A greenish pullover

I've been wearing this pullover quite a lot - surprisingly I quite like the pistachio colour and high neckline (one good thing that has come out of my hair loss and subsequent pixie regrowth is that high necklines actually look okay on me now).

The yarn is a cotton and acrylic blend I got on sale at KnitWorld.

The pattern is called Keynote Pullover, by Mary Lou Egan. I can't recall the name of the book - Easy Knits, Simple Knits or Quick Knits - something like that. Boring title, very knittable designs.

I have been thinking I should be knitting with organic fibres, but knitting yarns are expensive enough as it is. My next knitting project will be from an unraveled cotton/acrylic cardigan I made two summers ago that I never wore. Even if I can't do organic at least I can do re-purposed :-)

A slightly different jeans-to-skirt refashion

This is the skirt I made during the sewing meet-up I went to a while back. The boy gave me a pair of his jeans which had a nice fade on it but was well ripped in the knees, plus a pair of navy blue twill (rather than denim) jeans.

This is the back. One of the two patches is from TLM's old tartan cord jeans

I cut up both pairs and flipped them upside down so that the pants' hems form the waist of the skirt, while the skirt hem is from the crotch of the pants - giving me some swishy shape.

This is the right side view. 

The navy pants were used mostly to form side pieces, which I pleated up until the total width around the waist felt about right to me. Then I add a D-ring and strap (from The Little Madam's old school backpack which I cut up) so the skirt would stay up. A red jeans zip that I bought cheaply from a furnishing's shop was added to help with the closure but in the end is just decorative.

Front view

I added one of the jeans pockets (the other I had inadvertently cut through), plus a pocket I sewed up out of the navy. Once I'd sewed them down with two  lines of topstitching I realised they were too low and close together to be front pockets. So that side is now the back!

The end result is just above ankle length - a little too short to wear with sneakers but still wearable, especially with boots.

I haven't been back since, only because of a lack of suitable sewing project and/or it was going to be too nice a day to spend indoors. But if the timing is right I may get to the next one with a Tamarack jacket.

The undies saga returns

In this episode of the undies saga  heourroine makes more attempts to make herself well-fitting, sporty-looking, affordable cotton undies.

The story began when, armed with a swimsuit sewing pattern (Kwik Sew 3239), this slightly stingy sewer bravely tackled issues of pancake bottom, lack of overlocker and few materials (due to stinginess) - to produce promising but not-quite-there-yet underpants.

Then she received a valuable gift - a free bikini-style undies pattern (Megan Neilson's Acacia). This produced a few wearables -

Acacia - Used lingerie elastic for the classic look. The shape wasn't exactly what I was after but it was quite wearable - until the elastic started to come apart with each wash!

I made a couple of versions of Acacia with self fabric binding, with mixed results. One pair didn't stretch much after I was done stitching it up, the other pair wouldn't stay up.

In the spirit of upcycling, the next pair was made out of two of the boys' unwanted t-shirts. I won't be doing a  gusset in a contrast colour next time, okay? 

For this pair I went back to the Kwik Sew pattern for a higher waistline - but it is too high. At least there's a barbeque on the back. I used  foldover elastic at the waist (but it's not folded over), and strips of viscose/elastane (from a maxi dress that I shortened) around the leg holes. 

I made a second pair from the same Kwik Sew pattern with a slightly lower waistline and using viscose/ elastane for the waist and leg openings. But theres no photo because but I'm taking them out for a test drive. My takeway from this exercise is not to use old or thin jersey. It feels a bit baggy on (though the shape is fine.

This one I have high hopes for. It's the boyleg view from the Kwik Sew pattern, with a deep panel of viscose/spandex around the waistband (so it's not too low cut) and the legs are just folded under and sewn down. I had to draft a gusset for this because the original pattern doesn't have one (just a front lining piece).

I found with my first boylegs that the seam at the centre back gives me a nice bum shape. However the flip side of this is having to put up with wedginess. I wanted short legs on than designed because  I want to be able to wear them with re-usable pads when it's that time of the month.

Bamboo is back in my life

As a person of Chinese extraction, I'm familiar with things like the sight of a building completely covered in bamboo scaffolding, eating with bamboo chopsticks and cooking on bamboo steamers.

Less traditionally, I'm dipping my toe into bamboo fabric and knitting yarn (well, thinking about it and looking for it anyway).

But it's taken me till now to buy a bamboo toothbrush and bamboo clothes pegs (which can be tossed in the compost once you remove the non-bamboo bits).

When I announced this to the boy, he said that his family used bamboo toothbrushes when he was a boy! Which would have been back in the 70's and 80's! And they weren't even hippies!

So it's great that I can slowly switch to bamboo where possible (and affordable - 7 bucks for a toothbrush seem expensive) without having to worry about resistance from the within the household.

Though it makes me sad that bamboo implements went so out of fashion for so long, to be replaced by animal-choking plastic.

Mindful walking

While the boy and The Little Madam were off playing croquet, I decided to take a mindful walk.
A mindful walk is when you go for a nature walk somewhere and make yourself really conscious of the views, the smells and how you are feeling.

For example on this morning's walk I was really, really mindful of how my vulnerable my knees are since my injury about 6 weeks ago, and how much I really don't want to break them again.

You might actually call it a stroll, but that sounds so common...

Middle aged activism

I always thought it was supposed to be the young who get all angry about injustice in the world.
I didn't getting particularly angry about it in my youth.
Or maybe I did but I have just don't remember.

