Sew Distracted

Cross-Dressing

Silliness. Yes.  I love stupid cross-references and playing with words.  I don't feel particularly embarrassed or shy about my love of such silliness, even if my references and jokes make sense to no one but myself.  In fact, it may be the pure ridiculousness that makes me happy.

More than two, no three, weeks after my episode of silliness, I remain giddy with glee at the memory.  If I am thrilled with the sewing, even simple sewing, perhaps I should blog. I may be slow, but that is no reason to be apologetic or to hold back.

 

But what was all this bubbling silliness about?  I made a small, baby-doll sized, dress.  Except it was for a cross. And yes, once I thought about dresses for crosses, inappropriate puns did come to mind. I have no regrets.

 

All that needs saying is that something was damaged and needed replacing.  And so it was done.  Finding the right shade of fabric took more time than the making; I couldn't find quite the right purple locally and so something had to be ordered.  That something ended up being slightly too stiff for the size of the cross and the tightness of the necessary curves, but I managed.

A pattern was drafted and everything was cut out.  I naively thought I could do the whole thing in the roughly two and a half to three hours between the early church service and the end of the second.  Ha!  And then I discovered that half the electric circuits in my sewing studio had blown out in a recent storm.  I couldn't get them all to come back on, so there was much running around and clucking, much moving of things hither and thither  -- even then I was sure I could do it.  I almost succeeded.

 

But, as I was heading over to the pressing table, I held the almost-finished cover up and decided it looked like a party dress.  And I burst into delicious giggles.  I couldn't stop dancing around my studio like a fool thinking about tiny little dresses for crosses.  Absurd, no?  And then, because I was thinking of dresses, and because I wasn't quite sure how the hem should lie to best accommodate the stand at the base of the cross, I decided that a fitting session was absolutely necessary.  

So I ran over to the church to meet my client, my client the cross, for a little fitting. What party dress does not need a proper fitting after all?  The cross might not have cared.  But apparently I cared deeply.  Nothing is pressed in the photo above but at least the hem is pinned, and it did not end up being in the position I would have placed it without the fitting.  Isn't he/she/it/they going to be lovely?  Is lovely even a word that applies to crosses?

 

None of this was complicated sewing, or complicated pattern drafting for that matter.  And I've made another since, in another color, for Holy Week.  The second version was in a more appropriate fabric.  Not surprisingly, I forgot to take photos.  

 

Getting back to sewing, no getting back to blogging about sewing:  blogging, about anything really, has too many moving parts in need of coordination.  And yet today the whole process makes me happy.  This is what I always wanted a blog to be, back when I started these blogs, when I naively knew nothing about blogging.  I don't care about marketing, or branding, or even expectation.  I think all I cared about, all I still care about, is the joy in the making, in the seeing, in the living, in the entire process of saying "I made this", or, perhaps more importantly, "I am part of this process called life".  Blogging has been about the sharing, but also the recording, not as acclamation or acknowledgement, but because of the way that writing brings my thoughts full circle.  I don't really know what I think until I write it down.  

 

Apparently I cannot help myself.  Maybe if I want to resume blogging I have to stop worrying about what I should be blogging about, and just remember joy, or sadness, the gains and the losses, and the feelings that come with it all.  In the seventeen some-odd years since I started this blog, the blogging world has become more polished, more professional, more focused, has become something I actually never actually wanted.  I have tried to evolve, but it has been a struggle.  

 

All I wanted was a place to explore my own distractions: successes, failures, and silly puns included. All I wanted was a place to keep it all together.  All I want is place that is not a piece of paper that I am more than likely to toss in some future clutter-focused state of pique. 

 

Perhaps tiny purple party dresses for crosses have something to teach us after all.

Sloper beginnings

A little late here despite my best intentions.

Beginnings of a sloper.  This is what scoliosis does, rendered in two dimensions.  And I am extremely grateful for it.  The alternatives, in my case, had I never had surgery, would be far far worse.

 

When Liana was here at the beginning of March, we made a cling wrap sloper.  We were both a little out of practice, and I could have purchased something more clingy, but it was a good start. I had every intention of transferring the fragile plastic to paper and then making a muslin immediately.

 

Life took a different turn.

 

This is not a surprise.  I made one of these before, when I lived in New York, and it was phenomenally helpful with fitting and pattern alterations.  I knew already that I was not symmetrical.  And yet looking at a flat paper version of oneself is somehow still disconcerting.  None of us are perfectly symmetrical.  None of us are without flaws.  None of us is truly comfortable seeing any part of ourselves as we truly are.

 

A certain balance will be achieved when I trace off the fronts.  This means that if the left back is smaller than the right back, the left front will be larger than the right front.  As I said I already knew this.  I haven't cut pattern pieces double, or even on a fold, for years.  In terms of ready to wear, it explains why separates, and simple, loosely fitting garments are easier for me to wear, than more fitted options.

Here is another picture.

You can see not only the difference in size, but also the difference in torque or angle.  I find this rather exciting and I am looking forward to the process of exploration and discovery that is about to begin.

 

Alas April and May are phenomenally busy and I have some non-clothing sewing that must be done in the immediate future.  Although I am pretty desperate for summer clothing, I am also not interested in rushing.  I am hoping that as I can get to sewing, I can also start with simple, less fitted garments, which may be my preference once the heat and humidity arrive, and expand my options as time and energy allow. Whereas my younger self would have found this frustrating, now I am patiently content.  Time and energy may not be in great supply at the moment, but that too will change, and anticipation is, in and of itself a gift.