Garment Design: Gourmet Edition

I did break down and make myself this
sleeveless maternity dress, even though I
was 8.5 months pregnant at the time.

I'm doing the thing right now, where I'm delaying making nice things for myself because I feel the need to clean my house first, and then I don't want to make anything for my body in this size, and feel like I should save that silk noil until I've lost a bit of chub. Which is why I don't sew enough clothes for myself.

But while I was obsessing over this false choice, I hit upon a metaphor, which demanded to be blogged. So here I am, to talk about Garment Design.

Sewing for your family is like cooking for your family. Buying clothes off the rack is like buying processed, ready-to-eat food. Hey, we're all busy moms, and mouths must be fed, bums must be covered, right? (Sometimes, if you're going to a really nice store when a cheap one would suffice, it's like eating out. And that's just something you have to do every now and then.) With the decline in teaching the art of sewing - why, school systems, did you ever banish Home Economics? - people turn to off-the-rack as the staple of their wardrobe, and I really feel like this is negatively affecting the nutritional content of our dressing habits, so to speak. There is a diminished ability to express personal style, the quality of off-the-rack clothing is usually fairly poor, and changing trends can make shopping a nightmare for the choosy wearer, or one with "special dietary needs" (i.e. a larger, curvier figure, or the opposite).

This is me just making stuff up

Next comes sewing your own. Here's where I start to sound snooty - the culinary equivalent of sewing from a pattern is baking a cake from a cake mix. The patterns are designed to end up just like off-the-rack clothing. That means that they are all drafted to fit a b-cup bust size, among other drawbacks. Some will have those helpful recipe add-in suggestions on the box, such as how to alter a bust-line, or lengthening and shortening lines. But unless you've trained yourself in pattern alterations, they're not going to be very personal.

It turned into a wedding dress for my sister, which was
supposed to look like it was stitched  out of leaves.

What I mostly do is like cooking from a good recipe book. I mix and match my patterns, taking a sleeve from here, a neckline from there, use a tiered skirt instead of a straight skirt, and I lengthen everything, like I always add extra butter to my food. Sometimes I'll improvise a pan sauce, drafting a new piece or slipping in a pocket, replacing the zipper with buttons. It gives a wider scope for my ideas to take shape, and it also cuts down on the number of patterns I have to store. If I really want to make something again, I'll start by drafting my FrankenPattern onto muslin, which clips together with a big safety pin and doesn't need to be pinned to your fabric when cutting.

OK, yes, that is a zipper. I made two ball gowns in one day,
all right? I had to take a short cut.

Every once in a while, when I want something really unique, I'll just make it all up, such the Zuko costume for my son. My daughters attend an English Country Dance once a year, which requires (well, it's "optional", but we're us) Regency Era Dress, and since authentic patterns are hard to come by, I look in my Patterns of Fashion reproduction manual, and drape the patterns right there on their bodies, which is loads of fun. True cooking from scratch.

The final option is Thrifting, which I consider to be the equivalent of foraging in the wild, or growing your own food. I'm bad at all of those, so I'm just going to give it a passing nod of utmost respect.

Tune in next time for a pompous discourse on sourcing your ingredients.

Charles

I think it's time to write a little post about my son. I have a lot of children. It can be confusing, especially when even though it seems like they won't hold still long enough to count them, you can't seem to get higher than six, but you're sure I told you I have seven. Where's the missing one?

He's in Heaven. He's up at the cemetery. He's in our hearts. We've explained it numerous ways to our children over the years, depending on context. And fielded all kinds of hilarious questions stemming from the difficulty in understanding the concept of Where Does Charles Live? Is the cemetery where Charles lives? Do I have a special place at the cemetery? Oh, he lives in heaven? Can I go to Heaven and see him? What if I lived at Heaven too?

Charles is my fourth child. Almost exactly six years ago, when he was two and a half, and my fifth child was a three-month-old infant, we were walking to the store, Jane strapped to my chest and Charles in the wagon behind me. It was two in the afternoon on a Wednesday, and we were walking on the sidewalk in a school zone. A truck full of hooligans high on drugs made a bad turn at an intersection, drove up onto the sidewalk and struck the wagon. Charles was killed instantly, Jane and I were totally unscathed.

Wow. It's hard to know where to go from there. Even six years later, I have too many thoughts and feelings that I want to share to pick one out and go with it. Maybe at this point, I just want to tell you about him, and also to clarify something that I think people who know me might have been thinking for some time now:

Charles and Max, his grampa, who
we hope are back together now.

