Pattern Progress

I think a big part of why I don't like to pay much for patterns is that before long I have completely mutated the pattern into something else. I'll start with the pattern, redraft every piece over the course of a version or two, and end up with something completely different from what I bought.

Today I decided that I'd have a go at making the jacket without a lining. Spotlight has put all their polar fleece down by half price so I got 4 metres of black husky at $3 a metre, and the pattern changing began. Step one - merge a couple of pieces. The front as back are both comprised of two bits, and since it's draping instead of fitted I decided to make the front all one piece. And since it's draping down, I decided I'd raise the front hemline and give it a bigger collar too, so it had more to drape, but not as far to drape it.

The polar fleece worked pretty well, I just sewed each seam twice, about 3mm apart, and then trimmed close to the second one. Did a really basic folded hem - these are just test runs for wearing on daggy days around the house, so they're far from prefect. But I did a decent job, since even though they're just tests, they still take a whole lot of time and effort, and I can still use them even in their imperfection.


The original design (and this changed one) had a seam for the collar on the front edge in the middle of the drape. I didn't love that, so on the next run I decided to make the front and the collar one piece, meaning that the side front piece had to return. I tried making the back one piece instead but ended up adding some darts once it was finished anyway. I like the drape of this one much better, but I also raised the back where the collar is, and I forgot to lower the shoulder to compensate. I've changed the pattern piece, and added the darts to the piece for the back, so I should have a perfect version tomorrow.

I envy those people who can re-cut their own work to get it to hang right, but I'm not one of those people. Still, for $12 I got two jackets and enough left over to make most of a third, plus, knowledge!

PS, if it is perfect, I'm gunna make about a dozen of them for myself. This polar fleece is comfy and super warm.

ZOMG.

Although Joe Nichols thinks tequilla makes her clothes fall off, it's actually the fact that Joe Nichols is going to be at the Deni Ute Muster that's making my clothes want to fall off.

Also, I think my ovaries might have exploded. Awks.

Shit story, needs more unicorns.

So, tonight, I've got a story. It's not a great story, unlike that one about the time when I woke up still wearing pants, actually it's a bit dull; the basic plot is about a girl who watches a romantic comedy and subsequently re-evaluates her life. It's fairly par-for-the-course, and if it's anything like the movie within-the story (because I like to be meta like this) then the funniest scene will be at the end, after the credits, but if that's the case then I should have injected a little bit more hilarity in going out to the woodshed and filling up the wheelbarrow just now. Whoops.

Anyway, yeah, tonight I (the protagonist of this story) watched Any Questions For Ben, an Australian movie that just came out on DVD. I went and hired the DVD and everything. It's about a guy (Ben, the protagonist of his own little story) who's living the high life, working in advertising, footloose and fancy-free in a Melbourne that's a lot prettier than I remember it being. But then he realises that his life is kinda empty, and there's a girl, and it's all very hard, and then they end up together. I'm fairly confident that's not a spoiler, since the bit before the brackets coupled with the second sentence is pretty much the plot of every romantic comedy ever, just with the option to switch the genders. But it gets there in a lovely way, with some nice heartfelt/funny/touching sentiments in there, and yeah, it was, for me, a bit of a ...yeah... moment.

I have loved loved loved the last 2 1/2 years of being single. Well, okay, maybe the first five or six months weren't great, but since then, I've been rocking it. Queen of the single ladies, corrupter of colleagues and regular dancefloor gyrater. But I've been saying "I'm so in love with their love" a lot* lately. And just maybe I've been saying it out of jealousy. Or, not jealousy, but a milder version, not envy either, and longing is also too strong of a word. I think I'm starting to feel about the idea of a relationship the same way I feel about the perfect slim jacket sleeve design. I'd quite like that. It'll be hard to find, but whenever I'm about, in a place where it might be found (in the case of a nice sleeve, I've been looking for a coat to chop up, since it's proving quite difficult to find an actual pattern) I'll be keeping an eye out.

So you heard it here first, because I'm still not quite ready to post it on facebook yet, but I, Sara, am looking for more than just an epic fabric collection and six part-done quilts hanging from the curtains.

I think I want a boyfriend.

*Usually, it's about actors who are real life couples - Bill and Sookie in True Blood are married and expecting real life twins, and the lead actors in this movie are going out too. But I do it with real people too, just cruise around going "oh, good for you guys" quite sincerely, a totally different tone to my normal sarcasm. The signs have been there.

Everything.

