What Not to Wear

It's a resolution: I will try to dress more like an adult. Granted, I haven't figured out exactly what that means yet, but it seems like something that is do-able in the course of 2010. My wardrobe tends to be a mish-mash of items, most of them found on sale somewhere, most of which don't fit all that well. My color palette is all over the place: browns, blacks, blues, limes (yes, limes), greys. It's not very unified and there's not much that works outside of particular outfits. I buy outfits rather than clothes. I need to buy clothes that work together in multiple configurations. I need to figure out how to do just this.

In preparation for a wardrobe overhaul (which has been overdue for a while now - part of the fit issue is the weight I dropped a year or so ago), I've started purging my closet of those items I don't wear anymore. Most of the stuff will go to Goodwill, some of it will be made into rags, and others I have plans for. Like the sweater above. I bought it about two years ago at the Gap for a dollar. Ever my mother's son, I couldn't pass up such a deal. The catch? Small patterns utilizing multiple colors do not work for me. I've got a lot of surface area and such a pattern stretched across such a space only managed to make me resemble a Magic Eye.

The sweater wasn't 100% wool, so there was no possibility for felting, which seems to be all the rage in the magazines these days. Instead, I decided to see what I could do with the sweater if I cut it up and sewed it into something. What resulted was the above throw pillow - not a terribly well done throw pillow, mind you, but a throw pillow all the same. Note to self: interfacing is essential when dealing with fabric of this sort again. Regardless, it's wintery and looks nice and homey on my couch. Best of all, it took about twenty minutes to whip up.

And, no, I will not be buying any Fair Isle sweaters any time soon.

Homemade Holidays

White Christmas in on AMC tonight: this is a wonderful thing. Perfect for grading undergrad papers and blog updating, yes?

With the holiday a few weeks away, I've been knitting and sewing away - nothing I can show here just in case someone happens upon my ramblings (hi!) - but as I haul my knitting from one space to another, I'm reminded I haven't written about my new knitting basket.

A few weeks ago, I was flea marketing with my aunt and uncle and happened upon this vintage sewing basket. The print was gaudy and the fabric musty but there's something delightful in the idea of having such a contraption in which I could place the plethora of projects I'm currently working on and move from room to room. A quick check of the price tag - $6 - and it was coming home with me. I knew it was meant to be when I was checking out and discovered it was half off. Lovely.

I got it home and slowly but surely began pulling it apart. Rather than being glued, the dowels were stapled in, making it quite a challenge to disassemble the contraption without losing a finger. After the basket was apart, I made something of a faux-pas: I washed the fabric bag, figuring that I would make a pattern from it after it no longer smelled like damp basement. The fabric, which wasn't high quality to begin with, literally disintegrated in the wash, leaving me with shreds of what was. Ugh.

I used newspaper to lay out what I imagined would be a pattern for a new fabric bag to fit onto the frame. A quick trip to my local fabric store, Shiisa Quilts, resulted in a yard of John Dewberry's rust-colored damask home decor fabric. On sale, nonetheless. I found a different shade of burnt orange for the inner liner at Joanns. I cut out my pieces and, over Thanksgiving break, spent an entire morning piecing the bag together. Since I'm relatively new to sewing and it was a pattern I somewhat figured out, it was a morning of thinking and rethinking where seams need to go, what steps to do first, just how is the liner going to get sewn into this thing?

In the end, it turned out beautifully and by beautifully, I mean that it's functional. There are seams that don't match up, pieces that are cut just a smidge too wide (or perhaps my sewing is inaccurate...) but it works well. It'll make a great bag to carry all the knitting I'll have to finish as I travel over the break.

The Perils of Television

I blame my fear of sewing on Lifetime, Television for Women.

Back in the day, also known as the late-80's, early-90's, Lifetime was a fledgling channel airing reruns of made-for-television movies. Lots of them, spanning decades of stories of babies swapped at the hospital, terminal illness, and workplace drama. On a day home ill from school, I happened to catch just a snippet of one such movie. The plot went something like this: there's a sewing factory employing deaf women who spend a lot of time hunched over their machines, sewing while simultaneously working for workplace safety. The five minutes I happened to catch found one such woman sewing through her fingers; she stands up and begins screaming but - lo and behold - works in a factory that employs women who are deaf. No one notices her for a good three or four minutes, by which time both she and I are freaking out.

The image of that large, industrial-sized needle going through her fingers has stuck with me much longer than I imagine it sticking with any other rational person. It's the self-imposed bully that keeps me from sewing, at least until recently. I borrowed a friend's machine to attempt a quilt top for another friend's baby shower. It's something I've wanted to try for a while so I screwed my courage to the sticking place and attempted, the fruits of which is above. It's something of a hot mess, really. Adam, I am not. I think the pattern was a little much for a first time out; there are a few blocks that are not a standard size, hence some of the zigs do not match the zags. I'm debating whether I want to get batting for this top or buy new fabric and start over.

Regardless, I made it through an entire project. With all my fingers un-sewed. I almost wish I would have watched the end of the movie - perhaps the woman had a happy, sewing ending? It could have alleviated years of mental sewing anguish.