BrambleStitches

During the month of February, I’m going to try to mend my way through all the ripped and torn, frayed, button-less, broken-zippered, and just plain falling apart items we have. I know I’ve been putting it off. It’s not because I don’t like to do it that the mending basket is overflowing; it’s because I like to sit down with a hot cup of tea, take my time, and do things right. Mending is one of the simplest ways you can stretch your family dollar. The cost to repair an item is usually only a few cents, and the time you spend stitching is an opportunity to travel back in time. You might be surprised at the memories a simple piece of cloth can evoke.

I hope you’ll join me with your own mending basket by your side over the next few weeks as I do my best to make things do.

Day 1:

The Manly-Man brought me his sweat pants today to see if I could fix them. These are the sweats he has to wear for PT (physical training) at work most mornings, and they’ve seen many miles. I’ve repaired one of the ankles before, but it was so long ago that I didn’t even remember until I saw the blue thread in the seam. (Fixing Erik’s work stuff is usually a good opportunity for me to use up odd bits of bobbin thread. Nobody is going to see it, and Erik certainly doesn’t care, as long as it’s not visible from the outside.) These tears are probably from trying to quickly pull the sweats on over size 13 running shoes. It just doesn’t work, honey! I zipped this up quickly on the machine, using an over-edge stitch.

The next repair is a little tricky. It’s a hole that has started to run on the back of the sweats. The hole is about 1/2" wide, and the run is about 2 1/2" long. I’ll do this one by hand. I happen to have some slightly brighter green jersey (aka single knit, or teeshirt fabric) in my stash that I originally got for $1/yard. I’ll only need a tiny scrap for this.

I held the jersey "patch" in place and prick stitched around the edge of the hole. A prick stitch is a bit like a back stitch, but the stitch on the visible side of the fabric is very short, only a thread or two long at most, so it is fairly unnoticeable. In the photo above, I’ve already stitched down the right side of the hole, and I bet you can’t see the stitches.

After stitching the patch in place, I trimmed around leaving about 1/2" allowance.

Jersey doesn’t fray, but in the interest of making this laundry and Marine proof, I folded under the edge of the patch and whip stitched it to the pants. There’s no need to stitch all the way through the fabric, a couple fuzzy loops are enough to keep things in place and still look neat on the outside.

I’ve whip stitched all around the patch, and secured my thread ends with a knot.

Next I’ll stitch through the loops of the run, to make sure the run won’t "run" any further. I’m not sure you can see it here, but this run is comprised of three rows. The top row runs from the hole, to the end of the run. The middle row goes from the hole to just a little past the mid point of the run, and the bottom row is only about 1/4 the total length of the damage. At the farthest right point of each of these rows of running stitches, I’ll take a stitch right through the loops where the fabric is still good. This stitch has to be in the same row as the running stitches in order to check the run.

I’ve stitched the patch to the pants. Now it’s time to stitch the hole to the patch. I don’t want anything to catch on the hole and make it bigger, so I’m whip stitching it to the patch all the way around. This will hopefully keep dirt and filth from accumulating in the space between pants and patch.

And there you have it. A fairly invisible, but quite secure patch. I know the green is a little bright, but I think it will tone down after a few washings. If it’s still noticeably different in a week or two, I’ll try coloring it a little with a permanent marker. That ought to do the trick.

Life in the Corps, Mending, Sewing

Since The Man was in the field all week, it was a perfect opportunity for me to work on his “big” Christmas present–Argyle socks. (I can safely tell you about them, because I know he doesn’t read this, and he knows, vaguely, that I’ve been working on them anyway…) I have one nearly finished. Erik came home last night, finally, only to reveal that he had duty today. Sooo… I’ll spend this morning unknitting a few rows from the toe of the sock, since I got a little carried away. Then hopefully I’ll have a chance to get a good start on the mate.

Knitting, Life in the Corps

I’ll admit it: Ever since deadline, I’ve been avoiding my computer. This issue was grueling for me. I’ve needed all week just to get my house back in order, tame my wild children, and feed my half-starved man.

