Clothesline Apron

I love to hang up my clothes to dry outside on the clothesline. Let's just ignore for a moment the green-ness of it, of the energy we're saving or the money we save by not using the dryer so much. It's also very relaxing, very calm, and extremely satisfying. I feel much more like I've accomplished something than I do when I load up my dryer. And usually the kids play in the sandbox while I work, so it's a win-win fun situation for all. :) (Though I have been known to get busy and forget to bring them in before the dew sets in, completely negating all the work I did...shrug. Well organized and completely on task, I am not, nor will I ever be. Let's just be honest here.)

But anyway, to my point...I've been carrying around my clothespins in the plastic bag they came in. Not very attractive or even very practical. It's a small, narrow ziploc-type bag, and so hard to reload with pins as you pull clothes off the line. Often I just chunk them in the basket with the clothes and run the risk of them falling through the holes onto the ground (and either getting found by my children-- who have been known to smoosh fingers in them--or by the lawnmower, and we know how that would go...) I kept saying...I need to make a bag to hold them, but we all know how THAT goes. I've been saying that since last year...

So, recently, I purchased this book One-Yard Wonders by Rebecca Yaker and Patricia Hoskins, and lo and behold, it had a clothesline apron in there, all pretty and polished, and I knew I had to make it.

And so I did. Yesterday.




My only complaint, really, was it's a bit too small. Once I've put all my clothespins in there, it looks very misshapen and overstuffed...because it is. shrug. We'll see how it holds up. At any rate, it's very cute, and now I want to make a new apron for the kitchen. Hmm...which pattern to choose?

Pink

Anyone that knows my daughter knows that nowhere in the words to describe her do the words DAINTY, GENTLE or CAREFUL appear. Seriously, the girl is "rough as the cobb," as my mother would say. She is so tough on shoes and pants, that I'm doing good for either pair to last a month without a hole. I mean, really, how many kids tear up a new pair of shoes from the INSIDE out??? (And how do you do that anyway???) The state of her torn jeans is such that I'm beginning to wonder if they have her playing tackle football at recess...and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if she was. She is equally rough on toys...she even broke the handle of a tupperware teacup I bought her for her toy kitchen. Tupperware. (me shaking my head). And my old talking Bugs Bunny doll that somehow managed to survive years of my own childhood abuse, and many more years in storage in an attic I'm pretty sure gets hot enough to bake cakes...she had it beheaded within five minutes. Not on purpose, mind you. But still.

But even though she is more likely to be seen playing football than dolls, that she is in no way a prissy, girly-girl...still, we have entered the PINK stage.

sigh. She's driving me nuts. Pink PINK PINK....oh, and purple. Purple is okay.

I am NOT a pink kind of person, usually. Not that it's an evil color or anything, only, well, orange is my favorite, and I don't wear a lot of pink, either. When Little Bit was born, I even scoured the stores to find her a nice little coming home dress that was NOT pink!!! (Finally found a cute one that was mint green with tiny little pink ribbon roses at the yoke) And I dressed her in a lot of NOT pink when she was little, though I did not shy away from pink entirely. I'm not, like, insane about it or anything. I just don't really like pink that much.

But now I have to practically argue with her to get her to wear any other color. sigh. Here we go...

Of course, having thought back onto my own childhood, I, too, was pretty much a tomboy. I never wore dresses or my hair down unless we were going to church, and I could often be found outside digging for worms. And even I had a pink and purple stage--I remember it, actually. Though I favored purple, which Little Bit used to. shrug. Maybe she's just up for a change. Of course...once I got a little older, I threw off anything pink...or lacy...or ruffled... Yeah, probably just a phase. :)

Let's hope so...I don't have a lot of pink fabric in my stash. LOL