Ginger Hendrix, Writer

The Book I Wrote Just for You--Time to Make: Throw Yourself at Your Creative Life. Don't Wait.

BPF's (my dear, dear bloggish people friends),

I wrote a book for you. And your friends. And all of the people you and I know who we wish were letting themselves spend lots of time making things.

If you've been reading here, you know I've been working on it for about a year and a half. And so here it is, friends. Please do go get it. It absolutely emerged out of five years worth of blog posts--writing to you all about all the goofy stuff I was making and the bigger and bigger thoughts that were flooding my head about how important it all is.

Sure, it's great to make handmade stuff. Absolutely fantastically great. I'd rather have my house full of stuff I've made than anything else. It makes me downright giddy sometimes when I look at the polyester-covered pillows on my sofa. (No lie.)

But it's also great for my insides--the best way to live I've stumbled upon yet: the hunting for supplies, risking a new idea, scribbling in tiny books about strange pillbox-shaped bags and stripey quilts. Then diving in and building something. 

And the beauty of this last five years is that you, my wdt reader, have been listening, nodding, commenting, listening to me talk about it all.

You're really nice.

I do hope you'll grab a copy. Read it. Hand it off to a good friend. 

And when you do, tell them it was written by a blogger who wrote it for you.

Barbie Is Finally Un-Naked, And She's Evicted Her Neighbors.

It's about time. I'm sure you agree. About her nakedness--not that inevitable eviction of the short, brunette dolls that had been inhabiting the dollhouse before she returned from our camping trip with her new vintage sheet wardrobe and an apparently quite entitled attitude about her place in the house.

It was raining so hard in Utah, and there we were in our tent trailer (testing out its weather-worthiness in thunder and lightning and hail)--and it was either read a picture book version of Wizard of Oz again or do the envitable: make Barbie some clothes.

She came on the trip naked. She has been known to just roll that way. So we decided that because we had three vintage sheets that I'd picked up at the Bishop Salvation Army for about 2 bucks each, and I always travel with needle and thread, we were able to make her a full blown trousseau.

It was the right thing to do.

She even got a sleeping bag. And a pillow.

And some other accessories--um, hats and an apron, actually (to go with her shoes).

And Flower Pie the horse got a saddle. At the time of making, it was undecided as to whether the horse's name was Flower Pie or Pie Flower, so we made a saddle that covered all the bases.

Seemed smart. You know.

And since there was plenty left of the sheets, I also recovered the fronts of my trailer cushions. They were a dreamy gold pattern that functionally disintegrated in the monthly use of our trailer since we landed it in december--so it was time for new faces.

Once I figured out a tricky method for hand stitching them, I pulled it off while we were out on the road. Totally gratifying.

 And it's nice now, too, because they match Barbie's wardrobe, so we won't have any unseemly photo shoots with indelicate, clashing backgrounds. A plus.

 

And the bit about the neighbors, well it was awkward.

I think all the new clothes and all the attention on the trip must have gone to her head.

Where I Concede that a Vintage Tent Trailer Is Better Than a Bra. And Also That There Is a Santa.

RAMBLY OPENER

Sometimes I dream Little. (For instance.)

Other times I dream Big. But only sometimes. I have a tendency to reach for things that I know I can touch and skip the psychic muscle ache of the other stuff completely.

TRANSITION TO MAIN IDEA THAT LINKS BRAS TO BIGGER THINGS (NOT BIGGER BRAS, BIGGER DREAMS)

So when we started talking a few years back about wanting a tent trailer for the family, I surprised myself. It's more than a fifty dollar item. It would take saving for. We'd have to want it for a while before we'd get it. The gymnasium called "Loud, Echoey Disappointment" yawned before me. I might have to bounce around in there quite a while before the thing manifested itself.

If it ever did.

And if it didn't, then I'd end up being one of those people who talk about "someday we're gonna . . ." and blah blah. And I just really, really have tried not to be one of those people.

CONNECTION TO CURRENT HOLIDAY SEASON AND ALSO TO BIG DREAMS

This year I declared it Christmas of the Unexpected at our house. Everybody in the family's got a day of the week (and some of us are paired up on those extra days)--and we're in charge of doing something unexpected for somebody else.

I have been thinking this season about the nativity story and the way that it is a story of unexpectedness if it's a story of anything. There are all those faithful people watching the skies for somebody to save them, and while they're squinting for a king or a bruiser of a ruler to overthrow the bad guys oppressing the daylights out of them, out of the clouds drops a baby.

And I have to say that if I had been a faithful jewish person at the time, I woulda been shaking my head and praying, "Really?"

But as I've been mulling and chewing my own head to shreds about the ways in which Christmas bugs me, it struck me that what we need--what I need, my family needs--is a refresher on what it means to be really surprised. On being ready for the Unexpected.

THE PART ABOUT WHAT REALLY BUGS ME ABOUT CHRISTMAS

It drives me batty that my primary concern at Christmas is how to materilize whatever my kids have said they want. It feels like Potential Disappointment Management rather than the giving of real joy. And I'd really like Christmas to be about real joy.

