wienerdog tricks.

Where I Make A Movie About Making a Purse, At The End of Which You Will Probably Not Be Able To Make A Purse

I decided to videotape myself making something. Actually, it wasn't a decision--it was an event. I had the thought, "I wanna make a purse" and then I hit "record" and started talking.

Here's a clip about the video piece, "Ginger Has An Idea About Making a Purse," to make you:

        A) Want to watch it    

        B) Wonder why anyone would do this [especially in their Effectual PJ's]  

        C) Want to go make something  

        D) All of the the above

Answer: D.

The full "video piece" (not sure yet what to call it. Not a movie. Not a film. The word "video" makes it sound like a VHS tape.) is right here. You can just click on this link and you'll get to it. This is where to click. 

And this is what I would say after having shot it and put it together:

1) It's long. I mean, unless you are close enough to know my middle name (well, both of them), you are probably not going to watch it in its entirety. OH WORSE--if you ARE this close to me, you're going to feel like you HAVE to watch it and will then have to LIE to me about it. Shoot.

2) Filming from below one's neck highlights one's multiple chins.

3) I should have added some sort of surgeon generals warning about the Need for Dramamine to the opening. Watching it is like seeing something put together by J.J. Abrams or the earliest episodes of ER.

4) When I am making something ABOUT making something, I am a seriously happy human form. Not kidding. Dangit. I had a really good time doing this. I was thinking of you the whole time. For reals.

[insert clip of my good friends shaking their heads while they wildly call each other to coordinate a brief intervention that might involve medication and plans for special "girls relaxation weekends" where we soak our feet and "let off steam."]

Go make something.

I Stopped Fighting with my Granny

The kids were watching Soul Surfer across the room, and I was trying to pretend to be a part of Friday night Movie Night, but all I wanted to do was work on this one quilt that's captured my attention since it arrived in the original pile.

I'd pin basted it (after finally figuring out that it takes more than like 10 pins to do this well. Oh--and blue tape. Somebody finally told me about blue tape and how it helps make everything stop being so godforsakingly skootchy. Probably her, who I really appreciate.)

And I knew I was going to quilt right within the edges of the stars. I'm a fan of that little line on the foot--it's not 1/4" (any Real quilter will tell you--but this stumps me. Why isn't it? And also--why does it need to be?) but it does the work of Steady There as I trace the shapes. 

So I was making my way through the midle of the quilt and all its funky, puffed-up, made-out-of-her-old-dresses stars. But I could tell I needed more stitching to make the thing really stick. 

I started at the corners. There is a nifty place where each block meets and makes a sort of square. So I started sewing squares.

I say "started" because it took me like one "square" to recognize that there was nothing square-ish about them. And the more of them I sewed, the more my quilting of this 50-year-old top was just a big fat fight with with somebody besides my Granny's definition of a square. 

And after sewing about four freakish rombuses trying to tell myself that the unsquared squares were square, I stopped. Set it aside. Didn't like the feeling of fighting with my Granny.

I picked up the quilt the other day and looked at the non-square squares and saw it: triangles. They were right there. Four triangles.

So I'm quilting triangles in the corners now. They celebrate the fast-moving, devil-may-care attitude of my hand-stitching Great Grandmother. From sitting with her quilt tops, they speak clearly of her absolute love for making a quilt block. She lived so far away that I never was with her to see her do this. but the tops themselves seem like almost an afterthought--or really just a way for her to organize her blocks.

And I am absolutely so relieved and warmed to see that my love of Wonk seems now proven to be thoroughly genetic and not at all some boat-missing aberration. 

I am from the island of That's Four Triangles Not a Square. Please do stop by any time.

 

I Look So Much Better Than the Last Time You Saw Me

It's because I hemmed all my pants.

 
You can do this. 

The thing is, I've been trouncing around with slouchy hems for quite some time now. I would say that not only did it not bother me, but that in my mind it was part of my whole "comfortable-dress-like-myself" Style. (The formula for which is denim + jersey cotton + old polyester/and/or/some fabric which is in some way connected to the elderly or the mentally ill.)

So I've not been walking around with slouchy hems feeling at all self-conscious. I won't lie: I didn't care.

Even when my pal [just added her link bc she started posting again and you should cook everything she tells you to.] said to me, "You need to hem your jeans." And that says a lot because this particular friend Knows things like that. She doesn't bother with offering directives where they are not necessary. AND so as to be perfectly clear that she doesn't whisk up to everybody she knows telling them what to do with their trousers, I will disclose here that she has spent a Saint's Amount of Minutes with me talking about what I should wear to where and how to pay for it and why. She is a Clothing Confidante of mine. Just saying--she's earned the right to tell me what to do with my hems.

But I ignored even her. (Sorry, A.)

Then. 

I saw a woman.

At my sons' school.

About my age.

With jeans sort of cuffed up.

(I didn't know her.)

She looked like a regular person on the top half.

And like she forgot to fix her pants on the bottom half.

And I went immediately to my computer and googled "How to hem jeans." And--you already know this--there are roughly 4.92 kathousand and a half tutorials on how to do this. Because, in fact, it's super easy. And, in fact, you don't have to pay a seamstress (who would have done you a good service and so who it would not be unreasonable to pay) to do this for you. I used this tutorial and found it just lovely and perfectly helpful.

It's just a quick pinch and stitch. No seam ripping. No giving your jeans some lame "I will grow into these pants my mom got me someday" sort of a look. 

So I'm writing to say 1) I did it. 2) If you're My Age, um, you might should probably too--nothingpersonalandall. I'm just saying that you don't have to pay anybodies for it and that you might find your personal Jean Self-Esteem soaring after said sewing-related activity. But I'm not judging you--and, in fact, if you are under 40 somehow you don't have to bother with these sorts of necessities because somehow the Universe (thanks to Oprah or whoever is in charge--not Dr. Phil, probably someone who has more than one question to ask) has allowed everybody's eyes to divert away from details like slouchy hems but somehow when you cross the 40 Threshold, all eyes start to question strangeties like this one aforementioned herein.I'm just trying to Be Here For You.