Sew or Mow?

(plus an impromptu discussion of about the virtues of Oregon)

I promised a little peek at the coat project and here it is. A swing coat and the orange fabric I have chosen to make it out of. I was hoping for a sumptuous dove grey or charcoal color wool but since I was limited to what was on clearance this was my only choice. I'm lucky that I happen to LOVE this color. I'm just not sure it's going to be complimentary on me. I'm hoping that the glow I feel just looking at such a happy color will make it look good on me.

Sew or Mow? Indeed. I want to sew but vying for my attention are a whole lot of other things such as the garden beds which need building. It's been easy to ignore outdoor projects what with the freak snow flurries, the nasty bone chilling wind, and the rain we've been having...but suddenly it's nice out again and those beds are calling to me. I started mowing the lawn which has become quite overgrown. As usual, nothing is really simple. Before making the raised beds and situating them in their permanent spots I need to mow the lawn, but to mow the lawn I need to pick up the two weeks worth of dog poop.

I picked up the poop like a pet hero and then I started to mow. I really dislike gas mowers and electric ones seem like a nightmare of immanent electrocution so I requested that Philip locate an old fashioned push mower. He did. It's old, it's squeaky, but it works really well! I love mowing with the push mower. It's an upper body work out, especially when you've not mowed the lawn before and it's become a meadow of flowing grasses. So after getting about 20 feet of lawn sheered down to a respectable golfing* length I finished making the first of my raised beds and measured it into place in the corner of the yard.

Then I had to take a really long break.

It's the next morning and I'm still on the break.

This morning is the Master Gardener's plant sale. It's an annual fund raising event and one hundred percent of the proceeds from it go towards supporting the program. I've never been to it before. I've heard tales about it: how cheap the plants are; how you can fill up a pick up truck with plants for $25; how people line up at the doors to get in; how they will jostle each other with elbows and shoulders to get at the plants they want; how they will steal plants out of your cart.

Dudes. This is not a side of my fellow gardeners I want to see. In fact, this is not a side of my fellow human beings that I want to see. Ever. So I have been sorely tempted not to go. However, I'm on a budget and I have a blank slate of a yard. I feel that it would be stupid of me not to at least check the sale out. What if I can get some things I really want for super cheap? A person in my financial position cannot laugh down my nose at a plant sale. So my mom will be picking me up in a while and we will go see what the truth of this sale is.

Maybe I'll see the dreaded DD** there.

Meanwhile, ex-president Bill Clinton is speaking today at our High School. If this was 1988 I would be so excited I'd be teasing my hair into impossible height right now. Unfortunately this is 2008 and we've seen Monica, Whitewater, affairs with corporate America, and the Clintons are poison to me, particularly because of their little partnership with Monsanto. No one will ever get my vote who supports Monsanto (or similar companies) and is helping them eradicate biodiversity and choice in agriculture. I'm very impressed with Hillary's improved hair, naturally, she's come a long way sartorially since she was the first lady of the US, but she's spreading evil and I would love to go ask some very pointed questions of Bill today but I hear he's only speaking for an hour and then he's splitting.

In my opinion, if you're so desperate for votes that you are speaking in McMinnville's High School, you ought to be allowing questions and be prepared to answer them.

I have often thought of Oregon as the United States best kept secret. It happens to be the best state we have. It's funky, it's gorgeous, it's wild, it's full of progress and at the very same time it is also stodgy and old fashioned. It's a strange mixture of independent thought and traditional people. I fell in love with it in 1978 and I never did stop loving it. It has rarely made appearances in film, in ad campaigns, or the news. It isn't generally the place everyone talks about visiting for vacation like they do California. It's an alarmingly religious state (in my opinion) and yet it is the only state (to my knowledge) that legally allows assisted suicide in terminal medical cases.

Oregon kicks ass!

I've been noticing lately that it has been turning up on the rest of the country's radar more and more. A big Hollywood film is coming out that takes place in Oregon. People are discussing our green cities like Portland and Eugene...and taking notes. Our wines have been getting some notice as well, and more and more people are moving here. People like me.

And now, suddenly, Oregon (who no one has previously valued in the primaries, since we are almost the last state to vote in them) matters to the politicians. Well, watch out, because Oregon is hardly a predictable political field. Oregon is a state of surprises and I think it's hard to impress.

I see only five things wrong with this beloved state of mine:

• People don't take care of their teeth here.

• Avocados don't grow here.

• Citrus doesn't grow here.

• There are too many churches.

• And coincidentally? An alarming rate of teen pregnancies.***

*I think golfing is silly. Just in case you wanted to know. Go ahead, get your nine irons out and have a ball...don't be shy. I think it's a game for stodgy republicans. Maybe it needs an image clean-up. "Golf- the new hockey!" Ha ha. My brother plays golf once in a while and it's something I can never quite wrap my brain around.

**Doubleknit Disaster

***A correlation which I see as being very tightly bound together.

An Incomparable Gift

At last I unveil a gift I received in the mail. A totally unexpected gift from a friend whom I love dearly in a completely platonic fashion. Someone whom I would very much like to give a giant hug to even though I'm a prickly person and not prone to spontaneous or frequent hugs. You may be able to tell who it is just from the little teaser of a picture above.

