Some nice things

April 23, 2018 | Pam Kocke

I have a longer post coming soon, but for now I wanted to highlight these two nice things people said to me on Saturday.

Nice thing #1:

Scene: The boys’ soccer game had just ended. Their team lost (barely) but they played really well.

Coach: Pam, can I talk to you over here?

Me (thinking): Uh oh, what’d I do? I’m in trouble.

Coach: I just wanted to tell you that your boys are a delight to coach. They’re so well-behaved and are really supportive to their teammates. They just have great attitudes, unlike some of the other players on the team. I just wanted to let you know.

Me (is it dusty here or what?): Thank you, that’s so kind!

END SCENE

Nice thing #2:

Scene: Cute little sewing store. I went in “real quick” to pick up some fabric since they were having a sale that ended that day. Miles came in with me, the rest of the fam was in the van outside, frothing at the mouth because I was “taking so long.” Pleeeeease. But look at the pretty fabric I got!

Fancy Uptown older lady: Did you make that shirt?

Me: This old thing? (Not really, I didn’t say that.)
Me: Yes!

FUOL: That’s really nice! What pattern is it?

I tell her. She looks carefully at the seams and admires the bias binding. I self-deprecatingly say it’s not perfect, and I only started sewing recently. She says some more complimentary things, and some of my imposter syndrome around sewing fades. (Some, not all.)

END SCENE

One hundred twenty four

April 4, 2018 | Pam Kocke

To make them smile for real, all you have to do is tell them something about soccer that you thought was right (but you know is wrong) and they’ll laugh at how dumb you are.

Five years of posts

Aside | April 4, 2018 | Pam Kocke

Not here, silly. But I’ve been posted over at the New Orleans Moms Blog for five years, and I was thinking about some of the posts I’ve written in that time, and how things have changed in some ways, and how they really haven’t in others. Go check it out!

(And look how much the boys have grown in that time!)

Outdoorsy stuff

April 3, 2018April 4, 2018 | Pam Kocke

Last week I went on a field trip with Oliver’s class and brought a camera. Here are some pictures I took of things besides 10-year-olds (except my own, of course.)

The program is called Earthkeepers and they teach it at the Jean Lafitte National Park (the Barataria Preserve in particular, I think) and it’s quite pretty. This all is sounding familiar. Did I blog about it already? When I went with Miles? Well, at least this time I have good pics.

Ollie looking at me like he’s a teenager and I’m an idiot

Ollie being cute in the hat I made for myself that he stole

Not totally about sewing

March 28, 2018March 28, 2018 | Pam Kocke

I’m going to try to blog about other stuff for once. I will probably fail.

Let’s see.

Okay, well, how about I get the sewing stuff out of the way first, and then I will talk about other stuff? Okay.

I currently have a wealth of fabric. Definitely not complaining! I don’t have plans for most of it, I’m just going to wait for the right project to come along. I am going to make another Akita shirt out of some teal linen for my upcoming trip to Singapore, though, and I want to make a dress as well out of another linen I got. (Okay, since I started this post, I made the Akita shirt, and I even made my own bias tape for it and NEVER AGAIN at least not until I forget what a pain THAT was.)

But the dreamiest is this gorgeous Art Deco rose gold sequined fabric. I don’t have the skills to use it yet, but I will one day. It will need to be lined in satin or something, and zippers might need to be involved. So it will have to wait until my skills have caught up. But it’s going to be amazing. And I’m going to wear it every day.

I had a pretty bad fail this weekend. I have been dreaming of this Charlie Caftan for a while and finally bought the pattern and made it with some fabric that I was given and liked but wouldn’t be devastated if it didn’t work out, and guess what, It didn’t work out. It looked like a hospital gown. Probably partially down to the fabric, but also the fit just isn’t great, and I think the pattern just isn’t for me and I just need to accept it and get over it and deal with it. Probably because I’m so cheap the hardest part to swallow is the $14 loss on the pattern – since it’s a PDF pattern it’s not like I can just give it to someone like I could if it was a paper pattern. But it’s a lovely dress on plenty of people. Just not for me.

Continue reading →

123 months

March 5, 2018 | Pam Kocke

1-2-3 months! (Miles just pointed that out to me.) (He’s watching me write this post.)

Linus was not happy. Actually, none of them were, but at least Oliver and Miles faked it.

Random stuff (and I made another thing!)

February 20, 2018 | Pam Kocke

Okay, I’m deep into this sewing obsession (it won’t last forever, don’t worry) but I don’t want to only blog about things I sew, so I’ll combine it with other stuff I need to blog about.

The boys are now playing soccer, and aren’t taking guitar lessons any longer. Deja vu to two years ago – Linus wanted to sign up for soccer, so I did, happy that he wanted to do it by himself. And the other two went to a game and of course then wanted to play as well. So now all three are playing soccer again. Linus had his first game on Saturday and they won. I took a bunch of pictures, of course.

A while back, Linus and I were on a very short segment on the morning news about a toy (on behalf of the moms blog) and I never blogged about it because there’s no clip of it online (thank god), only terrible photos of the screen my brother posted on social media. Sigh. One such gem:

OKAY NOW CAN I SHOW YOU?

Very simple pajama pants for Oliver (whales again!) and I can tell you now, my next project is two more pairs (in other fabrics.) He was ecstatic. 🙂

It’s mid-February but I think spring is here now. Sigh. I hate spring. Except for this.

The rest of Mardi Gras 2018

February 16, 2018 | Pam Kocke

More pics from Fat Tuesday, plus our neighborhood parade on Saturday, NOMTOC, which was also NORMTOC because Norm just turned 70 so we made shirts.

A lady on a float gave me these! So proud.

All the Chicks!

Cool Linus

Oliver’s studded pleather fingerless gloves he caught

Liam marching and embarrassed of us

Norm and his Chicks

And on Mardi Gras day, we costumed in a Pixar theme (I really should talk about how amazing I am for pulling this together the night before, after going to a million different stores and crafting late into the evening) and walked down to watch St. Anne’s in the Marigny (a walking parade that has most excellent people-watching) and then tried to catch the end of Rex but it was too crowded and we were all exhausted. But it was fun.