When I was in the sixth grade, one of our projects for language arts class was to teach our classmates how to do something. It didn’t matter what it was, it just needed to be something written out in steps in the most clear (and preferably concise) manner so as to convey what it was that was to be accomplished and how you were supposed to manage it. And I had the hardest damn time trying to decide what I could teach people; the only idea I ever managed to even scribble on a scrap of paper was how to be good at math. (Granted, this was way before I met up with calculus, and I was partially convinced that I should be an accountant or something similarly mathly when I grew up. The joys of the tapering off of adolescence! After my first semester of college-level maths I abandoned that mess but quick.) I was too embarrassed to even list out steps for Achieving Math Prowess, or whatever I would’ve called it in my painfully precocious way, and I never actually turned that project in. Not sure how I avoided it, but at this point I’ve got my bachelor’s degree plus I could teach people how to sew a flat felled seam if Mrs. Lindsay ever reads this and cajoles me into doing a make-up report now that I’m almost damn thirty.

But part of being thirty, for me at least, is being able to fake some maturity and play Stuart Smalley with yourself: to be able to re-hash things that made you feel bad when you were a kid, and give yourself a break. To say it wasn’t stupid to try to teach people how to be good at math, but more than that, to really believe it wouldn’t have been stupid. I’m still sort of tripping over that, and maybe I always will because I, you know, never did that project, but this same theme revisits me all the time. I see it at work, with my friends, with my hobbies: this crazy, eyeball-popping perfectionism that I have to HAVE in order to feel OKAY about doing anything at all. I’m especially conscious of how much I do this with sewing-related activities, both actually sewing and procuring stuff with which to actually sew (fabric and notions and patterns, good grief).

And now, for the *ahem* MEAT of the situation.

I’m going a little crazy lately with … well, I guess a lot of stuff, but let’s focus on sewing business. I keep buying fabric, and patterns, and buttons, and books, and magazines, and notions, and tools, and all kinds of STUFF. I even hired out a Cedar Specialist to create a shelving solution for the fabric that has taken over the top of the hope chest, because it’s been too full to fit any more fabric for over a year now. It’s not for having a lack of inspiration, in the form of any possible variable, it’s just that I’m suffocating under the weight of Possible Perfection. I’ve got all these vague, washed-out pictures in my head of what the perfect dress in that one fabric could look like on me, and there are Two Main Things totally, utterly, completely, balls-to-the-wall wrong with that scenario. First, they are vague, fuzzy, underexposed and off-center pictures that I only have a kinda sorta glimpse of because I’m trying to be all natural and organic in my VISION. Just let it come naturally! don’t force it! let it be, man! and et cetera. And you know what? It’s deceptively and crazy-ass difficult to draw fantastically intricate and clean detail from the sweeping thoughts that surround a first impression. That mess is hard. Monks and shamans and hippies work their whole lives to get good at that, and even when they’re a hundred years old they’re still not perfect. Which leads me to the Second Main Thing wrong with trying to get work done based on intangibles: it works, for a split second in your head, because of its intangible nature. That dress looks perfect on my frame and those colors are stellar with my complexion because I’m taking the most sweeping glance at it imaginable. I’m not breaking down any of the hundred parts into how it might work in reality, so that all the details I could possibly want are already present, I just have to squint to make them out. Unfortunately, this kind of defeats the purpose of leaving the house in the morning; if I want otherworldly perfection, I’m going to have to start taking a lot more hallucinogenic drugs and, for my more materially pressing concerns, regularly happen upon brown paper bags full of twenty-dollar bills at the bus stop. In the meantime? I have just got to get some FBA techniques down pat and start sewing up some dresses.

Guess what y’all! I’m the lamest blogger ever! Wooo! The good news, however, is that I’ve been doing some stuff in its place. We’ve got some garden action brewing in the front yard, veggies and flowers both; I’ve been buying fabric like a champ, and even sewing some of it; I have encroached on totally new territory for daydream fodder, because how awesome would it be to have a fabric store stocked with all my favorite things?; and I did actually complete a project in here, somewhere: a fancy sort of gown for a bowling pin for Troika Music Festival’s annual Pin Projekt. And I also watched fourteen episodes of Futurama, twenty-three of The Simpsons, pet Ollie approximately 2,145 times, ate two pizzas, scored a ridiculous deal on tons of polyester horsehair braid, and baked a birthday cake. See? Busy busy busy!

The provenance lies in my lazy searching technique.

So guess what again, y’all! I just sewed the first ever prom dress for a bowling pin! Now that’s probably not at all true, but in looking around for some pin-art inspiration, I found exactly zero occurrences of sewing apparel for the pin. Lots of painting and decoupage with 2-D and 3-D objects, mosaic-style and sculpture style, and I even saw a drum set sprinkled in the results—but no polka dotted prom dresses anywhere. Granted, I looked neither long nor hard for truly representative examples of bowling pin art for auctioning purposes, but I did perform a google search (images too) and checked out flickr. (Although at the Pin Projekt there were two, count ‘em two, other entries with little custom-made clothes for the bowling pin—multiple outfits, in fact. Guess I need something bigger and better to shoot for next time.)

