Governor's Ball Remix

I don't think I ever shared this silly (but completely awesome!) dance remix The Mister made of our Welcome Little Stranger song "The Governor's Ball". Who knew a gruesome, Spaghetti Western-style tale of Old West horrors would lend itself so well to electronic dance beats and Auto-Tune?

Halloween Magic

Hellooo, Sugar Babies! I wanted to share a bit of our Halloween with you. We made some wonderful family memories last evening, and I hope you did as well. As you can see, assuming your eyeballs haven't imploded from the cuteness, I wrangled a wee little cowpoke all night. My big girl chose to dress as Helen Keller, which made this homeschooling mama more than a little proud.



Our little town blocks off three blocks of the downtown drag for after school trick-or-treating of all the main street businesses. It's a nice tradition.



Before heading out for the door-to-door candy gathering, we stopped by my grandma's place to show off the great-grandbabies in their costumes. The sun setting in the distance was so pretty and magical, we decided to have a little photo session in the hay meadow.




It was Little Bit's first time trick-or-treating, and her sweet big sister led her to every door with care.





We ended the night with a stop at a local church carnival for a hayride, popcorn, and not one, but two bouncy houses with slides, which pretty much sent it right over the edge into "Best Halloween Ever" territory for my newly six year old.



I hope you had at least half as much fun.

Wanda Jackson and Daniel Romano

So, I saw Wanda Jackson before I fell off the blogging wagon for a month, and she was great; very warm, personal, and engaging onstage. She's got a lot of spunk, and she can still shake some fringe! My friends and I were four of about ten people in the entire audience under the age of 60, which made for a very quiet show, but we had a great time nonetheless. We may have gotten a little rowdy in the nosebleed section and annoyed the Centrum Silver set, but you just can't hear The Queen of Rockabilly sing "Fujiyama Mama" and sit still while tapping your toe! It just isn't done. Wanda still lives just down the road in Oklahoma City, and during the show she dedicated "Let's Have a Party" to her granddaughter who happened to be sitting just a few rows on front of us and had driven up from Tulsa to see her world famous grandma sing. Unfortunately, I didn't get a single photo because my camera battery died right before the show, so you'll just have to take my word for it: I was there, and it was fabulous.

Wanda's opening act and backing band for this leg of her tour was Daniel Romano and his band, The Trilliums, who I hadn't heard before. I am now a new and enthusiastic fan of these Canadian boys! They are some seriously stellar musicians. How did I not know about Daniel before? I mean, the man wears Nudie-esque rhinestone-encrusted Western suits and styles his album covers after the glory days of 1960's Nashville, not to mention his classic country and honky tonk songs, heavy on the steel guitar. If that doesn't butter my bread, I don't know what does! If you know what's good for you, you'll go to Daniel's Bandcamp page and listen to and buy his albums. Here are three of my favorites of his from The Tube of You:

Feminist Friday: Hard-Headed Woman

A hard-headed woman is a thorn in the side of a man. This hard-headed woman will be seeing the legendary Wanda Jackson TONIGHT! I'm shakin' all over just thinking about it!

P.S. How cute is that fiddle player?

Feminist Friday: I Didn't Jump The Fence

I'm baaa-aack. Let's trot this son of a gun out for another drunken joyride which will likely spin out and crash into the guardrails of apathy in about two months. I'm just shooting you straight. You know it's gonna end in tears and stained undershorts, but maybe we'll have a laugh, you know?

 So, yeah. Turns out, two kids keep you busy. Plus, I started a Girl Scout troop since last we chatted, and that has been a lot of work, but pretty rewarding. I also had one of my biannual where-the-hell-am-I-going-with-this-thing? crises. I still don't really know the answer, besides motherin' these little girls and generally being kick ass. I want to be an artist/designer/author/musician/songwriter/astronaut/archeologist/well-paid expert/farmer/beautician when I grow up, and I don't think that's too much to ask. Or maybe it is. I'll figure it out one day. So, let's just jump straight into something that might become a regular feature here called "A Feminist Look at Classic Country Music" or A.F.L.A.C.C.M. Huh...Ahflackem.....Okay, we're just gonna call this thing "Feminist Friday", kids. Check out this ridiculous song by Red Sovine, singer and dramatic reciter of many classic truck driving songs, the most famous being the diesel-drenched tear jerker "Teddy Bear".



