Humatrope 8/Sewing Tip 8: Tassel Tutorial

Tassels give weight to the closure of the Humatrope collar, helping it stay in place

The tassels of the Humatrope collar are modelled on the ones taught me by my mentor and friend, the wonderful Vancouver couturier, Blossom Jenab. I spent a year of free time (seriously!) busily making an embroidered, beaded corset to Blossom's specifications. The finishing touch - the tassels - were fun to make and so over-the-top decadent, I just had to try a riff on them for the Humatrope collar. 

Tassels from corset made from Blossom's instructions; the left one is unfinished

Embroidery floss is wound around cardboard, much like a pompon is made, and secured at the top with heavy-duty thread to form a bobble, which is then beaded and attached to the braided cording that is the closure.

Here are the instructions, in case you want to make your own.

Ingredients for tassels: 15 year-old floss, needle caps, found pearl beads, cardboard 

You will need a folded piece of cardboard the height of the desired finished tassel, and some sort of thread or floss. I used a flattened box from my daughter's alcohol swabs and a left-over spool of glossy, woven embroidery floss from a beading class with Blossom, 15 years ago.

• Estimate the amount of floss needed by quickly wrapping it around the cardboard until it looks the right thickness. Count the wraps as you go. I used 27 for each tassel. Add an arm's length, or so, for good luck. Unwind. 
• For the optional beading on the tassel loops, count out the necessary number of needle caps and pearl beads - 1 set for each wrap. Poke a hole through the end of each needle cap using a sharp pair of pointy scissors and twist to make a smooth hole. Each of the tassels has 8 purple caps amongst the green, to represent my daughter's age. (We changed needle type partway through making the thing, and wouldn't you know but the new ones were a different colour!) 

String the beads before winding onto the cardboard, spacing randomly

• Using a darning needle, string a needle cap onto the floss. String a pearl, which will act as an anchor, then go back up through the needle cap. The blunt needle will help avoid piercing the floss when working back up through the cap. Repeat with remaining caps and beads. The spacing will be only rough at this point. The floss will look kinked, like a string of Christmas lights.

Wrap in an "X" shape, one needle cap per wrap

• Begin wrapping the floss around the folded cardboard, with the fold at the bottom. Wrap in an "X" shape. Slide the beads along the floss, if necessary, so that each wrap contains exactly one cap and bead. Wind both tassels in the same manner. Secure the thread tails with tape.

Beginning to sew the tassel

• Thread a heavy needle with strong thread or embroidery floss. Knot both ends together, so the thread is doubled. Push the needle between the two layers of cardboard, under the floss at the top end of the tassel, then back through the doubled thread loop. Pull tightly, to secure the windings. Remove the tape and slip the mess of threads off the cardboard by bending it slightly.

A reject tassel - not thick enough - showing the bobble being formed. Too skinny

• Sew repeatedly through the top end of the tassel, all over the place, to form a dense mass of stitches that will prevent the wraps from coming loose. Go in and out in all directions, wrapping the thread occasionally, too, to form the bobble. You will run out of thread once or twice. Re-thread your needle with a single ply of heavy thread and keep going until you have formed a nice, chubby ball on top.

Forming the handle around a pen. Note the bobble, made of lots of heavy thread

• Make a handle on top of the tassel with two loops of heavy thread.  I formed the loops around a pen. Secure well by stitching in and out of the bobble a few more times.

The handle: two loops of thread, covered with buttonhole stitch

• Cover the handle with buttonhole stitch, using whatever colour or type of thread your little heart desires. I used silver on the corset. On the Humatrope collar, instead of matching floss, I (inexplicably) chose old, pink embroidery cotton that probably once belonged to my grandmother.

The cord is braided right onto the handles

• Bead the ball as you desire, to cover up the mass of stitches. I used random-coloured beads from clothing hang tags that have been amassing over time, cotton thread, and a very fine beading needle. I went through each strand of beads twice, just in case. 
• Attach the cord by stitching it to the handle then covering with another layer of buttonhole stitch to hide the evidence, as I did for the corset tassels.
  Or attach by folding three strands of cord over the handle, and braiding the resulting six strands together, as I did with the Humatrope collar. This second method makes a clean finish, and doesn't require further embellishment to cover up the stitching.

8 purple needle caps because she is 8, and love in every stitch

All that's left is figuring out what to do with the exquisite little item you just made. But as Blossom says, make the garment and the occasion to wear it will present itself.