I originally thought it’d be neat to make matching outfits for me and the ‘pin, so that was my initial modus operandi. It more or less came out that way, only in reverse: I used some fabric left over from a blouse I recently finished for dressing the pin. I wore the blouse to the auction and matched the pin (kinda sorta) after all, and it was painfully cute as long as you noticed how nonchalant I was being. Mission Accomplished! And I managed to learn some stuff along the way, which is my REAL modus operandi. Modus operandi modus operandi! I feel all college educated.

I knew I wanted a circle skirt for Ms Pin, probably because I want one for me, too. And I suspected I’d go a little nuts in terms of the details, and let me tell you it’s way easier to draft and sew a prom dress for a bowling pin than it would be for myself. Now that I’ve got my first set of fancy dress training wheels, maybe I’ll feel a little more comfortable jumping in the deep end and sewing up something crazy for myself next time. So I started with the circle skirt; and I made it *way* too long; the pin was on top of an upside-down cup in this picture, which gave it about five inches in height. I not only overestimated how much length* would be required to keep it floor-length while still counting for how far away from the body I wanted it to stand, I underestimated how long the hem’s perimeter** was.
*about half an inch; I made it like three inches too long.
**seven feet! really! it was amazing.

I first thought I might be able to use up some of that length by making the hem do twisty, crazy filigree style loops and curls, which I was going to use a medium-light gauge craft wire to sculpt. I narrow hemmed the skirt and drew the wire through the length of it, so that it was enclosed by the fabric but still very much able to be bent up and twisted. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures because the initial result was not at all what I had in mind, and I wasn’t thinking that it would be nice to document not only what worked (here I was forcing myself to be optimistic) but what didn’t work, too. I accepted my self-imposed necessity to hold off being all doom ‘n’ gloom, but I didn’t really want to photograph my ineptitudes just yet. If only I’d known how nicely it was going to turn out! Live and learn. The wire was too heavy for the lightweight poly chiffon, and it was much more difficult to bend evenly than I’d imagined. I ended up playing around for only an hour or so before I said Forget This; every ripple I bent into the wired hem caused the whole skirt to become unbalanced, and it was markedly challenging (read: totally damn impossible) to perfectly bend the wire to match the perfect draping of a circle skirt. So I took it out and lopped off the three inches that it was too long, and a smidge begrudgingly did a new narrow hem on the length of it. The new, shorter skirt had a hem that was almost a foot shorter: down from 84 inches to a mere 73. Piece of cake! To make it stand out a bit, I made some 1/4″ tape from some polyester crinoline and sewed that along the edge with two lines of stitching.

and then .
Next was the waistband, since I knew I was going to need a waistband. I wanted a tightly gathered look, so I cut out a rectangular piece of fabric about 6.5″ long (narrowest circumference of the bowling pin was 5.75″, plus seam allowances/room for trimming) and about 5″ wide (gathered into a ~1″ band).

I gathered it at the ends, finished with a continuous strip to which I sewed a couple of little snaps, and added two lines of ruching/gathering/uhm, thread so that the waistband itself was divided into three equal chunks of scrunched up goodness.

and .

And then, there were yoyos.

I have already forgotten how many, but it was in the area of twenty. Or maybe 21, since I did use the bottom of a beer bottle as the template. I brought them in to work with me unfinished, and spent an afternoon going back and forth between serial checkin and journal claiming and yoyo stitching. It was awesome. I’ve already decided that the next project I undertake involving yoyos will most certainly find me doing at least some of them in the workplace—I got a much greater sense of accomplishment from having left for home that day with a little baggie full off puffy, polka-dotted fabric treats. It was as good as eating donuts with dinner.

I ended up constructing the “bodice” part of the dress completely out of these yoyos; I stitched it all together, one yoyo at a time, first to the upper edge of the waistband, and eventually to each other. It worked out to be just about right in how it looked, and I even had a few left over that I used to modestly adorn the full skirt. Though I must note: I wanted a cluster of four yoyos and a cluster of two, not three and two. One, ahem, went missing during the early stages of construction.

Whooosh! Ziiip! fling-flang-foom!

