It was just about a week before we got slammed with the coronavirus pandemic that Bethann finally got all of her remnants and bits of fabric neatly sorted on the two 7 foot tall bookshelves we had purchased at Goodwill for $7 each. I had spent hours cutting up boxes from the state store into ~9″x11″ pieces, so that fabric could be wrapped on it, pinned and filed on a shelf by color. Bethann has sold a number of pinwheel swirl dresses, patchwork dresses, various quilted things, etc., as well as making many gifts for our grandchildren and others.
COVID-19 hits. At first, Goodwill stays open. Bethann works there part time sorting donations. On Monday, March 16, they meet with the employees and say that they plan to continue to stay open. That evening, she got an email saying that Goodwill is closing everything at midnight, due to COVID-19. On Wednesday, the owner of the cottage industry where she works sewing six hours a week tells her that she is ill and it would be better if she did not come in. By the end of the week, the governor shut all non-essential business down.
40 Face masks for Souderton Mennonite Home /Cranford’s Minion mask / Bethann’s butterfly mask
We have all this fabric! We have loads of elastic! We have sewing machines! We don’t want to be in the same room all of the time! We would like to be productive! Do we make lemonade? Of course not! That would be silly. She makes beautiful face masks. Last week, we delivered about 75 to Grand View Hospital (some adult size, some children size). Today, Souderton Mennonite Home picked up 40 and a family picked up four. She is busy making more.
And yes, she made masks for household members, as well. We wear them whenever we leave the house. Someone told me that a cloth face mask will not help. This is NOT true! A double layer, cotton face mask is 60% to 80% effective to stop the spread of virus. An N95 face mask is %90 effective. It is true that it does not so much protect the one wearing it, as it protects those around them. The best way to stop the spread of this thing is to assume everyone has it. This means we all should be staying home. And when we really need to go out for something, we should wear a mask.
My mom, B.J., as I mentioned before, taught me that if I could read, I could do anything. This was most literally demonstrated to me in my experience with sewing clothes. In About 1972, when I was in high school, I was working for my mom as a bicycle mechanic, salesman, and pretty much managing BJ’s Bike Shop in Brooklyn Park, MN, adjacent to BJ’s Viking Sewing Center, where she sold Viking Husqvarna and New Home sewing machines and Eureka vacuum cleaners.
One evening, she could not staff her shop, so I had to look after both stores. There was a door between them, so I could hear the door chimes on either side. A couple came in to look at a Viking sewing machine. They wanted to see how it did buttonholes. I told them that I had never used the machine and had never made a buttonhole in my life, but I would attempt it by following the step-by-step instructions in the manual that came with the machine. I sat down in front of the machine, turned it on, positioned the fabric, lowered the presser foot, opened the manual to the proper page, went through steps 1 through 5 and made a perfect buttonhole. I was astonished! They were not impressed. They were upset. They thought I was conning them and that there was no way it could be that easy. They felt I had to be an expert, when, in fact, I was a rank beginner.
After that I played around with little projects like making little book bags out old jeans legs and such. My first real sewing project was several years later. It was a pair of rusty maroon jeans. I tend to sew like my mom cooked. Sure, she always read the recipe; then improvised. On that first pair of jeans, I eliminated the outside, side seams. This meant I had to use the pattern to figure out curved darts from the waist band to my hips, where the side pockets insert. It meant I had to configure a whole different layout for cutting the fabric. I also stitched my initials in a sort of double line wave on the back pockets, instead of the boring zigzag the pattern called for. I mean if one is going to go to the trouble of making one’s own clothing, why would one want it to look like it came off of a store rack?
My second project was a pair of faux suede, dark green jeans. This time, I made them fitted to the knees, then straight down. I put a different style “CC” on the rear pockets. One day at Finland Mennonite Church, the man behind me asked me if I would make him a pair, only he wanted his initials on the pockets. His name was Chet Cassel. I said I had to maintain my artistic integrity and I could only sign them with my own initials.
The family on our front step on 4th St., East Greenville, July 1983. I’m wearing the outfit I made.
In 1978, I sewed myself a long, flowing, navy kaftan out of shiny, swimsuit fabric. I was working full time and going to seminary full time. A mentally handicapped neighbor came to our door and I answered it wearing it. She said, “Oh, I didn’t know you were a priest.” I told her I was in seminary. Then it dawned on me, that she was referring to the kaftan. In 1982 I made myself a set of Indian style drawstring pants and shirt in green and light green stripes. My friend’s NY Italian father asked her “Who’s the giant cucumber?” when we visited Manhattan. I walked with Bethann and our friends through Central Park, China Town and Little Italy, dressed in them.