Humatrope 1: Ingredients

Humatrope 2: Test Swatch and Scoliosis Brace

Humatrope 3: Foundation, More Brace

Humatrope 4: Lost for Words
Humatrope 5: Hello Little Girl in the Bullet-Proof Vest

Humatrope 6: Three Distractions
Humatrope 7: From the 13th Floor

Garden 15: October 29 - Almost Hallowe'en

From my sewing room, Thursday, October 29, 2015. My windows are filthy

Here's a rare thing: I am writing this by daylight. It usually happens in the still of the wee morning, pitch black outside, dim lamp, music low. Silent in the house until my daughter wakes to find me: thump thump thump on the steps, tunk tunk tunk through the kitchen. She wavers in the doorway, a groggy angel in her plastic corset and long, stretchy undershirt to her thighs like an 80's Madonna costume gone 101 Dalmations. Back to bed, Love; I'll be up soon.

Dramatic reenactment;
I made like Cinderella, but the birds flew away 

But today I am peering into my back yard - the sun and the yellow leaves of the lilac shining through my maple tree, a stunning, glimmering red. The patchy lawn has been cut, the leaves have been raked - twice! I've put down grass seed, dug out the worst-offending and saddest of the garden plants: a runty lilac, a gift from a friend on the occasion of our first miscarriage, that, no matter where I put it, or how much love I could spare it, has never bloomed. Having exhausted every single possible location for it in the yard - front and back - after 15 years Sad Lilac has finally found a new home in the yard of a neighbour. Maybe this spring I'll finally find out what colour it's meant to be.

There were seven hostas, too, that never delivered. They were orphans from various neighbourhood gardens, on the brink of destruction, and I gave them a fair chance - 3 or 4 years. Time to move on; take your slugs and snails with you, please. They now reside in the garden of a friend of the mother of one of our two wonderful respite providers.

3 birds are splashing in my slimy-bottomed bird bath, throwing water as far as I never imagined a tiny bird could! I'm so happy birds like my garden.

Planets and stars, classes, therapy and specialists appointments aligned today to give me this gift: 5 consecutive daylight hours, obligation-free, to do whatever I dang well please.

Hot air popper - a gift to me and my sister from our grandmother, 1982. Still works great. The faux Tupperware contains two red wrigglers from the Master Recycling course 

The washer is washing. The newly-repaired dryer is drying. The milk has been bought. My daughter's stinky brace is soaking. One toilet has been scrubbed. There is bacon in the oven - one of the glues that bonds me and my son together. I am in my sewing room: Dylan, alphabetically, loud; hot tea; cold water; fuzzy blanket; laptop and guitar. Today I go one step further: a whole batch of buttered popcorn, all to myself. I edit photos and write, sing, dance and eat, cast my mind sideways over some little detail that won't be ignored. The only thing that could be better? If my windows weren't so dirty!

Hallowe'en falling: cool leaves, costumes, and decorations. Which pumpkin houses will we visit this time, the one night it's OK to knock on doors and see who lives where? My daughter will ask, "Do you have a dog? Does it like kids? Can I pat it?" If there's no dog, a cat or a fish will do. Her interest is genuine, and usually good for an extra handful of treats.

While we follow our daughter door to door, our son will join a group of peers, on a mission to collect as much junk food as possible on what is likely his last trick-or-treat.

Lemonade lollipop, tears; I try to keep her safe

Pre-Prader-Willi syndrome, I loved Hallowe'en. Now I dread it. Hallowe'en sucks for people with PWS. As my daughter put it yesterday, after a well-meaning teacher offered her a lollipop, if mummy says it's OK, "I am so angry with you! I want to crack my head open! I don't want to have Prader-Willi syndrome any more!"

As she explained to the mother of another patient in the MRI waiting room last week, "Prader-Willi syndrome is a problem where you eat too many candies and you get in trouble from your mom."

I hate having to be that mom. The one who won't let her eat a lollipop. The one who wants to ban junk food in school and rains on everybody's parade. Pregnant, I imagined baking with my kids, decorating gingerbread houses, planning special birthday cakes. What could be more fun - the way to the heart, and all? But nobody needs that junk, least of all someone with PWS.

Limited to a calorie count half that of her peers, there's not a lot of room for empty calories. Treats are reserved for very special occasions: a whole cupcake on her birthday, with all of the icing intact. Two candies at Hallowe'en, and all the gum in the bag. I'll throw in an extra or two in the days that lead up to the big night - like this lollipop. Her concern: she had never tasted a lemonade lollipop before! Her chance might never come again! The compromise, after tears on both sides, and hugs as tender and tight as possible when wearing a rigid, plastic, body brace: we would place the sucker in a Ziploc bag and smash it on the counter. The piece attached to the stick would be hers.