Anyway lately I find myself getting really angry about all sorts of issues - plastic in the oceans; Syria's government killing it's own people; sexual harassment; workplace bullying; the National Party; freedom campers who treat the wilderness (or other people's back yards) as toilets...there's too many.

Should I be pleased that I am finally willing to talk about this stuff and even give my MP a piece of my mind?

Or should I be worried that I have started the journey towards becoming a grumpy old woman?

In which I discover we have been unwittingly eating caged pork! And pick up rubbish as penance.

One weekend I wasn't able to get out of accompanying the boy grocery shopping (usually I get to stay at home and TLM goes with him).

But its a good job I did.

For I don't know how long, he's been conned into thinking that a "pigcare" label on a packet of pork means it's as good as free-farmed. I didn't think so, and after we got home I went on the 'Net to check.

Sure enough, I was right and he was wrong. That label just means the pig farmer met the minimum animal welfare requirements - which is nothing to hug your tree about.

I hope the boy goes back to buying Freedom Farms products because that's a brand I do trust to let their pigs roam.

Also, last weekend TLM and I picked up plastic rubbish that we found in the gutter as we went for my shuffling walk! For the longest time I felt guilty for not picking up rubbish because I knew that by not doing so I was increasing its chance of ending up in a waterway. But this time we did it anyway.

We did have to walk the rest of the way home with our hands away from our bodies, to avoid spreading rubbish germs to the rest of our body...

On social sewing and the picking of brains

So last Sunday I went to a sewing meet-up, my very first. It was a bit daunting at first, because everyone else seemed to know each other well from years' of previous meet-ups. But in the end I not only enjoyed some sewing camaraderie but nearly finished making a long fluted skirt from two pairs of the boy's cast-off jeans (photo to come after I'm done with the project).

I also had the good fortune to be at a meet-up when Bernina sewing reps cam a-visiting. So - after 30 years as a Bernina owner - I learned how best to clean the shit that accumulates in the machine when you use it. Not only that, I got to pick their brains about how best to handle stretchy fabrics.

The main takeaway from this is to use stretch needles (not just ballpoint needles) and the machine's vari-overlock stitch, and that I have the very presser foot that goes with this stitch. So that's what it's for!

I'm still not convinced this will allow me to topstitch the binding on my Thunderpants-lookalike undies, but I will take what I can get and try it out.

Snail's pace

For the last few weeks now I've been forced to choose between not walking anywhere, or walking very slowly, carefully and tensely.

It's not easy being crippled by tendonitis and doc-knows-what other causes of knee pain. It started in my left knee, but I'm now getting more frequent pain in the right knee too (due to the rest of my body compensating for the injury).

I'll be seeing the doctor tomorrow and he'll probably refer me to physiotherapy.

A stripy linen something

I bought 2 metres of this nice candy-striped linen at the Fabric Store sale recently.

This amount should be enough for me to make a sleeveless max dress, a long sleeved short dress, a maxi skirt and a sleeveless shell top, 2-3 sleeveless shell tops or a long sleeve shirt plus something small.

But I cannot decide what to make.

I really enjoy wearing my long linen skirt in this heat we've been experiencing, so it would be good to have another long skirt to mix and match with my tops.
And I wouldn't mind some more tops, a mixture of sleeveless, shortish sleeved and long sleeved.
But I really like the idea of a stripy sundress.
Mind you there are some very appealing jumpsuits around too - even though I'm far too practical-minded to wear one.

A leftovers summer knit

Sometime after I found out I couldn't wear wool hats due to my new-found wool allergy, but before I started wearing a wig (and well before my hair grew back), I ordered enough cotton knitting yarn for hats in five different colours.

By the time I had finished my first cotton beanie (in dark green with a criss-cross texture pattern) I'd already started wearing a wig.

So after a bit of research and a couple of false starts I made this top.
The front is in blue and green stripes, with an eyelet row every 2 or 4 rows. I tried to vary the width of the stripes so that they were narrow around my waist, for an hourglass effect.

It's my own design, loosely based on the measurements of a knit chevron top in one of my Designer Knitting magazines.

The back is the same pattern but with red and orange stripes. You can also see my new hairstyle. Hmm...it does look better from the front especially if you screw up your eyes a bit so that the wrinkles blur.

Worn with my cool Britannia-themed singlet underneath, plus a pair of jeans which has been over-dyed, patched over where the denim has stretched out and become bubbly, and finally chopped off to become a pair of casual shorts.

Unsurprisingly my new top is too warm to wear this summer, except when it rains and the temps dip below 22 degrees and I'm sat on the couch with my injured knee resting on cushions.

Stoppable (except when it comes to sewing)

So I was going to take this whole week off, get TLM out of the house and away from her electronic devices, and enjoy some summer.

I revived my high intensity interval training-style hill walks - this means whenever I have to walk uphill I walk up as quickly as I possibly can. (This, along with my sugar intake restriction, was behind the satisfying weight loss that I enjoyed about 10 months ago.)

I even ran up them hills - well, for the first couple of days of my holiday anyway. On the second day I felt my left knee graunch during an uphill lope. The next day I took TLM to the local surf beach to play in the waves and do an ice cream stroll. And then my knee kind of blew up on me.

Three flippin' days on the couch followed; days of heat and sun (and one of refreshing rain) and restlessness. My laptop sure did get a good workout.

I did get some sewing done - a more successful pair of undies and bucket hats for the boy and me. Making the hats was a great way to use up fabric scraps. I used the free denim bucket hat pattern this time (rather than designing it on the fly, which is so time consuming...). I highly recommend this pattern. Any flaws you spot in these hats is probably due to user error.

