October 03, 2007
Impulse Control At Its Worst
When you’re cutting out a sewing pattern and the fabric, is it normal to start out vertical and fully clothed and end up crawling around on the floor in your skivvies?
Wait. Before you answer that, a story.
Eons ago, TMK and I lived together for a year. One day, while she was out, I spontaneously decided to make home-made doughnuts. By the time she came home, the kitchen had exploded into a cooking disaster zone, with flour, butter, sugar, egg, and oil everywhere, including on the floor and ceiling, and I had somehow used every bowl, pot, pan and utensil we owned for a recipe that called for one bowl, one spoon, and one pan. This all seemed normal to me, but TMK, in contrast, was aghast at my ability to wreak such havoc in such a short amount of time. In her mind, even my desire to have a fresh, home-made, cinnamon-sugar doughnut nownownow wasn't enough to explain the condition of the kitchen. That was the day we decided she would cook and I would, well, not.
Pretty much the same thing happens when I sew. Complete chaos ensues. Fortunately, (a) it doesn’t involve foodstuffs and (b) I don’t sew often. The last thing I sewed was a pair of cotton shorts I made about three years ago, the legs of which, after I walk a mere ten or twelve steps, scroonch tightly up into my nether regions in a most uncomfortable and distracting burr-under-the-saddle manner, forcing me to walk a little bit like a goose. Definitely not haute couture. During vacation, however, I spontaneously (see a pattern here?) decided to make myself a pair of flannel couch-potato pants for the Seattle fall, which has arrived astoundingly quickly (September, per last night's weather report: 4 days of sun, 26 days of gray and rain).
The pattern I chose covers all possible loungewear configurations: Shorts, long pants, a short-sleeved top, a long-sleeved top, and a tank top, in sizes vast, vaster and extra vast, and in two materials. So you can imagine how much paper was crammed into the deceptively neat and flat pattern envelope. In my world, those papers always come out like a spring-loaded snake-in-a-can, so within seconds my living room and dining room were covered in suffocating layers of brown-tissue pattern pages and white instruction sheets, to which mess I added 3 yards of brightly spotted flannel, 150 pins (only a few of which have been accounted for to this day) and at least four pairs of scissors, because I’m ever hopeful that the next pair will be the sharp pair.
It doesn’t help that my house is not conducive to sewing, having no large flat surfaces to cut or pin on, so I ended up laying the pattern and fabric on the floor and getting on my hands and knees to do the pinning and cutting. Halfway through this process, I realized I hadn’t measured my inseam and that, further, this is impossible to do on one’s self by one’s lonesome, so I yanked off my jeans, measured the inseam on them instead, and returned to the floor, half-clad.
After five minutes of graceless, pants-free squatting, crawling, reaching and stretching, all accompanied by the Loud Grunts of the Terminally Unfit, I started to overheat so I yanked off my sweater. Ta-dah! Me, cutting out a pattern, on the floor, in my skivvies. Welcome to my world.
This probably explains why knitting appeals so much to me. No oceans of pattern and instruction pages—just one, two or three sheets of well-mannered paper or a well-bound and well-behaved book. No crawling, except for when a dpn or ball of yarn goes flying. No nudity (not much anyway). No sugar, flour or oil. No pots and pans. No TMK saying, “How in God’s name did you do that?!” So, in the same amount of time it took me to not finish the flannel pants (my sewing machine has now gone all wackadoo. You should see what it’s doing. It’s so awful, it’s funny. I’ll try to post a picture.), I knit the second version of the Transylvania Hat, here modeled by, as always, the back of TMK's head:
This version was knit with Jamieson’s Spindrift, colors Clyde blue and Granite gray. I need to tweak the pattern a little bit and knit a swatch (yes, after the hat is finished. You hush up.) and then I’ll post it.
Gods, yes, Ryan, it *is* normal to end up on the floor barely-clad cutting out pattern pieces. You mean you don't always cut that way?
Among the other "normal" side effects of sewing: bleeding on the fabric, pattern, and any onlookers; cursing in several languages (including many you don't truly know); fits of hysteria that start with "this doesn't look right" and end with "my god, I'm an idiot and deserve to be crucified on my yard stick with my own pins"; fits of crying; trying to sit down and finding no place at all one floor, sofa, chairs, or tables to do so; threatening your sewing machine (I threaten mine with making into car parts - that seems to work well); and, finally, never EVER wanting to see the item in question again once you have miraculously finished it.
I do this a lot, actually....
Posted by: Colleen on October 3, 2007 11:55 AMHee. That's why I sew quilts. Only straight(ish) lines for me, baby.