Tonight, I didn't go to the gym, because a pimple has formed behind my right ear, and I wear those headphones that clip over your ears, so, um, ouch. It's a nice change though, usually my problem with going to the gym is that my feet hurt.

And did I use my early night home to get much much sewing done? Well, no.

Falling Pinwheels is half quilted.

Though not very well. Still, better than nothing, and lets just say I meant to make it that wrinkly in places.

And you can't see it so much from the front - darker fabrics and all that.

I'm finding it interesting too how I very much prefer rock or party music when I'm quilting as opposed to slower, more ballady stuff. Lady Gaga, Pink, Selena Gomez, Matchbox Twenty and even a bit of LMFAO.

Oh, and this song.



This is my new favourite anything everything song.

Favourite things 4am Saturday

Men's vintage wrangler watches.
Cider. Pref Bullmers Pear, but Strongbow Sweet will do.
Wavy line quilting.
Road trips.
Writing stupid poems.
Maths.
Over-ear headphones.
Varigated thread.
Miniature anything.
Orange mentos.
The way the washing machine makes quilts look about a million times better.
Tie Dye.
Maccas at 2am.
Knowing that something's a bad idea but doing it anyway.
White metal roads.
New moons.
Cushions.
DVD box sets.
Internet on my phone.
Wendy's Mint Madness ice cream.
Yarn dyed stripes.

Gender neutral prints.
CD burners.
Electric blankets.
Pretty buttons.
Ebook readers.
Bumchange tins.
Finding cider in the boot of the car.
Lying on the trampoline at night.
Staring into the abyss.
Saying goodnight to the abyss and going to bed.

It just makes me happy...

It is love of which I wish to ramble on about tonight: not grown up, used to each others faults, committed love, but the first heady rush of new love.

Now, it's not me. I'm not really in love with anyone, unless you count the chocolate cake that I'm devouring between sentences. No, I'm talking about Tegan and Alex, two of my co-workers, who should have gotten together a very long time ago, but haven't till now. Meagan called it out to me yesterday when she saw them in shopping but I wasn't convinced; today I must concede that she was right. She called it. They are in luuurve, the cute, sappy, hickey on their necks, 17 year old's version of love. The heads together conversations, the matching hickeys ("It was my cat," Tegan said, to which I replied "It's cute to have pet names, but that doesn't mean you need to literally name him after your pet") and the looks they give each other when they don't realise that Meagan and I are watching them just so we can see everything and be happy for them about all of it.

It's beautiful. I wish I could bottle it, and keep it in the fridge, and then whenever I'm feeling glum I could just get it out and drink-in a little bit of it. It's like a cute puppy. You no longer care about all the other shit that's going on when you see two teenagers making doe-eyes at each other. You don't care that there's work that they should be doing* cause it's sweet and cute and comparatively innocent. Let them learn later on about having your heart torn out by someone you entrusted it to, about the heart wrenching realisation that although you thought you knew everything about a person, you couldn't have been more wrong.

Actually, don't. I hope with all my heart that neither of them ever find out all that other stuff, and that they stay forever as in love as they are right now. Cause they are so gosh darn cute that it kinda make me want to be in love.

Now I just need to find a cowboy-boot-wearing, html-coding, Shakespeare-reading, beer-drinking guy who'll be willing to carve up the dance floor with me one of every four weekends. Oh, and he has to work late afternoons and evenings, and sleep in with me till lunchtime. Anyone know anyone who fits this description? Send me a link to his facebook so I can stalk him please.

*Sometimes I would care, but other staff members tonight also did jack-all without the excuse of being distracted by Mills and Boon-esque stares of longing. Which of course made me go naaww...

Indecisiveness.

One I'd assembled the bundle for my latest quilt, I was really happy with it. When it was out on the floor, I wasn't so sure anymore. But that could have been that it wasn't yet on point. It looked quite bland at right angles. 45ing it perked it up, but I was busy being glad that I could shuffle my corners into sides without having to unpick a heap of blocks and after 7 straight hours of quilting my sense of design had kinda turned to mush. It wasn't as briliant as the potential of the bundle had seemed, but it was nice.

Then yesterday I was looking at it hanging in front of the curtain and I really didn't like it. It was too bland, to pastel, a bit wishy washy and I'd decided I didn't like the darker stripe anymore.

Today I'm looking at it and I love it. Can't wait till next week when I'm on holidays, my legs are working again, I can piece it a backing, quilt it really densely and bind it in a nice bright green. Chuck it in the wash so it goes all crinkly and maybe hibernate under it for a week. Love it.