To catch up a bit–the dress I started a few weeks ago to wear to the Marine Corps Ball is still hanging, partially completed, in my sewing room. The pattern is lovely, but the dress just needed “something” and I didn’t have time to think about it or work on it during deadline. So instead, I looked thru my closet and found this dress I made a couple years ago (for a Ball we ended up not attending) that just needed a little finishing work. I finished it, we looked fabulous, I forgot my camera. Sorry.

The yellow/gold dress will still go on to become a real, finished dress, just maybe not one fancy enough to wear to next year’s Ball.

Right now my children and husband are all napping, so I’m taking a bit of a break. I starched some linens earlier, to use on Thanksgiving Day. We’re expecting to feed a few of the younger Marines in Erik’s unit, so I’m planning to cook for an army, as they say… though that’s really not right, because you’d never say an army of Marines… But anyway, we’re going to stick to the basics this year, just lots of them: turkey, cranberry sauce, rolls, greenbeans, yams, pumpkin pie (Jackie Clay’s recipe is the – best – ever!), stuffing, and some good brewski.

Homemaking, Life in the Corps, This dream of mine

The Marine Corps Ball is coming up fairly soon, so it’s that time of year when the Man hems and haws about which uniform he’ll wear, how poorly his blues fit, and how smarmy he’ll look if he’s the only jarhead who shows up to the birthday bash in Service As (the green uniform a few posts back). Last week he asked very nicely if maybe I could fix them for him, so he could look just as dapper as all the other lads (okay, he didn’t say that part. that’s what he meant, though.).

See the wrinkle across the shoulders? That means it’s too narrow. And see how tight the waist seams are? They need to be let out a bit. The tight waist was the easy fix, because there were several seams to work with, each with about 1/2 inch of seam allowance to let out. I only needed to let out two seams, so I did the two that had been taken in when The Man first bought this coat–the seams directly adjacent to the center back seam.

I basted along my projected new seamline with contrasting thread. I never use matching thread for this, especially on dark fabrics, because it is impossible to find and later remove the stitches. A long running stitch is perfectly fine for this. After I sewed my basting line, I ripped out the old seam, then had The Man check the new fit. So far so good. I waited until I finished my other alteration before sewing these seams. Sometimes making one alteration can change the other one. In this case, it allowed the coat to hang a little lower, and took up a little bit of the fullness under the cross-shoulder wrinkle. But the neck was still obviously way too narrow. Unfortunately there was very little seam allowance to work with at the neck. I first tried to widen the top back only, leaving the collar intact so I wouldn’t have to mess with it. That made the wrinkle even worse.

So I took off the collar, basted a new, much narrower seam allowance at the top of the center back and let The Man try the fit. It eliminated every wrinkle! (Below, the pressed seam at the center back neck has only about 1/8 inch left to give.)

Of course now the trick is to get the same collar, which hasn’t grown any, back onto an altered jacket that now has a neckline 1/2 inch longer than before. A normal, well-rested professional might tell you it can’t be done, and that you’ll need to order a longer collar. Since by this time it was 2:30 am, I was willing to try anything. [Note: I'm writing the rest of this post a couple days later. I will infact need a longer collar, but the assembly instructions would be the same as the rest of the photos below.] I basted each collar edge to its respective front, then basted the collar on by machine (with contrasting thread).

Now at this point, had the Man been awake, I should have had him try this on. Since it was the middle of the night I didn’t. I’ll go ahead and show you the rest of the process, but you should know that I’ll have to go ahead and buy a larger collar for this after all. All of my alterations did work, but since I let out the back neck so much, I wasn’t able to fudge the collar back on as I had hoped.

After stitching in black over my basting line, I picked the white thread out, then whipstitched the collar lining back in place.

In the end I did manage to get the too-small collar back on evenly, but I’ll have to replace it with a properly fitting one. (I’ll post again about that whenever the new collar gets here.)

