Sew Distracted

Why I won't take in alterations.

 photo courtesy of fontplaydotcom.

People who don't sew think nothing of asking if I will alter this or that for them.  I've had strangers at home depot ask if I will alter their jeans.  I always say no.   This really isn't that unusual; it happens to most of my sewing friends, and most of us decline, with exceptions for family and the like.

My issue with alterations is only partly that the people who ask usually have no appreciation for the skill or work involved, although that is an issue not to be taken lightly.  I am stubborn.  I enjoy sewing partly because I am creating something functional out of something flat, in which case probably any sewing would suffice, but also because I like to be in control of what I create.  When I am sewing something, even if it is just an alteration, I want it to fit my vision, and I am a very grumpy craftswoman when my vision does not match that of the person who requested the alteration. It has nothing to do with the ease or difficulty of the work to be done.  Sewing is my hobby, and although I may chose to alter my own garments to fit my own vision of how I want them to look on me, I reserve the right not to provide this service to others.  It is a completely selfish stance and I stand by it.

Most of the time.

I just  shortened a bunch of pants for G and the actually cutting and hemming went very quickly and easily.  It was a fast easy job and the results made G immensely happy, which is more than enough reward.  But I did not go into it all smiling and happy-like.

We agreed on two points.

His pants are too long.  They weren't always too long, but apparently as one loses stature with age  one does not lose it entirely through the torso, although it could be just be his increasingly stooped posture that causes the pants to drag on the floor.

He was willing to take them to the dry-cleaners to be shortened, but we both agreed that he would have to wait too long.  Since these are not fancy pants (they were machine hemmed to begin with), I agreed that it would be easier if I shortened them for him, in which case he would be able to wear them the same day and would stop tripping over his pants legs and falling down.

But we disagreed on two points also:

First I was in my selfish mode and I wanted to finish my skirt first.  I figured that waiting a day or two for the pants was still better than waiting a week for the dry cleaner.

The second issue was sartorial.  I thought G wanted to hem his pants too short and I didn't like it.    I thought I didn't particularly have issues with how other people chose to dress even if I wouldn't chose their style for myself. But apparently I do have issues about how my husband choses to dress.  He wanted his pants to be hemmed at the ankle, the shorter the better, and I frankly wanted them a little longer, not long, but long enough to cover the ankle bone.

In the end I relented on both topics.  If I feel I spend all my taking care of him and the house, that is my issue, not his, and it is not something over which he can exercise any control.  And, of course, they are  his pants, and what is of paramount importance is that he be happy with them, comfortable in them, and that they do not cause him to fall.  So I made them shorter.  Not surprisingly it was no harder to sew them short than long.

That doesn't mean I will start sewing for everyone else.  Family, friends and neighbors need not bother asking.  

I'll be back to sewing soon enough

I walked into the family room this morning to find a body on the floor.    

Granted it was only Raggedy Ann.  Ann was given to G by an appreciative patient 30 some-odd years ago.  The surgery wasn't open today so I did not reattach her foot, merely returned her to her rightful place above the fireplace.  Besides, that foot has been injured for some time now.

 You've seen the fireplace before in some of my pictures.  I added a few baskets to the top, baskets I took off of other furniture or shelves as I have converted the family room to a workout room so G has a place where he can walk on the treadmill and use a few hand weights without having to go downstairs.  I suppose not everyone has a stone fireplace and a wet bar in their home gym, but it seems to work for us right now, and that is the point, what works for G at this stage of his life, as I am much more flexible.

I've been working my way down, or more accurately across, my lists, from the north end of the house toward the south.  There isn't much to see in the family room now, just exercise equipment, although the bookcases are still there.  I expanded them a little and moved a few books and am happy with the results even though the boards don't match.   G thinks the room is a little stark, and in a way he is correct, but there are so many books I have trouble seeing it as truly stark. But I know what he means:  it doesn't look like a family room.