Does this happen to other people? Do you fall in and out of love with something every 45minutes or so? Or am I just hideously indecisive?

Gosh, I hope this doesn't happen if/when I have kids.

Miss Fix-It

Im in a hotel room in Adelaide. Anna and Meagan are on the couch, quite drunk and whinging about their weight. Brenton is only tipsy, which explains why I couldn't talk him into going on the mechanical bull tonight. I went on, and kneed myself in the face when I fell off. Square on the nose. It hurt, and not only did it hurt my nose, it also felt like I pulled my hammy, but a bit more alcohol fixed that.


And now we're home again. Well, at the hotel. It's an odd night. The girls are both having boy issues. I got plenty of offers from boys at The Woolshed tonight, but this trip is about friends, not randoms. I don't want one. They would spoil my night. That didn't stop me from pointing out dozens of them to Meagan and going "I want that one. No, that one. Or that one. I'll have that one too" But really, on a trip like this, that's not a disruption I want, no matter how cute he is.

My mobile internet keeps freezing the laptop. I needed to reboot it 3 times between that bit of the post and this bit, and about an hour has passed, as well as plenty of other stuff, so here's how my post is actually. I kinda forgot about that top bit.


I have many talents. I'm good at, for instance, memorising people's credit card information. Fortunately for them, I'm also good at never actually using it. I'm good at finding an entire new of outfit in under an hour for under $100, and I like to occasionally keep in practice just in case it's a skill I ever need in my day to day life. If I'm going on the run, for instance. Possibly because I've stolen so many people's identities, not actually to use, but just because I like to know that if I need to, I can.

As for more mundane talents, I can make a lined, zippered card and coin purse, with two pockets, in about 20 minutes. I can sew straps onto a strapless dress, by hand, in the car. I look very good in very short shorts. I make bitchin roadtrip CDs, and I can find fishnet stockings when noone else can. For $4 a pair.

I also have another talent, and it's a bit of a strange one. See, when push comes to shove, I am surprisingly good at knowing what to say. I'm the one that talks people through crisies, and yet I feel, as far as I can tell, far more disconnected from it than the friends who don't know what to say. I'm not sure why, if maybe it's that they're feeling guilty in another room that they didn't know what to say and I'm there just opening my mouth and letting the words spill out and hoping they're the right ones. It seems that they are, or maybe I've just gotten lucky way too many times, because before I know it there will be smiles through the tears and hugs and I'll walk away feeling a bit bewildered as to what the hell just happened. I suspect it's a bit how a hostage negotiator feels, like the rush of the moment is so great it obscures the whole thing. I'm glad that I can do it, because it makes people feel better, but afterwards I feel quite lost. Something amazing just happened, I was there, I actually did it, but, um, I'm not sure what it was. It would be like making an amazing quilt top only for it to completely dissapear, to exist only as a vauge memory. I feel a bit empty, like I was working so hard to pour my reassurances into her that I'm left with none of my own.

I forget sometimes that I'm older than my friends, that the horrible, socially awkward, tell me what to do to make it all better stage that is long in the past for me is something they're still struggling with every day. But then, I wonder how much I'm really past it. Subconciously, I'm always looking for an exit, an escape route, a way to get out of all of it should shit hit the fan in such a way that I can't magically talk my way out of it. I usually can though. Today, the lady at the front desk of the hotel gave me a third key even though there's strictly only meant to be two keys per room. I didn't need it. I could have got one of my friends to come down and let me in, but it felt really nice to know that I could talk my way in. It's not something that I need to do, it's just something that I need to know I can do, should the situation arise.

And that, maybe, is where I find happiness. The safe, secure, keeping me warm at night knowledge that when I have to, I can rise up to pretty much whatever is in front of me. The knowledge that I don't need people at my back because I have me. I feel cliched telling the girls that they need to love themselves before they start worrying about what a boy thinks/says about them, but it's true. And I'm lying to them when I tell them that we've got their back, and that's all that matters*, but it's only because when you're upset you don't really want to hear that one day, you'll be grown up enough to have your own back, and that's when you'll be ready. For anything.


*I'm lying in saying that that's all that matters. I'm not lying when I say we have their back, because we do, but really, fat load of good we can do for them.

Useless reviews.

Today, I had a nice cry. I haven't cried in ages, so I was about due for one, but I will tell you this: crying is much more difficult with 3D glasses on. If you feel the same way about the Snape/Lilly Potter love that I do* then I suggest you save your $1.50 and see it in 2D. Though I heard from the lady in the row in front of me that at some of the cinemas in Adelaide you got 3D glasses that look like Harry's. So if they're on offer, maybe just try not to cry so much, because that's pretty cool. If you can get your hands on some, could I have them?

