Gather ye rosebuds while ye may...

Readers, it seems not a week goes by but we are reminded yet again of the fragility of life.  Our human existence is nothing if not impermanent and unpredictable, as today's frightening headlines from Japan make clear.

At times like this, I recall the immortal words of Doris Martin as played by Doris Day in Season 2 of the The Doris Day Show as she seeks to comfort young April, played by Meredith Baxter, who -- if I recall correctly -- has just broken up with her boyfriend.  (This was a TV pilot never picked up, a spin-off of The Doris Day Show entitled Young Love.)  To paraphrase Doris:  Everything changes, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, but everything changes; change is a part of life.

Apropos of which, let us remember the words of Seventeenth Century British poet Robert Herrick who wrote:

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
    Old time is still a-flying :
And this same flower that smiles to-day
    To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
    The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
    And nearer he's to setting.

Dear loyal MPB readers, yesterday, amid the ever-darkening news from abroad, I gathered, gathered, oh, how I gathered!
 




And really, when life looks darkest, isn't that what we should do: celebrate life and enjoy the time we have, amid a cloud of tulle and rose-print cotton sateen?



Friends, I will admit that there's more than a little Mister Rogers' Neighborhood to Male Pattern Boldness, except Mr. Rogers and Lady Elaine are the same person.   I do strive to create a safe and sunny place for all of you here, a harbor from life's intermittent gloom and despair.  And we have hand puppets.

Of course my ambitions lean more toward The Dinah Shore Show or Lawrence Welk but it's so hard to get suitable musical guests these days, plus Bobby Burgess is in retirement.

But let's get back to sewing, or rather gathering.  I finally got my rotary cutter into my rose-print fabric yesterday and started making Cathy's Comeback Dress.  I have it on the authority of none other than the State of Massachusetts Department of Correctional Services that my little lawbreaker is to be released this coming Friday and handed a one-way bus ticket out of state.

Here's the tentative plan and I can hardly contain my excitement:

Remember the wacky-but-true story about my getting two free tickets to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert, which will soon be opening on Broadway?  Well my idea is to go to the show with Cathy IN the rose print dress!  (Cathy in the dress, I mean, obviously.)  Doesn't that sound fantastic, in the literal sense of the word?  Now before you get your hopes up too high, please remember that this all depends on my actually finishing the dress by Saturday, along with the double-layered, four-tiered crinoline.   Cross your fingers!

But enough. We're running out of time and I have to get out of this bagel cafe and back to my sewing machines.  As you can see from the photo up top, it finally dawned on me that if the music blaring on the radio here was bothering me  I could supply my own -- and so I am!  Instead of Sugar, Sugar and Love is Blue I'm listening to the song stylings of Hal Kemp and his Orchestra.  So soothing!

In closing, one quick question: the bodice -- should I make it in the black sateen I have in my stash or the same rose-print fabric as the skirt?  Michael says too much rose print starts looking like upholstery.

Thoughts?