She's sews for celebrities, she's mom to a fabulous and gorgeous daughter, she's a newly minted designer in her own right, she is a loyal friend, a swearing lady, she's a lady full of surprises...

Pam. That's who sent me this amazing gift of gorgeous orange and white fabrics. Pam of Pam Kitty Morning who I think everyone notable knows. The first person to blogroll me.

But she didn't just send me some fabric she thought I'd enjoy...she sent me a flipping QUILT TOP!!! No one has ever made me a quilt top before and it's like receiving a brand new heirloom. The stuff of legends. Because it falls to me to back it and quilt it, it is a real friendship quilt.

And it's not the small kind you hang on the wall either. It's big! It's big enough to wrap around someone who needs to snuggle down on a cold night. It's big enough to offer a guest staying the night. It's big enough to use as a picnic quilt, though I won't because there's nothing but mud around here and we all know how much I suck at laundry.

Pam, you are an amazing woman and I adore you. Thank you for such a wonderful gift!

Easy Duvet Cover

We do not use top sheets at our house as they are tedious and instead we use duvet covers, most of which are made out of sheeting. So we wash our covers often, not only because of the fact that there is no sheet between us and the duvet, but because we have a dog who sheds black hairs all over them, and a kid who bleeds a lot. You can buy fitted sheets without the top sheets, of course, but more often than not I find sets of them and end up with unused top sheets.

So I devised a brilliant plan to use the top sheets as the underside of duvet covers and using my copious amounts of fabric to make tops for them. I used an old duvet cover as my template and laid it out over my top sheet on the floor. I used it as a guide to cut off the extra length and width. (I used tailors chalk and a ruler to mark evenly where to cut once I measured the difference in size between the two).

When I cut out the top fabric I used the same length as the (now) cut top sheet plus two inches for a hem at the top where I would be putting button holes. It took two lengths of fabric, one for the center, and one cut in half (lengthwise) for the sides, serged together to make up the width of my queen size comforter. I had to make sure I had the pattern going all in the same direction since it's directional.

After I made my hem at the top I serged the top and bottom together (right sides facing) and then turned it right sides out and pressed it. Next I put five button holes across the top and sewed on some buttons. It was very easy and now I have a bright cheerful duvet cover. The fabric is a Martha Negli fabric covered in a dahlia pattern that I got 40% off.

I didn't end up making bread but at least I got one duvet cover done. I may tackle a second one today. It sure feels good to get something done that's been on my mind for months now. I get tired of things hanging out in my head all the time.

Now that I have such a bright cheerful duvet cover on the bed in the guest bedroom I notice that the walls are a dreary white...

My Soul Costs One Dollar

Up until two am again. Working. I was sewing until my machine broke. MY MACHINE BROKE TWO DAYS BEFORE MY PORTLAND CRAFT SHOW WHICH IS EXACTLY FOUR APRONS AND 23 POT HOLDERS BEFORE BEING READY. But I'm not stressed about it at all.

Instead of sewing I packaged up the 48 bath bombs I made yesterday with Lisa E.'s help. Then I mixed up bath salts in two new scents and made Philip stay up to make labels for them. He also had to start work on silk screening some T-shirts for the show which he might not be able to get done in time because the emulsion was delivered two days later than he expected it to come.

So we were up until 2am. Neither of us are at our best when we keep a crack addict's hours. It's much worse for Philip, though, who requires a lot of sleep to function well and not scream obscenities every few minutes over the smallest things.

People have always made the mistake of thinking that Philip is really a mellow guy. The problem, I realize now, is that they are always seeing him next to me. I'm not the most easy going mellow person on earth (world class understatement), so next to me even Speedy Gonzalez is going to seem like a catatonic Rastafarian. Philip is not a mellow guy. He has an incredibly short fuse. When he gets no sleep he's a like a hand grenade with the key pulled out that may explode at the slightest change in the atmosphere. He's very skilled at hiding this fact around people he doesn't know well.

He doesn't deal well with sudden movements, loud noises that he didn't create himself, fast moving dangerous objects, chaos, changed plans, missing shoes, or people who are more awake than he is. That's why we need to build a sensory deprivation tank for him to live in. Especially for days when he hasn't gotten enough sleep. Those are inevitably the days when Max has an extra dollop of wacky burning energy in his blood and decides to focus it all on Philip.

If anyone saw us on mornings like this, you would all think I was the mellow one. Someone would give me a medal for not slapping my menfolk silly. I have such forbearance. Like a saint.

I hate to tell you all this, but there will be no farmer's market tote tutorial any time soon. Not for a Christmas craft. I feel that I have let you all down pretty seriously. But this morning comes to me as a reality check. I will do the drawing early next week for the TWO prizes. The reality is that I have been busting my keyster to be ready for craft fairs that I will never be ready for, I have mostly been ignoring my noble duties as a mother*, and as a wife, and as a human being.

In fact, I finally made good on my threat: I SOLD MY SOUL TO THE DEVIL.

(Do you think I should have held out for two whole dollars and two months of good sleep instead of one dollar and one month of good sleep?)

A few things have become crystalline clear in the past week:

• Working retail sucks.

• Working outside the home sucks.

• Coughing til you throw your shoulder blade out sucks.