I made this in the size large. It turned out to be too big for me so I gave it to the boy. It is mostly a single layer of linen plus a double layer for the brim. The boy won't wear it in public because it's not his style - but he won't give it back to me so that I can resize it for myself :-(

One side of a reversible hat in size medium (which does fit me). Love this cotton print,  which is scraps from a kimono sleeve top.

The other side of the reversible hat. The purple is linen, the navy is cotton, the grey-blue is linen I think.

Undies #6, bound with  lingerie elastic (not correctly, but it works) instead of self binding, using the Acacia pattern. Fits really well, but I think it's a bit low-cut for my taste.

In case you're wondering, I don't often sew for The Little Madam. She is very picky about what she wears - mostly cargo pants and long sleeved t-shirts in non-girly colours. And hat-wise she will only wear baseball-style caps that she can fastern around her ponytail.

Redirecting old clothes

I love to cut up the boy's (and mine) unwanted clothing and turn it into something I (or TLM) would be happy to wear.

But often I don't, because the shirt or jacket is in great condition - and wouldn't it be better to donate it to an op shop, who can sell it to someone who can't afford to buy "new" new clothes?

I'm going to stop doing that now, because apparently a huge proportion of donated clothing just doesn't get sold, but ends up in the landfill.

So I'm thinking that the green way to go would be to re-use our cast-offs - where possible - so that:

• they don't end up in landfill, which is much more likely than I'd previously thought; and 
• I consume much brand new fabric.

Last week I turned one of the boy's unwanted Calvin Klein t-shirts into a summer sleep singlet, and two more of his t-shirts into a baseball shirt for TLM (who, although it is high summer, will not expose her arms or legs so must wear long sleeves and trousers).

Undie odyssey part 2 -

There goes my plan to make a matching crop top and undies set.
The cotton/lycra fabric must be less stretchy than I thought, because when I sewed up undies #4 (using Acacia) in this it turned out to be a tad tight. On the other hand, the crop top is a little loose around the ribs and I think I over-shortened the shoulder straps. With the crop top though, it's because I'm still working out getting the fit just right and over-corrected.

Then I bought some more cotton/lycra (this time in an angel print), and sewed up undies #5.
Nope, a bit too loose. I suspect my measuring of the waist and pantleg bindings has been a wee bit inconsistent...

Also, I noticed a lot more rippling in undies #5. So even though the fabric should have good stretch and recovery something is letting me down. After reading on the 'Net and some of my sewing magazines, I've decided its because I shouldn't be stretching the pieces as I sew them.

I remembered that the rippling only started after I top-stitched the binding, so perhaps for the time being I will omit that step.

I did think maybe I need an overlocker, but first I'll try (in this order):

1. sewing a lot more slowly, and moving the fabric along manually if it seems to be getting stuck under the foot
2. using some of the stretch stitches (not just zig zag), now that I've gone back to the manual and read about them
3. getting a stretch needle and twin needle
4. a walking foot - this will take a while, as I have to find one that is compatible with a Bernina 1020. This machine is older than two of my workmates!

On my new blog title

I decided to rename my blog, since my knitting has fallen away somewhat (due to the need to avoid wool in particular and animal fibres in general) so the old name is no longer very applicable.

One of my motivations for making my own clothes (even undies) has been to remove myself from that whole planet- and ethics-trashing trend that is fast fashion. So this blog's new direction is about trying to go greener (but I'll still blog about the family and other stuff).

Recently I made the decision to go vegetarian for my work lunches. This doesn't sound like much, but my family is heavily into meat, so breakfast is about the only meal I have that is mostly meat-free!

Then I switched from "normal" tampons to organic tampons - though it had to wait until it was possible to find a brand that wasn't a lot more expensive than the "normal" brands. Apparently organic cotton breaks down within about 5 years, a fraction of the time it takes for the normal cotton to break down. Since our rubbish is usually contained within plastic bags, I don't know that a quicker breakdown is actually realistic. But it's got to be better for my body, and for the people who produce the organic cotton right?

The next stage of my greening is switching from disposable menstrual products to reusable. I won't go all the way and get a moon cup, because to be honest I don't think I've got that many years left of periods. But I have ordered some fabric pads and once I start using them it'll reduce the amount of rubbish quite a lot for approximately one week per month.

Unfortunately the boy is not that interested in the path to green enlightenment (though he will buy free range food for my sake). But TLM is willing to humour me so there's hope she will take it further as she gets older and wiser.

Unselfish sewing

The Little Madam, now 12 1/2, is now big enough to wear women's clothing.
She isn't tall for her age, nor what you might call "well developed" for her age. In fact she's smaller than most of the kids in her age.

But she does fit a woman's size 8 (NZ sizing) in raincoats, almost fits a Warehouse pajama size XS  AND is almost too big to fit a Simplicity size XS.

Today I whipped up a raglan-sleeve tee for TLM using the raglan tee pattern from my Sew U Home Stretch book (by Wendy Mullin). I used the XS size and some polyester/elastane jersey that has a nice dark green-to-pale mint ombre colour effect on it.

I added self-fabric sleeve and hem bands because the body and sleeves were a bit short (to be fair, the original pattern has three quarter length sleeves), and also around the neck (instead of ribbing 'cos I had none). I had to cut down the neck because it would have been too small to go around her head. Not sure if this was user error, or that a XS woman has a much smaller head than a pre-teen of the same body size.

the collar stands up a bit as it's not ribbing, but I like to think of it as a low funnel neck...

it looks like I used contrast fabrics, but these are all cut from the same cloth, which is ombre dyed

Now that I have done my non-selfish sewing for the year I feel justified in going back to sewing undies and crop tops for moi.

