This past Saturday I had the pleasure of attending a life-long friend’s baby shower. I got there a little early and started helping out in the kitchen and setting up. There weren’t that many people there but I did notice a group hovering around a table outside. I assumed it was some kind of baby game and I would get to it later.
About 30 minutes went by and the people hovering around the ‘game’ table turned into a small crowd. They had all been standing there for a while so I decided I better check out what was going on.
A few girls that I knew were standing near the door when I walked out so I asked them what was going on. They both had a white onesie (for those of you who don’t know about onesies, it is essentially a one piece shirt and bottom for a baby) and were patching something onto it. They told me that the object of the game was twofold; one, make a nice onesie for the mom-to-be, and two, the best onesie wins a prize. Okay, I thought. I can do this.
I immediately picked up a onesie and started looking at the contents of the table. Wow. There was a lot of stuff to choose from: different patterns of fabric, hand sewn on buttons, iron-on pictures, and iron on felt logos and pictures. I decided to pick up an orange patterned piece of cloth and cut a heart out of it so I could iron it on to the onesie. Instantly after cutting the fabric my heart was lopsided and jagged. I walked over to the two girls by the door and said, “Why does my shape look so bad and everyone else’s looks good?” They both looked at my heart and giggled and told me there were patterns on the table that you sketch out and then cut the fabric from the pattern. Oh.
So I’m looking for a pattern and notice how much time is being wasted on this art project. I mean I could have spent the whole shower making something wonderful but I’m here to socialize with people I haven’t seen in a while and talk to my good friend, the mom-to-be. I then start to panic. The girls see me scrambling and tell me to grab an iron-on and call it good. Good thinking.
I find this cute little monkey iron-on and walk over to the ‘ironing station’ next to my two friends. Let me point out that I do not like ironing or irons in general. I bought a steamer years ago that replaced my iron. Again, I start to panic. How hard can this really be?
The little monkey is centered on the cloth perfectly and I’m holding the iron in place for what seems like forever. Nothing is happening. The monkey isn’t coming off the plastic. I keep talking to my friends, noticing how wonderful their little onesie is coming out and still nothing. So I decide to turn the iron up and start steaming the plastic. Not a good idea. Immediately there is a build of water on the onesie and the ironing board. One of the girls notices and grabs a napkin for me. She asks, “It’s still not sticking on?” Nope.
This is where it gets good. I have a problem with patience. And when things aren’t going my way I start to get impatient, and quickly. I decide to turn the iron up to full blast but to tell you the truth I don’t know if the knob is pointing to the highest temperature or the lowest temperature because the dial isn’t exactly obvious. I’m hoping it is at the highest so I can get away from this craft fair fiasco.
I start talking with my two girlfriends again and I start smelling burning. Uh oh. I pull the iron up to reveal not the monkey picture on the onesie, but the entire plastic square the picture is embedded in burnt to the fabric. Oh my gosh. Panic. Oh my gosh. What do I do? I show my friends (who are at this point in disbelief and hysterics ) the horrific project and I immediately fold the little shirt thingy into a tiny ball in my hand and head for the trash can. In the meantime the smell of toasted plastic is starting to permeate the air.
Wait, I think. I can’t throw it in the garbage. Someone is going to see it in there. So I cram the wet, burnt, wadded up onesie and throw it into my purse.
It gets better. My friend Kelly walks over and says, “Did you see the iron?” Crap. I walk outside to the craft fair and notice the bottom of my iron is covered in burnt-on plastic.
I feel so bad. But at the same time I want to laugh out loud. Since I don’t know most of the girls at the shower I decide not to mention anything. But then the grandma-to-be walks over (this is someone who has known me since I was born) and starts chatting with me and a friend. She asks, “Where’s your onesie?”
“Well, um, I messed mine up.”
“What did you do?”
I tentatively pull the thing from my purse and show her the damage. Her jaw drops down and she immediately goes into hysterics. Thank God. Then I start laughing (again) and feel better…up until the point where I tell her about her iron. “Are you kidding me? I got that for $8 at Walmart!” She then laughed and walked away.
Since I have always been the class clown, I decided to wait until most of the girls were gone to show the mom-to-be. One of her friends was taking pictures of all the over-achieving onesies hanging so delicately from a pink ribbon when I asked, “Hey, you wanna picture of mine?” The mom-to-be and rest of the group look at me. I walk over to my purse, pull out the onesie, and have them all laughing so hard that I’m laughing and laugh-crying at the same time. I had to walk to the bathroom to dry my eyes.
I think the moral of the story is to never rush an art project, walk away from a project that you don’t want to do in the first place, and if something doesn’t turn out like it ‘should’ then at least you can make people laugh.
