E. twinning Chronicles

I like that. It looks like we belong to the genus E. and the species twinning.

Meet my evil twin. Also formerly known as my doppelganger, Lisa and I go way back to college. Sophomore year, both waiting for the same bus to take us home [that same bus which connects with BART once every two hours. Deathly to miss that connection.] Our life histories, passions, souls and minds are intertwined in many funny, coincidental ways that bring to mind the Chinese phrase 缘分, which I like to translate as "a shared destiny." Really what it is that means that at some point, you were meant to meet and walk a certain length of the road of life together. And as rational-minded as I am supposed to be, going on 17 years of education and all, it's a concept I do truly believe in.

So when we parted ways for grad school - her for Berkeley, me for Boston - we agreed to, among other things, a crafting swap for semester one. I made her things along the theme of "Housewarming," and she, sorceress with the knitting needles that she is, promised me something warm and fuzzy to keep me warm.

Lisa's new room is very compact, shall we say, so after much racking of the brain I decided to make her a wall hanging to match the new color scheme in her room - yellow, baby blue, and gray [the girl has an eye for color, does she not?]. She has a loft with a bar that runs beside her desk, so I made adjustable straps that could go over the bar. They attach in the back with velcro.

And for her bracelets and such:


I think I got this idea from Jenny over at Wiksten but can't be 100% certain anymore. And that fabric? It's perfect and a half for my evil twin. A woman was selling her mother's linens on CL and I fished this curtain panel out of the pile.

Finally, a place mat. Front:

Back:

[pardon the unironed state of these photos. I ironed these afterwards but ran out of time to take another shot] Lisa couldn't stop laughing when she saw the place mat. She promised to use it for something else. I should've told her she could dismantle it if she wanted ot use the fabric for other purposes. I mean, that's the beauty of having an evil twin whose into almost exactly the same crafts as you are, no?

To wrap these up [I also included some teas because she loves drinking tea] I dug into my mom's stack of wrapping paper, bags, and boxes. At the bottom was this box that someone had once held a birthday present from a friend, years and years ago, which she had saved because it was just too cute.

Doesn't that make you feel nostalgic? I love the colors and the styling. We've agreed to keep passing gifts back and forth in this box.

Gosh, when I opened the door to greet Lisa face-to-face for the first time in three months, my parents nearly fell over. Lisa's first words were 'The farther apart we live the more we dress like each other!' And it's true. Witness:

The same, only different. Lisa made me this awesome, awesome, perfect, utterly soft and cozy and WARM and too too cute button-tab hat. I admit I have been coveting this hat for quite some time. And the best part? She and her boyfriend trade off wearing hers sometimes. How cute is that?

<3<3 you, e. twin. Nobody here even comes close.