I Couldn’t Be More Grateful

I’m so grateful for this time of year when teaching slows down. I’ve always taken the end of year months to slow down and focus on family, look back on the past year, and quietly dream for the next year. This year feels especially contemplative and beautiful. 

This time last year my family had come together to work round the clock caring for our dear sweet Ethan who was recovering from a motorcycle wreck. Just a couple of months ago he was back at work, miraculously recovered. We are amazed and grateful as a family can possibly be.

Ethan’s wreck was right before we had all planned to go to a Renaissance Festival, so being able to go this year was more of a huge thing than you would think. And once again, we bought tickets for Pirate Weekend.

I took time for some fun sewing for a week or so. A quick trip to a thrift shop netted some great bling for pirate jewelry and a tweed jacket that I deconstructed for a waistcoat. A leather coat was cut apart and turned into pirate boot spat/shoe-cover-things. I sewed up a black pirate shirt that I had cut out for Ethan last year. He had put together his own costume but Eli needed one so – there you go. Next year when he has contacts instead of glasses we’ll add a mask and Eli can look like Dread Pirate Roberts.

Hubby has had bits and pieces of pirate gear added to his costume for years now. This time I finally pulled out the bolt of jacquard that I’ve had waiting for 10 years. I mostly, sort of, followed a pattern taken from a 1707 gentleman’s frock coat.

The fabric doesn’t drape so I took out quite a bit of flare, but did take time to match the pattern. I love that the pattern looks a tiny bit like a skull. The buttons do have skull and crossbones…. and there are a lot of them. (Fun!)

And – so many choices with all the bling – and lots and lots and lots of hand sewing of buttons and cutting the gold fancy trim into segments and cleaning them up. They are, most thankfully, iron-on. But they were messy with bits of glue and thread everywhere so that was a couple evenings worth of work.

And there you go. I have the most handsome pirate family ever. And what a simple but complex joy to even have them alive.