Sunday, March 29, 2009

Agnostic Dating

It's been awhile since I complained, er...I mean, posted anything about The Legal Adult. For the most part, I've tried to leave him alone about his love life. There's always a girl he's obsessing over, or moving on from. (I know, you don't end a sentence with a preposition, but it's early.) Thus, the reason I refer to them all as "Sweet thing". Can't mess up the name that way. However, L.A. got creative and has had back-to-back girlfriends with the same FIRST names. This has created confusion on my part. I can't call them both Sweet thing. So, we refer to them by their last names, conveniently Smith and Jones for this post. Smith is the former and Jones is the current. And the former is his current roommate. (Which I never approved of, but he's a grown man.) Yeah, the plot definitely thickens.
I'm just going to say it, I really like the former one, despite all my efforts to stay unaffiliated. It probably doesn't hurt that she's a seamstress, (although I'm working on getting her into quilting!) is from our hometown in Tennessee, and has been dating him since high school. She's polite, smart, funny, and actually talks to me when she comes over. And yeah, she's beautiful, so if they got married, what beautiful grandchildren they'd make for me. I know we as mothers of sons shouldn't consider that attribute, but I'd love to meet a mother who doesn't! Anyway, this child has moved up here from our hometown and made a new life for herself. But now, it appears my son won't be a part of it. Of course, they'll stay friends....yeah....uh-huh.
Something happens, as something will, and they break up. Enter Jones. She's pretty, brainy, and totally goes along with anything he comes up with. I'm sure that's very attractive to L.A. as he loves to be the center of the world as most college-age guys do. I'm polite and try to engage Jones in conversation, but she is not talker that I am.
The Legal Adult wants me to dislike Smith, just because they broke up. Smith is actually house sitting for me in the near future while we are on vacation, an arrangement we made at Christmas time, when everyone was still in love and the world was a beautiful place.
I've been accused by my son of not supporting him because I don't feel the need to be ugly to her, (or anyone else for that matter). Explaining that finding someone to watch your house last minute is a bad idea did not bode well. So there you have it. The lesson here is: don't get too attached to any one girlfriend/boyfriend of your child. Be kind, but be agnostic. Until there's a ring and a date, just be agnostic about anyone they date.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

In a bind over binding



I'm sure you all think I've fallen off the planet, but I'm still here. And I'm still working on that Stars Fell on Alabama quilt. It's the sewing of the binding that I'm having trouble with. In case you can't tell, I absolutely REEK at hand sewing. Apparently, there's a technique I'm not aware of.
I've searched the net for how-to's on the subject, even watched video tutorials. Either I'm so blind that I can't see the stitches they are presenting, or I'm terribly uncoordinated. My choice of binding fabric was hard to match because it's variegated. So, I went with the most prominent color: blue. I won't even start on how sore my index finger is from doing this.


You can see from this picture here that this is where I started. I'm definitely ripping this out.





So, I pose the question to you all: how do you do an invisible stitch? I'm thinking it's alot like the applique stitch, but I've only done machine applique.
Any help is greatly appreciated!