Poodle Ears Becomes Real

Last weekend, it was time once again to gather for our annual tradition of taking the kids to tea.

Though most of them are in high school now, the Littlest is about the age Jack was when we first started going.  In fact, when this all began, she hadn't been born yet.

The Littlest with her Mom, 2014

The first time we went, I took along a few millinery hats that I had in my sewing room for fun...

Luckily, I had an old top hat from my mother-in-law so there was even one for Jack.

The kids have changed a lot since then but the hats have stayed the same...

In fact, here are the two girls pictured above taking a selfie at our very first tea...

They were ahead of their time.  Now that everyone has a camera phone, selfies are a more common occurrence...

The Top Hat no longer fits Jack's head but I'm not sure he would wear it anyway given that his red hat is permanently affixed to his head.  

Except for when it gets taken by one of his cousins...

They eat a lot more now...

Gone are the days when they used to split a tower of treats and we'd have take-home boxes.

And they are able to sit still for a couple of hours, looking pretty and sipping their tea...

For me though, the hats make the party.

The Littlest has only been to tea twice so far in her short life.  By now, I have an entire old suitcase full of hats to choose from so I was curious as to which hat she would choose for the day.

I shouldn't have been surprised.  

She picked this poodle-eared version that I've had since the very beginning.

When I first got this hat, a shop owner had given it to me for free, throwing it in with one of the hats with the pretty pink flowers.  Honestly, I thought it was hideous and I almost gifted it to the Goodwill.  I couldn't imagine that anyone would choose to wear it.

Boy was I ever wrong.  Without a doubt, it has been the most popular "hat" over the years, having been chosen over and over again...

My SIL even wore it as a mustache...

If there's one thing I've learned about hanging with these kids, it's that I am never very good at predicting what will be a hit and what will not.  They constantly surprise me.

By the end of the day, the Littlest had replaced Poodle Ears with Top Hat...

That means that Top Hat is moving up in the rankings, thank heavens.

It's true.  Poodle Ears is still not my favorite "hat" but what I think is irrelevant.   

After all, when children choose a hat over and over again through the years,  it earns a higher status in life.   

Gone are the days when a shop owner didn't even think it worthy enough to charge for it or when I almost gave it away to Goodwill unwanted.  

Today, Poodle Ears is a family treasure which I've grown to respect.  Even if Top Hat were to become more popular in the future, Poodle Ears still rates.  Poodle Ears has become Real.

In honor of Poodle Ears and tea drinkers everywhere, treat yourself to one of the most beautifully-written passages in all childrens' literature.  Happy weekend everyone...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.  

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"  

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." 

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.  

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." 

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"  

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."  

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.  

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.” 

― Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

Growing Up with Tea

This past Saturday, the nieces plus Jack and their Moms gathered to have our annual tea.

Only problem is...it hasn't been very annual for the last two years.  Since we started gathering in 2006, we've gone about four times and skipped the past two.

This was the first time the littlest has been...

And we, once again, pulled out all the vintage millinery hats and shared them with our servers...

I went back and pulled out some old pics of the kids to compare them past to present...

And this year, Jack switched his old hat....

For the red one.  Shocker there...

And to say the littlest is a ham is an understatement...

A big understatement.  Here I caught her taking pics of herself with her Mom's phone...

I have some real winner photos to share at her wedding!  And to think I almost gave away that poodle hat because I thought it was ugly.  I think it's been the most popular "hat" over the years.

And since it was one day before the Superbowl, here's Mary Ann, one of our servers, doing the Joe Flacco Quarterback pose!

Don't forget

Harikuyo:  The Festival of Broken Needles

is

Tomorrow!

So grab those broken needles, your needlebooks and come share your blog.  

I'll post a Mr. Linky here tomorrow where you can link to a post on your blog.  I'm really looking forward to seeing how each of you will be honoring your needles.  I'll leave the post up all weekend so if you can't post until Saturday or Sunday it's no problem.  If you do not have a blog, leave a comment on how you are honoring your needles on this day.  I'd love to hear about it.

See you tomorrow everyone!

Missing My Elixir

For the last 11 days, husband Jim and I went through a "detox" program, eliminating all sugar, glutens, additives and caffeine from our diets in order to cleanse our bodies.

And I hadn't had my beloved tea for 11 days.

I missed it desperately.

