New Fave Frock

Alright, I actually finished this dress a couple of weeks ago, but the elastic across the back needed shortening. I opened up the casing, grabbed the elastic and snap - I did something I swore I wouldn't do. I let go of it. "No problem" my sis said. "Just undo the casing." I envisioned undoing the whole damn thing, but it hit me this morning that I really only needed to undo a couple of stitches where I could feel the elastic, thrust a safety pin through it and tug. Done!

I wore it to the pool today - quite proudly. I admit I fantasized that some woman would leap from her chair and ask me where I got it. I'd look shyly down and admit that I'd made it, and gee thanks, because this is my second sewing project, and, well...and then she'd say "Seriously? Would you make me one? I'll pay you whatever you want. Come to think of it, can you make one for my daughter, too? Hey, Mona - this woman made her dress. Can you believe it?" By the time I realized this exchange had not yet taken place, I was leaving the pool, at which point I started walking a bit more slowly. Surely somebody wants to compliment me on this dress, right? Because it totally rocks! I remain stymied...

The dress is pictured here with the wonderful yellow shoes I bought on sale shortly before moving home from NYC. Way on sale, I might add, because they're what you call 'designer shoes." Designed to be both fab and expensive. (They were 70% off). I have not worn them once this summer and that must be rectified. I call these my "French woman on a bicycle in occupied Paris" shoes because these cork-platformed cuties are similar to the styles worn by women in the '40s. Cork wasn't rationed, but gas was and French women, though forced to make their way 'round by foot or bike like most people, did so in a ridiculously stylish way. If you looked closely, you might have noticed some frayed edges, but it remained a great way to bolster morale while thumbing their noses at the Germans.

Yeesh. This post is all over the place. If you've made it this far, you are indeed my friend and I 'high five' you.

PJ Bottoms (AKA Project #3) Done. Done, I say!

Super groovy PJ bottoms finito! (Too hot and crabby to write anything more. Thank you for your continued support).

Sew Brain Dead

You know those days when everything runs smoothly and you feel you're making great progress? Not only that, you think maybe you have a genuine talent that's been lying latent and all it needed was a little prompting in order to burst out and change your life? You know what I'm about to say next, I bet - that today was not that day. I mean, not to say I'm not happy that the PJ bottoms are sewn together, because that's actual progress. However, if I learned anything in today's sewing lesson, it was simply that learning a new craft takes time. It takes time and patience. The bobbin will run empty, the machine will unthread itself, and you'll realize it only after you've been "sewing" a few minutes. You'll become acquainted with both the small and large stitch ripper and you'll remember that there are lots of ways to get creative with the word "F***er!" - and that it really does help blow off steam.

One of your cats will chatter non-stop, attack the tape measure, and roll on the fabric until banished to the bedroom. You'll feel brain dead at the end of the day and have no desire to make dinner, not that you ever really do. You'll remember that slogging through is necessary if you're ever going to get better at something and that even if you get to be really good at something, you'll probably still need to slog through many times. You hope you really do remember that so you don't throw up your hands and say "F***er!" so often that it loses it's lustre, or give up new craft altogether. You blog when you feel you have nothing important to say, when you think

nobody is reading and then you eat that last piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie.

It's a Start

After years of collecting fabric, I have recently taken up sewing. I had my machine tuned up this spring - key to getting it to work properly, while exponentially lowering my (creative, I must say) swear quotient. I even took a few hours of lessons from a fab instructor. (Nicole Picard, that's you). I can't tell you how many times I stopped and started, both here in Montreal and back in Hoboken, NJ shoulders hunched over machine. Thread clustered into fist-sized jumbles, tongue curled over top lip as I followed the instructions and retraced the threading channel on my kick-ass Pfaff. Such inspiring fabric, with colours and patterns that make me want to gather it up and bury my face in it, so beautiful that I became afraid to cut into it. Damn, what if I ruin it?

My grandmother MarieAnne (Daigneault) Kelahear was a fantastically-talented seamstress. My Mum has told me how she loved beautiful fabric and how before each project she undertook - not for pleasure, mostly, but because they needed the income - she would wash the floors before laying out the fabric to cut it. So part of this is a way to connect with a grandmother I have but one or two memories of, but whom my sisters recall with great fondness.

So what changed? Well, I got tired of carting all this fabric around every time I moved. I found it ridiculous to continuously be that afraid to make a mistake - in and of itself, that became unacceptable. I asked for and got assistance. I loved every bloody minute of it - the instruction, the hum and satisfaction of guiding the fabric beneath the needle. Seeing something take shape before my eyes. Feeling that same joy of discovery and accomplishment, mistakes be damned, that you get when you're a kid, before the adult in you starts to reason away your impulses. (OK, some impulses need to be curbed, but not all).

I finished the dress last evening, from a fabric I bought in NYC six years ago before I left, one of those fabrics I like so much I wish I could eat it. If you look too closely at the frock (great word, frock), you'll find mistakes - so just don't look too closely! Lots of wasted thread and soothing swear words and now one new dress. I like this momentum.