An undie odyssey

I have always liked the undies made by the likes of Thunderpants and Fanny Adams. They are super comfy and soft, and there's no tight elastic or wedginess. However I can't really afford to spend up to $28 per pair. Plus their undies only come in 4 sizes - if their hipster undies don't fit you perfectly they are going to fall down!

The other thing is that I hate wearing bras because they make me feel asthmatic. I basically just don't wear one if I can possibly get away with it (it helps to wear tops made from crisp wovens rather than super-drapey knits). I can get crop tops that fit but are made of synthetic fabric, which is a bit sweat-making in summer, or pretty cotton ones (from Thunderpants for example) that would be great except they don't fit me.

So all this is leading up to...my sewing my own underwear.

I started out with Kwik Sew 3239 which is actually a swimsuit pattern. ( I may even use it to make a swimsuit one day - variations include crop top, halter neck bikini top, low cut boylegs, high cut boylegs, briefs, bikini bottoms and tankini).

I used a viscose and elastane fabric that was sitting around doing nothing ever since I realised that brown looks horrible against my skin tone -

these are the low cut boy legs. I raised it to a mid-waist.

These are the briefs, after I lowered the waist.

For both of these I used self fabric binding instead of elastic, for the Thunderpants look. Of course they otherwise don't resemble Thunderpants pants at all.

Then I had a go at making the crop top, using a combination of the above fabric plus an old black long sleeve t-shirt that I no longer wore -

The fit is almost perfect on me. I had to remove length from the shoulder straps, and veered between small and medium in size. The lower band is probably a bit wider than the pattern would recommend, but that's to accommodate my need for room about my rib cage.  The only thing I would change for the next one I make, would be to narrow the shoulder straps - either by cutting them narrower or by turning in the binding after sewing it in. I may also experiment with using the halter bikini to get a more plunging neckline in a future crop top.

I have also had a go at Megan Neilson's Acacia pattern for undies. This is your classic hipster brief, and the one I have decided to use in future undie-making. The shape is great (covers your bum, just the right about of rise, comfy to wear). However I don't have a photo for you because it's in the laundry basket (have already worn them twice since making them). As I did with the other undies above, I substituted the elastic for self fabric binding.

I've already cut out my next crop top and Acacia undies - it will be the first time I match top and bottom!

Zealandia

Pretty isn't it?

An unexpected pixie convert

My hair grew back in patches to start with, the boy shaving it back until I had pretty much 100% head cover.   Then I wouldn't let him shave it any more except to tidy it up around the edges (as you do with a lawn).

It's now about Annie Lennox length and - quite unexpectedly - the look seems to suit me!

I have always thought that I could not carry off a pixie cut, because when I looked at photos of women who looked great in super short hair I saw coltish girl-women with high cheekbones and large round eyes. 

I am have none of those features, yet ever since I had my "reveal" (i.e. going out in public without a wig or hat) I have had nothing but compliments (and that's taking into consideration the fact that my workmates are incredibly supportive people who wouldn't laugh out loud if I turned up looking ridiculous).

So this whole experience - despite the distress, self-consciousness, expense and physical discomfort - has thrown up an silver lining. It's resulted in me discovering a look that is both wind-defying and funky, and which goes really well with my sixties-inspired outfits and my Docs.

Squelching while the forest sings

It was my birthday yesterday, so the boy and TLM came on a nature walk with me. I wanted to go to this particular reserve because we don't go there very often (because it's on the other side of town and because you have to pay to enter). And because it was my birthday neither of them complained about it.

Of course they enjoyed it at least as much as I did. The muddy track was no match for our tramping boots; it was still, warm and sunny; and we could hear wildlife in surround sound.

I wished we could have stayed longer, maybe done a few additional tracks or even just stood around a bit more to match up the birds with their songs. But the boy has a tendency to rush through places and it would have been unrealistic to expect him not to this time around.

Still, it was a great 60 minutes.

It was calm but the sea was noisy

I took some leave this week, the second week of the school holidays. The boy, who had been underemployed forever, got a contract, then had the contract extended, then ran out of work again. So this is kind of a family staycation.

Which means that the boy can spend all week playing computer games instead of looking for work, and TLM (who turned 12 in August) is strongly asserting her right to spend her holidays on the couch with at least one wi-fi enabled device in her hands.

I spend some effort trying to get at least one of them out of the house sometimes, but it is easier if I just take myself for a whine-free walk and see where I end up.

My knees have been giving me gyp lately - I fear it's arthritis (nooooooh!It means I'm getting old!) but I am compelled to keep walking. Maybe its keeping the joints from getting worse. I hope so.

I walked to the beach, perhaps about an hour's walk, probably less if I hurry. It was surprisingly calm there - most often it's gusty enough to give you a good sandblasting (over-exfoliation ).

The surfers and boogie boarders were enjoying the surf; a naked toddler got her feet wet then ran away from the freezing water; and a little black terrier let me pat him on the back. Summer's a-comin'.

A wig is like a push-up bra

I know I look better when I'm wearing one that when I'm not...
but when I've been wearing one all day I just can't wait to take it off.

A brand new is always way too tight...
but once it's stretched out from wear it's almost comfortable.

If I was single and seeing someone new, I probably wouldn't want to take it off in front of him.

I'm always tugging at it surreptitiously throughout the day.

When I'm wearing one I kinda feel like I'm cheating...
so sometimes I go without just to show I don't care

Being there with hair - a wiggy milestone

I bought a wig. This wig. Except I didn't pick the blonde one (of course) - mine's a dark brown with red bits in it.