(Like the word "sucks" much Angelina? I love talking like a sophisticated seven year old. Oh, and hey, while we're talking to ourselves, why not put a more positive spin on things? You don't have to become one of those annoying people who never say "sucks" even when they're wearing a hair shirt, but for Pete's sake! You're going to rip a hole in your brain if you-

Oh, sorry.)

• I don't want to craft for a living.

• I want to concentrate on writing and making a living doing it. Because I'm better at writing than I am at selling crafts.

• I want to be a stay at home urban homesteader.

• I want to get healthier this year.

• I want to go back to therapy.

• I want to review my medication and maybe up the dose for the first time ever.

• Because I don't think it's working as well as it used to.

• God Dammit, I want to get thinner.

Part of why I am best off staying at home is because I think I will fall apart if I have to leave it to work for someone else who is bound to be a fundamentalist of some sort. Or an ass.

I do know exactly what I want. Do you all know what you want? Do you all have a strategy for getting it that doesn't involve prostitution? I want to know what life you are all striving to live? What are your goals? If you're already living the life you want to live, how did you do it? How did you get there?





*Although yesterday we had a great time hanging out together in my studio- Max played with cars, drew pictures, and watched Rugrats while I worked. He also (for the first time ever) helped me make his cornbread. It was an awesome afternoon. If he was like that every single day I would have had myself 12 babies.

PSYCHE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Night Of The Dressmaker

Just when you thought I couldn't find something else to be tortured about... I have been tired of making my flower pin apron for quite a while now. I've been making it steadily for three years. Lots of them. Sometimes I feel like I've made so many of them I don't understand how come I'm not richer than I am. I really like my Peace Apron but I've been longing for something a little different. Because of my booth and my low inventory of cute women's bib aprons (I have really great cocktail aprons made by my very talented friend Chelsea!) I need to make some more. I wasn't in a mood to cut out Peace aprons and besides, the Peace Aprons only look good with limited fabric combinations. I want, oh...what is it I've been looking for in an apron?

It has to be a design that will look pretty good on a large variety of figures. I always drape on Headless Helen who is approximately a size 16. This isn't a style that I would look good in right now. The majority of women need to look good in it; not every single person. No dressmaker is capable of that. Anyway, it basically came down to: make a new pattern right now or cut out more flower aprons.

So I started draping. This is not a fast process. Even when you have something specific in mind (which I didn't exactly) it takes a lot of playing around with how the fabric is working around the curves of a three dimensional form. The reason most fashion designers like to work with flat chested skinny shapeless chicks is because they're LAZY ASSES. That's right, it's easy to drape and draft over a hipless, buttless, breastless sack of bones. To drape or draft over uncooperative curves? Not so easy.

Do you know why even the larger sizes of most clothes don't fit the curvy figure? Because they were draped or drafted on the sample size which is generally a size six or smaller. Grading patterns (making them bigger) preserves scale, so if the garment was drafted for a woman with no breasts- when it's enlarged it will still be drafted for a woman with no breasts. You know something I've observed about larger women? Even if you didn't have a whole lotta boob before you became a larger lady (me) you will have a lot more of them afterwards.

So I stayed up late draping, snipping, pinning, and shaping. I'm not sure how it will work in real fabric until I take down the muslin, trace all the pieces onto dot paper, true the lines, add seam allowance, and then sew up a sample in muslin. That's when you find out all the problems with your garment. Then you go back to the drafting table and you make corrections, then make a new improved copy of the pattern, and make a new sample but this time in real fabric.

It's a process I really enjoy. The problem is my general lack of time and there's always the risk that you'll get to the sample in real fabric and find that the design itself is infelicitous. By this time you have already invested many hours into the design. So it can be tedious too.

I have high hopes for this design. I want it to have a slight dirndl effect. I also wanted it to be a fairly full coverage apron. My charming flower detail apron does not offer particularly full coverage.

I got to bed quite late. I've been doing that quite a lot lately and it's not so good for me. But this working part time away from home is really messing with me. I can't get anything done. Ever. I remember this is how it was before I stayed home to be a housewife and it sucked. Now is the time for my million dollar book deal or for a rotted dinosaur to be discovered on my property. This working away from home thing is not a good life for me.

How do people take care of themselves when they're always on the run? They don't. Also, now that I am working right through lunch time I have had to resort to buying sandwiches at the health food store which include no local ingredients. Not only that, they raised their prices so that now my sandwich costs six dollars and I have to say that it's a pretty mediocre sandwich and that's a lot of money to a person who doesn't have much. So I am going to have to bring something but there's no microwave so it has to be something I can eat cold. Sandwiches from home aren't a great choice because there's not much to put in them. I planned on making a potato salad last night but as you can see I got sidetracked.

Here's a vote update: Right now the number one choice is Coffee Liqueur, the number two choice is Spice Blends and Rubs, and the third choice is a tie between Custom tea Blends and the Farmer's Market Tote. But there's still three days to vote so if you haven't already voted go visit the Food Related Gifts post and be entered to win one of the gifts I make.


I cannot believe it's already time for me to be getting ready to go to work.

(Is there a way to Feng Shui my person to attract good fortune? You know how you are supposed to put some red somewhere in a corner of your house or something like that? Can it work on your actual person? Does wearing red attract wealth or just angry bulls?)