I otherwise haven't made much progress on my list this week, although I've done a fair amount of knitting and reading and catching up with small tasks.   I cabinet fell apart as I was moving it over the weekend, not a great loss as it was pretty rickety, but the top fell off and bounced off my right big toe before tumbling down the stairs to the garage.   I have a pretty typical crush injury, not too bad, with a little swelling, a small fracture, and probable torn ligament(s).  It doesn't look as bad as it feels, and actually it is much better already as long as I don't wear a shoe or need to bend, flex or push with my toe.  The foot pedal on my sewing machine is still an iffy proposition, but I should be back to that soon enough.

New List, New Attitude, New Shoes

Yesterday was the third, and last, day without power as the electricians finished up the job of rewiring the house.  

One job down; even if I didn't have to do anything other than write the check and keep everyone calm while the work was being done, I still can claim some sense of accomplishment.

I have had a lot of things on "my list" for this year, but what I didn't actually have until this past week was an actual list.  I had vague instructions in my head, the kind of thing that really gets one nowhere but depressed,  things like "clean up the yard", "deal with stuff" and "get your life back".  And I realized, as I engaged in an internal rant about people who tell me this is too much work or that is too much work or I should do x or y, that I pretty much got myself into this mess and now I need to dig myself out of it.  It is true that I simply wasn't dealing with my life, and I let it pile up, it is part of who I am, this emotional investment in my immediate family and surroundings, not that there isn't a downside, as I can pretty much shut down when the emotional turbulence reaches a certain point.  But going somewhere smaller or just somewhere else doesn't solve the problem if  part of the problem is me.

So I made a list.  Immediately I felt better.  And I've knocked a good many things off that list although it is still over 8 pages long and not all the items are easily done in a few moments time.  But there are easier tasks and harder tasks, and there are mindless tasks and tasks that are good for those times when I need to blow off steam or something.  There are tasks for days which seem run like a broken phonograph record, skipping and repeating the same few notes over and over, and there are tasks for days where concentration is high.  

I no longer feel overwhelmed because I know what I have to do, and I accept that I cannot control anything, at least I accept that I can control some things but not most things.  Today I accept this; I can't really promise that I will stay in such good rational humor every hour of every single day.

Best of all, encouraged by all my recent progress, I treated myself to new shoes, and they arrived yesterday.  They are pretty shoes, classic, so I can justify them in my warped brain, even as I acknowledge that work boots are really all that my current life requires. Although they will go with quite  few things in my wardrobe, they were purchased to go with a particular skirt.  I suppose that means it is time to do some more sewing.

Where do the days go?

Since last I wrote I have fallen into bed each night in complete exhaustion, pretty much out before my head hit the pillow.

Wednesday began two days of house rewiring, and the electrical work is not done yet.  I expect the electricians to be here another day this week.   I spend the first day, the day with no power, rearranging the books and cleaning all the shelves in the family room.  I had intended to move only a few books, but quickly realized that the shelves really need to be completely reorganized.  I worked all day Wednesday until the electricians restored the power at 7 and left for the night.  If I could have ordered pizza in, we would have done so, but instead went out for a light dinner and a relaxing negroni at my favorite local restaurant.

Thursday heralded more electrical work as well as the arrival of house guests. I decided to bake a rhubarb tart, another all day proposition as I decided that I was not happy with the idea of a simple pie crust and I wanted to work out some kind of gluten-free pastry shell.  Several attempts later I came up with a good version with excellent flavor and passable texture and the finished pie was quite good. I learned a lot, but I don't think this is the end of my search for the perfect dough.

For some inexplicable reason, in my flour-crazed state, I also though this was the perfect day to reorganize the pantry, a job that, confounded by socializing and preparing food for friends, was only finished in the wee hours.

