Storytellin: The Open Road

Here is the tale that involved the faux beaver fur coat and a JCPenney's outlet.

The setup:
Mamacita is a power catalog shopper. Before there was internet there were catalogs, and this was her domain. JCPenneys is her favorite. You could call and place an order until the wee hours of the night.

The story:
One autumn Friday night in my high school years, Mamacita and I were home alone. My father was on a trip, my sister spent the night at my aunt's house, and my brother was in college. Around 10pm she was leafing through a sales catalog and stumbled upon this faux floor length beaver fur coat. As she is placing her order she has been told that the sale is over and that they no longer have the coat in the warehouse. I don't know the particulars but after a few conversations she finds that they have sent all the leftover coats to the outlet store in Columbus.

Saturday, at approx. 9am, she calls the outlet store to see if they have the coat. They do but they only have one of her size and they cannot put it on hold because it is the outlet store. Here is what came next....

9:15am or so....
Mamacita: (screams through the house) Are your up? Come here!
Me: Unhhh? (as I get out of my bed)
Mamacita: Get dressed. You are going to ride with me to Columbus.
Me: What?
Mamacita: (tells me the story) Get dressed. We're going to leave in about 20 minutes.
Me: Uhhh,okay.

By 9:45 am, we started our 2.5 hour journey. As we drive we start to notice a bit of roadkill. After the 15th dead raccoon and me saying "Ewwwww" each time, Mamacita says "Any more and I won't need to buy the coat. I can make my own." For some reason we start counting with this weird laughter after each one. After 45, it was confirmed that we both could have a raccoon coat.

By 11:30, we were there.(If you notice, that's not 2.5 hours) I had to guard the coats while she found someone to unchain them from the rack. Mamacita was serious about me guarding the coats. Real serious.

Needless to say, she got her coat, I got some clothes, and we were back in Cleveland by 4:00. And.....the total count of roadkill was about 115.


Mamacita was an inspiration that day. Now I know where I get it from.
Saturday, I woke up at 8am and drove 2+ hours to Charlotte, bought my fabric, and was back home by 3:30.







And I leave you with picture of the Candy Stripe sweater. It was a learning experience. The top-down method does not allow easily fixing mistakes, so I have a few. The biggest issue is the neckline. I made it too small to add my intending ribbing so I had to improvise. I'm not totally convinced on this, so I may change it later. For right now I consider it finished. Onto new things. YEAH!