How To Wake Up On Sunday Morning

Late into the night my sewing machine was tapping out it's non-encoded* rhythms as we worked together to cover some cushions for a neighbor in a very cool bark cloth that, being mostly white, I could destroy in less than two minutes. In fact, when I stopped to eat some dinner at 11:30pm I had to put all the white fabric in a haz-mat container while I ate to prevent any marinara sauce from leaping from my fork onto the project as it is wont to do around here.

I've never covered cushions before and I am dying to show you the results. I'm quite proud of the zipper work. Even though I have the clearance to share this project with you, my technical team hasn't yet cracked the necessary procedures to allow me to upload pictures from my camera to my laptop.

When you watch too much Alias you can't help but start talking like a fake CIA agent.

I didn't finish the cushions until 2:30am. I kind of wish I hadn't stayed up so late. But only because of how I feel this morning. I got on a roll with them and didn't want to lose steam only to discover I still haven't finished them come next Thursday.

At 7am Max came into my bedroom with a gusher. And a mild panic about the gusher. Normally I can handle bloody noses almost any time of night or day, because I've had to. What's amazing is that until now I've never woken up to one of his extravagant nose bleeds. At first it was fine and I was awake in exactly one second, putting pressure on his nose with tissue, trying to induce calm in him. However, the bleed didn't ease up and Max was making it harder by freaking out when some blood got on his lip, then his hand. Suddenly I felt kind of sick.

Sick like I was going to throw up. Or pass out. Or throw up right before passing out. Or pass out and then throw up and choke on my own vomit and die unexpectedly leaving Philip to deal with all bloody noses in the future which would be so ironic because he's the one with vasovagal visual response to stimuli. I shoved the tissues at Philip and ran to the spare bedroom recently vacated by my mom and tried to ride out the waves of nausea.

This isn't how I prefer to start my day. A day that feels like it may turn out to be a tactical nightmare**. We need to pick up the freezer I bought at Lowe's (for $70 less than I had intended to spend-I'm so proud of that!), but to do that we have to borrow a friend's truck that has to be jump started and kept running which means we all have to go on this errand. So I suppose I also need to clear out the space intended for the freezer. We're going to Portland to see my mom, though I don't really know when or what the plan is because I'm a total lame-ass and haven't figured any of that out ahead of time. I'm not sure what we'll do with the dog, I don't want to leave her for that long alone at the house, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to bring her either. Somewhere in there I need to drop off the cushions too.

On a day like this, one should wake from a long restful sleep, refreshed, with a Stepford style calm child whose nose doesn't bleed copiously all the time, and one should have everything all planned out.

To look for the good in everything is an annoyingly noble goal. Here's some good:

• Max isn't a hemophiliac, which is a comfort. If he was he'd probably already be dead or I'd be institutionalized from the trauma of dealing with potentially deadly bloody noses all the time.

• Freezers don't have legs. This is good for many reasons, one of which is that the freezer I bought can't walk out of Lowe's without us so there's no reason to get all panicky because we have to arrange to pick it up. Us anxious types will panic about anything. We've got no discerning taste whatsoever.

• I didn't throw up. I hate throwing up and fear it. Seriously fear it. I will not tell you the lengths I will go to to avoid hurling. You could almost say I have a phobia of vomiting. Which isn't surprising since I have a highly sensitive gag reflex.

• Because I finished the two projects hanging over my head I can be free to enjoy myself and my new freezer without the guilt I would experience if I knew I should be sewing instead of chopping the last peaches of the season to freeze. Which I'm praying I'll get to do. Peaches are almost completely gone.

• Plus, I'll get paid for the projects I finished which will help to offset the cost of the freezer which, if it had legs, would be tapping it's toes in impatience right now in the loading dock. And also freaking out all the Lowe's employees who aren't getting paid enough to deal with mutant angry appliances.
  

I'm really trying to focus on the good but Max is being a complete stinker and I see what the real tactical nightmare is going to be today: dealing with Max. Max isn't going to cooperate with anything we've got to do. He's going to drag his feet and that mouth of his is going to let out the longest string of complaints that any child has ever been able to sustain. He's very skilled at this. He could win awards for his ability to maintain a constant string of negativity. Sometimes I get so weary of his bad attitude that I kind of wish I was deaf.

I guess I better go untangle the day's objectives. I could really use some good disguises too but I'm afraid that if I were to wear disguises I wouldn't look cool like Sydney Bristow, I would look like Divine. I think I should avoid that for all of our sakes.

Copy that.




*I've been watching A LOT of Alias. Everything in my head is theatrical agent talk.
**I love this expression and am constantly looking for an excuse to say it.

The Other Smock

This smock wasn't my favorite of the two I recently made from men's shirts. Partly because it made me look a tiny bit pregnant. I already look kind of pregnant so I don't want to emphasize this fecund appearance. But partly it wasn't my favorite because I'm new to making my own appliques and I'm disappointed that my hen doesn't look more like a hen.

I wish I could completely attire Headless Helen in the appropriate corresponding outfit, then you could see how charming this smock is in my head. Although, if you could see inside my head you'd be able to see other things too which I'm not very comfortable with. Like the image of me permanently shackling Paris Hilton to her prison cell.

