Sew Distracted

22 yards of fabric waiting to be pressed

Last night I developed a tremendous headache, one of the worst headaches I can recall.  Although it was not a migraine (I used to get those before i passed the big M) it was hell.  I felt like my head was literally going to burst open.  The headache is still there but it is getting better.

Yesterday was spent running around:  farm stands, butcher, and fish market in the morning, cat to the vet, cat back home, grocery shopping.  The process took me all day, not made easier by the fact that I couldn't find what I wanted at one grocery store and so ended up going to three -- nothing kills  a day faster. 

That and worrying about a sick cat, who is moping about or hiding in the closet and not eating.  She has lost 10% of her body weight in the last two weeks, and has in the past few days dropped from eating less to barely eating or drinking.  We are waiting for test results to come back but she is quite anemic.

Anyway, during my stops at home between stores I had washed all the fabric for the nursery set (that was the cause of my delay not the actual home dec sewing) and I planned on pressing it, all 21 yards, last night after dinner while watching project runway and a few other mindless programs.  But by then my head hurt so much I could barely function.  I could not imagine what was the matter. The cat and I both lolled despondently on one end of the sofa.

This morning the construction crew is back on the job site, finally, getting ready for the concrete crew to come on Monday to set up the framework for the pour so I was out in the yard a little before 8 (head still pounding) talking to the foreman.    When I walked back in the door, it hit me, the smell of gasoline.  The house reeked of gasoline!  I did not smell this when I came home last night so it must be something new.    It was not the furnace, fuel oil smells different, and when we had a burp-back about 20 years ago, the house was filled with a blue haze.  No wonder I had  headache.

When we got to the garage, which is under the family room portion of the house, it took us a minute.  Despite the fact that it did not smell like fuel oil (to me, G can't smell anything much anymore), we checked the oil tanks which had just been filled yesterday.  Not that.  Then we saw it.  The mower had divested itself of all it's gasoline and it was puddled all over the garage floor right next to G's car. 

I have moved the mower outside; G will call the repair shop to come pick it up.  I mopped up most of the spill and have the gasoline soaked rags in a bucket to take to a disposal station later on today, and I have poured a cleanser on the stain to eat what remains before I scrub up the floor later on. I also have the attic fan running with windows open in the house venting it out.   To achieve this I was up on the extension ladder this morning with my utility knife finally unsticking all the windows the painters painted closed (last summer).  I had opened some, but not the ones that were difficult to get at, because I am lazy and we use the a/c most of the time.  It is amazing that those gasoline fumes reached all the way to the opposite end of the house and even my sewing room reeks of gasoline.

Hopefully I will get the pressing done later this afternoon, although I still have to scrub the garage floor, and I am meeting with the job foreman to review the blueprints and the plan for the job in about an hour.  Hopefully, we caught this problem before the gasolines fumes worked their way into the closets, our clothes, my fabric collection and all the upholstery in the house.  It took me weeks to clean up after the concrete dust fiasco, and I am not looking forward to going through the process again so soon.

3 Weeks

Three weeks from today I will be in San Francisco sewing.

Or

Three weeks from today I will be Knoxville Tennessee doing grandmother duty.

Hopefully I will get to do both and they will sort themselves out accordingly.

How has summer passed so quickly?  There are many things that should have been sewn by now.  They are all stacked, none to neatly, on the end of my cutting table:

First, I need to make that crib set that I have promised.  It must be done before the baby comes so that moves to the top of the list.  Then the other sewing, tops and skirts perhaps, then pattern work. 

Second I need to sew clothes that fit me now.  They don't have to be fancy clothes, they just need to fit the body that exists at the time they are sewn.

I don't even know what clothes I have to wear in San Francisco.  My summer clothes are all too big (big smile) and I don't know what fits among the fall things and the things from last summer.  Some might fit, others might still be too small. 

I got myself into this boat, being depressed and stressed and fat.  Now I have dealt with depressed and stressed but the rest of it is remains a work in progress.  I had hoped to be back to the weight I sported last time I was in San Francisco, but that might not happen. Of course two weekends revolving around music and food did not hasten the weight loss.  The freshly made ice cream and steak frites with Aioli were worth every calorie.  At least I did not backslide.

I've always taken nice tailored separates and suits to San Francisco, kind of classic American sportswear, my kind of wardrobe, but this year I might be reduced to chinos and tees.  Chinos and tees will be all that are needed in Knoxville, while I cook and do laundry and rock a a new baby.  Chinos and tees are all I need here while I watch the men on power equipment and with shovels and saws climbing over my house.  Chinos and tees would work in the sewing room.  I can probably rustle up a dress or two for those wonderful dinners out in San Francisco restaurants, the other high point of my trip. I suspect a few simple pants and tops are perfect transitional weight-loss garments.  How boring.  How necessary.

