I identify as a person who sews

Nancy and Becky 1970

 I have been sewing since I was 10 years old.  I started by making clothes for my Barbie dolls.  My mom bought panels of fabric that had the patterns for the Barbie clothes stamped on them.  

I learned to sew on my mom's Featherweight sewing machine.   My mom sewed all sorts of things on that machine including matching dresses for my sister and I.  If I write "watermelon dresses" Carol will know exactly what I mean.    I can still see my mom at the dining-room table finishing up my dress for picture day at school.

My mom sewing on her Featherweight.  I have it now!

 

 

In high school I mainly wore jeans.  But all of my dresses and some slacks and skirts were home made by me.  I am wearing one of the dresses I made in the picture above.   

I worked for Singer (sewing machine) Company when I was in high school and again after we got married.  The picture is of my step mother, Becky, and me demonstrating a sewing machine at my work.

When we lived in Bangkok I made a lot of clothing including a ton of maternity dresses!  By then I had a fancier sewing machine that I bought while working at Singer.  And I made a little gown that I bought Courtney home from the hospital in.  I am sure all five kids, as babies, wore that gown. 

This is the gown, and a picture of baby Galileo wearing the gown when he was one month old.

For as many years as I can remember  I sewed all of my kids' Halloween costumes.  with five kids that's a lot of sewing.  I remember feeling so sad when I only had two and then one and then no costumes to sew.   It was such a big thing to me.  The kids created the ideas for their costumes and my sewing machine and I brought them to life.  I still have many of those costumes in a Rubbermaid bin in the basement.

I made a load of dresses for my grandnieces, my sister's granddaughters during the eight years I was their daycare provider.   It was so much find finding the fabrics and patterns so I could make matching dresses!

A variety of the things I have made for the girls and for my own kids.

Okay, so what the heck prompted me to write this?  Well, as a grandmother, I wanted to sew some cute clothes for my grand-baby, Galileo.    I bought a lot of cute fabric and wanted to prepare it before sewing it.   I always wash fabric before I sew it.  I know that cotton especially makes a mess of the cut edges when you wash it.  I thought that making a quick line of sewing would help prevent this.  Actually I know that it will. 

I have a fancy sewing machine as well as a serger.  I decided that it would be better to serge the fabric edges.  I went to my serger and discovered that I don't remember how to thread the thing.  Plus, when I tried running it, it was very stiff.  I have not used my serger or sewing machine in over a year.  Maybe even longer than that.   

A serger had several threads that need to be run through it in order for it to work.  Mine has four threads.  And each one has to be threaded just right or everything will jam up and not work at all.   

I am going to have to take my laptop computer and place it next to my serger to watch a video of how to correctly thread it.  I am so disappointed in myself.   What should have been an easy task has turned into a job.  It's my fault.  I need to sew more.  with me luck!

My serger with the bottom open

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

 
 

Time travel?

 

 

HG Wells book "The Time Machine" was turned into a movie in 1960. It's too much to write up the whole story.   The part I want to get to is this:  The main character, George, sits in a seat in a machine that transports him through time.  George is able to observe time changing through a large window.   The main focus is on a shop window- a nifty tool to represent the changes in fashion that reflect the changing years.  

Now, why would I write about this time machine?  Where is my mind wandering?  

Just about every morning I sit on the deck and feed Buddy.  I listen to the birds and I look at the trees and flowers.    Watching the buds plump up and then become tiny, bright green leaves, feels like I am watching time move and travel.  The passage of time is both abstract and real.

 

 Each day there is change.  Subtle yes, but there it is. shortly, the leaves will have become a darker shade of green and will fill out and cover the trees.

We age.  A phenomenon that has been observed and wondered about probably forever.  We accept it.  

With babies, we chart the growth and progress.  Making sure the baby is getting enough good nourishment.  And love.  We see the baby's emotional growth and personality.  So much of it "natural" and so much of it inherited by behaving in the ways the parents and other older people treat the baby.  How the baby is expected to walk and smile and roll over.   

The baby is rewarded.  The adults are rewarded too. The time machine keeps moving forward.  And the mystery and wonder and awe continue.  And then...so many explanations and beliefs  and traditions.

