Cutting a Capote

Hubby is taking his Scouts to a Mountain Man Rendezvous in March. In fact, he will be gone a few of the three whole days that I’m home that month!

Isn’t it ironic?

One of the many things that Hubby has been working on with his five Scouts is their homemade capote jackets made from wool blankets. He decided to do a trial run on his own blanket the other day before he got the Scouts ready to cut out their patterns.

Neither of us sews, so you can imagine how much fun this was.

In fact, other than giant letters (which I can recognize, thank you very much), this all looks like gibberish to me! Hubby lucked out and used a lifeline. Our neighbor attends this event every year and has made many a capote in his day. One simple phone call was all it took for him to come over to help.

I swear…men will do anything for the promise of homemade baked goods.

But Hubby was ready for him. The blanket was spread out in the living room. And he even had chalk to trace the outline on the blanket before removing it to cut with sharp scissors. This guy thinks of everything!

He was worried that the blanket wasn’t going to be long enough, but I think that they got it all figured out together. The boys cut out their patterns last night without incident, so things must have worked out!

Of course it did. It’s Hubby!

What on earth is a capote, anyway?

I know, I had to ask the same question.

A capote is the heavy coat used in the olden days by mountain men living in cold places. Places that I wouldn’t last long at all, in fact.

When asked if he was going to do the fringe trim, Hubby simply said, “Of course.”

Hubby is so careful and patient with every project undertaken. I really admire his willingness to make sure that this was right before he got to cutting.

Who does that?! Certainly not the gal he married.

When our neighbor came over to help, I disappeared down the hallway to give them their guy time. And I had some Young Women stuff to work on, so it made everything fair.

I really hate working on projects when Hubby is home. I try to get everything done before his work day is over so that I can spend quality time with him when he’s home.

It doesn’t always work that way, but I do try.

Hubby lives the old-fashioned saying of “Measure twice, cut once.”

I’m guessing that it works, right?

He did measure twice and cut once. The evening was a success!

I wish that I would have taken a picture of his final product…a pile of cut pieces ready to be sewed. Hubby has enlisted several volunteer gals from church who are going to pair up with each boy to help them sew their capotes.

I wasn’t asked to help, for obvious reasons.

How do you thread a needle, anyway?!

He has been having lots of fun getting the boys ready for this trip to the mountains. They even made elk horn knives from scratch a few weeks ago! Hubby’s greatest dilemma has been if he should carve the name into his knife, or burn it in. These are tough choices indeed.

And, yes…he’s naming his knife.

The boys are lucky to have Hubby as their leader, that’s for dang sure.

Nope, not prejudice in the least!