***FAIR WARNING***  This has nothing to do with quilting, something to do with sewing, and everthing to do with what I’ve been doing for the past few days.

I’m working on my wardrobe for the fall.  This all started when I was getting dressed for a party on Saturday night and realized that I have 4 pairs of jeans in my closet that have ripped along the thighs in various places.  One pair lasts me 6 months on average, but I have a hard time parting with my favorite ones, because I might not remember how they fit.  Rediculous!  I’m getting rid of them tomorrow.  

Poor R was really getting worried at my frustration.  He asked the question of the year: “Are you frustrated with your body or are you frustrated with the clothes?”  And the answer was so absolutely clear in my mind that it surprised me…  It’s the clothes.

When I started working from home, I spent days in my pjs, hair in a ponytail, no makeup.  But I feel so much better when I’m dressed in fashionable clothes.  Not just clothes — FASHIONABLE clothes.  I can sew anything I could possibly want to wear.  If I can’t find the color of fabric, I can dye it (well, for the most part).  I have the knowledge to make my own makeup, if I want.  I can even make my own jewelry.  Heck, I can cut my own gemstones and cast my own setting!  What is stopping me from looking my best?  

I’m using the SWAP concept to rebuild my wardrobe.  The first stage has 11 pieces: 2 pants, 2 blouses, 4 shirts,  2 skirts, and a jacket.  One of my pants will be new jeans.  Another will be a new pair of yoga pants from this Kwik Sew pattern:

I *think* the skirts will be the 5-minute Skirt from Angry Chicken (Amy Karol) and the 4 tshirts are Threadless shirts that I bought over the past year and just need to alter to lower the neckline, raise the armscye, and taper the waist.    It’s a great way to take a unisex/men’s shirt and make it look good on a woman.  And then I still have to decide on what blouses and what jacket pattern.

Than it’s on to accessories (shoes, purses) and a wide belt for my November opera dress.

I haven’t posted anything because I haven’t DONE anything.  I spent most of yesterday asleep.  The day before I ran a few errands and cleaned up a little.  The day before that I took two naps.  I don’t know if it’s the weather (barometric pressure) or what.  I literally haven’t gotten anything done except personal errands and making calls for our trip to SF.  Switching from AT&T to Time Warner for internet, etc.

This afternoon, I was reading through my google reader and read that Summerset ordered some fabric from Silk Baron.  Always looking for good sources of dupioni, I checked out their site.  OMB!  Love it!  New favorite dupioni source.  Now I have to save up for the samples.  $50 is a little much for me at the moment with a trip to SF on the way, but I will get it before Christmas, I promise myself.  Check it out, ladies!

Anjea came over today to block one of her show quilts and we trekked to Joann’s while it was in the washer.  I bought 6 new thimbles to try.  SIX!!!It’s rediculous how I can’t find one I like.  I really only use it for binding, so it’s not like it’s been a hurry to find the right one.  But because I use a ladder stitch and I hold my finger a little funny, it’s difficult.  I do like the leather thimble (Nimble brand, I think) but it tears up fast.  I found one today that is intreaguing.  It’s labelled as a sashiko thimble.

And I just saw this one on the Clover site, too.

I’m curious..  what do you use for thimbles?  Or do you?

I didn’t get much done today.  Read an ebook.  Got the bias strips made for the stems on CC and the leaves all washed out.  Tried to stich them down only to find some of the same problems once again with the darn Bottom Line thread.  I gave up for the evening and will revisit it tomorrow.  In the meantime, I have some things that must be mailed and finished.

When I made up my project spreadsheet a few weeks back, I never dreamed I would come to rely upon it exclusively.  If it’s not on the list, I basically assume it doesn’t exist.  BAD IDEA!  I forgot to mail three things this week beccause they weren’t on the list.  And then I’m running behind on two others.  How dare the post office be closed tomorrow?  Don’t they know that I have things that need to be sent?

If anyone hasn’t noticed before, I tend to time everything based on what I was watching. Dyeing a 12 step color wheel in 4 gradations takes one season of Hustle. Summer Sunset, my first wearable piece, took the entire 4th season of Stargate SG-1. I can sew a Block of the Month usually in one episode of Holmes on Homes. Hmmm… maybe I watch too much TV….. Well, anyway.