And as author Kurt Vonnegut wrote:

“God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the
sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look
around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly
couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to
think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and
look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait...
To find out for certain what my wampeter was...
And who was in my karass...
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

My mom (Mommy)

Ruth Naumowicz Obituary

NAUMOWICZ, RUTH MARIE

On Monday, March 29, 2004, RUTH MARIE NAUMOWICZ of Ellicott City, MD; beloved wife of the late Chester Naumowicz; mother of Carol Hestvik, Nancy Sherwood and the late Dale Alan Thompsen; mother-in-law of Janet Thompsen; grandmother of Jim and Tom Knowlden, Molly Thompsen and Courtney, Morgan, Darcy, Austin and Chance Sherwood; great-grandmother of Sarah Knowlden; sister of John S. Rivers, Norman Rivers, Geraldine Pullum and the late George Rivers. Relatives and friends may call at COLLINS FUNERAL HOME, 500 University Blvd., W., Silver Spring, MD Tuesday, 7 to 9 p.m. and on Wednesday, March 31 from 12 noon to 1 p.m., where service will be held at 1 p.m. Interment Gate of Heaven Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made to American Stroke Association Memorial Tribute and Processing Center, PO Box 5216, Glen Allen, VA 23058-5216.

Poland memory

Courtney 18 months old/ Poznan, Poland

 

 

 

 

A memory/ story by me, Nancy Sherwood.

 

I just read an article in the New York Times titled "where do you bury a Nazi?" It recounts a family moving into an old house in Poland and being told by previous owners and then an archeologist that there were likely human bones in their garden.

 

When we lived in Poznan, Poland from 1979-81, we lived in an old house. Many of the houses and buildings in Poznan at that time had bullet holes that came from machine guns- left from WWII. There was a lot of history there and it felt like there were still the ghosts of many people who had perished.

 

We had a large garden with about 12 apple trees (that had not been cared for) pear trees and walnut trees. In the spring we decided to dig up an area that looked like a good place to plant tomatoes and radishes. We found many bone fragments. We always felt that they were probably human- small like fingers or hands. 

 

It's been so long ago that I am, sure that the whole town has changed and the bullet holes have been patched. As if you can just erase their history.

 

I wonder whose bones they were and what stories they could have told.

Feeling blah!

 Last week, Carol and I went to church for the first time in ages.  I was really looking forward to go this morning.  But I was just too wasted.

The past few nights we have not been sleeping well because Buddy has a stomach problem and needs to go out several times at night.  Last night, Buddy slept fine.  

Last night it was my turn to have sleep issues.   I sleep on my left side, and my left shoulder hurts. A lot.  I put a Slonpas patch on my shoulder and it really helped a lot.   I still had trouble sleeping.  My right leg and foot are hurting.  And my right ankle is swelling up.  Uncomfortable!

I had totally forgotten that I could attend church online.  Oh well.

 

These two pictures are of Perth, Western Australia.   We are looking across the Swan River from the campus of Wesley College (where the boys went to school) toward where our house is.   We lived on top of a cliff so it was never very easy to get a good picture of our house from that side.   If you see where the little red dot is in the upper picture, that's where our house is.

I'm still in pajamas  from last night and it is almost 6:00 pm.  I think I will go take a shower and make myself feel better.

 

 

Birds?

I love birds.  I am fascinated by them.  I recently started to use the app on my phone called "Merlin Bird ID".    It records the sounds and tells me (or anyone using the app) what bird is singing.  I have started to write down what birds I have heard every morning.    They are usually the same crew, with more variety some mornings.

I also have a bunch of bird feeder and a bird bath.  This morning I got these pictures of a cardinal having a grand time splashing around in the water.

After sitting and listening for a while, I asked myself "what is the point of birds?".   No that doesn't mean I don't think there should be birds.   Just what do they do?  Why are there so many varieties?   

I vaguely remember learning something about Darwin's finches.    A simple explanation is this:  Darwin observed some finches on one side of an island and some on the opposite side of the island.  The birds were identical in all their featured but one.  Their   beaks were different.  Darwin was able to conclude that the birds had adapted to the food available on the part of the island where they lived.   So they had to be able to eat and crack different seeds etc and needed different tools - their beaks.

I am sure I am oversimplifying it, and I am sure it took a long long time to evolve the distinctive changes.   It makes you wonder.

And our birds here in Northern Virginia are no doubt different than birds in different regions of Virginia and the world.

We have finches here.  They are called "American Gold Finch".   But they are not gold all year round.  In the spring and summer they start to develop yellowish feathers and then they become bright yellow through the summer.  In the fall and winter their yellow fades and turns back into a duller brown.   How does this happen?  I guess like Darwin's finches, these finches have evolved into a color changing bird for both attractiveness for breeding in the warmer months, and   camouflage in the winter when they leaves fall.

If I was better at formatting this blog I would not have had those pictures of the cardinal strewn all over the page.  Maybe one day I will figure if out.

A bird that I find very regal and beautiful in the mocking bird.   

My Mocking Bird friend, on the bird bath

 

 
 

What should I write about?

 Every day I think about what I want to write about.  Then I don't.   I want to write about birds.  I want to write about dreams.  I want to write about my now grown kids and how hard I worked at mothering them.   

So, since I need to take a shower and go out soon, I am just dumping some photos here.  I hope to work on this later- labeling the pictures and writing about them