So, this morning as I type this, I'm having my first cup after my 11-day absence.

Heaven. Bliss. Comfort. My old friend is back.

My elixir of life.

In honor of this day, I re-print the one of my favorite blog posts I've ever written here at Plays with Needles.

I'll see you Monday when I'll tell you about my trip to Winterthur.

Enjoy!

Reprinted from June 2009:

The Elixir of Life

Today, I wonder

Are you bad as me?

And drink too many

Cups of tea?

Two in the morning

when I first awake

A third in an hour

When the first two don’t take.

And by mid-morning

I slake my thirst

With one more cup

That rivals the first.

Two cups with lunch

And then none ‘til four

When I take down my pot

And give it a pour.

For late afternoon

It’s time for High Tea

So I drink the whole pot

Just myself, I and me.

Happy Hour is next,

And rather than wine

I choose to have tea

Before I dine.

And after I’ve supped

All sweets I forsake

I choose tea for dessert

And skip all that cake!

At the end of the day,

I’m warmed by my cup,

And have my last sips

To wrap the day up.

When at last I sleep

Away I float

On a river of tea

My cup for a boat.

And so, I ask you,

Are you bad as me?

And drink too many

Cups of tea?

I first began my April BJP with this poem. And then, as I beaded my river of tea day after day, I began to ruminate on the important role tea plays in my life. How tea is a constant in my life, A river that runs through me, carrying me through every day and every moment.

I come from a long line of tea drinkers. My grandmother drank tea; my mother drank tea; my father drinks tea; all my siblings drink tea; my son drinks tea, and I can't get enough of the stuff.


The ritual and routine of making and drinking tea has carried me through many of life's joys and sorrows. I can't tell you how many gallons of tea we must have consumed while planning baby showers, graduations, weddings and funerals.

Tea is a great eraser, a salve, a remedy to the ills and the trials of every day life. My mother would often say to all of us, as we plopped exhausted in a chair after a hard day of school, and later, after a long day of work having just picked up our children from daycare..."Have a cup of tea and two Tylenol. It will make you feel better." And she was right. Only I save the two Tylenol for those really rough days.


Tea provides a segue from one event to another and is the excuse to sit around for hours the night after a big party and do a post-mortem on the event -- who was there, what did they say -- didn't everyone have a good time...

Tea provides a welcome mat, an opener for friends and family who stop by to visit...It says "Welcome to my home. I'm glad you are here and let us begin again to know one another"...

For my family, it's a way of demonstrating love and we each know how the other likes their elixir prepared...some with two sugars, some with none...And now, I have Jack and I'm proud to say that Jack is firmly ensconced in the ritual of tea. And, he knows without a shadow of a doubt, that when I make him a cup of tea, it means "I love you."

One of the last things my mother requested before she died was to have a cup of tea. The day it happened, my family and I were at home taking care of her. Mom had an aggressive form of leukemia and when the disease finally overtook her, she wanted nothing more than to die at home and so we took care of her there.


Mom had reached the stage of dying where she couldn't really converse anymore, her speech was difficult to understand, she was bed bound and she hadn't had anything to eat or drink for about two weeks except water. We knew we were getting close to the end.

So, this day, it was a shock when Mom was adamant about wanting to sit up in the recliner -- we hadn't done that in weeks either. So we moved her to the chair and she was trying to say something and I was struggling to understand. "Water?" She shook her head no. "Pillow?" No. And then, I couldn't believe what I thought she had said...

"I'm sorry Mom, I'm trying to understand. I think you just said that you wanted a cup of tea?" I asked incredulously. And she nodded and a smile touched her eyes. "You want a cup of tea?", I repeated with delight and wonder and hope in my voice..."Really?" And she nodded yes.

It was an awakening of sorts. Imagine having had a couple of weeks of minimal communication from Mom and all of the sudden...this! She wanted a cup of tea! It was a moment of joy amidst many moments of sadness.


So I walked out of the bedroom and when I did so, my father looked up and asked with his eyes..."What does she need?" And I told him, with a big smile..."Mom wants a cup of tea!"

"She what? A cup of tea?" "No....Really?" He asked repeating the request to make sure he had understood. And I said it again. Then a big smile spread across his face and he said, "Well, then, let's make a cup of tea!" And he hopped up and busied himself putting on the water, getting out the cups, etc.


