iridescent plans
Now I’m scared. I’m just home from a buying binge in Austin…daughter Shan’s wedding reception/party is coming up and I need a dress, so I headed for Silk Road in Austin, which is the only fabric store truly worth its pins around here, and now I have six, lord help me, six yards of dupioni to cut into. I actually invented this fabric for a fictional character a while back, a peacock blue silk shimmering with purple overtones–or undertones, or whatever you call that shimmery thing dupioni does–and there it was in the store, fated to be my dress. If I don’t blow it. And I cannot afford to blow it. Shan keeps reminding me it’s a casual event, and the dress pattern itself is casual. The celebration is in the fabric.
Then on to Blue Moon to buy glass for our next fusing class project and it was all the same scheme, peacock dichro and irid on black, shimmery and shiny and food enough for my glass hunger for one week. No, never enough. But sufficient unto the day is the credit card damage thereof.
learning to believe
Okay, so there’s some buyer’s remorse to the fore the last couple of days. I’m the one who announced on Friday that we needed to stop spending money, and then on Saturday bought a new machine.
A yummy…new…powerful….machine. I brought it home and about two hours later had this:
Pure de-clutter points for using up stash. And coverstitched to the hilt. I love it!
Meanwhile several people asked for updates on the upside-down tomatoes, so you’ll all have to suffer. The short answer is, the right-side-up plants are ahead so far. I’ve lost track of which are which, but we have two each Sugar Sweetie cherry tomato and San Marzano pole-type paste tomato. One of each upside-down, the other right-side-up.
The San Marzanos say 80 days on the seed packet and I probably should have started them about 3 weeks earlier. If we don’t have an early frost, we may be okay. What I believe to be the San Marzanos are both growing gung-ho, but I’d have to say the right-side-up plant looks better. The upside-down one is a close second, though. It’s bigger than it appears in this photo. They’re both looking strong and happy:
The Sweeties show more disparity. They’re 65 days and both are already showing a flower bracket, but the upside-down one lags behind in foliage. I don’t think I damaged it in transplanting, but I don’t know.
So far so good. What I love most is going outside and having all these green babies at nose level. I can talk to them all I want–and I do–and I can see what’s going on, and you can bet I’ll find those disgusting hornworms instanter. If they dare.
Actually I think we’re safe from them in October anyway. Check back for another update in a couple of weeks…
doing our bit
Overheard in our backyard today: “Would you shut up? It’s just an egg!”
I turned 47 last week. It was a very poultry birthday. There’s no limit to the amount of chicken stuff you can find out there in the world of things, and a lot of it ended up wrapped in pretty chicken paper. For me. Thanks, I love ya!
My real birthday present I went and fetched at Blue Moon today, a bunch of lampwork tools including a whole wrist-and-arm support, torch bracket, mille-marver setup. Glass shears, a masher, a fiber blanket. Even leather elbow rests. It’s going to be a whole different art form now that I can sit down at it. Now that it’s nearly cool enough outside to embrace the torch.
And then, I guess I lost my mind. I’ve been thinking about a coverstitch machine. More than thinking about it; in fact, I swore off spending any more time trying to get a good hem on a knit fabric until I had one. And…notice the subtle shift of verb tense there?
I really needed a coverstitch machine. Since I was in Austin anyway, I went to the only dealer I knew in town to see what they had. Accidentally I bought the Elna 434. It was on sale. It’s the same as the Janome 1000, I’m told. But it’s an Elna! So it’s cuter!
Ahem. I don’t think very many of my readers sew. Heck, I can count all my readers with the digits at hand, and most of them are looking for computer info. Suffice it to say, I’m spoiled. And I have a brand new coverstitch machine. And no chickens on it, at all.
I guess T. is getting that miter saw for his birthday after all. Parity or bust. Probably both, at this rate.
frog-stitching
Are you a sewer? I’m not, but only because I refuse to apply the term. I am a sewist. Or at least I aspire to be. Meanwhile, the weather is turning hot and I need new summer clothes. So it’s high time to wade in and improve my skills. My secret weapon is Pattern Master Boutique by Wild Ginger. This is a pattern-drafting software program that creates custom-fit sewing patterns. Don’t buy it unless you are ready to forever afterward look at bodies and clothing in a new light.