Life in the Corps, Mending, Sewing

Most folks have heard of the Marine Corps motto, Semper Fidelis (Always faithful). Not as many know the Marine Wives motto, Semper Gumby (Always flexible). This applies doubly when there are actually real decisions to be made. For example: how to move across the country with a houseful of goods, two kids, two dogs, two cars, and a motorcycle? The evolution of our move, thus far:

SD (separation day) minus 51 days:
Guess what honey?
-You’ve got orders?
-Yeah!
-Where to?
-Camp Lejeune!
-How are we getting there?
-Oh, a government move is the only way to go with all of this stuff.

SD minus 50 days:
-You know I just heard from [so and so] that he still hasn’t been able to settle his claim from the [whichamacallit] that the government movers broke. Maybe we better to a DITY move, so they don’t break our [whosiecallski] too.
-Fine with me. I’ll start packing.

SD minus 50-35 days:
Packing continues. The Man has an appointment with TMO, where they estimate the weight of our household goods at around 7000 lbs. The man reserves a 22′ Penske truck with car carrier. The plan is to load our junk into the Penske and tow the car behind it. We’ll load the motorcycle onto our pickup. I’ll get the two kids, the Man will get the two dogs, then we’ll proceed caravan-style across the country. This plan seems great until we get closer to the 35 day mark, when my dad tells us we’re insane, and the trip will kill us… We’re starting to run out of boxes, so I pick up a few big Rubbermaid tubs for about $5 each, which I can use to store my fabric and yarn after we unpack.

SD minus 34-31 days:
I start to request quotes from several moving companies. We’ve already done a lot of packing, so we look into the "you load, we drive" types of moving companies. After doing the math, we discover that it will cost us LESS to go this route. We can move our vehicles on the same truck as our household goods, too. The plan is to load the truck and motorcycle into the moving truck, then pile the whole family into the Man’s car and drive across the country. This way we can share the driving, get good gas mileage, and not worry about stuff being stolen out of the back of the pickup.

SD minus 30 days:
We consider loading all three vehicles onto the big moving truck, then flying to North Carolina. This actually would end up being cheaper than driving one of the cars across. Little G is still little enough to be a "lap child" so it would cost us 660 total, plus a little extra to take the dogs. We ran into a problem though. Louie is to big to fit into an under the seat dog carrier. We would also have to rent a car for a few days in NC until our stuff arrived. The logistics of this plan seem to get more and more complicated the longer we think about it, so we revert to the previous day’s plan.

SD minus 29 days (today):
We have a problem. You see, we own several guitars. Guitars don’t like heat very much. In fact, heat tends to destroy them to the point that repairs cost as much as buying a new guitar. We made the huge mistake once of keeping two guitars in our garage during summer time a couple years ago, and the neck and fretboard of each warped so badly, that the first ten or so frets were in contact with the strings. Well, the moving truck will be just as hot as our garage for about 10 days, and we don’t think our guitars will survive. The problem is, they won’t fit in our car, either. So we’re trying to figure out what to do. We may send them home with my dad when he comes back at the end of this month, then have him express them to us when we find our new home. We’re still trying to come up with a less expensive plan.

SD minus 28 – Separation Day (future):
We have a lot of packing left. I’ve used up all of my bubble wrap, so I’m a bit stalled. I’ll check my local office/packing stores today, otherwise I’ll have to order some in. I have plenty of tissue paper to wrap our dishes. (I actually bought it to use when mailing items from my little shop, but it’s coming in very handy for moving, too.)

Of course we still don’t have a rental to move into yet. We’re a bit reluctant to accept quarters (base housing) since we had such a rotten experience with housing here in 29 Palms. Rental prospects in town seem good in the Jacksonville area, so we’re not too worried, yet. It looks like a fair number of them will accept pets, too. I’m sure by the time we actually get there we’ll be in that frantic "Can we move in today? We’ll take it!" stage. The moving company we’re going with doesn’t offer any storage, so when the truck arrives in NC we have to unload it, whether we have a house or not. We’d be reimbursed for any storage fees, but I’m not sure how much moving our bodies can take. Better to have a house, than to have to unload it into a storage unit, then move it all again a few days later.

There’s nothing
quite like the Marine Corps to instill a sense of urgency and prepare you for a life of excitement and
adventure. And maybe disability.