And, as we helped Mom to hold the cup...her shoulders began to relax, the tension dropped from her face, and she settled back into the moment as the warmth spread from the cup to her tired hands...and she just held it.

After a few minutes, I could tell she wanted a sip so I helped her bring the cup to her lips. Mom hadn't sipped from a cup in weeks and I was overly optimistic and believed that she would actually be able to sip like she used to -- I mean, amazing things were happening this day...


Well, she couldn't manage it very well. She sputtered and coughed as some of the liquid went into her lungs and the tea dribbled down her chin. But she smiled. She smiled and croaked out, clear as day, "It's good..." which made us all smile together.

Her shoulders relaxed a little more and we sat there for quite a while helping her to hold her cup and to take little sips of her final cup of tea. She died about another week or so after that and never requested another thing.


And on the morning that she died, after we had made the important phone calls and we had that intermittent silence, waiting for the world to show up...realizing that we were in transition to another ritual that would carry us through our grief, waiting for it to start. Because we, the care team, had nothing left to do. She was gone. This woman whom we had loved and cared for to the best of our ability no longer needed us.

The silence was tangible; it felt threatening. Every sound, every tick of the clock was amplified and deafening.


So, I got up and started moving just to take the silence away. And I walked into the kitchen, and there on the counter, were the cups all in a row, hot water having just been poured into each one. My brother Mark had made us tea. And so that's how we beat that powerful silence, that void. We filled it with tea while we drank our last cup with our Mom and waited for the world to show up.


Tea is powerful. It's an Elixir of Life. It is the cheapest therapy I know and it is a universal language of love.

And so, when I have reached the end of my journey, and I can no longer express it for myself --

I hope someone will remember how I like my tea.


Plain old Lipton, one level teaspoon of sugar, steeped for 6 minutes with a dollop of skim milk.

That'll be all I need. Thanks. [Reprinted from Plays with Needles, June 23, 2009]

Tea Time!

It's always tea time in Wonderland.


And it was tea time all day today in Maryland -- I think I drank at least 10 cups of tea all by myself given that it was rainy and cold outside...perfect weather for tea and for stitching...

I'm getting closer to finishing...the major stressful parts are over...the parts where I wasn't quite confident that I could make the Mad Hatter or Alice...I have just a couple of more motifs to complete.


And then I'll sit back and study the block...and add beads and a few extra stitches wherever the block says they should go...

I'm getting very close now...not too much longer...


P.S. The entire block is 8" square. That means those little bitty cups are only about 1/4" tall.

Planning a Party

Yesterday I spent a good five hours planning, drawing and illustrating the tea table to go on my block.

Using the picture above as inspiration, I decided to draw three table segments. I love the different color tablecloths with the different lace toppers.

I want to recreate that look but, realistically, I don't think I'll find lace that tiny or intricate for the scale of my tiny table. I plan to use whitework embroidery to give the lacy effect. Hopefully, that will work...

As part of this job, I have to have a pattern that DMC can give away. And since I don't want to get in trouble with Disney, I decided to create a generic tea party scene. So I worked on my first draft. The table illustrations below are slightly larger than what will fit on my block so I'll be editing as I stitch to see what will work and what won't.


And I'm not likely to stitch "It's Always Tea Time" on my block -- I just added that for fun. In Wonderland, the watches of the Mad Hare and Hatter are stuck at 6 o'clock. And in the Disney version, the Mad Hatter had to kill Time while he waited for Alice to come back. Time has been stuck ever since and so the Mad Hare, the Hatter and the Doormouse are left perpetually having tea.

The tea table on my Alice block will curve along the long seam treatment in the bottom right of the block.


I've been trying to use as many DMC threads as possible and this green variegated machine embroidery thread captivated me. So I tried it as background grass for my Mushroom Forest. And I really like how the color changes in this application.

After finishing the Tulgey Wood and some of the Mushroom Forest background grass...I decided I'd better put this piece on stretcher bars.


And now here is the block today, ready for the tea table. I want the table to stick out a bit so the table top will be about 1/4" wide -- I'm not sure how I'm going to do that yet.


The greatest news came yesterday when I was told I have an extra two weeks to finish. That was music to my ears since today we're gone all day at a family party.

Though I miss my trips around the blogosphere, I don't have much time for reading blogs and conversing just now. Thanks for all of the comments you've been leaving on the Alice posts! They make me feel pretty Wonderful!