(Supposedly she's said she has "nothing left to live for". Is she fucking kidding? Why?, because she only has to spend a measly 45 days in prison for a DUI? If she did say this, and I'm not saying I automatically believe she could have said such a ridiculous thing, then she is much more stupid, spoiled, and childish than I thought was even humanly possible. Now you see the image of me bitch slapping her. You understand why I'm so uncomfortable with you in my head? Go on, get out before you get really scared!)

I could have made the smock functionally button down the front like I did with the other one. However, the classic element of a smock is it's easy removal. Not to go roll in the hay with your beau at a second's notice, but to enable to you rip off that smudgy smock to answer the door looking clean and prim when the UPS guy brings you all that great swap mail.

Have I mentioned recently how much I love words? I used to look a random word up every single day in high school and write it's definition in my journal and then try to use it in conversation or in writing. I wanted to be sure I was using "fecund" properly so I hauled out my trusty ENORMOUS unabridged dictionary to look it up and the tome flipped open to an "e" page and guess what word leaped out at my surprised glance?

ejaculatory incompetence

Dudes, that is so harsh. I never knew it existed. Want to know the definition? OK. You asked for it*: inability of a male to achieve orgasm and to ejaculate during sexual intercourse despite adequacy of erection.

Seriously, couldn't they have called it "ejaculation-challenged"? Because calling it an incompetence implies that the male in question is too stupid to know how to complete the mission. I have yet to hear of a single male out there who doesn't know how to seal the deal. Just because the equipment isn't working well doesn't mean the man himself is incompetent.

Isn't the dictionary awesome?

In other news...most of my sewing studio is now in my garage. If I could do as I pleased, I would now concentrate my efforts on emptying the studio of Philip's things and start the whole studio make-over. I'm thinking about painting the plywood sub-floor as suggested by friends. I have to have a look at it again. Unfortunately, time waits for no man...(or woman)...and the clock is ticking on getting everything else moved and sold and all that really fun stuff. Thinking about it all makes me want to crawl back in bed and not come out until it's all over. Why isn't that an option? I have some serious inertia I'm working against. This is partly due to the depression I'm fighting and the exhaustion that running the store for a year has left me with.

So, in order to not sit here and whine away the time, I just keep reminding myself that it will all be over in a week and my life will be a little bit more simple. Not stress free**, obviously, as there is the question of a living to be made, but certainly simpler, which I welcome. I will be able to concentrate on more of the things I love; Max, my garden, cooking, designing, and most obviously? Writing.

*Well, you didn't actually ask for it, but you know you wanted to!

**People with clinical anxiety are NEVER stress free. Important thing to realize. It's an unpleasant fact of life that many people don't understand. If all the stress factors are gone, then shouldn't one cease to stress? Yes, if one is not afflicted with a mental disorder that feasts on irrational fears and worries, sure.

The Winning Ticket

This is a new design I worked on to submit to Lark Books for consideration for their upcoming Apron Book. I know there must have been tons of other sewing bloggers out there working feverishly on the same project. This one didn't make the cut. So now I get to show it to you! I have to admit that I love it.

It's been so long since I've had the time to sketch and draft new designs. I knew I had to submit a few designs for this book or I would really regret it. So I cleared the decks. Let the kid starve, the dog go unwalked, the garden grow six foot weeds, and I hunkered down with my rulers, dot paper, and muslin and got my elbows deep in thread and pencils.

I loved working with a new fabric and playing with buttons and trim combinations. My work space was not Marth-neat. It was a whirlwind of scraps and pins and patterns and mock ups. It was so bad a pocket walked away. But this isn't the design I'm most proud of.

One thing I absolutely love about so many of the crafting bloggers out there is the deep commitment to recycling and the clever use so many people are putting to discarded items. However, when I try to think of cool ways to re-use things my mind goes blank. It takes a special tweaking of the brain and a slight blurring of the eyes as you look at something to see it new and differently.

When it comes to clothes, I also have a fear of tearing them apart. It's counter intuitive for me. How an architect probably feels about demolition jobs. My training is in building garments from scratch, not fixing them, not re-doing them, not taking them apart. People are always wanting me to do alterations for them, as though I must be good at that sort of tedious meticulous work which requires that you very carefully unbuild a garment until you get to the point where you can adjust a seam. It's like plastic surgery for clothes. I don't do that.

But I've always wanted to get my hands dirty with re-purposing because it's just so cool.

So I made smocks out of men's button up shirts. I thought this was so clever and original it was kind of deflating to discover (right after submitting this) that someone else had already been making half aprons out of men's shirts. Which leads me to wonder: is it even possible to come up with a single completely original idea?

But this isn't the design I was most proud of

I can't show you the design I'm most proud of because it got accepted for the book!

Technically speaking, I got permission from the editor to not only talk about getting accepted, but to show pictures of the design that will be included in the book as long as I don't give anyone instructions for making it until at least six months after the book is out. (It's a book of apron patterns for those of you who haven't already heard all about it.) So I could show it to you. But I'm not going to because I'm superstitious and I'm afraid that if I show it to you I will somehow blow this amazing opportunity.