That’s about what it feels like in my brain the last couple weeks: I can’t seem to concentrate on any one thing without immediately getting sidetracked. There are some up sides to it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s sort of taxing. I went to the ABC Sale this Saturday past, and found a nice little haul of goodies no doubt in part because I was too overstimulated to get bored and want to go home. Naturally it was worth it because, aside from getting lots of neat things, I love a good yard sale:

Free patterns! a leather satchel for $5! liberty of london silk paisley tie for a quarter! and a funky ultrasuede purse and a vintage-y white sweater and a nice handful of scarves and kid leather gloves, and I spent about $20 all together. Not too shabby—and next year I’ll know to hit the accessories and textiles rooms first. But even afterwards I was too riled up to just go home and have a nice sandwich and relax for a bit: I just wanted to go out and find more little gems in slightly neglected thrift-store-type places. When I get rewarded for knowing stuff (Liberty of London? a quarter?! wooo!) or being in whatever random place I happen to be in or for having exact change, it’s not enough to let it be: I have to expend more energy to keep my good thing going, or something. Sometimes that works wonders; you keep your eyes open and continue to see fantastic things. But it makes me tired and sort of disheartened with how flaky and obsessive I can be all at the same time. What is my solution? I’m taking a big fat week off work.

Equal parts fabric, coffee, paint, squiggley lines, Golden Girls, working on my tan, petting the cat, and cookies.

I have some tenuous goals for next week. I do want to have something (and some things) to show for my nine consecutive days at home, but I’m going to concentrate the most on keeping anything work-related from entering my head. I will focus instead on:

Eating a good breakfast;

the growing springtime around the house;

the best way to drink a pina colada in the hammock without spilling it;

starting and finishing at least one springy, summery article of clothing (probably with polka dots);

Petting ollie the best love girl;

Playing dress up.

I’m also going to try to blog a smidge every day, if for no other reason than I must document vociferously my “no damn way I’m going in to work today” lifestyle—you know, for memories to hold dear when I finally have to go back.

You know what? I think more inspiring to me than anything else is Change. When change happens, when you can sniff it out in the air, when it falls from the sky and lands on your shirtsleeve–that’s what can really get me thinking and working and moving. And of course it’s much more awesome when the changeling matter falling from the sky is like a new pair of Costume National sandals and not hokeberry-purple robin poo, but as sad as it is that the former has never happened to me? Neither has the latter. So it’s all good, I guess.

I’ve been sewing it up a smidge the last couple weeks, and it feels really good. Part of that is knowing, seeing firsthand, that I’m getting better. Better at sewing in a straight line, and a curved line, pressing neatly, and even figuring out what changes to make to have whatever garment it is actually fit my body better. I’m still having some issues at being slightly prompt with it all, but you know what? Stuff is getting done. I’m doing all right. It’s working. And part of that is because it’s beginning to warm up outside–the transition to springtime is at least in full push, even if I might wear wool sweaters a few more times before they get put up for the season. However it happened, I think I realized that the beginnings of change are what gets me going the most: so while I’m not at all organized enough to plan out a SWAP (Sewing With A Plan), I *do* have some ideas about stuff I want to sew up for the warmer days of 2008.

Bright or bold and slightly goony-abstract floral prints.

Seriously, I love that mess. And it can get tricky using them without looking like a cartoon character, but with proper grounding it’s just buckets of fun waiting to happen. Also it makes you want to drink blueberry dacquiris in the park, and what the hell is wrong with that? Full skirts for the heavier weights with big prints, dress bodices and short-sleeved blouses for the lighter weight, sheer stuff, both to be paired with solid colors and my excellent taste in shoes.

Minorly unexpected color combinations.

Keep it safely distanced from that day-glo nonsense of the early nineties, and pair rich tones with more neutrals. Go opaque brights with sheer muted tones, get your brown on with the teal, mix silver grey into the yellow and deep plum. C’mon! Get your chocolate in my peanut butter.

Wear amazing shoes with everything, period.

This may mean spending some money on new shoes. I can totally live with that. And all these totally impractically expensive shoes have nothing really to do with sewing, except that I can be inspired to match my blouse to my colorblocked Miss Sixty wedges or match my saddle brown with black to highlight those fan-effing-tastic Costume National wooden sandals. And if I sew all my clothes and still look like a million bucks, it means that I just saved like two thousand dollars, right? HMM WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THAT MONEY. Hmmm.

Look! Look at you! I mean me! It’s about time–I know. I’m sorry, me. I’ll do better this year, ‘kay?

So this is the second year in a row where I’ve prefaced many a January conversation with the phrase, “I think new year’s resolutions are kind of dumb, but x and y and z…”. Last year I really only said that I wanted to sew more, and I did–even by the end of the month I’d made a butchly plaid bathrobe for my butchly darling lady. And while I did grow, I think, in some of my sewingness abilities, I still left country miles’ worth of room for improvement. Some of which I want to address this year, or at least list*.

*maybe not until February.