Anyway, after the cry I got home and I could start on the book that arrived in the mail today. If you have a spare $16, click on this link and buy it. It's fantastic so far. It may well become one of my favourite non-fiction books of all time.

It does have one slight problem though - a problem I'm all too aware of having just re-read all of Tamora Pierce's Tortall-set books on my palm pilot. They're not actually legit copies, but since I have them all in actual, paper and cardboard copies, I figure this is okay. Because the palm pilot has a definite advantage over paper books. It even has a definite advantage over e-ink screened e-book readers, the ones that are the same size as an actual book and have the clever screens that don't have pixels and don't make your eyes hurt. You can read it in bed. In the dark. And you can hold it, and scroll, with one hand. And if you fall asleep, it won't lose where you are, it will just wait 30 seconds and shut down and go to sleep too. For a book that you're very very into, it's perfect. You can literally keep reading till you can read no more. You don't have to worry that the lights are still on, that you're going to crumple your book, or lose your place. You don't have that horrible "I'm about to fall asleep, put away the book... wait 5 minutes and pick it up again" feeling. You just read and read and at some point you're not reading anymore because you've gone to sleep, but you don't realise this till you've woken up. It's magnificent. So's my new book, for all that I now have to stop and go to bed, instead of doing it the other way around, like I want to.

*He kept on loving her forever. Even when she didn't love him back. Even when she married the boy that was mean to him. Forever. Like, properly forever. And he pretended to be a bad guy and died just to protect the child of the woman he loved, it's just so beautiful and so tragic. He kept on loving her. Forever. (note: my friends didn't get it. Philistines.)

I love you :)

I have a question: why is it that noone wants to hear my claims of universal love unless I'm drunk? And when I'm drunk, noone believes them?

I have a deep, abiding affection for pretty much everyone I know. An appreciation that they are struggling as much as the next person, as much in need of love as I am, and that they have played a small but vital role in making me who I am, and indeed, the world the place it is today. I love everyone for being themselves, for embracing themselves, from shying away from themselves. For being honest or for putting on a front. For being people, acting like people do. They are amazing, and wonderful, and I love them all. I love you all.

And because I've had (a whopping) 5 drinks since 11pm, well, I expect I will get the "Sara's drunk, she loves everyone" response. But I love everyone all the time, just like I feel that everyone should, to a certain extent, be honest all the time, and not so prudish or squeamish, even when I'm stone cold sober. Life's too short to frost a cupcake. I read that book last night. It was quite good, though the idea that her ex could sleep with both her best friend and her sister seemed a bit far fetched. Nonetheless, life is certainly too short to waste hating on one another. You could be dead tomorrow, so you may as well tell people how much they mean to you. Even if you've been drinking.

I love all you guys.

I get it.

Generally speaking, as soon as a quilt comes out of the washing machine, I am smitten. Even if I wasn't totally keen on it beforehand, the washing machine is like a make-it-good machine.

Those people who never wash their quilts don't know what they're missing. The slight boofy crinklyness that hides all your mistakes. The thing it does to your stitching so you can't tell anymore which thread was top and which was bobbin. The way the fabric becomes just a tiny bit softer - just enough that you immediately want to start wearing your new quilt like a blanketcape.

What's the point of chopping some fabric into little bits and sewing it all back together again? This is.

Love.

I am in love.

I want to have a baby, so that it can have this quilt.

I can't really keep it just for me, since it's too small to be practical for a full sized person and I already have one undersized quilt hanging on the wall.

Nonetheless.

I'm actually considering folding it in half diagonally and wearing it as some kind of crazy, Gaga-esque cape.

I honestly think it's the most beautiful quilt I've ever made.

It's properly, classically beautiful. It would look nice in a white loungeroom. There is nothing cutesey, or odd, or out place on it or about it. It is balanced, and classy, and dignified, and beautiful.

And, as ever, I've taken terrible photos and it looks nasty.

Does anyone have a white loungeroom I can borrow?

No? Well, these will have to do for now then.

It's in the washing machine now. I didn't quilt it particularly densely, and I'll probably iron it once it's done, because it's a bit like the pink batik one, and there seems to be a kind of sleekness to it that doesn't sit quite as well with the crinkly quiltiness of most of my others.

I'm calling it "Stairways to Heaven," because everyone loves a powerballad, like I love this quilt.