Less Confident Now

Okay so I just opened the pattern for Kate’s Halloween costume and am totally overwhelmed. What the hell was I thinking?

There are two huge sheets of onion paper with all these letters and numbers and lines on them–and to make the costume number and size variants even more complex, it’s all written in several languages. This costume would be a great team-building activity for a UN off-site.

Under a cheery headline entitled “Simply the Best Sewing Techniques for Fur Fabrics” it says that in order to get the seams to lie flat with “heavier fur fabrics” you may need to “shear away” some of the pile and “pound with a heavy object to keep seams and edges flat.” Pound the fabric? I can’t help but think that instruction is there for us rookies to see if we actually take the bait and do something as ridiculous as that. I mean, how does Suzy Homemaker sew a costume while her kid is napping if pounding is required?

Anyway, I might not even need to pound. Is the fur I got considered heavier? What is the baseline one uses to determine where their fur fits on the heaviness scale?

And as if it’s totally easy to figure out what part of the pattern you need and what you don’t and then how to cut it and pin it to the fabric and cut that and sew it all together then actually have it fit your kid, the only instructional illustration they have in the whole pattern is a little line drawing of a woman’s hand and a mallet pounding a furry seam. Of everything required here I think I could figure out how to pound the fur, thank you very much. Now that I’m looking at it again, maybe the pounder in the drawing is a judge and she’s repurposed her gavel for fur-flattening purposes. (One never gets to use the word gavel often enough.)

Speaking of words, what the hell are selvages?

Oy. I fear that I might have gotten myself into a bit of a pickle. Ah well, I only spent $35 on all this. Probably twice what it would have cost to buy a costume that’s ready to wear.

She’s Crafty

In my waning days of stay-at-home-momdom, it appears I’m trying to overachieve and/or just prove my mettle. Give me a soccer mom of the highest rank and I will go toe to toe with her!

So, a couple days ago I went to a fabric store and put myself at the mercy of a nice gay man who worked there. “I’m a total rookie. I have no idea how to do this. Can you please help me?”

I’d picked out a pattern to make a Halloween costume for Kate. As in sew a costume. And for starters I needed help even figuring out what fabric to get, where it was in the store, how much I needed—the basics.

I could claim never to have sewn anything in my life, and I think my skill level pretty much puts me there, but I did make a red corduroy skirt once. I took a brief sewing class as an elective in Middle School and the result was a simple A-line skirt.

Oddly the skirt as unmemorable as it was, does bring up a strong memory of my mother’s mom. I’d cut out the fabric for the skirt and had the pattern pinned onto it (like you do). It was on the kitchen table one morning, ready for me to bring to school. My grandmother was visiting and she mistakenly spilled a glass of orange juice on it. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I remember my mother being really upset with how I reacted.

It’s one of those memories that still triggers a strong emotion in me. After I said or did whatever it was I said or did I felt terrible. I’d managed to make my poor sweet Bopchi feel even worse about what was obviously an accident, and ultimately didn’t harm the fabric or pattern at all. God, the woman is long dead and thinking about that still gets me! I’m sorry, Bopchi! I know you didn’t mean to!

Anyway, I’m not sure exactly how expertly the skirt was eventually assembled but I remember I wore it a few times—so at the very least it did manifest into an actual wearable garment.

So, how hard can it be to make a Halloween costume? People sew all the time, right? The nice gay man showed me to the “craft fur” section in the store and I selected some that didn’t have a scratchy back. I got some no-roll elastic for the cuffs, and even some cotton to line one part of it. Once I was in the groove of picking everything out, it felt like I actually started the project and I was buoyed by a false sense of early accomplishment.

But by yesterday I was telling friends that at 4PM on Halloween day I’d likely be sending Mark off to Target with urgent instructions to buy a costume–any costume they have!–just so she’ll have something to wear. Of course, I was telling friends that, but it was mostly false modestly. I was secretly thinking, how hard can this be? The pattern is made by Simplicity, after all.

On Sunday, Sheryl is bringing her sewing machine over for me to borrow. Hopefully I’ll have the fabric cut out by then and she can show me a move or two and get me going. Project Runway, here I come!

I’ll have to remember to warn Mark to steer clear of my workspace with his OJ.