Bob has been around much, much longer than Charles. Of course, anxiety, guilt, sorrow, and the whole package are Meat and Potatoes to Bob, and he's grown strong on them, but Charles' death wasn't Bob's birth. If anything, it's provided me with more tools to defeat and shut out Bob than any other event in my life. Which is weird, and I'm not even sure I can explain that.

Since this is a craft and depression blog, I'll tell you something that makes me sad, something I don't think I've ever mentioned to anyone before (so what better place to air my secret than The Internets, where anyone can see and it will be here for all time): I never made anything for Charles. He was my first boy, but he was a surprise boy - that is, going by the ultrasound pictures, we named him Jane and had a bunch of pink stuff ready and waiting. So the pretty flowered baby blanket I crocheted for him stayed in the closet, the baptism bonnet with lace somehow didn't get finished, and when Easter Dress Time rolled around, he got a new shirt from Target. He didn't even like dressing up, and he was only old enough to go Trick-or-Treating one Halloween.

Four children turned out to take up a lot of my time. That was when my making-things-thing started to tail off a bit. For example, I used to make Pysanky (Ukranian Easter Eggs) for my children and Godchildren during Lent every year, with their initials and the year on each one. I think I started one for Charles when he was two,

determined that he should have at least one, but I didn't finish it; over a year after I started it, the egg carton tipped over in the closet and the egg popped, and everything in the carton had to be discarded, very very quickly. So, when I take up that hobby again, the first egg I make will be in his memory.

This is a photo of me that appeared in
the local newspaper coverage of
Charles' funeral - hundreds of
people were there.

Now I feel like I should end this post with something positive and lovely, but I'm kind of coming up blank. I have a new reflection from this year's Easter Season, though. During Jesus' Last Supper prayer, he says "No greater love has any man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends." I was sad, at times, that I didn't have even one second in which to try and save my son, even at the expense of my own life. People would say "wow, it's so lucky that you and Jane survived!" and I took it as graciously as I could, even though everything in me wanted to retort "Oh yeah? Lucky for whom?" I've never in my life been suicidal, but there have been long, long stretches of time where I wished I was dead.

And finally this year it clicked into place for me. One doesn't have to die in order to lay down one's life. Lucky for whom? For my children who were still with me. For Paul and Silas, who weren't born yet. For my husband, who may not have been able to take the loss of two children and a wife, but who bore up under the heavy loss of a son, with the help of his wife.

And for my friends. For all the people I love, I don't just die. I lay down my life by living it.

Hey Bob, am I a good Blogger or a bad Blogger?

...or is the proper term "Blogress?"

So I haven't written anything in ages. Thing is, I'm a choir director and organist and homeschooling Mom. that means May is Hell. Well, no, because it's also awesome, but I feel like I need to just get through it. First Communion Masses, weddings, graduations, Confirmation Mass, plus all the usual stuff. At least with Easter being super late this year, I have until June to plan for the last four Big Feasts before the choir takes a break for the summer.

I have two happy updates:

One, I am on pattern repeat number 29 of 31 on my lace. It is nearly done! It is also a lot warmer than I expected it to be. It already stretches from one elbow to the other, and it is as soft as a cloud.

Two, I attended my last session of therapy, at least for a while. My therapist says he'll miss me, but it is a long drive, and I just go there to talk about how well things are going and how much happier I've been. So, until things take a turn for the worse, I'm all done with that.

So, yes. Not much of an entry, but I feel like it was a milestone I should mention.

On Easter Dresses: or, Why Do We Tear Each Other Down When We Could Build Each Other Up Instead?

When I was a very young mom, with no car and few social skills, all the women I knew were either single college students or the wives of my only-just-former college professors and had busy schedules and a million children. As a result, I was alone, a lot. My husband had two jobs and was trying to finish college himself, so he had only so much to give me, and my baby was All Things Miraculous, but even she couldn't talk in full sentences until she was 18 months old, plus she is an introvert. She didn't like even mamma getting all up in her space.

So I learned how to sew.

It was an uphill road. Being the clever person that I am, I assumed I knew better than the pattern designers, mostly because I didn't acknowledge things like grain lines, and my early efforts were mostly Lessons Learned The Hard Way, and not actual usable pieces of clothing. But because I was lonely, bored and desperate, I kept at it. I probably learned twenty or so lessons The Hard Way before I produced a single thing I could use or wear.