I went to Fabric Depot yesterday with my mom to collect swatches to show the editor of the book because they need the fabric for my project to work well with the other accepted projects. (The fabric I used for my submission is a delicate cream silk fabric with thread thin black pinstripes. The other projects are all much bolder in print and color.) In San Fransisco I would have headed right to Britex and I would have found a whole floor full of silks. Not just bridal silks, but a whole range of silk shirtings and silk suitings. Silk for fashion. Fabric Depot has a tremendous selection of cotton quilting fabrics but their fashion fabric selection was very limited, as it is in most fabric stores these days.

When I asked if they had any other silk besides bridal silks, the employee who was helping me asked me what kind I meant. Like, what would I be using the silk for? I said I needed to find silks meant for more casual clothes like shirts. I swear she looked at me like my tongue had just forked itself in four. Can you imagine how she might have looked at me if I'd told her I needed the silk for a hostess apron?

Today my mom is taking us back to Portland for more swatches, only this time we're going to Bolt, and to Mill Ends to see what we can find there.

There were two things I was made to do: write, and design. Right now I'm doing both and it feels like coming home.


Note: The panic is still with me but not directly a result of anything going on. I mean, it's more a result of the building stress I've been under managing the store and all that that entails. Yesterday was particularly bad with my stomach full of adrenaline all day long. This morning, however, my body feels calmer.

The Walking Pocket

(and more insecure talk from the Dustpan Alley)

I can't tell you about this project because it might need to be secret. I realize how lame it is to not actually know if something you're working on needs to be secret or not. Either it does or it doesn't. The great thing about being so clueless is that it gives me the chance to be mysterious, which is very hard for full disclosure gals like me to achieve.

This pocket has walked away. The main question in your mind, I'm sure, is "why would a pocket walk away?" and while that is certainly a great question, the one I keep asking myself is "how?". It was right there one moment, looking bright with potential, then when there were no more customers to chat with, I turned around to work on this project and the pocket was gone. I searched the entire store. There are only so many places a pocket can hide, and I checked them all.

Now that the store is closing I must turn my mind to figuring out how on earth I will arrange my "studio" in our house. The "studio" is a very small bedroom with dark wood '70's paneling covering every wall surface, a built in desk in dark wood (possibly veneer, suddenly I can't remember), and gross oatmeal colored carpet. I can tell your mind is racing to figure out how you too can have such a wonderfully inspiring studio space.

As you all know, I've gotten used to the spacious area I currently refer to as the studio in the back part of the store. So if any of you were envious, now is your time to feel the glee. Bitter Betty works in a small space and so do many other genius crafters and artisans. A big space is not necessary. But a space with adequate light, an inspiring atmosphere, and good organization are very important. I didn't do any decorating the last time I had my base of operations in that little back bedroom.

I'm going to get all Martha on my ass.

That could sound really dirty if you weren't a non-lesbian prude like I am.

I will take lots of before pictures, during pictures, and just when I get as insufferable as a new parent with four rolls of film of the baby's first day of life, I will then bombard anyone who's left standing with a million after pictures.

I was thinking of doing the room in turquoise and red which are my store colors. However, it occurs to me that if Alicia Paulson were ever to see my studio, she would assume that I worship her and copied her. She's all over the turquoise and red combo. But if I do a robin's egg blue with pale serene green, I could never invite Martha Stewart over to my house because she would cease to respect me for stealing her signature color story and then she wouldn't get to discover what an excellent cook I am. (I would need to hide photographic evidence of the garden potage soup which turned out a khaki color, not the prettiest version of itself). So then I was thinking about doing a kind of spring green, orange, and pink color story. But I'll be damned if it doesn't make me think of Heather Baily.

So I'm going to go over to her studio right now to see what colors she's got going on there. Care to join me? Oh crap. I should not have done that. I really shouldn't have. What I really need is to see another designer who looks like a movie star, has patents pending, and is photographed in magazines and knows famous people.

My grandiose bubble is popped for the day.

How old are Heather and Alicia anyway? Is it too late for me to get thin, fresh*, and become a design genius? (I did have a great idea last night that I'm not going to share here because it was so exciting I want to savor it and feel as though I have patent pending too. Though it isn't actually something I could patent. But obviously I'm already a design genius, it's just that no one influential knows it yet.)

You know what I have going for me that none of those wonderful ladies has going for them? I'm funny. Totally funny. Except for when I'm talking about child suicide, cutting, depression, anxiety, death, necessary medication, being fat, self loathing, or my childish insecurities. Other than that, I'm hilarious.

Ah, hopefully I will be going to a craft fair today in Portland. I'm kind of excited about it. I might get to go with my friend Lisa E. Now that I don't have the store I might be able to do a couple of craft fairs with Lisa in addition to all the canning and farm fun we generally have. How cool would that be? (The answer is: totally cool!) Lisa doesn't know this, but I feel super lucky to be such good friends with her (actually, she may already know that). She's an exceptional knitter, a total cool babe, and yes-she has some of the best teeth I have ever seen. I will certainly report on the fair later if I end up getting to go.

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!


On a happy note, my guys came in to the shop yesterday and apologized for their crazed meanness yesterday morning. I also apologized for having carelessly removed their memory card (which was found in the lawn later, in tact) and promised to learn how to reset the screen so we don't run into this problem again. Philip also bought one of the remote controls that Capello mentioned and so all is smoothed over. Except for the part where I start looking for a child psychologist. I ordered a book that Violet Crumble recommended that may help too.




*Did you see Heather's dewy skin? Shit, you almost can't look at people that pretty.

Angelina's Foolproof Home Designing Hints

I can tell you all what's on my mind right now, which will send you to the psychiatrist post haste, or I can skirt the boiling issues of my brain and life, and stick with subjects that won't make you want to stab yourself. Let's take the easy route today.

In my life as a housewife and stay at home mom I have made some observations that you may find useful in the arrangement of your own life:

• When designing a kitchen, never choose a linoleum that is paler than the food you usually cook. White is lovely, airy, and so elegant until splattered with tomato sauce, mud, jam, and wine. I am always suspicious of any person who installs white linoleum. Or carpet. Light colored flooring is for those people who live gently and without children.

• Bathrooms should always have ventilation. Your mind leaps to the obvious memory of the lingering odors caused by the long sits on the toilet that men tend to favor. While that is one of the reasons your bathroom should always have good ventilation, there is another. If you have a kid who get "gushers" for bloody noses frequently and has adopted the awful habit of letting the blood drip all over the floor until you come to his aid, which may be a while if you're in the middle of a fight and he decides not to ask for help, you will probably need to up your dose of medication. Sometimes I feel like I live on the set of ER. Our main bathroom has no window. No fresh air. The smell of blood has a way of lingering for a surprisingly long time. It's a smell that makes me kind of sick. What lingers is that warm metallic scent. Why on earth did the people who built this house not think of these things?

• Bed sheets should always be light in color. I have learned this the hard way. I can't afford to buy all new sheets because I just did that a few months ago. I thought to myself "why not go for a more masculine look in our bedroom and get some navy and brown colored sheets?" Yes, why not? I'll tell you why not: D-R-O-O-L is why not. Another reason is that if you or your partner suffer from dandruff, you will have to see the evidence much too clearly every morning. There is another reason but I will let your minds gently drift in that dirty direction all on it's own.

• Cream or oatmeal colored carpet in a house where kids will live is loudly not recommended. We have an oatmeal colored area rug under our dining room table that is there because the previous owners put it there and we can't afford to replace it. We could remove it altogether (which suddenly seems like a really great idea) but I worry about scraping up the hardwood floors with my chairs. This carpet is now a showcase of every craft project, every meal, every buried doggy treasure that has ever made it's way into our dining room. I used to frequently vacuum it. But I got dragged down by the necessity to do this every five minutes.

• Do not squirrel fruit away in a warm dark cupboard where you will forget about it and it will ripen and rot. This just makes good sense.

That's enough to chew on for right now. I am going to go under a dark rock now to chew my own leg off because that seems like such a reasonable response to the stresses and pressures of my life.

Of interest to the seamstresses out there: my newest sewing adventure involves conquering my twenty year old fear of sewing thin bias binding onto garments such as cobbler aprons. If any of you have any tips on how to begin and end the trim, please share. (folding the end under is bulky and my machine hates me for doing it.)

My dutiful dog

Chick was confused about why I would ask her to sit on her bed in the morning. But she's a dutiful girl and did as I asked. I cannot believe how much I love this flea bag! Jesus, she's so cute! Her ears are irresistibly soft and floppy.


In our house we are dreadfully short of spare blankets. We have three ragged antique quilts that have become considerably more ragged from constant use by us. That's what quilts are actually for. For keeping you warm. For using. Now that quilts have enjoyed such an incredible renaissance and have effectively become an art form, it's not hard to forget that originally they were made predominantly from scraps and rags and they were not made to hang artfully on the wall or arranged on the arm of a sofa where it isn't actually supposed to be used.

Never the less, I feel I have committed a crime. There is no fixing these quilts. They are worn through with holes, they are eternally stained, and faded, and pretty much used up as though they were loved to death. Yes, they were heirlooms. No, they are not fit to pass on. I soothe my guilt by knowing that one of them was loved to death by Max. He won't be able to pass it on to his children, but since he frequently informs me of his intention to remain a bachelor for all his days just like Uncle Zeke, I don't think that's going to be an issue. What he did do was get to sleep with something his great great grandmother made out of necessity with great skill every single night for two years.

The reason this is all on my mind is that Chick, our dutiful black dog, sleeps on a bean bag cushion covered in vinyl. Not very cozy. I have been covering it with one of the worn out old quilts because she likes to paw at the cushion to get comfy and I don't want her to rip the bean bag open. Not only that, vinyl is pretty un-cozy. However, I loathed letting her further destroy my shredding quilt. I don't seem able to find time to make some quilts, not even fast ones and when guests come over we don't have anything good to cover them with. So I bought some short pile fake fur a while ago to cover the bean bag with.

Yesterday I managed to whip it together. Seriously a slap-dash affair, I made it at work without benefit of eyeballing the bean bag while I worked. I had a vague measurement to work with. It took almost no time at all. And now she has something cozy to sleep on, my sad quilt is rescued from her dirt and fur, and I got the supreme satisfaction of getting a project done that has nothing to do with my store.

