faux body images

ever since that jennifer love hewitt dared to show her reality thighs out in the open there has been lots o blah blah blah about the need for everyone to have good feelins' about their bodies. my much older sister queenie could sure help anybody findin' themselves lackin' in this area.

when my mom found a simplicity pattern she felt inspired to stitch together she would ask for our measurements. it's not like i was gonna measure any differently than the last time she got so inspired - at the very same time she found just the right fabric on sale at walmart for 99 cents a yard - but for some reason she could never find the right piece o' ripped up crinkled grocery bag she used for scribblin' the numbers - and all important information - onto...sometimes with her eyebrow pencil. so once again i'd take that stiff yellow strip - not sure if it's cardboard or paper or what - and wrap it around the circumference o' my protrudin' body parts and call out the sometimes painful numbers to my mom over the phone. she''d have to wait for queenie's body strings to arrive via the mail.

queenie has never allowed anyone to use one o' those crunchy numbered tapes on her royal skin. instead, whenever a recreation o' any o' her body parts is called for, she uses regular ol' twine and attaches a lil piece o' tape to the end sayin' which human part it recreates. this way she never knows the actual numbers and always feels just fine about whatever length those pieces o' twine end up bein'.

if invited for a visit to queenie's palace you can count on feelin' really good about yourself if you back up to the full-length mirror and crane your neck to check out how your behind looks in your 501 jeans cause she always has one o' those that reflects back a more stretched out version of yourself - not anywhere near a funhouse mirror but also nowhere close to accurately conveyin' your true saddlebag shapes. and since her bathroom scales are always set to a good ten pounds less than what i find on my own, jumpin' on for a weigh-in is a delightful experience. everybody leaves queenie's house with a pretty good body image - even if they do know it's ll pretend.

queenie says the only important opinion about how she looks is her own and the way she sees it she looks pretty darn good. and somehow since she always thinks she looks pretty darn good, i always think she does too.

fortunately my mini has inherited more o queenie's good body image feelins' than my own. at mini's age most girls are pretty critical of themselves but so far i have never heard mini complain about how i made her. she got some of these positive feelin's from her daddy as well 'cause no matter how he looks, in his mind he is the most handsome devil on the planet.

i am sometimes envious o' queenie's ability to love herself thru thick and thin. she never compares herself to others where i sometimes do...like when i go see the colorist to the stars in beverly hills to get my faux blonde hair and am placed smack dab between a faux red headed super model and a faux blonde academy award winner...i find it really hard not to close my eyes and wonder what it would be like to have just one really long leg (it might be worth havin' to hop from place to place) or the ability to throw on a tight t-shirt over a bra-less torso and not fear i'd be asked when my due date was.

on the other hand, mini's daddy is capable o' reachin' a whole new level o' self-love that often leaves me scratchin' my head. yesterday, when he returned from gettin' me a cappuccino at starbucks, he reported that he had stood in line with robert redford who "wasn't very tall" and "what a shame it is that he has 'that thing' on his face".

while rushin' to get all my projects done today i'm gonna ponder how borin' life would be if we were all the same. i'm sure most o' you have long been finished with all your holiday preparations while it will be quite the miracle if i ever do. i vow each ho-ho-holiday season that it will be the last that i feel the need to gift everyone with momade items and in the future will not only purchase all outgoin' gifts but pay the ridiculous amount charged to have them gift wrapped and shipped by someone other than me. it's more likely i will succeed at havin' queenie and mini's daddy's perfect body images before i am able to achieve such a lofty goal....especially since the time i spend makin' the gifts is really a present i am givin' to myself.

good hat headed milliner mo

you may think that jo has big hair cause she's stuck in some poofy time warp. but that's not the case. jo's big hair is our grandmother's fault.

from the time we were born, our grandmother told us at least once each time we were with her that we were very fortunate to have inherited her good hat head and that we owed it to ourselves to wear a hat whenever out in public. and any time we were out in public with our good hat heads hatted, she made a point o' callin' to our attention all the less fortunate heads we encountered so we would appreciate how lucky we were to carry the good hat head part o' her DNA.

while i loved donnin' all the chapeaus grandmother crammed onto my good hat head, jo hated each and every single one. she said they detracted from her natural beauty and that since we also inherited spectacle needin' peeper DNA from this good hat head grandmother, addin' a hat too was just tacky. queenie agreed with her but only because she had good peepers and had made it clear early on that the only thing she was ploppin' on her good hat head was a tiara so grandmother never made her wear one o the matchin' hats forced upon me and jo.

as much as she hated those hats, jo put up with 'em for the first five or so years of her life. but then one day we accompanied grandmother to the beauty salon and while she had her hair-do done up, we dug around in all the beautician's drawers where jo discovered a teasin' comb. by the time we left for our next stop of the day, jo had mastered that tool like a pro and with almost a whole foot o' teased hair on top of her good hat head, she finally put her flat foot down and told grandmother she was done honorin' her good hat head and from that point on would be goin' out in public bare cause her high hair would no longer accommodate any sort o' coverin'.

queenie's tiara and jo's bouffant left me as the only grand-daughter willin' to wear a hat which was fine with me cause i actually liked 'em - plus no matter how jo tried, she was never able to get my hair to hold a tease - even with a double coat o' aquanet.

by the time i was maybe 8 or 9 i started makin' hats for my friends - even those without good hat heads - and other than a hiatus i took for a couple o' years after sewin' 5 or 6 machine stitches through my pointer finger, i've been makin' 'em ever since.

above are some o' those on their way to that sweet amy's shop, inspirecompany.com. last year i only made lil ones for lil hat heads and many o' you requested i do some larger ones next time 'round....so that's just what i did. i believe this batch will be on the shelves o' amy's shop between now and monday so if you're in need o' a couture chapeau cloche or two, be sure to stop by and take a look.

now i must go finish decoratin' all those trees mini and her daddy insist on havin'. jo's still not back from helpin' our auntie move so i'm left to do it all with no live entertainment. i'll blog up some shots as soon as i am further along.

hope you all are enjoyin' the season and have done more shoppin' done than i have. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo