Originally I had planned on making a two-tone Cynthia Rowley dress. I had some leftover wool jersey from the dress in February to use for the bodice and I got a yard of Liberty for the skirt. I was picturing a lovely end-of-summer dress.
But as I still haven't learned, the cut on her patterns are odd. I sewed the bodice before cutting into the skirt fabric (maybe I am learning a little), and it's just too low cut. It's a lovely end-of-summer party dress, but I don't really go to parties. I suppose I can throw a skirt onto the bodice if a party ever does come up, but I didn't want to waste the Liberty on something I'd only wear once a year.
So I made the skirt fabric into another button-back top. This time I went with version 3, with the cut-out in front and the ties. Here it is with the sailor skirt, if you can make it out And here's a close up, which brings me to pattern placement: Doesn't the cut-out look like a mouth, and don't the two dark blue daisies on my shoulders look like eyes? NOM NOM NOM!! I only had a yard of fabric to work with, so I probably couldn't have done anything about that even if I had noticed. I'm just glad I can't see it when I'm wearing it.
1. Brewvies has a feature on the last Sunday of every month in which a bad movie is shown and the audience is encouraged to act like the MST3K crew and heckle it. Does this seem like it would be a fun event, or does it seem like it would be incredibly awkward? The novelist in me is really curious.
2. A client has repeatedly asked for copy to be "more fun." I am tempted to show them the next round written in LOLSpeak.
3. It's the weekend! Follow Toby's example and put up your feet tonight.
But I have one. It's doing well, except for the zucchini (this is my fourth summer here and I never get a lot of zucchini--lots of flowers but only one or two squash. It's a mystery.).
Here it is: This year I added a birdbath, which is too deep for them to really bathe in but does get used for drinking. And there are sunflowers.
J. Crew, I know we've drifted apart since our very public breakup a few years ago. Sure, I've checked in sometimes, to see what you're up to--and to see if you have any cashmere cardigans in good colors (oh, the cardigans, J.Crew, the cardigans seem to last forever...). But lately, I've been worried about you. It's more than just the prose style--I guess I could get used to that--but I feel like I hardly know you any more. For example, look at what you offered in Fall '07: You were in Paris! Your models were happy! They coordinated! They brushed their hair! What happened in three years?
Now you're hanging around with a suit-clad Jesus and wearing Hammer sweatpants? With an Army hat? This...this isn't the J. Crew I used to know. I know I've matured and evolved in three years, but I haven't abandoned everything I value, like colored peacoats and bright pretty flats.
I don't know what's going on in your life but I am worried about you, J. Crew. I mean, you used to offer real pants: And now there's this: Those are...not pants. I'm so worried. Get help, J. Crew.
As I mentioned, it was my dad's birthday over the weekend. I also hinted at a present: I made him a Hawaiian shirt for some birthday aloha. The fabric is barkcloth, a lucky find from a Hawaiian store, and I used a Simplicity pattern that was really straightforward. It didn't call for a facing on the back yoke, so I added one--and then cut a hole in it (swearing ensued). Fortunately these "made by" labels are self-adhesive and patched the hole. And they're true!
1. Sunday is my dad's birthday. Happy birthday, Dad! Your gift this year is me not buying a house that has to be fully remodeled. (Just kidding, you'll get something else, too.)
2. If you're feeling irritable or defeated, I've discovered that all you have to do is listen to ABBA. This is my personal favorite:
3. This helps, too, and is endorsed by the man who discovered penicillin: A good gulp of hot whiskey at bedtime — it's not very scientific, but it helps. (Sir Alexander Fleming)
Here's something silly and cryptic from our buddy Frank O'Hara. There are lots of references to hip New York people and places from the late 50's that I don't get, but I'm posting it because I love the "croissant factory" line near the end.
Lines For the Fortune Cookies
I think you're wonderful and so does everyone else.
Just as Jackie Kennedy has a baby boy, so will you—even bigger.
You will meet a tall beautiful blonde stranger, and you will not say hello.
You will take a long trip and you will be very happy, though alone.