This is the view from the left 

This is the back view

I wore it for a few hours on the Sunday, then I didn't get to wear it again for several weeks because there were "fit issues". It was too tight.

It turns out that my head is bigger than average, and the consultant didn't realise that when I was trying on her on-hand supply of wigs. She stretched it out for me but it took a while and then it got stuck in the post...

I wore it to work on Friday, but by the time I got back from lunch I was ready to yank it off and replace with a nice comfy hat. All of my workmates were really complimentary about my look, so that was good.

Today I managed to wear it for the full day, right up until I got home. (As expected, the boys in my workplace showed their support by just saying "nice hair" and leaving it at that).

Yes is a bit uncomfy to wear a wig, even after the stretching - if it's loose enough to feel comfortable I reckon it's too loose to stay in place on your head. It was also slightly itchy at times, but surprisingly I stopped noticing after a while. And I am pretty intolerant of tightness, hence my resentment of bras.

For this reason I plan to only wear it a couple of times per week. (It'll be a bit like heels - they make me look taller but aren't comfortable to wear all the time.)

The great wool purge of 2017 - or my body heat in synthetics

I have been slowing packing away all of my woollen clothing. It's a bit sad, but hopefully I'll be able to sell a few items on TradeMe and gift some others to The Little Madam.

The purge has left my wardrobe almost bare (thanks goodness I'll still be well clothed for summer), leaving me with a pretty minimal winter wardrobe:

• two skirts (one of which I just bought yesterday)
• one dress
• no cardigans
• a really nice shirt I got at the Tempest closing down sale
• one coat (warm enough when it's 12 degrees Celsius but useless in the rain)
• one raincoat that has a thin poly fleece lining
• one cotton scarf
• the few cotton/acrylic hats I managed to finish in the last week
• no arm warmers/handwarmers/wristwarmers
• only cotton socks
• 1 polypropylene top

I knew I would need to find another warm layer to supplement my remaining coat (viscose, polyester etc) and raincoat, to survive this weekend's bone-chilling temps. I was resigned to having to buy...sigh...a puffer jacket.

Gawd I hate puffer jackets. Maybe it's slightly unreasonable, since they are at least warm, light and sensitive skin-friendly. I managed to find one at the Kathmandu sale, one thats only thinly padded with down and shaped so that I look like a healthy adult female rather than a cushion on legs. In a pale aqua. It does the job I guess.

A wool-less winter is hell for a knitter

Now, right in the middle of winter and in our second bone-chilling storm in two weeks, I find out for sure that I am allergic to wool.

"But I always wear a cotton layer underneath!" I protested. My dermatologist assured me that this wouldn't make any difference.

This is devastating to me, not just because it's hard to keep warm when limited to cotton (because I hate poly fleece and hardly have any garments in this fibre), but because I now have to put all my lovely hand knit woollens away - possibly forever.

Not only can I no longer wear the boxy fair isle jumper that took two years to complete (and many others), but my wonderful Untouched World possum merino jacket that was a present from the boy, must also be packed away.

And my knitting. Almost of of my knitting projects have to be packed away indefinitely and I am now furiously knitting cotton hats to replace the merino ones that previously covered my naked head.

Ah well. I guess no-one ever died of being banned from wool.

Nardole and me

When I'm wearing my cropped duffel coat I look an awful lot like Nardole from Dr Who -

Our coats are even the very same colour! But mine has a hood on it. Also I don't wear glasses (except when I'm driving).

Seriously!

Gone today, hair tomorrow?

While waiting for a medical certificate that has the right information on it, I went down to my local wig shop to try some one.

It's not really a wig shop in the way that, say a cheese shop is full of many cheeses.They only have perhaps 6-8 wigs on display (and order in if you want something different and are prepared to commit yourself to buying it). Only one display wig was approximately the right length and only one (a different one) was approximately the right colour.

First I tried on the short one - it was a short bob in what I would call black. I looked in the mirror. Way, way too dark. Way, way too much hair.

Then I tried on the medium length one, a sort of shoulder-length shaggy do a with long fringe, but at least it was a nice dark chocolate colour with red bits in it (the colour my hair used to be maybe twenty years ago). Way, way too much hair.

The consultant used some sort of spray on one side and brushed that side down so it would look more flat (which is how my hair usually is, when I have any). Then it just looked overly thick and flat.

So I was a bit disappointed. Despite my earlier excitement at the prospect of luscious, wavy hair like I used to wish I had, when it came down to it I realised I just wanted to have hair as flat and straight and boring as my hair used to be (with slightly more volume). Because anything else just screams "WIG!".

So what do you think about this one?

Getting' wiggy with it

Here in New Zealand, if you are suffering from temporary or permanent hair loss you can get a government grant that goes towards the cost of wigs or other head covers. So I left a message for my dermatologist about getting a medical certificate and started looking online at wigs.

After seeing what's available I was feeling pretty damn positive! I could go wavy! Curly! Blonde even! Like this one.

However the grant won't be enough to pay for more than one wig, so I will have to pick something a little more believable that I can wear when it's just not socially acceptable to be wearing a knitted cap (like, weddings, dinners at nice restaurants, work events...). Like this one.

But even if I have to go the less spicy route to wiggy-ness, I will still have the benefit of volume. Volume! Without mousse, back combing or blowdrying!

My copious Google-research tells me that wigs aren't necessarily hot or itchy to wear, and some you can even wear swimming. I know it's not as good as having one's own thick head of natural hair, but it feels like a great consolation prize.