And btw, if you have or purchase one of those magnetic pin "cushions", you can sweep it magnet-side down, an inch or so off the floor, and it will pick up many of the pins. The ones that are stuck in the carpet fibers will generally at least shift, allowing you to see them and pick them up.
Love the hat.
Well damn. Look what you've done. I haven't sewn in decades except to hem pants or repair things, and now I want to go out, find a pattern and fabric, and make lounge wear for those freezing (not) CA winters.
Posted by: no-blog-rachel on October 3, 2007 11:58 AMColleen! When have you seen me sewing?! I don't sew very often, but you gave a perfect description of the event. :)
Ryan, the Transylvania hat is gorgeous!
Posted by: jules on October 3, 2007 12:04 PMUm, Ryan sweetie, you already have a swatch. It's called a hat. We'll say nothing about the rest of it, except that I can seriously empathize on the lack of flat surfaces thing.
Posted by: Mel on October 3, 2007 12:08 PMDon't worry about it. I've been sewing for more than a decade, have made wedding gowns and opera costumes, and I still end up crawling around on the floor in my skivvies when I sew. It's just the way it is. Knitting is so orderly and tidy by comparison.
Posted by: lyssa on October 3, 2007 12:27 PMThank you Ryan! You cook and sew just like me! And my mother says there's no one who cooks and sews like me. You should also see MY machine....my mother gave me her old Pfaff, and I swear it hates me. Mom will use it just fine, she will get out of the chair, I will sit down immediately to use the machine, and it will start gouting thread out of the bobbin casing. She sits back down, it sews perfectly. So you're not alone! :)
As for pinning and cutting fabric in your skivvies, isn't that how it's done? I mean, my big butt is perfect for finding those lost pins, and sitting on loose pins works easier without pants. lol! Or bare feet, whichever.
Your hat is gorgeous! As always.
Posted by: Nancy O. on October 3, 2007 12:54 PMI don't think I swear that much when I'm sewing, but I certainly don't finish much if anything. Your method may not be much more efficient than mine, but it sounds a lot more entertaining.
Posted by: Seanna Lea on October 3, 2007 12:57 PMAnd after all the blood, sweat, and tears, you finally hold up your finished sewn garment triumphant and say...
It's finished!
It's gorgeous!
It doesn't fit!!!
(that's why I don't sew clothes) ;P
Posted by: Rete on October 3, 2007 01:07 PMThe people who make sewing patterns are the same people who make maps. I'm convinced of it. It's all a plot to drive you insane because you can never fold them up the right way again.
The thing that really depresses me about sewing is that they haven't updated pattern sizes since 1864, so while my size is a vast number in Real Life(tm), I'm a positively oceanic number in sewing patterns. Pfft.
Posted by: Kristen on October 3, 2007 01:15 PMYou make me feel less alone in the world. I always end up half-naked, swearing, with uneven seams. My only addition: every third step is "remove cat from pattern".
Posted by: Elaine on October 3, 2007 01:15 PMOh! The second version of the hat is fabulous! And you totally made me laugh with the explosion of stuff - that happens when I make candles. Very messy, plus very hot things!
Posted by: moiraeknittoo on October 3, 2007 01:37 PMI completely agree with Mel about the hat being your swatch. And...it will not be lying, you know how those gauge swatches can be.
As far as the sewing...uhhh, can't say I have had quite the same experience. But, the only place to cut fabric at my house is the ceramic tiled kitchen floor. Not comfortable. I also have the 'move the cat' additional step. He leaves my yarn alone, but has to help me cut fabric.
Posted by: picadrienne on October 3, 2007 02:23 PMSee? That's why I've got that pile of neatly folded fabric and pattern downstairs. If I made the lounge pants I'd have to unfold all that brown tissue and make sense of it. Better to just wrap the fabric around me like a toga or whale slipcover.
Posted by: Barbara on October 3, 2007 02:44 PMBut were the doughnuts good?
Posted by: Rachel H on October 3, 2007 02:46 PMRachel H, I think even TMK will admit that the doughnuts were good. Over the years we've found a better alternative, though, a recipe called French Puffs which are basically *baked* doughnuts that are then rolled in butter and cinnamon sugar. The baking eliminates a few of the pans and all that oil and deep-frying. Even *I* can make them!
Posted by: Ryan on October 3, 2007 02:51 PMRecipe please? Or a link to the post where you posted the posted recipe before? Pretty please with cinnamon sugar on top?
