martinimade

The children, bless them, spent last night conspiring against Scott and I. The boy is teething. The girl, jealous that the boy is getting all of this attention because he keeps waking up because his mouth hurts, decided to spend the night having bad dreams. Both were up for good at 6 a.m. As was I. Oh. so. sleepy.

To add to the irritation, Scott is also in tech, which means that he is keeping truly odd hours and I'm wrangling the two beasties into bed solo. This is more of a pain in the ass than it probably should be.

I do, however, have a new favorite show to keep my mind off the sturm und drang: Slings and Arrows, which follows a Canadian Shakespeare festival as written by Mark McKinney, former Kid in the Hall, and others. It is hysterically honest. I suspect that you'd still get it even if you've never done a lick of theatre. If you have, however, treaded (trod?) the boards in some form, you'll weep in both a joyous and sardonic sort of way.

I don't know if that makes sense, frankly. I'm very tired.

My only qualm with Slings and Arrows is that I'm coming late to the party and have missed the first season. And it doesn't seem to exist on DVD yet.

In other news, I finally found a use for my pica stick, which is an old school type measuring device I was forced to buy in J-school. It is perfect for measuring and marking a hem.

For the new machine's first trip out of the box, a quick project involving very little measuring, thought or accuracy before I dive into the skirt. I saw this nifty pin pouf on whip-up and couldn't resist trying to make one. Could you?

The dark side.

The light side.

As a flying saucer.

Mere words cannot express how pleased I am. No, it isn't as technically lovely as the original -- it appears that sewing a real circle is beyond my current skill -- but it is awfully cute. Even the Hub admitted that it was cute.

Oh -- if I know you and if I know that you sew at all (or even kinda sorta thinking about sewing) you are so getting one of these for your birthday. You have been warned.

Now on to the skirt...

For my skirt, I found this fabric. It's a cotton in a Civil War Era pattern. Frankly, I couldn't care less about the Civil War bit. I just liked it.

And I didn't have to drive to Binghamton, which is always a plus.

I also picked up a zipper and thread, which will have to be left to the imagination. The zipper looks like a zipper. The thread looks like thread.

The machine is still in the box. I don't actually plan to start until SUCO's first spring break, which is the last week in Feb. This gives me time to finish reading Sewing for Dummies and to generally procrastinate.

But I shall make it work.

I've been wanting to improve my sorry sewing skills for the past few years. My only real lessons were in junior high, where I managed to sew my own sleeve to the quilted pillow top we were working on. My mom, a former home ec. teacher, always threatend to teach me but it just never worked out.

For years, I had my mom's ancient machine but I'd had enough of its grumpy ways and abandoned it in Knoxville. Which makes it sound like I was a big sewer. The sum total of my sewing in the last ten years was three Christmas stockings that I was driven to make for the Diva's first xmas. I cross-stitched our initials on 'em and everything. I think they are charming.

About six weeks before the most recent yuletide, I realized that we had another baby. Or, rather, I realized that the new baby would require a stocking as well, even if he's too young to care. I'd borrowed the Pie Goddess' sewing machine for the Dude's Halloween gnome hat. I borrowed it again to finish up his stocking.

Between the Hub and I, we have probably borrowed almost everything the Pie Goddess and the Grill Master own. But that's another story.

During the post-holiday sales, I bought my own machine. Since then it has sat in my closet in its box. I keep telling myself that I'll get around to really doing something one of these days.

A perfect storm of events made me get off my tush and realize one of these days is now. First, I stumbled upon the sew-along via whip-up and thought it was a neat idea. Second, the Pie Goddess pointed out the new sewing machine still in its box, which reminded me that I had one. Third, and most distressingly, my hands hurt, especially when knitting.

And so now seems like a great time to try something new.

The pattern is New Look 6433. I'll be attempting E.

In large friendly letters on the packet's front is the word "easy." I have chosen to believe the large friendly letters. There seems to be a zipper involved, however, so the whole easy thing may be crap.

Now I simply (ha!) need to find some fabric. Details TK.