You will marry the first person who tells you your eyes are like scrambled eggs.
In the beginning there was YOU—there will always be YOU, I guess.
You will write a great play and it will run for three performances.
Please phone The Village Voice immediately: they want to interview you.
Roger L. Stevens and Kermit Bloomgarden have their eyes on you.
Relax a little; one of your most celebrated nervous tics will be your undoing.
Your first volume of poetry will be published as soon as you finish it.
You may be a hit uptown, but downtown you're legendary!
Your walk has a musical quality which will bring you fame and fortune.
You will eat cake.
Who do you think you are, anyway? Jo Van Fleet?
You think your life is like Pirandello, but it's really like O'Neill.
A few dance lessons with James Waring and who knows? Maybe something will happen.
That's not a run in your stocking, it's a hand on your leg.
I realize you've lived in France, but that doesn't mean you know EVERYTHING!
You should wear white more often—it becomes you.
The next person to speak to you will have a very intriguing proposal to make.
A lot of people in this room wish they were you.
Have you been to Mike Goldberg's show? Al Leslie's? Lee Krasner's?
At times, your disinterestedness may seem insincere, to strangers.
Now that the election's over, what are you going to do with yourself?
You are a prisoner in a croissant factory and you love it.
You eat meat. Why do you eat meat?
Beyond the horizon there is a vale of gloom.
You too could be Premier of France, if only… if only…
She had always been...the motive power of her own happiness. For once, she wanted to feel herself carried by the power of someone else's achievement. As men on a dark prairie liked to see the lighted windows of a train going past...the sight of power and purpose that gave them reassurance in the midst of empty miles and night--so she wanted to feel it for a moment, a brief greeting, a single glimpse, just to wave her arm and say: Someone is going somewhere.
The current project is a dress that's not working out (fool me once, Cynthia Rowley, shame on you. Fool me three times....well, I think I learned my lesson). I'm re-purposing the dress skirt fabric to make a blouse, but that's not done yet. So instead, look what happens when you get a bonus and have realized it's easy to order things internationally:
Liberty of London baby cord in "Mauverina" (love that name)
Liberty Tana lawn in "Strawberry Thief" and "Poppy and Honesty"
And my favorites, "My Little Star" and "Helland" (tiny viking ships for the win!)
Everything but the funk-tastic star print came from Shaukaut, a store in London that offers Liberty fabrics at a great discount--even with international shipping. They were already sold out of the "My Little Star" print, though (it's from the spring collection) and I had decided I NEEDED it, of course, so I found that at a place in Canada.
Ahem.
I do plan on all this fancy fabric taking me until at least January, with a couple of skirts thrown in, so it feels a little less excessive when I think of how it will spread out. Besides, if I get a house by the end of the year I won't be able to buy anything fancy, so I thought I'd better stock up.
I had no idea Gary Cooper was so hot in his early career. I always think of him in the High Noon era, which is rugged and capable but not really anything to write home about. But look at him 20 years earlier! Hellloooo, Coop! You're burning my eyes, Gary. I hope this has improved your Monday.
1. Someone who has a deep fryer and truffle salt needs to make this so we can try it: Carrot bacon.
2. How have I not read any of Carl Sagan's books until now? Last Friday's quote was from Cosmos and I just started The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Best title ever, Carl.
3. I never could get those "magic eye" posters to work:
Speaking of patching roofs, here's a song that I would always hear on the oldies station my dad listened to when I was a little kid (although I think this version was the one playing in 1985). I love the images chosen to accompany the song here.
(As for house hunting, there was one likely one. But how do you know that it's "The One"? A few people have asked if I want to start dating again--I think house hunting is similar enough that I don't need to.)
I have been gingerly wading into the deep scary world of the housing market. I have a real estate agent, I got a loan application (which made me throw up in my mouth a little), and tonight I'm looking at a bunch of likely homes.