Now, this is pre-"Teddy Bear", about a decade before Red had really hit his stride and found his long haulin' niche. "I Didn't Jump The Fence" is a little ditty about cheatin' with the neighbor's wife. Only the neighbor's wife is apparently an apple tree with loose morals. Basically, she and her hoohah are pieces of fruit to be stolen and fought over between neighbors. It seems that when her husband's out of town, she dangles her ripe fruit over the back fence like a wanton hussy. She may also have an out-of-control 60's bush that needs to be trimmed, but I could be misinterpreting something. Red's attitude is all, "Hey, don't get mad at me, man. Your apple tree's a total slut. You should cut it down a notch if you don't want me groping your whore apples." So what have we learned today? The 60s were a time of offensive sexual double standards and weird, sorta gross, fruit metaphors.

Native Son

Hello, sweethearts! I've been working very hard to prepare for Indie Emporium, which will be here in less than two weeks. Besides readying my wares for the show, I've also finished a new collage. I've had this idea in my mind and my sketchbook for months now, and I guess our recent trip to the Will Rogers Museum gave me the kick in the pants I needed to make it reality. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out!



Our most famous and most beloved Okie is on an Oklahoma Flag Blue background surrounded by the emblems of our state--Indian blanket flowers, rose rocks, mistletoe, redbud branches, and scissortailed-flycatchers. The banner shows our state motto, "Labor Omnia Vincit", or "Labor conquers all things." I chose to use a slightly less well known photograph of Will. This is something that's not talked about nearly enough: young Will Rogers was a total hottie. But then, I kinda have a thing for Cherokee boys.

Look for an Okie Pride candle very soon, and maybe a print, too!

Museum Trip

We recently visited the Will Rogers Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma. The witty rope slinger who never met a man he didn't like was born less than 20 miles from my home, and although I count him among my heroes, I'd never been to the museum in Claremore. I pretty much want to just move in there and live in this room, a recreation of his study in his California home.



After we'd had our fill of Will Rogers memorabilia, we headed just down the road to the J. M. Davis Arms and Historical Museum which houses the largest private gun collection in the world. There were guns, yes, but so much more. Here are some of the things that caught my eye.

The Queen of Rock

After countless starts and stops, Miss Wanda Jackson is finally finished and is awaiting her debut at the Oklahoma State Fair, along with dozens of other embroidered Okies.



Since "Funnel of Love" is just about my favorite Wanda Jackson song, and since Oklahoma is known for its funnel clouds, I thought a giant embroidered cyclone was appropriate.



My taller half even tried his hand at embroidery for the first time to render the majesty of Ryan, Oklahoma native Chuck Norris' kicking power in floss and felt.



Remember: There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.

The Lovely Goldie Hill

I've been under the weather for over a week, so there's not been much going on in Sweetheartville besides a lot of Netflixing and YouTubing. I can't get enough of the old clips of the beautiful Goldie Hill. With a voice like honey, and the looks of a Hollywood starlet, it's a shame she was probably most well known as the wife of Carl Smith, whom she married in 1957 after his split with June Carter. Here she is singing one of my all time favorite classics, "Cry, Cry Darlin'" while looking divine in her suit by Nudie.



Look for the great Bill Monroe, who penned the song, on mandolin in the background!

Goin' on a Vinyl Hayride

I recently treated myself to a book that I know I'll turn to for inspiration again and again. Vinyl Hayride, by Paul Kingsbury, is a fantastic collection of country music album covers spanning the years 1947 through 1989.


How could a book featuring Webb Pierce and all this Nudie goodness on the front cover exist in the world without my owning a copy? Nonsense.

Here's my old pal Hank Thompson in 1953.


Doesn't Carl Smith look fine in his Nudie shirt? The world just lost him a few weeks ago.


The classic "Blood on the Saddle" by Tex Ritter has some fetching cover art, if I do say so.


The Great Jim Flora didn't just do big band and jazz album covers. Here he lends his signature style to Jimmie Driftwood's "The Battle of New Orleans". I'm still keeping an eye out for Flora record covers, but I haven't had much luck.


If I get my hands on whoever made Dolly cry here, I'll kick his ass all the way back to the Blue Ridge Mountains! Dolly's much too beautiful to be sad.


I honestly have no idea who Cliffie Stone is, but I would kill for his boots.


This last one gets me all choked up. When you combine classic country music, big hair, vintage aqua kitchenware, and crafty homemade lettering, well, you might as well just slap my mouth and take my checkbook.*


*I have no idea what this phrase means.