Now what I'm thinking is that I need to cut out a bunch of large squares to hand piece a quilt together. The only quilts I've made before were three crib quilts for other people's babies. I hand pieced the first two and machine pieced the last one. I hand quilted all of them. I love hand stitching and since I spend every evening watching reruns of Frasier or Friends, it would be easy enough to stitch large squares together. I could then tie it off instead of quilting it. This would be simple, not something I'm going to compare to Pam Kitty Morning quilts or Michelle Sews quilts, but it would be something sturdy and pretty and warm. What more could I ask for? I want to have a cupboard full of quilts like Sarah at the Misadventures of Mama and Jack.

Making blankets and quilts might seem like a hobby, or an art, until you don't have enough of them in your house. Suddenly they become very important. I don't know how we got to this point in our household. It seems there used to be a time when we had lots of blankets to go around. But I've got to get all pioneer woman on my own ass and fix this problem.

Because I really don't have enough to do already.

Garden Gear: no jeans for this chick

Sometimes I feel a little less than hip, what with my inability to dive into the obsession for denim that so many people have. I pretty much loathe denim. Except for overalls which no one but public school teachers seem to favor. I'd wear overalls (a la Doris Day probably, with a fitted waist) if I thought I could get them in my size. But I really hate denim. I would like to state here, for the record, that I do want to embrace it on others since absolutely everyone I know loves at least one pair of jeans in their closet. Let's put it this way: I'm never going to think you look best in your jeans. Never. I will always think you look better in gabardine trousers, or a non-denim twill, or dresses, or seer sucker, or skirts, or... you get the idea.

Probably the most commonly worn garden gear is denim. So what does a denim hating person wear in the garden? I wear absolutely anything that strikes my fancy. I don't believe in "nice" clothes versus "grubby" clothes. My closet is pretty equal opportunity. I mean, I'm probably not going to wear my super fancy ball gown* to weed in. But I believe in putting on an apron to protect my clothes from grime** which means that I'll wear whatever makes me feel good and will impress my plants enough to listen to me when I tell them to grow.

This pattern pictured above is fantastic. I managed to stick within my caloric goals yesterday in an effort to whittle away the excess pounds so that I can eventually sew this for myself. I just wish there was somewhere I could buy that hat! I like to look like some kind of farmer's wife pre-1950's, or I like to look sensible in handsome trousers to muck around in my yard.

My whole sartorial life has been carefully thought out as though I were perpetually preparing for a scene in a movie. It makes getting up in the morning more fun. Getting dressed used to be a moment of joy for me each day. Certain themes pop up a lot. I should also mention that every interpretation of a get-up is tinted with old Hollywood style. I might dress like a 1930's poor farm wife, but Hollywood style. I don't feel the need to wear darned cotton stockings with my dress. It's always the idealized version of itself that I aim for. If I dress like a peasant from the 1800's, I don't feel obligated to invite lice to my hair, nor to stop bathing for a week to get the true effect.

This pattern above I first got in a size 16, which I will never fit in again in my life. (Remember, this is vintage sizing). It doesn't make me sad to never be that size again, but I really love this outfit. You might even say I became obsessed with finding it in a larger size. The larger sizes are harder to come by and often you have to fight for them in stealth bidding wars. I like to believe that this is because so many of us out there are not tiny munchkins and so there's more competition for them. I gave the size 16 to my close friend Sharon, who, DAMN HER!, made the outfit and looks so cute in it that if I wasn't married and if I happened to be a lesbian I would have totally fallen for her.

Eventually I saw this one come up on E-bay in a size 20. I fought hard for it.*** This is the kind of outfit that you could do almost anything in. All you need is a good pair of work boots and you'd be good for a trip around the globe. Cute bra top which can be modestly covered by the jacket. Shorts for hot weather, and the cropped trousers for everything else. If I could wear this pattern, I might never need to shop again.

Wouldn't that be so cool? To never have to shop for clothes again? I LOVE clothes, shoes, and accessories, I just HATE shopping for them. Shopping has always been a painful lesson in how I am not standard. Even when I was thirteen years old and fit in a size 9 and was relatively thin. Nothing about my body has ever been standard. Which is probably one of the many reasons I became so attracted to sewing for myself. Who cares if your top half is a whole size smaller than your bottom half when you can sew something that fits that interesting body? Who cares if your waist is really small in proportion to your generous butt if you can draft a pattern that fits that (somewhat attractive) peculiarity.

I love that so many people here in blog land are sewing clothes for themselves. Not only people who are already experienced at sewing clothes, but so many people who are new to it are blazing themselves a trail to custom fitted wardrobes. It's an inspiration.

I had a talk with my mom yesterday. I have promised her I will work on how I talk about myself. In my head, out of my mouth, and out of my keyboard. I have promised to stop being mean about my weight. I am what I am. But while I try to make positive changes it is completely counter productive to constantly draw attention to what I dislike about myself. Better to make another peace apron for myself (because the other one sold even though it wasn't for sale) and make myself the dress I've been longing to wear.

It's another gorgeous day here in the PNW. The pear tree is blooming, the sun is out, and there is a latte here beside me that Philip made. Yum. So I'm going to go off dreaming about garments as I always do. I'm going to go see what all of you are up to now.

*If I had one, which I don't.
**although it must be admitted that I wasn't wearing one the other day while using bleach and now have a ruined shirt. See how important aprons are?
***And as you can see, I won it.