For the first time in probably years, I have avoided napping for the past three whole days. This is an amazing accomplishment! The result? Deep sleep at night, without waking up once. This is extremely rare for somebody who sleeps as lightly as I do. I usually average about 2-3 wake-ups per night, one of those being 30 minutes or longer.
The downside? Nighttime exhaustion. On Tuesday night, after falling asleep at 9:30p leaning against Caspian's chest while watching Indiana Jones, it was all I could do to stagger to the sink and brush my teeth before passing out again. Clearly, my normal 6 hours of sleep is not sufficient if I stay up past 10p and don't take a nap.
Yesterday evening, I packed up my new sewing machine and headed over to Sew Unique for the Fundamentals of Sewing class. There was one other girl (maybe in her early or mid thirties) and two men, to my surprise. One was a middle-aged, hilariously sarcastic, sporty guy whose wife refused to learn how to sew, so he decided that a little bit of role-reversal would be fun and economical. The other was an early 70s Indian man who had worked in textile development all his life but hadn't sewn a stitch in maybe 30 years. He was relearning to sew for his grandchildren. He was great! In Indian culture, people have much smaller personal bubbles than Americans - they stand very close to you in conversations and sometimes fiddle with your clothes, pat you on the back or companionably touch your shoulder, even when you've only just met them. I find it very refreshing. We're so standoffish in this country. When he discovered that I was a newlywed, he patted my flat belly and said in his way, "Is there a baby inside of here? Not yet!"
The instructor, K, was an absolute gem of a human being. Flagrantly extroverted, quirky and absolutely comfortable with her little oddnesses. I had a grand time. We all made forest green denim tote bags with internal zipper pockets. Mine turned out beautifully on the outside (who will ever see the inside?), except for one strap, which I sewed seam-side-out by accident. I fudged it up a little bit when I decided to use some combination stitches instead of sewing a straight stitch and finishing the hem with a zig-zag in two steps - I tried to do both steps at once. Unfortunately, I was clinging to the fabric and stretched it as I sewed. I ended up having to do three steps instead: 1) screw up the combination stitches, 2) sew a straight stitch over it to compensate for all of the empty spaces, and 3) finish the hem anyway. I was having such a great time that I didn't think about anything but sewing for 3 hours. I could've cared less what time it was!
After that, I think I know exactly what went wrong with my failed flange pillows... I was too messy and didn't plan ahead enough. I didn't know how to finish seams, or pin, or control the sewing machine at all. I'm going home tonight, ripping out my stitching, straightening up the fabric and trying again before kitty shelter duty.
1 year ago
2 comments:
I never understood this whole "role reversal" thing. People should learn whatever they like. I learned to sew when I was in the SCA because that was the only way I could afford decent garb. Janell never learned to sew because her mother has a masters degree in clothing and textiles and so if she ever wanted anything sewn all she had to do was ask her mom.
You are one of the awesome few who doesn't understand role reversal because you don't adhere to those idiotic roles in the first place.
This particular guy obviously felt subject to/hindered by gender roles, otherwise he wouldn't have acknowledged the existence of any roles to reverse. He's a few steps behind broad-minded people like you (and I, I hope), but at least he's breaking away from them without shame, fear or derision. A step in the right direction, methinks.
Same thing with my mother - only her MS was in Psych. She's still a darn good seamstress and made my prom dresses, all of my costumes, and most of the formal clothing I wore as a young girl.
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