Wanda In Progress

She's coming along...

Craft Hope Cowboy

I made this wonky little cowboy a while back to send to Nicaragua with Eren of This Vintage Chica as part of Craft Hope's second project.


He's a bit wonky because, in usual procrastinator fashion, I was literally stuffing and sewing him a half hour before the Post Office closed on the last day to mail him in time for his trip to South America. I snapped a quick picture to have some record of his existence, threw him in a box, and Sugar Pea and I made a mad dash down the street to get him shipped off in the nick of time. His cowgirl sister is a work in progress which I hope to finish in time for my little one's third birthday. Yes, as hard as it is to believe, my Little Pumpkin will be turning three in a couple of months! I hope my little bit of handmade love made a tiny difference in the life of another child, far away.

A Deluxe Honor

Know what those Deluxe Indie Craft Bazaar Dollfaces went and did? Against their better judgement, they made me a "Featured Artist" on their website!


Well, of course they wanted photos of lil' ol' me, and not wanting to disappoint, I called up my friend Autumn, and her ridiculous photography skills, and she very kindly obliged me with a downtown photo shoot. Pro that she is, she even managed to get a few of me with my poor old sunlight-sensitive Swedish blue eyes open, and that is no small feat.

Watch Your Back, Kitty Wells

Have you heard?
In the last week, I have received not one, but two nominations for the "You Make My Day Award". First came a nod from Mama Brook at Frisk the Frigidaire, and most recently from my ever so thoughtful and generous friend Christie of Serenity Now. Thank you kindly, Dollfaces. Here are five blogs that float my boat:

Serenity Now- Besides being a complete and total Dollface, Christie has such a thought provoking, artistic, creepy cool, consciousness expanding gem of a blog.

Manic Thrift Store Shopper- Brian has a fabulous eye for design and a serious passion for second hand treasures. Makes me wish we were real world friends. Oh the thrifting we'd do!

Yard Sale Bloodbath- Meghan and Jenny take you deep into the treacherous (and often hilarious) thrifting trenches.

Cathy of California- A woman after my own vintage crafty heart.

The Museum of Kitschy Stitches- Be prepared to laugh until you cry at crafts that seemed like such a good idea at the time.

In other blog business, waaaaay back when, Christie also tagged me for a meme. I've read that it rhymes with "dream", but in my head I prefer to pronounce it as two words: "Me, me." As in straining to raise your hand as high as physically possible without your hiney actually leaving your desk, saying, "Ooooh teacher, me, me! Pick me! I want to talk about myself!" So, without further ado, here are seven weird or unusual facts about lil' ol' me.

1. This may come as a shock, but I have an issue with the word "retro", especially when someone uses it to describe my tastes or, god forbid, me. Seriously, the word is like nails on a chalkboard to my ears. For me, the adjective "retro" refers to something modern that imitates something from the past. I guess by my own definition I am, in fact, "retro", but my tastes and my clutter are, say it with me, vintage.
2. I once performed a routine with a show choir wearing a leotard, top hat, and sequined vest with tails. What makes this one of seven weird or unusual facts about me is the part where I tell you this particular show took place on a small stage in the gymnasium of the state mental hospital for a less than receptive, highly medicated audience of about a hundred mentally disturbed inmates. Well, there was the one guy who stood up, removed his shirt and began to whoop and yell loudly when I and my fellow teenage choir members got to the high kick line during "New York, New York". At least someone appreciated our artistry.
3. A few years back, I won a cruise by rapidly reciting a series of tongue twisters in the style of an auctioneer in front of about 500 of my fellow professional beauty product salespeople. I beat about ten other folks for the coveted prize, and then never took the cruise because "free" doesn't actually mean free, as in "costing no money", when it comes to cruises, I discovered.
   
4. I am a prolific, world class lyricist, as long as the song has already been written by someone else, and provided that by "world class" one means "dirty limerick". My cover of the Entertainment Tonight theme song stands as a monument to the beauty of the carefully turned phrase. It goes a little something like this: "Punch my fu-u-unbags, do do do do do, punch my fu-u-unbags, do do doo dee doo, punch my (slowing down now) fu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-un (whispered sadly) bags..."
5. I eat roughly my own weight in sour cream each calendar year.
   