Friday we were much of the day; routine chores mostly although there was a lovely meal at the Culinary before one houseguest departed and another one arrived.  Friday also saw me unpacking a large crate of furniture in the driveway that the UPS man left behind (not my regular driver)  as it was too heavy for me to drag into the house by myself without unpacking it first.  Suffice it to say I managed to get everything indoors before the downpour.

Saturday saw more cooking, baking, and entertaining, and Sunday we  simply reveled in having the house to ourselves again and I finished reorganizing of the 700 some odd books in the family room, interrupted only by a visit from the pool-cover repair guy and a trip to the farmer's market.   After dinner I simply collapsed in a chair and gave myself a pedicure ( Chanel Vendetta), ripped out 35 rows of knitting, and re-knit the first 15.  

It all sounds boring and tedious although it was far from that:  good friends and puttering in the kitchen are enough to keep me engaged for a long time.  The kitchen and the sewing room are the two places I am happiest, well perhaps curled up with a good book as well, and it had been a long time since I had seen G engaging in repartee with an old friend.  It makes me think I need to manage our social life a little more actively.    All in all, not very blog-able, but definitely a good life.

Where do the days go?

Another day, another opportunity to make a mistake

Well, let's see, there was sewing yesterday. In the end, there was not as much as I would have liked, but there was enough.  And I probably frittered away time as well, time going over stuff I'd been over before, time learning and relearning things I used to know, time making stupid mistakes and then fixing them.

All in all, I'd say it was quite fun.

Even though I had already cut out all the pieces to the skirt, my lack of confidence was running the show and I went back and laid out the fabric and fiddled with potential layouts again, trying to match the pattern as much as possible.  I'm still worried about what matches, what doesn't, how much it doesn't, and if I've made some major miscalculation and will have a giant flower right where I don't want it.   

I the front is easy as it is one piece.   The back was relatively easy for matching the pieces at the center seam.  But at the side seams all hell broke loose.  I couldn't get anything to match, or if I got one side seam to be somewhat matched, the other one was terrible.  

 I thought perhaps I went about it wrong, that I should have the center back be along the same line as the center front, but that did not work as I would have double flowers at the side seams, and not in a nice way, right at the hip, where I didn't want it, and no matching anywhere else.

The skirt is pegged.  No two pieces are the same size.  The seams are not cut on quite the same angles.  Perhaps a simple solid would have been easier.  But it would not have been as much fun.

 So I opted for not so great matches at the sides.  Hopefully they are not so bad either.  I won't really know until I put it together.  I actually have lots of fabric left over so I can always cut the back again, or the whole skirt again for that matter.  I bought this fabric in the 90's and I was thinking of something grander than a skirt.  What can I say?

So today, after all that fiddling with potential new pattern layouts, I set all this hypothetical stuff aside and started assembling the skirt.  I got that the back piece sewed up.  That's it.

First I hand-basted the seam, because I wanted to be sure I got the pattern lined up correctly.  Then I sewed it up.  It worked really well and everything looked perfect.  Or so I thought.

That was before I put in the invisible zipper.  Somehow, the first time I got the zipper in, I got the pattern misaligned by about 1/4 of an inch.  It was quite obvious.  So I had to rip the zipper and do it again.  The second time was better; not perfect, but better. If you look at this picture, you can see that it is off still.  You'll have to trust me that it was worse before.  This I may be able to live with.  I'll do the side seams next and see how the whole thing looks before I make my final decision.

 I can't redo the seam again.  I discovered that the fabric is permanently scarred where the previous seam was located.  If you look at this photo you can see the little holes and tears in the fabric on the right hand side of the zipper tape where I pulled the stitching out.  I am in the process of convincing myself it is not so bad, that most people won't notice, and it is on the backside and will probably be hidden by a jacket or sweater. At any rate, I certainly won't notice it, and so I think I might bee able to live with it as long as I like the side seams.

I must be more careful.

I learned one other lesson today.  It is not wise to fuse interfacing over your basting stitches, not if you want to take them out that is.  In retrospect it is so obvious it is funny....