In the meantime, I'm finding a lot of the regrowth is coming up grey. I suppose it had to happen some time, but I was quite enjoying being the only 50-something in my workplace with almost no grey.

The other thing is how to deal with the need for a light hat for indoors but a warm hat for outdoors. I could duck into the ladies' loos every time I need to go in or out in order to swap hats. Or I could pop a second hat on when I go outside then very, very carefully remove that layer when I go back inside. I'm still working on this one.

Head full of holes

It's a pity I bruise so easily - I've had a bunch of blood tests in the search for what's behind the deforestation on my head (and my eyebrows. and my eyelashes), and each needle prick has left behind a large bruise. I worry that if I don't cover up my arm sufficiently people will think the boy has been bashing me about.

As if this wasn't enough, this afternoon I had to return to the dermatologist to get some biopsies done. I didn't know for sure, but expected that he would gouge out some skin from my scalp.

I was quite right - this is exactly what he did. About five times. It wasn't intolerably painful, but as he stitched me up I realised my heart was pounding. Not with fear, I think. But definitely pounding.

Then it all started ache four hours later....

On the plus side, my stash of indoor-appropriate hats is building up nicely.

This one might be a bit too casual for the office but it'll keep my neck warm

Life's not all bad as a baldie (only slightly)

The cons:

1. If it's raining, I have to figure out how to wear my hood up without it dislodging my head cover. (Umbrellas are no good in my windy city).

2. I look really silly without something covering my head.

3. It's really not a sexy look (it might be if I were a model and shaved all of the remaining hair off).

4. When I told my extended family about it, they all wanted to see my naked head. The hell they will.

5. I wasted $30 on a big elephant-print sarong, which I turned into two long headscarves before giving up on the idea of wearing headscarves.

The pros:

1. I get to wear hats a lot, which is nice because I have a lot of hats (most of which I knitted myself).

2. I will save money on haircuts, which is handy because I would need to have no haircuts for the next 2 years and 6 months in order to save up the amount of money I will have to spend to see a dermatologist privately about my hair loss.

I think it's rather ironic that it's highly likely my hair is falling out due to financial stress - and finding out how much it costs to see the dermatologist is adding not exactly making that stress go away.

3. There's not much chance of my leaving home without my hat, and then being too cold when I leave the office for my lunch break.

4. I worked out how to sew my own exercise hat from an old t-shirt. That'll be handy if my head is still not presentable by summer.

5. The Boy is still lovely to me, which make me love him more.

6. The Little Madam is still lovely to me, which makes me love her more.

a Kildare jumper for The Little Madam

I've previously knit and unravelled two garments for myself from this yarn (two extra large - as in 400g - balls of blackberry Stylecraft Special), neither of which I wore much.

This latest recycling of the yarn is going to get a lot more wear -

Here it is in its inert state...

Here it is being posed awkwardly...

...and here it is in action, so to speak...

Here's the Ravelry link.

On the continual fall-out of my hair

It's been a week since I went to the doctor about my kamikaze hair. He prescribed me some stuff to tame my scalp and invited me to see him again in ten days if my hair is still misbehaving.

Well, it is.

The floors of my house are a real mess, as they are covered in black strands - as is my pillow. When I look in the mirror I'm reminded of a guy I once went tramping (hiking) with when I was at university. His head was mostly bald at the top but long-haired at the sides and back, like an egg wearing a fringe.

My progress in learning to tie a head scarf is very slow (if it is happening at all). Mostly I can rely on the pirate-style do staying on, but any other way soon fails and is replaced by one of my ever-reliable knitted hats. There are some really inspiring YouTube videos showing you how to tie a head scarf stylishly - but watching them is the only easy part.

At times like these I'm thankful that I'm still working from home. It means I don't have to spend more than a couple of hours in any one day in public, with my head inexpertly covered.

Did you know there are many websites that sell headwear aimed at women going the full-Sinead due to alopecia and chemotherapy?

Stubbly like a kiwifruit

To save money, I only go to the hairdressers when my hair so long I just can't stand it any more.

If I had known two Saturdays ago that my hair was going to fall out, I might have opted to save my $42.

It started happening a week ago this morning - handfuls just fell off my head while I was in the shower. I run a hand through what's left of my stylishly bobbed locks and it comes away full of limp strands. I get out of bed in the morning and the sheets are covered in wavy black lines. The floor looks like that of a busy hairdresser's.

I'm comforted by the stubble that has appeared in the place of the escaped hairs, so it is growing back. But it's surely going to take months.

I really don't know why this is happening to me. Is it because  the day before, I had done my first dance class in probably two decades? And then took TLM and her friend for a hill walk later in the same day? Is it because my body is sugar-starved? (Not likely, despite my efforts to be sugar-free during the week). Or the result of two years of worrying incessantly about money? (But at long last the boy has got a contract and soon money will be flowing in - for a couple of months at least.)

My off-centre part is more like a broad, dried out riverbed.

When I dare to gaze in the mirror I am reminded of the wispy-haired bird-girl in TLM's book,"Eep".

Thankful that it's almost hat weather, I have spent Easter weekend with a knitted cloche practically glued to my head whenever it wasn't just the three of us. I like how it looks and all, but it isn't actually quite that cold enough to be wearing it indoors with the heater on.

Tomorrow I will try wearing a silk headscarf, gypsy-style. I will probably look ridiculous, but at least I can avoid sporting a comb-over.

Death traps

We have had it with the flies in this house - they buzz around my head, try to eat our food and die in inconvenient places.

I think it's worse than it's ever been. The only plus side is at least they aren't mosquitos or some other bite-y bug.