I’ve always sort of told myself that a reason I like sewing is because you can dress yourself in fancy togs without having to pay the beaucoup dolores. Also because you can sew silk chiffon to shiny yellow vinyl, if you really want to, and your imagination is really the only limit to what wild apparel could be gracing the hangers in your closet. If not your fine self, that is, depending on your day job. It’s also a slight justification of mine for spending many, many hours scouring the style.com fashion show archives and having a purely obsessive relationship with luxury apparel websites. And until now, I’ve only ever exercised the first half of this equation; which is to say, I haven’t actually done anything, but doggone it, I think it’s time. So strap on your Onslow County fair roller coaster seat belt! I think we might need it.

See this pretty thing? I really like it. It’s an Alexander McQueen dress from the Fall 2006 collection (I think?), and I’ve ogled it for about a year now with only vague confidences: that I could ever wear something like it, that I might be able to spend that kind of dough on something so superfluous, and at the very end of the list if I’m being honest with myself, that I could ever, *ever* sew up something even slightly reminiscent of it myself. I looked for home sewing patterns that approximated the design so that I could be a baby step closer to it, but I don’t think that’s the right direction for me. The draping at the waist is going to be the hardest part, and that’s the aspect I can’t find any kind of instruction on–I’m pretty sure the neckline cowl is on-grain, and since I’m full busted I’d have to roughly eyeball the finished drapelines anyway. So what am I going to do? or at least attempt? Sit right there and give a good earful to this: I’m going to try to whip this baby up myself. I might use a pattern from the stash for the back of the dress, to give myself a sort of break, but that’s at least a couple days in the future. A rudimentary draping exercise yielded this, which actually has me a little hopeful? or at least slightly giving in to the thought that maybe I’m not insane, after all. Hey! I said maybe.

And this is what I played around for: to see if I could kinda sorta get the drapey lines I could so easily envision. I think it’s possible; I first tried folding a cowl at the neckline on the bias, but it was way too drapey and stretched out looking. I thought maybe I could pull up enough fabric in the skirt to have the bottom hem on the straight of grain, but it still didn’t look right:

So I guess I’ll have the hem of the dress be off grain…which could be all right as long as I let it hang and settle for a couple days? I guess? I’m also sort of wondering what the best option is for lining the dress: keep it a simple sheath style, or should I mimic the draping so it all wears the same? And I think I’ll have to either put in a cowl stay in the bodice, or else make the lining with that in mind; and then how should I finish off the cowl, too? do I need a waist stay? should I rethink cutting out the front as a single piece?

And most importantly: isn’t a little bit too late to be thinking about all this mess? Shouldn’t you be in bed watching futurama? Who would win in a battle to the death, Turanga Leela or Captain Kirk?

So how often does it happen that you’re all dumbfounded for gift ideas? Massaging slippers are sort of dumb, retro Anchor Hocking highball glasses on ebay are crazy expensive, and Chia Pets are inedible and therefore even worse than light-up yo-yos. Am I right?

So I decided for the most recently completed Round O’ Holidays that I would make all kinds of things for people: quilts, pajama pants, holiday napkins, slippers, aprons, slipcovers for various appliances and/or items of furniture, bathrobes, jaunty little scarves, and so on. And while I do enjoy some aspects of holiday mayhem, more often than not I bake a couple different kinds of cookies, in plans of gift-giving on the personalized and cheaper end of the spectrum, and then eat myself into a mild sugar coma while watching cartoons on the tee vee. Alas, the end of 2006 was no different - at least, almost no different. I did make a couple things, of which I was pretty proud and were well received, but it wasn’t as much as I’d reckoned on. One item which wasn’t whipped up in time for xmas/new year’s, but was whipped up eventually, was The Morgan Apron.

I originally intended to make this as an xmas/seasonal/new year’s present for my good friend, Morgan, but it kept getting pushed back. Luckily, the month of March saw her moving into a swell new place with her lovely gf *and* her birthday, so a convenient subsitute of gift-worthy dates arose. Lucky me!
Anyway, back when it was supposed to be a December-gift, I asked Beth (the lovely gf) if she thought an apron would be a good gift, and she was all OH YES. TOTALLY SHE WOULD LOVE IT. And I followed up with, Well, what kind of apron? And I don’t think she said “funky,” but that was the subtext I picked up on. I bet she said colorful, fun, maybe crazy, but definitely not faux fur and oilcloth . Yet therein lies the beauty of subtext, gentle readers; without it every performance of The Glass Menagerie would be sterile and predictable. And perhaps without it, also, Morgan would’ve gotten a very nice apron for sure, but it may not’ve been half made up of inch-deep thick pile bright blue fuzzy-wuzz, with the opposite side wiping clean for splatters of tomato sauce and strawberry milkshakes.

The most fun part was probably the idea hatching stage, because how often, really, do you get to buy kelly green satin blanket binding and bright blue depp-pile fake fur in the same shopping trip? It went together relatively easily, though there’s always room for improvement and/or creative variation. Check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonated/sets/72157600052316992/ for lots of pictures of the Morgan Apron Makin’ Process.