   
   
6. Once upon a time, when I was about seven or eight, my family went to see a performance by the "Queen of Country Music", Kitty Wells. After the show, we stood in line to meet Miss Kitty and ask her to autograph our programs. Apparently, while waiting for my grandma to wrap up the visit, I got a little too close to the Queen, and her body guard was forced to intervene. The look of death my mother shot him cut short the confrontation. Even back then I rolled hard.
   
   
   
7. "The Kitty Wells Incident", as it's come to be known, was not my first unwelcome brush with a Legend of Country Music. At the tender age of eighteen months, I nearly brought a Hank Thompson concert in the park to a standstill when I decided to throw a fit in front of the stage. Now, I was not in the business of screaming, kicking, or crying when I had a point to make. No, I practiced a stoic, dignified form of civil disobedience where one's disgust with a given situation is expressed by lying silently on the ground while raising one arm and its corresponding leg high into the air in defiance, all "power to the people" style. The resulting cuteness was apparently too much for the audience to bear, and their attention was diverted from ol' Hank for several minutes until my mortified father convinced my mother (who was barely able to walk due to side-splitting laughter) to retrieve me. Let's just say the "King of Western Swing" was not amused. Interesting side note: Thompson's number one hit, "The Wild Side of Life", spawned an answer song, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels", which, when recorded by one Miss Kitty Wells in 1952, propelled her to superstardom. The story of the song, and the resulting controversy, is a fascinating one which you can read here. Looks like Hank and Kitty had more in common than they ever knew...evil lil' ol' me.
   

Sugar Pea's Birthday Suit

My little Sugar Pea turned a year old on Monday, so last weekend we had a party for her and her cousin, who turns three this month. I decided on a vintage cowgirl themed cookout in the park for the birthday girls. Naturally, the cake had to go along with the western theme. I briefly considered purchasing Wilton's horseshoe pan, but my thriftiness prevailed and I ended up creating my own "Cut-Up", slicing, dicing, and rearranging a 13" x 9" cake I baked from a mix until it resembled a cowboy boot. I frosted it with my homemade cream cheese icing, and, making it up as I went along, piped some simple designs in red and blue.


Well, of course each girl had to have their own cake, and I wanted to offer a couple of choices to our guests, so I made a chocolate boot too. I made it easy on myself and used store bought icing on this one. Now, my Mom's birthday is sandwiched between her two granddaughters', so I had to throw in her favorite, German chocolate, on the foot of the boot. The designs on this one were piped with more of the cream cheese icing used for the white cake.


The day of the party was absolutely gorgeous, but there were major gusts of wind and swarms of flies to contend with, so I thought I'd be super smart and leave the cakes in the truck where they'd be safe until their big reveal, forgetting that the temperature inside the vehicle would be several million degrees higher than outside. My homemade icing fared much better than Betty Crocker's did. Take that, Betty.


Now every girl ought to have a special outfit for her birthday, especially when it's her first, and most especially when there's a party held in her honor. No ordinary outfit would do for my baby. No, whatever Sugar Pea wore for her first birthday would have to be special, memorable, dare I say chart-toppin'? Dollfaces, I present to you my creation, Sugar Pea's Birthday Nudie Suit.


You may already know of my love of vintage western wear, especially Nudie Cohn and his magnificent, spangled suits. After the ever so sweet Christie sent me Nudie the Rodeo Tailor a while back, I was inspired to craft my own tiny knockoff with some discount fabric, thrifted sequined star appliques, and a lot of glued-on rhinestones. Unfortunately, I have no industrial chain embroidery machine, nor the time to hand embroider intricate designs, so the small embroidered applique stars on the front of the vest and the horse's head were purchased from the fabric store. Nudie's signature gold leather fringe was not in the budget, so I substituted some gold vinyl-coated fabric I cut into fringe after stitching it onto the vest and skirt.


Since Nudie was fond of lining his creations with wildly printed fabrics, both the vest and skirt are fully lined in this delicious Dia de los Muertos themed fabric. I was going for something that would sharply contrast with the red fabric and be a little unexpected, considering the suit was intended for a baby.


The whole glitzy number would never have been possible without some clever pattern drafting and mishap fixin' on my Mama's part. The best part of all is that my Punkin's special first birthday outfit cost less than fifteen dollars to make. Here's my sweet baby impressing her anything western-lovin' great grandpa with her one of a kind ensemble.


Happy birthday, my Sugar Pea. Mama loves you.