Sometimes the Great Pumpkin makes something from the good bits of what she confiscates

When she became old enough to notice her candy missing the next morning, I invented the Great Pumpkin - a benevolent, health-conscious gourd that switches out bags of Hallowe'en candy for a gift - a good one. Last year my daughter awoke to a blue Furby that eventually became so nasty he had to be hidden in a closet, where he remains.

"Be careful!" she warns, any time the door is opened.

The year before it was a toy cash register, complete with scanner, credit card, and key. Before that: a nifty child's washing machine with sudsy water in the door and a spinning agitator. I would have loved that as a kid, to go with my child-sized clothesline and pegs. She wasn't so taken, and donated it to her kindergarten class, where she played with it far more than she had done at home.

This year the Great Pumpkin took orders: an American Girl doll, which I found, barely used, on Craigslist. I'm looking forward to making outfits - a miniature twirling nightie, and a plastic body brace.

The way to a boy's heart: the BLT

For our son, the Great Pumpkin generally brings Lego or Nerf guns. This year, however, he requests NO visit from the Great Pumpkin. This year he wants the candy. This presents a whole new challenge. Discussions have begun around how much candy is reasonable, where it will be kept, and when and how it will be dispensed. I'm inclined to agree on a daily limit and leave it up to him, as long as he is discrete - though she will be happy with her American Girl doll, his sister needs no more reminders of what she can't do. But that's just me. Stay tuned.

Hallowe'en candy will be gone soon enough. Next up: Christmas candy canes, Avent calendars, all that baking!, Valentine's Day chocolate and Easter - more chocolate, still. Then just the usual: classmates' birthday treats to deal with, nose-height candy at Safeway checkouts, haircut lollipops, kind strangers who want to feed my kids. It's everywhere!

My five hours passed. Picked up my daughter from school; Speech and Language Pathology, dinner, mend vampire cape and son's favourite flat-brimmed hat, bedtime. Somewhere in there it started raining. If it keeps up there may be much less candy to contend with. I'm finishing this post in the quiet of night. Thump thump thump, tunk tunk tunk - here she comes. Back to bed, Love; I'll be up soon.

October 23, 2015 - Meatballs, Raspberries

A quick one, I hope: got to get up early for tomorrow's Our Social Fabric sale - the last one at 871 East Hastings. After we give away the last bundle we will dismantle the shop, pack it all into a storage pod, and figure out what to do next.

The music: Joni Mitchell BBC Concert, 1970; Neil Young, same thing, 1971, three times. Can't get enough Neil. Rolling Stones: Live at the BBC (1963-1965); Rolling Stones It's Only Rock 'n' Roll.

Kitchen Island - Friday, October 23, 2015 

Counter-clockwise from lower left: the same water bottle as yesterday, Humatrope, glasses, Encyclopedia of Creative Cooking, phone 1 of 3, yard sale measuring cups. The set was missing exactly the one cup I already had. Lucky, right?

The Encyclopedia of Creative Cooking, 1982, edited by Charlotte Turgeon

Passed a major milestone yesterday: 10,000 hits on my site. I've been watching it come for months. Celebrated with Hawaiian meatballs from the cookbook I snagged from my mom when I left home in 1983, but used pre-made, Costco meatballs. Delicious.

Dinner: two ate Hawaiian Meatballs, one had his meatballs with tomato sauce, one had his tomato sauce with faux ground beef. Cucumbers. 3 milk, 1 sparkling water with lemon

Love Notes

To Do Lists for Three

Trivot from yard sale free box -  what is she doing to that fish?

Contingency plans

Dreams, Reality

Peppers from my daughter's plant, ageing ginger, sketchy fennel, one canning lid left-over from making zucchini relish, a piece of cording, and one small potato - dug by hand on a summer's late afternoon. No gloves, but the soil was perfect and cool and the potatoes worth the dirty fingernails. 

The bowl was painted by me in Mexico, the reward at the end of a pointless time-share presentation. It took a surprising amount of time - most of the vacation... the painting, that is. I was 7 months pregnant. We were there to rest. When I wasn't painting I lay on my side on the swinging palapa platform, reading - white cotton curtains surrounding me, sparkling turquoise ocean just beyond - sucking back banana smoothies and dreaming about the little girl inside me. We would understand each other. 

Though most of my dreams for her will never come true, the same is true for any parent's dreams! The difference is timing, that's all. My dreams came to an end when she was only two months old, when we were presented with her diagnosis, grabbed by the collar, and rudely jerked out of our misty dream-world. How lucky for me! Unburdened by my own hopes, I am free to celebrate her smallest achievement: jumping with two feet together, for example, or figuring out the first step of tying shoelaces. Her achievements are many and fill me with pride. What's more, she is fascinating. She is a delight. Who knows what she's capable of?

The last raspberries of summer - worth removing one's gum for