The ghost in the machine

My sewing machine was my mother's, with all the baggage that you can imagine that brings. My sister and I both learned some of our craft skills from her, and a whole lot more on our own, after she died, when faced with the piles of her unfinished projects. The sewing machine is the only sewing machine I can remember, and the memories are not always happy. Trying to stay still while yet another stupid dress was pinned on me. Her critiquing over my shoulder when I tried to sew something. Fights that usually ended with me giving up, and her taking over to finish whatever it was I was working on.

This is why I give serious thought to my training methods at work.

I take these memories with me every time I lug the heavy thing out of its case and set it up on my dining room table. And the machine objects to me. I know it does. I don't understand it, don't understand why tensioning knobs don't work, how thread can get knotted up inside the bobbin, why I have to keep rethreading the needle at random intervals. It didn't used to act this way.

It hates me.

Still, I manage to turn out some ok looking things. Maybe it has personal pride at stake? I don't know. I made this Japanese style knot bag because I hate a purse but like having something for my wallet and phone on a plane. Not bad, right? It's good you can't see in between the two fabric layers. And it isn't exactly reversible the way the pattern is supposed to be. (Hey, props for taking a picture of my own arm!) But passable enough that I'll use it.

A couple of parts of the machine broke off recently. Kinda important parts like the thing that holds on the foot. I went to Jo-Ann to ask about the existence of replacement parts. A lovely woman called Viking for me after we discovered no such listing for the model in the parts book. New parts, they said, are just not available anymore, even to those who would be able to service it, if I could find someone. The lady at Jo-Ann broke the news. "You're going to have to start looking for a new machine."

I know this will help my sewing. A new machine and I could become at least understanding if not outright friendly. But I'll admit it, I'm not ready for a new machine just yet.

Projects Completed

Does hanging a pre-made curtain count as a craft? It did involve tools and I had been putting if off for only a year and 2 months. Of course I bought the curtain on clearance without actually measuring the window first. As you can see it is too small...I need another one, but I figure it took me over a year to hang this guy, obviously this window is a low priority in my home decor.

I DID actually craft this week. I have been trying to come up with something I could make and sell at craft fairs and such...drum roll please...tooth fairy pillows!

I am really pleased at how these out. My 1st two pillows (LSU ones) were a little too big, so I shrunk my pattern down an inch and they are now perfect.

1st first photo (disregarding the curtain one) is of my wool felt teeth after they have been bowed, smiled and eyed. Everything is sewn on but the jiggly eyes.

2nd photo is a close-up of a finished pillow.

3rd photo shows all of the pillows I was able to complete in 2 days!! I could have done a couple of more, but my sewing machine flaked on me. OK that isn't the truth. I thought my machine was acting up, turns out I hadn't changed out my quilting needle to a normal needle. Apparently quilting needles are not only sharper, they are also longer. Now we all know :) Unfortunately it took me 2 hours to figure this out. :P

I also designed and made "Official Tooth Fairy Tooth Transaction Logs" to go with the pillows. The card contains: a tooth chart so kids can color in which tooth was lost; a log to note the date of the tooth loss (I even threw in a bow for the tooth fairy to check off she received the tooh) , a pocket to hold a tooth, a reminder that healthy teeth are more valuable so brush and floss and finally instructions.

Tailoring advice, please!

It is time, after years of chocolate, raspberry puree, passion fruit coulis, chlorine bleach and other assorted products, for me to start replacing my chef coats. The ones I have, I love. They are short sleeved so they are great in the summer and when reaching in to scrape out 40 quart bowls of cheesecake batter. They are a women's cut so I don't look like I have on my big brother's shirt and weigh another 30 pounds. They also are no longer being produced, although when they were, they were like a hundred dollars a pop. No thank you!

So I found a short sleeved jacket for twenty dollars. The problem is, it fits in the shoulders and chest, and everywhere else is just not right. Lame! I think, maybe, I could tailor it myself. I know, it's sewing, but I can hem up the sleeves and bottom of the jacket, and I think I could take in the sides a bit. But I'm not sure. Should I even try? Just take it to a professional? Whatchall think?

practicality on a Sunday night

I go through socks something fierce. It is to be expected, I figure, but it means I end up with a lot of holey heels. Mostly, these socks linger for an appalling amount of time in my sock drawer before finally getting thrown out. But every once in a while, I'll darn up a pair. I like doing it, there is something satisfying about the process of mending, but the end result is bittersweet.