In 2014, our friend, Kork Moyer, read about shite shirts and shite shirt nights in pubs in England. He is a rock musician. He said he really wanted one. I felt the same way. So, that August, while visiting our friends, Marie and Pete Mattson, in Lewes, Delaware, we went to Mare’s Bears Quilt Shop to pick up some fabric for twirl dresses. I spotted some beautiful avocado fabric. I love avocados! I use them a lot in my cooking. Then I found a gorgeous bundle of Robert Kaufman fabric fat squares. I persuaded Bethann to let me use my vacation mad money to buy these to make myself a shite shirt. I added to these bits of eggplants, corn, tomatoes, and peppers fabrics for the pockets and cuffs for a total of 15 different fabrics. I used 9 different buttons from Bethann’s stash. I have gotten comments everywhere I have worn this. I have shown it off at a few different fabric and sewing machine shops and received oohs and ahs. They seem to be amazed that a man was able to do such a thing. This was my first project on the serger machine. I also did various fancy topstitches over all of the seams in metallic gold thread to add a little more pizazz. I finished it the evening of September 17, 2014.
We showed my shirt to Bethann’s boss, Kathy, and her husband, Steve. They hired us to make him a short sleeved one. I did the major part of picking out the fabric. I pieced the fabrics together, topstitched the seams. The featured photo above the headline is the fabric at that point. Next I laid out the pattern and cut it out. Bethann assembled and finished it. It was finished on September 17, 2019, exactly five years after I finished mine! I modeled it for photos before Bethann delivered it today. Kathy and Steve were delighted! Steve is a pharmacist. I hope he wears it to work.
We were told by our realtor to just let the house rot. We are in the process of foreclosure. The odds are we are going to lose the house. We are trying to negotiate a refinance, but PHH, the mortgage handling company, has never been honest, even to the point of lying to me about who owns our mortgage while I was looking at a letter I had just received from them which told me that it was HSBC, the Scottish drug dealing bank that the US Senate bailed out with no strings attached. It makes sense that PHH represents HSBC. One criminal organization represents another. I digress.
50 cent couch covered in beautiful throw I sewed with pillows I covered with excess fabric from the recliners.
Entertainment Stand painted with Behr Ancient Pottery (N250-5) Premium Plus satin
We still live in the house. I am on disability due to my six strokes caused by migraines, more than 40 TIAs, and innumerable prolonged (at times, 20 days long) debilitating migraines that mimic strokes. I asked the ALJ, “Would you hire me?” He granted my Social Security disability immediately. We are losing the house because the lawyer I used screwed things up and I still haven’t received the two years’ back pay. (Somehow, he got his full fee based on it, though. A lawsuit may be pending. I digress again.) Back on track. Bethann and I decided that we wanted to paint the living room as a gift to each other for Christmas. This was a first for us in our over 40 years of marriage; to have that sort of idea at the same time, with neither of us having to persuade the other.
Laying out fabric on the kitchen table, to cut and sew for the couch throw and cushion covers.
Normally, I would just pick the colors and paint. Bethann would learn to like it. I know that is unusual. I have always been the color person in our house. Only once did I have to retreat on a color. That was the Rubber Ducky’s Bill Orange for the trim of the upstairs bathroom that I painted while she was at a Ladies’ Night Out several years ago. She let me leave the walls Rubber Ducky Yellow, but shook her head and said, “What? Can’t I leave you home alone anymore?” I said, “It’s only paint! These colors were big in the ’60s.” Just brings back images of a young, perky Judy Carne saying “SockItToMe!”
Bethann’s recliner in chocolate brocade. We bought this for $10/yd. The walls are painted with Behr’s Brazilian Tan (N250-2) Flat finish
My recliner in rust fabric, with my cat, Skittles in the foreground.
At any rate, for this project, I actually went to Home Depot and got paint chips and little samples to try; an absolute first for me! We agreed on the colors, adjusting one, with no argument with each other. We wanted to respect the age of the house (new part: 1845, kitchen & bedroom above: 1700s) without leaving it moldering in its antebellum past. Bethann and I went to Joann Fabric with a great 50% off upholstery fabric coupon and selected fabrics for throw covers for the couch and our recliners, for about $80. It was like an ultra low budget Trading Spaces room makeover, only done right.
Bathroom to the left, Den/Office ahead, Basement to the right. I rehung that door with new hinges and reset the surface mount lock. This is all in Behr’s Clay Dust (N250-1) Premium Plus Eggshell finish
The job included the tiny entryway, tiny back hall, stairway and upstairs hall. The job included 9 doors, 15 doorframes, and 3 windows. We have reconsidered what we hang on our walls and have opted for less. I eliminated the shelves over the windows that the former owner had incorporated into the frames. They weren’t level, and we wanted a cleaner look. I had to replace the top piece of the frame on two of the windows, because the way the shelves were installed destroyed the antique parts of the frames.
I am still repairing sagging accoustic tiles in the ceiling in preparation for painting it with high gloss, ultra bright white paint. The tiles are faux stamped tin style. I am using high powered glue in a dispenser with a long, narrow spout. I insert the spout between the tiles, at the corner where they are sagging to deliver glue on top of the tiles. Then I tighten the tiles to the frame above with a screw through a piece of stiff cardboard and leave it there long enough for the glue to dry. Then I move on to the next spot that needs to be repaired.