Last Saturday, I cut and marked the crosshatching for Charm City while watching Definitely, Maybe and part of an episode of some new show with Erin Brockovich as the host. Neat show. But 2 hours to mark straight lines on a quilt that’s only 36″ square?

Then, it turns out that I didn’t like the way the even lines looked and went with uneven lines.  LOVE IT.  Finished it last night right after my post, btw.  While watching the convention.  I missed 2004, but have otherwise watched every convention in my lifetime.  And yes, I remember them.  Yes, I know I was 3 when Geraldine Ferraro was nominated for VP.  *But I remember it!*

Last night, I spent an hour or so plotting all the parts of the appliqué onto a Cartesian grid.  Am I a math geek or what?!  But it was very handy when I started attaching things this afternoon.  The green leaves needed to be stitched down with a color of Bottom Line and Lola is not-so-much as fan of BL.

I fussed.  I fumed.  I tweaked tension.  Finally, I decided to call Superior and ask if they had any suggestions….  WOW!  The gal I spoke with was all kinds of awesome!  She sat with me on the phone and gave me suggestions and answered my little questions as we went.  She didn’t make me feel like I was taking up her time and stayed with me until I got it running.  And now, I think I have the right combo for top & bobbin tension as well as sandwich tension and needle size.  Remind me, I must order some more size 19 needles if I plan on running BL or So Fine in the future.

Now Lola likes BL.  She’s still in love with MasterPiece, but we’re going to work on thread-polyamory.

pain in my tuckus!  But, on the other hand, I’m halfway finished with the crosshatching.  I’m not doing even-distances between the lines.  It’s “random-distance crosshatching” — which is a phrase I totally just made up.    See what I mean?

I offered to help out at Ready to Sew while Ronna, Mike, and V are in Switzerland.  They’re a little short-handed otherwise, as well.   Oh my bob, that was so much fun!  I felt a little strange just in that I don’t know the store-way of doing things and how they handle particular situations that always come up in retail.  But I really enjoyed spending the day in the store and am looking forward to helping out again on Friday.  Maybe they’ll need my help in the future, too.  I’d sure be honored if they asked.  I cannot say enough good things about everyone who works there and especially Ronna and Mike, the owners.  The store is expanding in just a week and I’ll post pictures when I go to the grand re-opening, whenever that happens.

Tonight, we watched King of Kongs: A Fistful of Quarters.

5 stars from the Tollerton House.  If you have any interest at all in video games or 80s arcades, give it a view.  And if you rent the DVD, make sure to watch all the special features.  They’re just as good as the rest of the movie.

I want to show everyone the progress I’ve made on Charm City and what techniques I’ve tried and fill you in on my frustrations and discoveries.  But I’m not ready yet.  Look for a post on sunday afternoon.

Until then, my loves!

I was trying to find a recipe for chocolate mousse tonight.  Not that I was going to make it Right Now but I had a craving.  In my profuse googling, I stumbled across a great blog by the fantastic Miss Laura.  Of course, one can’t simply read a single post and ignore the rest, so I spent about 45 minutes reading back.  She did a whole blogging-every-day thing in July and it has inspired me.

As anyone who’s ever paid attention to my blog knows, I have a bad habit of not posting for weeks at a time.  It’s not that I don’t think about it.  One of these days I’ll have a phone that allows me to easily blog from all the remote places that make my brain move.  In the meantime, I’m going to make my own blogging committment.  Starting now, I will blog every day until my trip to SF in October.

Now, you’re all going to hold me to this, right?

I was turned on to a great hand-dyer by the quiltart list.  Just Imagination (aka Judy’s Fabric) has some of the most scrumptious fabrics!  I’ve fallen in love with a green number that may eventually make its way into my stash.  Shhh….  don’t tell Rich!

Last night, we moved the 4×4 Expedit from my studio into the dining room.  That meant a transfer of all the folded fabric from one set of shelves to another.  He actually asked for the first time “So, how much of this fabric did you buy in the past year?”  Why the past year?  Because that’s when we combined our finances.  Fortunately, I was able to say only about 1/3.  I’m not sure if he included the bolts on the other case as part of that, but I did.  I brought a LOT of fabric into this marriage and haven’t really acquired that much over the past year.  And, I pointed out, I rarely buy anything at full price.

That’s gotta count for something, right?!