I can never really wear these mended socks the way I wore the originals. The repairs make my sensitive feet more tender, rub in my clogs in weird ways. They are good enough for around the house, but they will never really be the same again. Strangely, this makes me want to decorate them more, to festoon them into something supremely unpractical. I'd probably stop short of lace around the cuffs, but I'd seriously consider just about anything else. An embroidered Taj Mahal on the instep? Well, that's a bit above my skill level, but not out of the question.

Just fixing the heels is enough for today, though.

These awful photographs completely fail to communicate how awesome this is

OH HOLY SMOKES, PEOPLE, I MADE A DRESS!

Check it out now (the funk soul brother):

front,

and kinda the back, but mostly a chair in my apartment.

It turns out it is really hard to take pictures of your own back!

To make the straps, I took the extra material, marked off a strip 2.5 inches wide, and then folded that in half and sewed up the edge, then turned that inside out to make the seam. Pinned those in place using my bra straps as a guide (and can I just reiterate how difficult it is to pin yourself into something you are wearing, particularly if you are using your non-dominant hand?), and then sewed those in place, then trimmed off the excess.

I am doing such a ridiculous happy dance right now, it's silly.

Time limits are for suckers.

As I was working on today's craft thing, I realized that, by way of a general approach to life, I am not totally awesome at paying attention to arbitrary recommendations about how much time I ought to be spending on things. Take, for example, thingaday. Now, I have spent way more than 20 minutes on stuff basically every day. Today was especially awesome, with my efforts clocking in at about 3.5 hours worth of crafting. Likewise with exercise--recommendations from doctors usually end up in the 30-60 minutes per day neighborhood. I train for marathons, which means hours and hours of running at a stretch, plus I lift weights three times a week. I work well over my allotted 40 hours per week. I don't come even close to getting 8 hours of sleep a night.

But here's the thing: I feel great. I make my deadlines, I don't feel unusually stressed out or tired, and I like it that I have intuitively grasped the concept that the rules people make up for how we should all comport ourselves need not prevent me from enjoying myself.

Anyway!

Today I took a $2 XXL t-shirt and turned it into a little dress by following this tutorial. I haven't yet put on the straps because, after 3.5 hours, I was done working on it for the day.


Interesting things to note:

• sewing stretchy cotton fabric is not nearly as difficult as I was led to believe
• there is a lot of thread in the seam that attaches the sleeve of a t-shirt to the torso of that t-shirt
• it is really hard to pin up something for yourself while wearing it when you have no help

Here's what I am thinking: the combination of this turn-t-shirt-into-dress technology and the bleach stencil technology could easily be combined into some kind of super hyper awesomeness.

Unstructured

Today I had a long conversation with my favorite co-conspirator at work about the concept of a comprehensive list of human skills, and how such a thing could be used as the basis for a tool that would help you identify the right person to do a job you had--and it could be any job, from debugging code for a meteorological simulation, to figuring out what that noise your car is making means, to roofing your house, to separating your stuck Lego bricks. If you could completely characterize someone's skill set and the skills necessary (both in terms of technical know-how and social capabilities), then in theory you could find someone who perfectly matched your stuff-doing needs.

Unsurprisingly, this got me thinking about what my own personal skill list would look like (knitting, crocheting, neuroscience, note-taking, reading for comprehension, understanding people's underlying motivations, flirting, and swing dancing would all be on there in various places), which got me thinking about the nature of intelligence, which got me thinking about IQ tests. Which brings us to today's thingaday.

You know those questions on IQ tests where they show you a flat diagram, and then ask, "if this was folded at the indicated creases, which of the following three-dimensional shapes would the folding produce?"

I decided to do that with fabric.



I took those pieces (well, except for three of the really square ones, because it was already taking longer than I expected and I decided to leave those out) and sewed them together along their edges until I ended up with just a small hole left, then turned it inside out, stuffed it, and sewed off that last hole. It turned out that if you folded up those bits of fabric along the seams, the resultant three-dimensional shape would be this:


I think I am going to call him George.

Don't judge George.

It's not his fault.

Incidentally, using one hand to run the foot pedal while the other hand guides the fabric is a pretty suboptimal sewing machine usage arrangement. Surprisingly, though, it is not so suboptimal that I am motivated to acquire a desk.

And now for today's thingie

Yes, I made new covers for my throw pillows. I've had the fabric for, oh, ever and now they are on my couch. As expected, my slipcovers now look old and blecky.

I am not much for sewing, so even something like this makes me frown between my eyes with those lines that your mother always told you would stay if you kept making that face.

I need to go look in the mirror now.