Life in the Corps

Here in 29 Palms, Marines wear desert digital camouflage, but over at Lejeune the Man will most likely be back in woodland digitals, so we pulled out his old uniforms to check them over before we pack them. There probably won’t be enough time to do any mending when we get to North Carolina before he has to go back to work, so I figured I’d better fix all that needs fixing now. It’s a good thing, too, because these are pretty screwed up.

1. Mending pile, 2. Pocket: broken elastic, 3. Pocket: opened casing, 4. Pocket: frayed elastic, 5. Pocket: trimmed elastic, 6. Pocket: elastic repaired, 7. Pocket-repair finished, 8. Boonie cover-before, 9. Boonie cover-after, 10. Butt patch, 11. Fixed butt patch, 12. Pen stain, 13. Broken bill

In 2002, while the Man was in boot camp, the Marine Corps was transitioning from the old tri-color cammies to the new digital (MARPAT) style. His platoon was one of the last to be issued the old tri-colors. We arrived at this base before Operation Iraqi Freedom, and before this base transitioned to all desert digies, so the Man only wore woodland digies for the few months between returning home from the war and the official last possible date to wear woodland cammies on base (only a few months total).

Wikipedia has an interesting article about MARPAT and another little bit of info here. The new cammies are better in many ways, but they also have a major drawback: the fabric isn’t as durable, and wears through and frays a bit easier than the old tri-colors. On the other hand, it is easier to sew and repair. My sewing machine really didn’t like sewing through the old cammies. (It complained a lot when I used a pair of his boot-camp issued trousers to make the Man’s lunch bag a couple weeks ago.) Other advantages of course are the improved tactical nature of the fabric–it’s much harder to see, it (supposedly) does not reflect non-visible light as well, so it (supposedly) doesn’t show up as well on NVGs (night vision goggles). The cut is a little bit roomier, so it’s easier to move in them, and they’re cooler to wear. The pockets have been re-arranged a bit so that they’re easier to reach when in full gear. The front chest pockets are angled now so that a Marine can reach them fairly easily with a flak vest on, and the lower front pockets, which were impossible to reach before, have been moved to the upper arms instead.

But do you know the very best thing about the new cammies? They’re permanent press! Yes, folks, my evenings are no longer spent starching and pressing perfect creases and unruly cargo pockets. Now I can throw them in the dryer and leave them there if I want to, or–gasp–leave them in a laundry basket all night, and the Man can still wear wear them in the morning. Does anyone know who invented permanent press? I think I’d like to send them a love letter.

I haven’t packed a single thing in several days, so I need to put the bon-bons away and get back to work in that department. We have only a month to go!

Life in the Corps, Mending

We’ve lived here in Twentynine Palms since 2002. We rented our first place here together after the Man and I were married, and we’ve had two babies at the Naval Hospital on Base. Most Marines come to affectionately (or not) know the place as "Two-Nine" or else "the Stumps." To be honest, the Man is among the few "few and proud" who actually like this base.

After Boot Camp and School of Infantry, the Man was assigned to the "Wolfpack" 3dLAR, or 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. He served his entire first enlistment with them, and deployed to Iraq during the initial months of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Here’s a brief time-line of that deployment, courtesy of Wikipedia. He was part of "A" Company:

In late January through February 2003, the Battalion, with the
exception of Company C (on unit deployment in Okinawa), deployed with
the 1st Marine Division to Kuwait in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. [...] On March 21, 3d LAR Battalion and its attachments crossed into Iraq with the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, attacking into the Rumaylah oil fields. The Wolfpack, along with 1st LAR Battalion, led the Division’s lightning attack north, passing through Task Force Tarawa
56 hours after attacking into Iraq, crossing the Euphrates, and
continuing to attack north along Highway 1. From the afternoon of March 24 until April 1, the Battalion was attached to Regimental Combat Team 5.