It’s a huge boon to be free from sizes. Some bodies, including mine, have never worked with ready-to-wear sizing. Too small and too big in all the wrong places, we end up buying clothing that will decently go around, and we end up with clothing designed for a completely different framework. Fabric looks nice when it’s hanging right. Fabric can’t hang properly off a body wearing what is otherwise completely the wrong size because it has to cover the rack o’ doom. Or whatever your most prominent bits may be. I spent years thinking I was just naturally crummy-looking, until I finally realized that the problem is that clothing in RTW sizes looks crummy on me. There’s a big difference.
And once you’re wearing something made to fit, there’s really no going back to settling for crummy. You don’t even get to how it looks in the mirror before you realize it just plain feels wrong.
So, I’m sewing. I’ve promised myself better fabrics than I can get in the chain stores. I’ve delved deeply into books and DVD tutorials–yes, more classes. Of course, the kitty made holes in my new blouse–the first bit of really nice shirting I allowed myself–with her overgrown nails. (So I’ve learned to trim my cat’s claws, and I’m quite proud of that.) And the skirt I quickly sewed this weekend turned out too short to wear bare-legged to church.
It sure looks better on me than shorts, though. And done is better than perfect. That’s what the sewing mavens say. This little garment is packed with great techniques. A mitered hem with walking ease, a la Sandra Betzina. Margaret Islander’s burrito technique. A quite nice lapped zipper and a fabulously comfortable elastic-interfaced waistband. And frog-stitching galore (rip-it, rip-it).
My sewing improves as I come to accept that sewing is almost equal parts cutting, seaming, steaming, and ripping. I am patient with it, for the most part, with a patience that must be a divine gift as it certainly doesn’t grow naturally in my heart. Assemble the raw materials, act upon them, refine the results, undo the parts that don’t work, and go again.
I need to sew my life.
success
Success!
But first we had to go to the zoo:
It’s payback time for slogging through 150 days of summer. On January 5, it was about 75 degrees and sunny in San Antonio.
So, the sewing project. You hardly expected me to model it, I hope:
This is the second iteration. It fits me as well as anything I can buy, and further generations will only improve. Yes it’s rather boring and white; that’s just the kind of pure virtuous cheapskate I am—would you waste the good stuff before you knew it would fit? I’m saving the leather and chains for later.
The plainest bra that I can buy, looking much like this, fitting nearly as well as this one would set me back $45. Add a few scraps of lace and satin and it might be $75. Takes me about three hours now that I have the procedure down, taking my own sweet time. It’s fussy sewing but each step is soon done.
This has been a major sewing goal for quite some time. Not this one bra right here, but the one I’m going to have soon. And all the ones after that.
Ow. Think I may have sprained my elbow there, patting myself on the back.
one in a thousand
Hi, I’m K. and I have a time management problem.
I have a lot to do. Theoretically. However, as long as I do my major wage-earning, everything else can coast. Theoretically. It’s not like in the good old days when I had a garden and seasonal imperatives of preserving food. Or a church choir to whip into shape and music to fit into the liturgical year. Or kids. They take a bit of doing. Or a husband who had to be appeased.
The kids are grown. The new husband is content to live and let live. I do have to feed the pets but if I forgot I suppose he might get around to it sooner or later.
But meanwhile there are the thousand things that are always just a thought away. The thousand things are good, really. One project at a time, maybe five on the front burners, and I know I’ve still got some ambition percolating somewhere in here. When they are silent I worry about the state of my brain. But if I listen to them all together at once they can provoke so much anxiety that I need to retreat to my comfort zone until they fade.
Unfortunately, my comfort zone lately is approximately “comatose.” Not very useful. Not conducive to achieving even one of the thousand. I really need to get something done this weekend, some significant project that will allow me to tick off a small success. Reaching out for one thing is a much better way of dealing with the other 999; they get quiet temporarily.
I’ve been considering what could do the most for my happiness this weekend. Most of my immediate-happiness projects are looking pretty hard. I need to finish a novel. I need to achieve financial independence. I need to paint the kitchen. Not likely this weekend.
I need a bra that fits. And that’s a project that looks just right. Success would do a great deal to elevate my happiness level. I draft sewing patterns using Wild Ginger software, and bras are a challenge and a half, but I can’t go out and find (and/or afford) anything that fits very well. I think I will cheat and start with cloning an almost-fitting little piece of lace and steel and elastic that actually died a natural death some months ago. Its fossil remains may be the basis of a fabulous lingerie wardrobe. Or maybe not—but fitting is a lot easier if you’ve got something workable to replicate. And the thousand things are easier to live with if you’re too busy to listen to 999 of them.