I am not at all in favour of fly sprays. They squirt chemicals all over the place and, anecdotally, don't actually work.

I did some googling research  and read that if you hang a plastic bag half-full of water plus a few coins in the doorway, the flies won't come into the house.

However the boy did not seem think this was good enough - probably because all the flies seem to be in the house already.

So he went out to and bought some fly paper (above) and a fly-catcher (like a dream catcher but icky-ier) (below).

 

Welcome to your demise, flies!!

My fourth month of working from home

The "pros" of working from home:

• I'm home when The Little Madam gets back from school
• If the weather is beautiful I can easily nip out for 5-10 mins of sunshine without having to take up smoking as an excuse

The "cons" of working from home:

• I have to consciously make an effort to get exercise, whereas before walking from work to home was effortlessly built in.
• It's hard being part of a team if you only see them for a couple of hours once per week.
• If I need to get anything in town I have to make a special trip.
• If I happen to have all of the internal helpline calls directed to a phone that is in my possession, I can't easily take the day off if I have a cold.

I have a cold, perfectly timed for Autumn. My workmates have all had it - which is surprising as we are all working from our homes and should be less likely to infect each other. 

The boy had it all of last week. "That ache-iness and the headaches - that's just the beginning", he says helpfully. But just because it knocked him for a six all week doesn't necessarily mean it will do the same for me. 

For one, I make an effort to keep up my fitness. For two, I eat lots of fruit and vegetables. For three, I'm not a man. So fingers crossed, I have had the worst of it after two days.

The need for victim blaming

• A woman was attacked while walking home from the pub? She shouldn't have been out walking in the dark.
• Someone took all the produce and didn't put money into the honesty box? It's madness to leave your stuff out where anyone can steal it.
• Young person can't get a job? They are probably lazy and entitled.

These are all examples of victim blaming. It's very politically incorrect to do so, but we've all heard (maybe even said) something like the above, often.

I think it's to do with believing in the cause and effect, and the need to have control. For example, if I work hard at my job I will get a promotion and a pay rise; if I take care of my looks, keep the house clean and cook my husband great meals he won't leave me for someone else. If I eat healthily I won't get sick.

But we all know these are not guaranteed. Good things happen to bad people. Financially responsible people can become homeless. Non smokers can get lung cancer.

I've been re-reading The Idiot Brain, by Welsh neuroscientist Dean Burnett. Quite apart from the fact that this guy writes like the Bill Bryson of medical writing (i.e. highly readable, funny and really enlightening), he provides a neuroscientist's view of why we as society victim-blame.

One factor in why we do this is is because we tend to find it difficult to empathise (obviously it varies from person to person), due to the fact that our brains are egocentric. He describes an experiment in which one person has to touch something nice while a second person has to touch something disgusting. The person touching something nice finds it difficult to sympathise with the other. However if both people have to touch something gross then it's easy for them to sympathise with each other.

The other factor is what he calls the "just world" hypothesis. The brain assumes that the world is fair, good behaviour is rewarded and bad behaviour is punished. If a bad thing happens to someone then they must have done something to deserve it. Because if they didn't, then that means it could happen to us, who are most definitely behaving well. Our brain is uncomfortable with the possibility that bad things could happen to us even if we don't deserve it. So it chooses to have us believe that it must have been deserved.

So there you have it - our brains make it hard for us to empathise with someone less fortunate than us and in fact makes us blame the unfortunate for whatever has happened to them.

(That doesn't mean we should just let it happen though.)

Time to target the muffin top

For years I've been eating like I still go to the gym every day, when of course I stopped going not long before TLM was born 11 years ago.

Ice cream, cakes, biscuits (cookies), chippies - damn my sweet tooth and taste for greasies.

Just like it says in just about every bit of literature you'll find about middle age spread, the extra weight has crept up on me and it only hit me a couple of weeks ago that I really have to do something about my "clothes shrinkage".

My bum lift jeans can no longer lift my bum, because they are too tight around the waist. My NYDJ jeans  will still zip up, but it's easy to see that they are having to work a lot harder than only a year ago. And the pretty maxi skirt that fit me just right last summer will no longer button up at the back.

Yep, it is time to do something about it.

A couple hours of Google searching ("lose spare tyre") and three fitness-over-40 type books later, I have settled on a plan of attack:

• I already make sure I go for a walk every day - from here on every other day my walk will be interval-training style. Every time I hit an upward slope I'm going to go up that as fast as I can, then slow down for the flat and downward bits. Interval training is supposed to be good for targeting belly fat.
• Will try to do stretches and mobility exercises...
• I'm going to cut right down on the sweeties and greasies. None at all during the week, but letting myself have a treat or two during the weekend so I don't go postal. This is the bit that I expect will make the most difference.
• I'm keeping a food journal so if I do fall off the wagon, it's all there on paper so I don't forget it.
• I'll only have one between-meal snack mid-morning and another mid-afternoon (rather than whenever I'm bored or slightly hungry)

This only started on Tuesday so it's early days yet. I know that last time I tried to go sugar-free I only lasted a week. But that time, I was motivated only by the desire to be healthier. Fear of falling down the roly-poly black hole is a much stronger motivation for me at the moment. (Okay I also don't want to get Type 2 diabetes.)

Wish me luck!

Another summer top (just waiting for actual summer)

Yesterday, at the start of this stormy long weekend, I made this top. It's made from a Liberty print fabric that was on sale at the Fabric Store.

I used Kwik Sew pattern 3161 (I've used this to made three other tops already); this time instead of having slits in the lower portion of the sleeves I sewed them closed, and I widened the neckline slightly for more room around the neck.