As to what I will work on when I am there, who knows.  Perhaps I will work on one of my coat projects.  But perhaps they, like other epic projects, are best put off til later. The pattern alterations made for the "spring coat" are already too big and so the pattern needs to be re-altered.  Perhaps it is foolish to make a coat too far before it is to be worn.

Perhaps I will just sew things to wear right away, perhaps even while I am at sewing week.  This depends on the state of my fall closet and at this point I have no idea how my fall closet and I will mesh.

It looks like there is a lot to do in the next three weeks.

Brief Update

Just a brief status update.  The past week was very busy, as I knew it would be; the week between the two Bard Music Weekends always seems to be packed, and weekend #2 kicks off with a symposium all day Friday which we always attend as well, so it was a short week as well as a busy one.

Still, I did manage to get in my sewing room a little bit even though I did not get the muslin finished and I don't know what size pattern to order yet. 

I had previously traced the pattern.  I made my standard forward shoulder alterations and also a full bust alteration, or at least my first attempt at same.  Then I cut out the first muslin.  I did not finish making it.  I am still obsessing working on the fba.  It is not something I had to do until a couple of years ago and I have not had much practice.

I did realize however that I am going to order the patterns I want whether I do it now, while shipping is cheaper or later.  The shipping price is not going to deter me.  Therefore there is no reason to make myself crazy and rush.  Things should lighten up next week, I can take my time making a decision, and order when I am ready.  I am not going to be making these patterns until a little more weight comes off anyway.

Life is too Short.....

Ann over at Gorgeous Things  wrote a lovely post the other day titled "Life is too short to buy cheap fabric".   I agree whole heartedly, and since I was unable to post a comment directly to Ann my thoughts are spilling over here after romping around my thoughts throughout the day.

I agree with Ann that this is not a question of snobbishness.  But it can be a way of life, hence "Life is too short..." for so many things.   Life needs to be embraced, to be lived and buying and struggling to sew cheap fabric is not enjoyable and is not worth the time spent.    As Ann pointed out, "just because a fabric is expensive doesn't mean it's not cheap, and just because a fabric is cheap, doesn't mean it's inexpensive."

If you love to sew, it is a waste of money and time to spend time on something that is crap.  And cheap fabric, whatever the price is crap, it is money and time down the drain.  You might as well just buy your clothes at Wal-Mart.  But we all know that we don't sew or knit because we can get shirts and socks at Wal-Mart.   If something is worth spending time on, it is worth doing well with quality materials.  Quality materials do not have to be expensive.  The Internet has made a wider range of fabrics available to more people.  But learning to know and appreciate quality takes time.  I am not saying that we should run around in silk pants and tissue-fine cashmere tees while burping the baby and weeding the garden.  But it is worthwhile to learn about quality and buy the best quality of whatever is appropriate for your needs.  If you need washable pants and cotton tees or blouses, buy good quality cotton, that feels good when you wear it, sews nicely, and holds up well through repeated launderings.  You will feel better and be happier with a few nice things that fit well, and look good, and stand up to the wear and tear of daily life far more than a dozen things that look like crap after a few washings.

If you need a suit that you are going to wear several days a week all season for a year or more, and it needs to look good traveling, you might not want to invest in super 120's cashmere blends, which really don't hold up all that well, and they aren't meant to.  But you can learn to distinguish the different qualities of wool and buy a good lightweight wool that will sew beautifully and hold up to all the abuse you throw at it.

My friend Mary used to tease me that whenever we traveled together I always took the same navy suit, and it was true, I did.  I made that suit out of a lightweight pinstripe that sewed beautifully, never wrinkled, and wore like iron.  I spent about $20 dollars a yard for that fabric, and I didn't think it was that expensive, and I wore that suit for 4 or 5 years, traveled around Europe and the US with it, and was sad it when it finally started to look a little worn.  That suit was well worth the time I put into it, and it would have been a good value even had I spent more on the fabric.

Life is also to short for cheap linings, cheap interfacings, cheap notions and threads.  They all make the process more difficult and reduce the value of the finished garment.  Life is too short not not to take time pressing and making something to the best of your ability.

OK, let me get back to that one.

I wrote a few months back about zippers.  More exactly I wrote about the dearth of good zippers available for purchase near me and how I had decided to buy good zippers by mail (or on my trips to NYC).  Well I kind of did that.  I ordered some basics.  When I set aside a group of fabrics to sew, I would look at the zippers I might need and order them; but I don't really have an adequate set. 

For example when I decided to make the maroon skirt I did not have an appropriate zipper.  I thought I did.  I looked in the zipper box and said "I have a maroon zipper" and thought no more about it.  But it was a 24" zipper.  Luckily zippers can be shortened.   I decided that I needed to approach my zipper stash, and yes i now have a zipper stash because life is too short to use a cheap zipper that will break, or to interrupt a sewing project because I have to wait a couple of days for a zipper.

