Unmoved

Monday comes again, whether we want it to or not. This time, I'm not so reluctant, and I'm not sure why.

On Thursday after work, I drove over to the specialty sewing store where I take my classes and sat down with my instructor. It took about 30 minutes for us to agree upon a blouse pattern that would be both easy and stylish. It took me another 30 minutes at least to decide on a lightweight cotton - I picked a white one with a black dotted floral pattern, and some shimmery gray shell buttons.

Well, on Friday night, I got to work! I washed and ironed the fabric and pinned the pattern pieces onto it with proper precision. For clothing, it's imperative that the pieces are lined up exactly parallel with the fold so the fabric doesn't twist when you wear it, which means nitpicky measuring. In my rookiedom, it took me about an hour and a half to place the pattern and cut the pieces, and I was done for the night.

Saturday, I cut the fusible interfacing and fused it to the collar and front pieces. I sewed the pack and front pieces together at the shoulder, finished the front edges with my new overlock foot, flawlessly executed 4 darts and then got to work on that stupid collar! Gah! So much basting, pressing, trimming, tucking and slip-stitching, all for that silly collar to be placed correctly and hide all of the insane corrections I made to the collar line. I was sewing so many layers, a couple of which I couldn't see, and accidently puckered the fabric or picked up a fold with the needle and had to pick out and redo the seams, oh, maybe 6 times total. I stayed up till midnight wrestling with it, and it is beautiful.

All of that after the crazy cast party (Caspian was a principle in a show this Friday, Saturday and Sunday), and slightly intoxicated, which might have helped cause some of the collar problems. I felt slightly out of place and unusually reserved at that party, despite being acquainted with quite a few people there. The Brazilian percussionists from the show came with their drums and tambourines, and the gathering became a sort of tribal, raving, raucous dance party complete with belly dancers. Like really, there were belly dancers invited, since they were in the show. I can be such a dance party pooper, for a dancer - I was not at all, NOT AT ALL in a dancy mood.

In the past, I would have probably forced myself go nuts with everybody else, as much as I didn't really want to, just because I was so sure that it was expected of me. But last night, I derived some sort of pleasure from standing in the background sipping my rosemary, watching, not even bouncing or nodding to those amazing bossa novas. Rebellion? Introversion? Who knows. They had a circle thing going on, where some person would work up enough courage (and enough of a buzz) to jump in front of the drummers and do a silly dance, like a rite of passage. I was unmoved.

I also picked through my collection of clothes over the weekend and chose an entire garbage bag full to donate, and... A portion of my 37 PAIRS OF SHOES. Apparently I have become one of THOSE women. I also managed to bleach and scrub the shower, bleach and scrub out the kitty litter tray, mop all of the floors, bake (and eat) strawberry shortcake (using local strawberries), attend one of Caspian's shows and go running a couple times. I need to start lifting again - I weighed 105 lbs. this morning and I'm definitely losing muscle mass.