I'm sure most people have anxiety over house purchases, but mine isn't necessarily about mortgaging my life away--it's about how on earth I'll maintain a house. In the area where I want to be, new houses are scarce and expensive, so I'm looking at age ranges from the 1920's to the 40's. Which means that there's a lot more maintenance to keep on top of. (It also means that when it's paid off in 30 years and I'm 60, I'll be in a hundred-year-old house. Along with my 15 cats.)
I know how to maintain the inside of a house, and I suppose things like cleaning out gutters and lawn mowing and winterizing and fixing holes in the roof aren't rocket science, or most people's homes would look a lot worse than they do. A reasonably intelligent person who's good at following instructions and reading diagrams should be able to learn as she goes, right?
Despite this summer of pencil skirts and little blouses, my first love remains the hippy dress--a dress that's loose and smock-like and looks good with boots. (I think this love stems from my love for the muumuu.)
A Simplicity pattern that I usea lot makes a good hippy dress, but then I discovered these patterns from France. France knows all about hippies, right? This line primarily makes children's patterns (enfants and bebes) and I learned about it when a couple of craft bloggers I follow bought enfant patterns and raved over the "simple, sophisticated lines." We'll see how they sew up--but the pattern pieces already have a French flair:
(Note to anyone who's forgotten their high school French: Modern patterns from Simplicity, etc. are labeled in English and French, so you have an automatic glossary for these. And there are diagrams. And hippy dresses are not complicated.)
Here's something about nature and mindfulness (yoga word!)to ponder today, as we sit in our offices...
Yes! No! by Mary Oliver
How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the spotted trout lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the earth. I think serenity is not something you just find in the world, like a plum tree, holding up its white petals.
The violets, along the river, are opening their blue faces, like small dark lanterns.
The green mosses, being so many, are as good as brawny.
How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly, looking at everything and calling out
Yes! No! The
swan, for all his pomp, his robes of grass and petals, wants only to be allowed to live on the nameless pond. The catbrier is without fault. The water thrushes, down among the sloppy rocks, are going crazy with happiness. Imagination is better than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.
1. This Carl Sagan quote gently refutes my glee yesterday about swearing ("I have to do it; it's instinct!"): The cerebral cortex is a liberation. We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited patterns of lizards and baboons. We are, each of us, largely responsible for what gets put into our brains, for what, as adults, we wind up caring for and knowing about. No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain, we can change ourselves. 2. Somewhat related, if only because I learned about her in the Cosmos series, did you know that a movie is out about the life of Hypatia? It's called Agora and its lack of a slick Flash site (or any site) makes me hopeful.
I swear a lot. I try to keep a lid on it in public, but in private--and in my head--there's a lot of profanity. Sometimes I think that, as someone who deals with words all day, I should have a better substitute for all these curse words, something more creative and less swear-y. But it seems that's not the case:
So they're words that aren't even processed as language, but instead tied to our basic brain functions? No wonder there aren't any satisfying substitutes. I love it when science backs me up.
I thought of this Sunday night at the grocery store.
A Supermarket in California
by Allen Ginsberg
What thoughts I have of you tonight Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys. I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel? I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective. We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight? (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.) Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely. Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage? Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
This week's project is just a pillow cover. I had some fabric on hand that I had bought for the quilt binding (before I decided on solid blue) and enough left over from the back border to finish it off. And there's piping. I guess I'd better plan on making a winter bathrobe soon, since I'm starting to put piping on everything.
Since there are only six weeks left of summer and I hadn't been to the mountains yet, Saturday I went to Mirror Lake with the family.
I hadn't been up there for nearly twenty years, but it was pretty much how I remembered it--with about a thousand percent more people. (Whatever happened to people camping in tents? Now people bring trailers, barbecues, lawn games, lap dogs, and god knows what else.) But it was still nice to see the sights:
This is Bald Mountain. We did not climb it because we did not want to get stuck in an afternoon thunderstorm at the top.
Here's a little lake. We had walked away from the people at this point.
A gorgeous gorge (ha!). People were right behind us but I ignored them.
I only had a yard of fabric to work with, so I probably couldn't have done anything about that even if I had noticed. I'm just glad I can't see it when I'm wearing it.