I have my fabric stash organized by color.  I am pretty consistent in the colors I love to wear and those I don't.  I also know what lengths of zippers I most commonly use.  So I sat down with a zipper color card and ordered an assortment of zippers in the colors I most frequently sew in the sizes I use most often.  Then I made a list, a spreadsheet actually, where I list the sizes and colors of zippers in stock, and cross them off as I use them.  When I use up a particular size and color of zipper it goes on my sewing notions list, which is one of the ongoing shopping lists that live on my Palm and always travel with me.  You never know when you might find yourself near a zipper source after all, now do you?

This plan doesn't work for the exceptions, those fabrics and projects that aren't in my normal repertoire, but with those projects, I usually know they might be unusual, can check my supply, and order the proper parts at the beginning of the process.  But this way, if I get a mad urge to make a top or a skirt, or most things for that matter, I can just jump right in and sew.  Life is too short to do it any other way.

The problem is that I increasingly think life is too short for a lot of things:  cheap sentiment, cheap food, cheap wine and so forth.   If life is worth living it is worth living well and fully, seizing every moment and making the most of it.  And so life is also too short to let it be ruled completely by the demands of others.  Life is too short not to put myself first at least some of the time.

Last week I ran around like crazy responding to everyone else's crises, saving the day, fixing this and that, and ignoring my own needs and desires.  I was totally spent by the effort and I did not get any time to sew and precious little to knit.  But I don't have to let weeks like this become the norm.  I can say "no".

So I am hereby declaring that life is too short not to spend time sewing and knitting.  I insist that I should have some time in my sewing room this week, time to work on my Marfy muslin, and perhaps time for some other things as well.  I want time in my sewing room for my own pleasure and sanity.  In fact, I deserve time in my sewing room because it is, after all, my life, and this is the choice I wish to make.

Wish me luck.  I tend to waver when faced with the competing demands of others.  But life is too short not to try.

What size pattern?

I was tired and draggy and a little bit on the short-tempered side this weekend and you would think that would be a perfect time to hide out in the sewing room.  But I didn’t.  I worked pretty extensively in the garden eliminating masses of overgrowth which had overtaken everything in the last month, and I went to the farmer’s market, planned the menus, did the shopping and went to the gym.  I increased the intensity of my gym workouts last week, which probably accounts for the dragginess.

I realized this morning that I could have been playing with my new sewing machine feet, which I picked up on Friday:

This would have been the perfect thing to do when I was too tired and grumpy to actually cut something out or trace and alter a pattern.  Just playing with seams might have perked me up enough to actually make something.   But they are still here, waiting for the perfect moment, waiting for play time.

The plan had been to whip up a couple of tees this weekend.  I have the Jalie tee pattern I have long wanted to try, but I realized late last night that I really need to test a pattern or two in from the Marfy catalog so I can figure out which sizes to order.  The patterns I bought last year, based on my full bust measurement, and guessing the translation from Big 4 patterns, were too big through the upper bodice even then, more so now.

Based on the best calculations I can manage from the size ranges they give and a few judicious measurements on the pattern sheet, I think I need to cut either a 44 or a 46 in order to get the best fit through the upper chest and upper back.  Of course I will have to alter from there.  It is kind of strange to think that I really have no idea, or only a vague idea of where to begin.  Perhaps I should have started with a 46, but instead I started tracing the 44 off this morning early, before breakfast, and I will finish it this afternoon.  Then I will compare it to my basic bodice block, which is granted a little too large at this point, but I think I can figure out how to make the transition to my new size.

I am not going to make a wearable muslin at this point, just basic muslins, to figure out which size works best for me.  This whole thing may be silly as I have lost 15 pounds but will more than likely lose a good bit more.  Of course I will have to add to the 44 at bust, waist and hips, I am just trying to fit the upper chest, and for this pattern at least, 44 is the smallest size.

Maroon Skirt done

Finishing the skirt didn't take much time once I was awake and paying attention.  The delay in posting was mostly caused by finding time and energy to take pictures, that and figuring out which top to wear with it.  I thought I had several things that would go, and I do have quite a few garments in the same colors, but most of them did not work either due to size or shape issues.  Still I have this knitted top for summer, along with the requisite summer tees in several coordinating colors.  I also have several fall sweaters which will work and the color of the skirt will allow it to transition into fall quite well I think.

I like the way the skirt turned out.  I will be using this pattern again for some fall skirts as it was easy, fit well, and is flattering.  I have a couple of pieces of fabric in mind. 

As is my wont I started with a cheap inexpensive cotton fabric, one that I feared might be too light for a skirt, but by the time I finished I ended up with a rather nice garment.  The added piecing at the hem band helped weight the skirt nicely, as did the fact that I faced the hem with the same cotton fabric.  You can see the faced hem below.

The outside of the hem band is on the folded up hem, showing the hem facing with its striped binding is on the right.

I also used the striped fabric to make the narrow waistband:

The fact that it matches the lining so well was just an added bonus.