This is a great length for me as it ends at my upper hips (a proper tunic length just makes my legs look shorter). It's got the practicality of a shirt, without the bother of buttons or the discomfort of a shirt collar.

I'm so glad we went north for our holiday as thats really the only time we got to be in summer temperatures. Yesterday I was wearing corduroys and socks!

Three nights in Roto-vegas

In the second half of our family week 'o' fun, we stayed in a two bedroom, two bathroom motel unit (Ascot on Fenton) that was close to town, the supermarkets and the shopping mall.

 Not that much non-food shopping was done though. The fruits of our shopping labours from this time is limited to:

• one pair of tramping trousers with zip off legs for TLM, to replace the ones she'd paced because they are now too small.
• one iPhone USB recharger because I mistakenly thought the boy was looking after packing the rechargers ("they're only, like, two bucks" he said. No they weren't. They cost 25 freaking dollars).
• A Nintendo DS game for the boy because he finished playing the one he'd brought with him, and he'd foolishly neglected to pack any reading material.

The highlights of our time in Rotorua:

• swimming in the Blue Lake
• walking around Lake Rotorua
• visiting Wai-o-tapu thermal valley
• going up in the gondola and taking the luge down

We did also stop off at Huka Falls on the our first day coming into Rotorua - it was before that guy was arrested for boogey-boarding down the falls.

I'll leave you with a photo of the Champagne Lake...

One night in Turangi

On our way to Auckland we stopped off in Turangi for one night. Our motel (Judges Pool) was just across the road from the Tongarairo River so I had multiple walks along there. At this part of the river it was relatively calm and quite a few people were there sunbathing and swimming.

Unfortunately the long drive didn't do the boy's back any favours (yes I did some driving, but not as much), so he missed out.

Two nights in Onehunga

I haven't seen my elderly aunt in many years so the aim of our summer holiday was to go see her before it becomes impossible. We'd never been there before, but when we found her house and peered through the glass in the door it was pretty obvious that an elderly Chinese lady lived there.

It looked like a much tidier version of my mum's place, plus I could see some chairs that had been covered by a protective layer of plastic. A yellowing photo of her late husband had pride of place on one of the low tables which were otherwise decorated with doilies and Chinese ornaments. The remote was covered in a layer of clingfilm.

Once we were inside I was amused to see that she - like my mum - had a second fridge. It was in the garage, along with an assortment of pots, pans and woks, a cupboard full of dried ingredients and a couple of gas cooker thingies. The sheets on our beds smelled like the parcels we used to get from Hong Kong when I was a child and were decorated with florals on a peach background.

Needless to say we were pretty well fed those days, on pork ribs, soy sauce chicken, stirred green beens, almond cakes, coconut jelly and lashings of Chinese tea.

In case you were wondering,  I didn't get a chance to go to DressMart, which came up at the top of Google's list of things to do in Onehunga.

A new hat for summer

After my hat got covered in ice cream at the beach yesterday, I decided to make another one so that I could have one to wear while the other is in the wash. TLM is modelling the new hat.

The crown is made from strips of linen/cotton that I've woven into a grid (after first tidying the raw edges). The band is made from super-stretchy denim left over from my jeans-making and the brim is made from non-stretch denim also left over from jeans-making.

As you can see, I topstitched here and there in bright yellow but left the brim edge unfinished. I've encouraged a bit of fraying so that I could do some pre-emptive fray-trimming.

I won't show you the underside because it's pretty rough.
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There's no getting away from the fish-eye dart

The last pair of jeans I posted about were wrinkly at the backs of the legs - as you can see if you scroll down a bit to look for the blog post. But I was able to fix it, by taking in the inseams by about a centimetre all the way down and by resizing the back pockets.

When I say "taking in the inseams", it sounds like a simple thing to do - but it's not if the inseams are flat fell seams. Because they are, it meant unpicking the topstitching and seaming of the inseams, then unpicking the outer leg seams in order to restitch the inseams and re-do the flat fell stitching. In other words I practically took them apart and put them together again.

Unfortunately I don't have a non-blurry photo of the improved back view, so you are left with the saggy old lady butt view in the last post.

I made a second pair of jeans, this time using some rigid (but not raw) denim. It was way easier to work with than the super-stretch denim because the rigid stuff doesn't stretch out when you stitch over it.

Unfortunately I have not learned from all of the pants-making that I must do a fisheye dart on the back leg pattern piece in order to remove all of the excess fabric that results (which comes from having an apple-shaped body) -

Because it's rigid denim, simply taking it in at the inseams will make them uncomfortable to wear, so I'm thinking of just sewing a massive dart in the back of each leg so that they look a bit like this -

See - they are much less wrinkly now. But there is a crease under each bum cheek (which will become a seam if I proceed with my possible plan).

In the meantime I have been wearing them in and they are pretty comfortable now, though not as comfy as the leggings-like fabric of the stretchy jeans.

Time slowing down

For a long time now I've often felt that time was going way too fast, that I was running out of time to do all the things I want do in my life. Its made me anxious, panicky and sometimes (when I feel that time really has run out to do some thing) sad.

But I haven't felt this since I started working from home (due to our office closing down until certain repairs are done to make it quake-safe).

I'm not sure why, but I think it's to do with there being slightly fewer or different events to mark out the different points of my day - mostly not having to travel to and from work.

It's also helped by the fact that we are in the middle of Christmas and New Year holidays, and aren't doing anything much during this period.

The effect is probably going to wear off in a while, but in the meantime I'm happy with the feeling of time slowing down and allowing me to relax more.