely quilt for the little boy - all hand done. Now, just the thought to me of gathering up the needle and the thread sounds tiring. I have tried embroidery, I have tried other stitching, and one knotted thread, one try too many to thread the needle and I'm done. It sounds so vastly unappealing, that I have actually made my husband sew my own buttons on since we met each other. Hallelujah! I thought when I met him. Finally, I won't just throw my buttonless things away anymore.
Then there are things like scrapbooking. The little tiny OCDish side of me thinks that if I remotely just touched on something so extraordinarily vast and full of little tiny pieces and mounds of guilt-inducing photographs that I would permanently lose my soul. I would hate it so very much, yet be unable to not do it once I succumbed. So scrapbooking and I are not partners at all and my photos live in books I buy at Target. That is, when I get them out of the box that they are in now. That is once I get prints made of any of them off of my computer.
The Halloween costume thing is a riddle to me. I love it when people make their own costumes and then I love to make stuff, generally the Halloween costume involves something fun, fabric, and a couple of afternoons, yet for some reason the putting it together eludes me. And so my kids will always be the store bought Princess and Bob the Builder. Eh, they can charge me for their therapy bills later.
Just a little date for you locals to file away for later - Saturday Nov. 19 we'll be having a little handmade open house. Send me an email and let me know if you are interested and I'll send you directions!
xo
Posted by Angela at November 3, 2005 03:30 PMHey, if your kids didn't have to be the Incredibles, I wouldn't have had to make that damn Syndrome costume.
Posted by: Sue Sue at November 3, 2005 03:41 PMHey, at least you MADE the costume.
Posted by: Angela at November 3, 2005 03:54 PMYou speak for multitudes.
The kids LOVE the store-bought costumes, which have an authenticity in their eyes. Not that this excuses our sorry asses from making them Better, Hi-Kwalidy Whimsical Costumes. I'm not saying that it does--I mean, they like watching cartoons all day and we're not supposed to let them do that, either. I'm just saying.
I like making what I like making. Everytime I make something somebody wants me to make, the story doesn't end well.
There is no good way to knot the end of a sewing thread. Why is that? Bothers me, too. There should be an Elizabeth Zimmermann technique for that. If that problem could be solved, you and me'd be sitting up til 4 a.m. handpiecing little octagons together. xoxo Kay
Posted by: Kay at November 3, 2005 04:33 PMThis was the first year we did the store-bought thing. First our girlie wanted to be Edna from The Incredibles, and me and the husband were all, "Cool, we can make that." (My spousal unit, who claims NOT to be a Halloween fan, made the child an unbelievable Oompa-Loompa costume two years ago.) Then she changed her mind and he caved and bought her the nearly $40 Princess Leia outfit, complete with the cinnamon-bun wig-thing.
Oh well. At least we've got lots of toasted pumpkin seeds to nosh on.
I want to come to the open house, but I don't think I can wrangle an airline ticket. Post lots of photos, please! Your blog is a blast.
Posted by: KT at November 3, 2005 10:36 PM