Keep Up The Good Work

So how do you celebrate International Women's Day? And did you add the Day Without A Woman strike to your participation? Do you think Sophie Trudeau blew it badly when she suggested honouring the men who support the women? How do we all come together when we are so divided in our opinions?

For me as an Official Little Old Lady this is just another day though I will be with all the working (paid or not) women in spirit. I'm sorry things are not better for us, though I'm old enough to remember when things were a lot worse! And I'm sorry we seem to be stalled or even retrograding on the journey to equality. I think somebody got complacent. Or scared. Or lazy. Or something I can't quite articulate. There was big pushback from the other side. It's about power and privilege and (most) men don't want to give any of that up. Voluntarily at least. We obviously have to take it for ourselves.

I don't really have any of the answers. Although I did my best to bring up two people (one female, one male) to be strong, competent, considerate and as feminist as possible, my own life looks rather "June Cleaver" to the outside eye. (Does anybody under a certain age even remember anything about "Leave It To Beaver"? Never mind.) I never had an actual career or worked a 9-5 job but stayed home with the kids (and everybody else's kids) and ran the household. I consider myself extremely lucky that my dear husband was able to make enough money to allow me to do that. These days that situation is an anomaly! But we were content with "enough" and I worked rather hard to make things comfortable for us so I could avoid going out to work for somebody else. I did of course make some pin money (love that phrase!) sewing, babysitting and teaching occasional craft classes. I even worked a part time job for a couple of years just to prove to myself that I could. That one was a mixed good/bad experience. Mostly because my boss was difficult and I also injured my wrists (not at work) and I had to quit so they would heal. But I digress.

One of the good things about getting to this stage in life is that I don't really have to please anyone but myself anymore. (Oh yeah, and Thom of course! But he's easy-peasy. No, really. Truly sorry I can't clone him for you!) There has to be some compensation for getting old and decrepit, doesn't there? But not everyone is in such a good place. We women have come a long way but until we are at least half of the government and earn the same as a man in the same position; until we are listened to and our opinions and solutions considered equally valid; until we are appreciated as more than just a body but a mind and a heart and a whole person; until then we need to do whatever it takes to get there. Amen.

Whew! Okey-dokey then. I have an outfit for you today:

This ensemble is only half me-made (including the gray bamboo t-shirt you can't see underneath). The jacket was the first expensive garment purchase I've made in decades and I've already had it for nearly 2 years. The designer was Japanese but it was made in Thailand for a local boutique (that I believe has since closed?) The name on the label is "Tha Ngen" and it's beautifully finished inside and out. I love it but I don't wear it as often as I should because it's a little difficult to style. The fabulous collar is too bulky to add a coat over it. However it's not warm enough to wear outdoors until later in spring/early summer before it gets too hot. And I have to watch what I wear under it too or the silhouette looks wrong. For instance, I had wide-legged pants underneath this morning and it just made a column of width all the way down. Substituting the narrower leggings balanced it better. The gray (which is really a black warp with white weft and thicker doubled supplementary warp and weft threads) goes well with my pieced tunic. I like this jacket best however over my orange-red Marcy Tilton French Housewife's Dress. I'll have to show you that combo sometime.

What else? I'm about halfway through spinning the second bobbin of Late Winter Fields roving and trying not to overtax my hands. The Isabel Likes Espresso cardi is coming along. I'm cruising up the body. OK, maybe not cruising since I can only get maybe an inch of length knitted in a whole 2-hour TV-watching session. Those are some long rows! And only getting shorter at the equally slow rate of 4 stitches every 6 rows. Silly me flubbed when I was working the short rows for the back dipped hem which ended up extending into the band/collar's slip-stitch pattern area and I forgot to work that part in pattern. I dropped each of the collar stitches one at a time down to the ribbing and picked them up again properly (with good light and a small crochet hook) and it all seems to look fine now. Mischief managed.

So today the snow seems to have given up though we still have quite a lot on our north-facing front lawn. It's still pretty damp and cold even if the sun is out right this second. I still haven't started planting any seeds in the basement grow-op yet. Instead I've been spending an inordinate amount of time on Pinterest lately saving garments and outfits that please me for some reason or other. My excuse is that I'm trying to train my eye and hone my design sense. And of course get ideas for future sewing projects. I'd like to expand on this in a future post. Right now though my spinning is calling me. Back soon!