Posted by: Carrie on October 3, 2007 03:02 PMThe overheated part gets me down to the bare essentials pretty fast when laying about on the floor pinning and cutting the pattern pieces. At least it did when I was younger. I must admit I sometimes tried the flat surface of the bed rather than the floor. It's a little higher, though not much cooler! :)
Now, I'd probably just start in my skivvies and not wait until the inevitable overheating -- because I'm livng with those natural tropical heat waves before I even take the paper out of the package!
Posted by: Kathleen on October 3, 2007 03:05 PMNevermind - I found the link. I knew you'd mentioned those before... Yummmm I wonder if I have the stuff to make them for dinner?
Posted by: Carrie on October 3, 2007 03:13 PMCarrie, doughnuts for dinner? I'll be there, say, 6:30 p.m.?
Posted by: Ryan on October 3, 2007 03:16 PMYou all made my day. I thought everyone else in the world sewed like my mom and sister (perfectly) and I was the only one whose children would literally leave the house if they came home from school and saw me at the sewing machine (run! hide! Mom's sewing!).
Posted by: Tee on October 3, 2007 04:13 PMI used to sew a lot in my teenage and young adult years. Now even the thought of crawling around on the floor to lay out a pattern makes my knees hurt. But I don't think there is any way in the world to sew without creating a space of, say, 10' x 10' at least, of pure chaos. It is the nature of the craft.
Posted by: kmkat on October 3, 2007 05:02 PMOK, I'm home with a cold and still laughed until Maverick tried to get in my lap to see what was so funny. Tears still streaming down my face as I can hear you explaining this so logically. Having recently decided to sew again, I'm rethinking it now, but I may have help for your sewing machine, if you are so inclined! Michale
Posted by: Michale on October 3, 2007 05:27 PMI agree - the hat is the swatch....at least I believed that until I took the Nihon class!
Thanks for making me smile!!
Posted by: Naomi on October 3, 2007 07:53 PMI'm going to go tell my husband about French Puffs and see how long the resulting diatribe is. Dare me?
Posted by: Lee Ann on October 3, 2007 08:03 PMI am GASPING with laughter! Now see, my mom sewed like a dream (sitting neatly at the machine with her perfect shirtwaist neatly belted). But she wasn't happy with me ("your name is Dale? Did you mom want a son? ha.ha.ha.ha.") (Well...yeah). So now, if I sit down at my perfectly nice machine, it audibly SNEERS. Ever see "Nosferatu"? That's my sewing machine. I BUY my sweatpants. And I knit. NOTE: I buy BOY'S sweatpants...and roll up the bottoms. Where is it written that girlies don't want POCKETS in their jammies and sweats???
Now I'm going back to my knitting. Thenk yew.
Dale-Harriet, your machine must be a Pfaff like mine. Mine doesn't sneer, it just sits there, cackling softly. I swear.
I'm glad I'm not alone. :)
Posted by: Nancy O. on October 4, 2007 07:39 AMI can't believe I'm reading this post today! I just came to what I thought was a brilliant and unique conclusion about why I quit sewing and started knitting: because I couldn't take the chaos that always ensues when sewing. And now here's you and 8,000 commenters saying, "yeah, do that all the time, figured it out 5 years ago." And I thought I was so unique. But truly. I can sit calmly in a chair and knit and knit and knit. But sewing? Suddenly it's like the room exploded. I can't take it, I tell you!
Posted by: Laura Sue on October 4, 2007 12:15 PMI had to de-lurk to say that this, THIS, is why I don't sew! This is exactly the reason (especially the sneering sewing machine bit mentioned by commenters). I handed my sewing machine over to my husband (the engineer), who makes it behave every time and is now entirely responsible for Hallowe'en costumes (the years I was in charge, the kids went as Greek goddesses, and Indira Ghandi -- notice a trend in togas?). Of course, when I knit colorwork, I usually end up holding yarn with both hands and my toes, fending off a cat with my face, so I'm not sure I'm doing any better with this craft...
Posted by: Jocelyn on October 4, 2007 03:54 PMO.k., laughing in sympathy and empathy here. You have no idea what a disaster I am at sewing, and it's most certainly why I prefer knitting. Knitting has the magic erase button called ripping. ;-) What I want to know is, were the doughnuts delicious? Beautiful hat, by the way, and beautifully modeled by TMK. Thanks for a great story.
Posted by: Sam on October 4, 2007 08:41 PMYep, my feeble attempts at sewing sound pretty much exactly LIKE that...
Love that hat!!!
Posted by: Norma on October 5, 2007 06:45 AMYou seem to both sew and cook much like I do.
And now you know where all of those creative cuss-words originated ...
Posted by: Rabbitch on October 8, 2007 02:38 AM