On March 31, the Battalion attacked north as part of Regimental Combat Team 5 and secured the northern portion of Hantush Airfield. On 10 April, the Battalion was tasked to provide a headquarters and two companies to Task Force Tripoli.
This ad-hoc task force, composed of elements of 1st, 2nd and 3rd Light
Armored Reconnaissance Battalions, as well as G/2/23 and TOW plt, 1st Tank Battalion, and commanded by the assistant Division commander, continued to attack north towards Tikrit.
[The Man went with the "Tripoli" group, north.] The remainder of Task Force Wolfpack, Companies B, E, and approximately
half of H&S Company, as well as the Rear Command Post element,
remained outside Baghdad conducting stabilization operations while attached to 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion.

In its advance north towards Tikrit, the element of the Battalion
attached to Task Force Tripoli made national headlines in the town of
Samarra on April 13
when members of Company D rescued 7 American servicemen who had been
taken prisoner earlier in the conflict. The rescued prisoners included
two Army helicopter pilots and Shoshanna Johnson, a soldier from the same unit as Jessica Lynch. An image from this moment is captured in the “Operation Iraqi Freedom” mural on a building in 29 Palms. The Battalion reformed in Ad Diwaniyah on April 21.
By mid-June, the entire Battalion had redeployed to Twenty-nine Palms,
with the last elements of the Division following in September. The
Battalion suffered two non-combat deaths, no killed in action, and nine
wounded in action during this deployment. (From Wikipedia).

Compared to deployments now averaging 8-10 months for Marines, and sometimes much longer for Soldiers, his deployment was a very short one, just barely over four months.

***

Although we’ll be leaving Two-Nine the place in August, we’re ironically heading to 2/9 the unit. 2/9, or 2nd Battalion 9th Marines, will be the Man’s new unit aboard Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Even more ironically, 2/9 the unit is scheduled to come back to train in Two-Nine the place next summer at the school where the Man is teaching right now, the Urban Warfare Training Center (aka Mojave Viper).:

The base is currently home to the largest military training area in the
nation, and consequently, the largest training program. The program
known as Mojave Viper has become the model of pre-Operation Iraqi Freedom deployment training. The majority of units in the Marine Corps will undergo a month at Mojave Viper before deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan. Live fire exercises, artillery, tank, and close air support
training are used for training. In addition to the sprawling "Combat
Town," a two-acre fabricated Middle Eastern village, complete with a mosque, native role-players, an "IED Alley," and other immersive touches. (From Wikipedia.)

I suspect that with a veteran Mojave Viper instructor in their midst,  2/9 will be well prepared for the  intensive 10-day course. 

Here’s a brief history of the new unit, from Wikipedia:

The 2nd Battalion 9th Marines (2/9) is an infantry battalion of the United States Marine Corps. Formed during World War I, the unit played an instrumental role in the defeat of the Japanese forces in the Battles of Guam and Iwo Jima during the World War II. The battalion distinguished itself in the defense of Khe Sanh during the Vietnam War, and later participated in an ill fated invasion of Koh Tang Island in Southeast Asia, with the intention of rescuing the crew of the SS Mayaguez. During Operation Desert Storm, the battalion served as the lead battalion for the III Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF).

2/9 also participated in various humanitarian missions. The battalion helped evacuate Americans from Northern China during the Chinese Civil War and in various occasions participated in providing relief to the victims of typhoons. In 1992, the battalion participated in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia.

2nd Battalion 9th Marines served until September 2, 1994, when it
was deactivated to make room for one of three light armor
reconnaissance battalions. It was part of the 9th Marine Regiment and the 3rd Marine Division.

According to Headquarters Marine Corps the 2nd Battalion 9th Marines will once again be activated on July 13, 2007 and will replace the 13th Anti-Terriosm Battalion (ATBN).
You can read the entire article at Wikipedia over here: 2nd Battalion 9th Marines.

Life in the Corps

On Monday, totally out of the blue, the Man got a call that he needed to go to IPAC (not to be confused with IPECAC, which has approximately the same effect on people) to pick something up. Well, it turns out that the "something" are new orders.

Folks, we’re off to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina in August! Things are going to be a little busy around here, so I’m going to shut down my shop for the rest of the summer. I’ll still be around, but I’ve got to get packing, get through deadline, and get a zillion other things done in the next month and a half.

We’re looking forward to the change of scenery. Whee!

Life in the Corps, This dream of mine