So I declared it the Christmas of the Unexpected as a means of our reaching toward practicing being surprised--and also as a means of practicing surprising other people. We delivered root beer floats to some friends and once I cleaned the house by myself so the rest of the fam could play instead of pitching in, and mostly the kids have said "For our unexpected tonight, let's watch a movie on a school night!" And mostly we've said, "Great idea!"

THE PART ABOUT THE TENT TRAILER BEING BETTER THAN THE BRA

And then when I wasn't looking, right smack in the center of Christmas of the Unexpected, this happened: after a year of searching more or less every day [oopss--accidental confession of weird personal hobby] for tent trailers and trying to talk myself into the idea that an early 90's pop up with a Dusty Mauve interior was something I would grow to love, this 1969 Apache Ramada Pop Up appeared. The fact that it was only 600 bucks meant we could pay cash. I sent Pete 120 bucks short and got a surprise check for 123 while he was on the road there (thankfully . . .since it was going to come out of the grocery envelope).

THE CLOSING WHERE A VISION OF YELLOWY GOLD TELLS THE STORY OF THE WAY IN WHICH THIS TRAILER IS BETTER THAN WHAT I'VE EVEN TRIED TO WISH FOR AND HOW IT'S A SIGN TO ME ABOUT HOW I RARELY DREAM BIG ENOUGH AND THAT I PROBABLY MISS THE BABIES DROPPING OUT OF THE SKY WITH ALL MY SURETY THAT WHAT I NEED IS A BRUISER OF A KING

And the reason I write all of this here--and not just a "Hey--looka whatwe got" is that everything about this falls under the category of the Unexpected.

There are the things I want, the Little dreams.

And then there are the things I rarely believe can come true.

And then . . .

They do.

I Know Why Quilters Smoke

Now I know why all Quilters smoke like 3 packs a day*

It's because of all these quilts that they feel like they really should make for everybody because they can. I've started to twitch, myself, every time somebody says they're pregnant. Thank the good lord hisself that only one dear friend and one relative is at this time currently about to pop. Because if anybody else I knows gets knocked up, I'm going to be SERIOUSLY BEHIND, people.

Only one corner left. Almost finished.

And what about christmas? Oh my Heavenly Day, what about Christmas? Now that I can hand quilt, how in the name of Carol Brady's underpaid hairstylist am I going to pull off hand-sewn quilts for everybody? So many things to quilt. Maybe I'll make table runners for everybody instead of full quilts. Or napkins. Or little covers for everybody's USB drive. Yeah yeah, that's what I'll do. Yeah.

Plus, what about my kids--they each need a hand-sewn quilt from me. I need to make each of them quilts. I mean, I did, but I need to HAND-QUILT something for them now--something that they can have forEVER.  That's totally what I need to do, man. It's totally what I need to do.

I'm so wound up, I just need a project to calm me down. I'll quilt something--yeah, that's what I need to do, I need to quilt something so that I can calm down from all this Quilting Pressure.

Mom, what's for dinner?

What honey--oh. Yes. Right. Uhhhhh--Be there in a second, honey! Just working out some inner tension up here. Just working on some quilllltttsssss.

I hate letting my kids down. So stressful. Uhhhh. Gotta do something to relax--I'll quilt.

[Insert photo of bloodied finger from too much interaction with tiny hand-stitch needle here.]

*Quilters don't smoke 3 packs a day. But if you see a Quilter madly lighting up with the tip of a just-burned cigarette, don't judge. That person has a lot going on inside and maybe needs the nicotine just to deal with the real pressure of being able to quilt.

Where I Make A Movie About Making a Purse, At The End of Which You Will Probably Not Be Able To Make A Purse

I decided to videotape myself making something. Actually, it wasn't a decision--it was an event. I had the thought, "I wanna make a purse" and then I hit "record" and started talking.

Here's a clip about the video piece, "Ginger Has An Idea About Making a Purse," to make you:

        A) Want to watch it    

        B) Wonder why anyone would do this [especially in their Effectual PJ's]  

        C) Want to go make something  

        D) All of the the above

Answer: D.

The full "video piece" (not sure yet what to call it. Not a movie. Not a film. The word "video" makes it sound like a VHS tape.) is right here. You can just click on this link and you'll get to it. This is where to click. 

And this is what I would say after having shot it and put it together:

1) It's long. I mean, unless you are close enough to know my middle name (well, both of them), you are probably not going to watch it in its entirety. OH WORSE--if you ARE this close to me, you're going to feel like you HAVE to watch it and will then have to LIE to me about it. Shoot.

2) Filming from below one's neck highlights one's multiple chins.

3) I should have added some sort of surgeon generals warning about the Need for Dramamine to the opening. Watching it is like seeing something put together by J.J. Abrams or the earliest episodes of ER.

4) When I am making something ABOUT making something, I am a seriously happy human form. Not kidding. Dangit. I had a really good time doing this. I was thinking of you the whole time. For reals.

[insert clip of my good friends shaking their heads while they wildly call each other to coordinate a brief intervention that might involve medication and plans for special "girls relaxation weekends" where we soak our feet and "let off steam."]

Go make something.