One of the things I have continually dedicated myself to over the years is the creation of Easter Dresses. I love Easter, and all the things it promises. I didn't have the budget to make it more special than Christmas in the same manner as Christmas, so I had to get creative (my specialty!) and one of the ways was to make matching dresses for all the girls, beginning with my first and myself. (I stopped making dresses for myself after two, though.)

Easter Skirts

As my skills developed, the dresses got nicer and nicer. My adorable three little girls all had completely different coloring - a blond with grey eyes, a redhead and all that that entails, and a dark brunette with alabaster skin. My approach was to find the same print in different colors, and make dresses from the same pattern. In later years, when they started to have vastly differing tastes in clothing, I went exactly the other way, and started choosing a color palette, and making them totally different styles of dress. But I kept it up, year after year, even if it meant doing everything during Holy Week. It is a project that means a lot to me.

Well, one year my ever-expanding repertoire of skillz reached the stage of including smocking, thanks to one of my crafting gurus - Maureen, who also helped teach me to quilt and has inspired me in so many other ways. I was pregnant and feeling sick during Lent, so I spent many hours curled up in my chair, hand-smocking some muslin panels. It's probably the earliest I ever started on dresses, and it took a lot of time, but the results were deeply satisfying, and I dressed them in t heir smocked dresses whenever I had an excuse.

One day I took them to the library, because our wonderful dear children's librarian had asked me specifically to show her my Easter Dresses. In we filed, splendidly arrayed in smocked dresses and little white gloves and straw hats with matching ribbons. (Hey, when you go to that much trouble, you take it all the way, right?) It was Story Time Day, so a lot of other moms were there, and one said to me "Please don't tell me you smocked those dresses by hand." So proud of myself, I told her that I did.

She said "I hate you."




Looking back on it, I know why she said it, and she meant to be funny, I'm sure. She was tired, she had that difficult blend of older children that keep you running and tiny babies that keep you up at night, and she is also a woman that loves beautiful things - she grows a lovely garden in the spring - and not enough time to fulfill that love. She didn't know what I gave up to make those dresses, because it's not like I go around showing people pictures of my mountain of laundry or the unswept kitchen or the uncategorized piles of papers and books... I sacrificed to make this a priority. I knew she didn't mean it. But wow, did it hurt. In fact, I'm sure she's forgotten the incident completely. (Hey, it might be you!)




The Thing is, just as we don't see those background sacrifices, that different ordering of priorities, we also don't see what kind of power our words can have. I carried that "I hate you" around for a long time in my heart, believing that I must have done something wrong, that my creative drive was somehow blameworthy because of the things I let go. I often lock myself into a place where I'm "not allowed" to make anything or buy anything until I've done X amount of housework. It never works. In fact, one time I actually got my entire house clean AT THE SAME TIME but still didn't sew because of the guilt block. Every time I sat down to make something, I felt badly. That "I hate you" became the Voice of Bob. He was right on top of that one. Alongside "You never finish what you start," it's one of my most deeply rooted Bobisms.


I'm working on it, though. I'm learning to let myself be, to recognize what people mean when they say things like that. And I'm trying to be very, very careful about what I say when I wish I could do what someone else can do.

My beautiful Audrey, recycling dresses from
last year. This year, I actually DIDN'T MAKE ANY,
and my lovely Helen wore this dress.

On Getting Bored

There are two virtues I associate with creativity: Cooperation with inspiration, and Perseverance. Correspondingly, there are two blocks to creativity: failure to respond, and Getting Bored. These two features of being a creative person are often at war with each other, in my case, in this particular way:

Lace Stole as of April 11

Me: Oh, I bet this hat would look cool if it was made out of such and such a yarn...

Bob: Don't you already have a project going? You can't start a new project until you finish your old project, otherwise you'll never finish. You never finish anything you start. (This is one of Bob's favorite proverbs.)

Me: Oh, OK, well I'll just sit down and finish my old project so I can get to my new idea... yeah... old project...

New Project: Hey, over here! I'm flashy and interesting, and I won't take long...

Old Project: Look at me, I'm familiar, and comfortable! You can follow my pattern without thinking now, it's like second nature!

Bob: This new project is irresponsible. This old project is boring. Knitting is dumb. Go wash the dishes.

Me: (washing dishes) Maybe if I had two different colours of self-striping yarn... 

Anyway, there's a lot going on in my head. My lace stole looks much the same as it did, only somewhat longer. It's true that I can now follow the pattern without thinking, and I barely need to check the chart now, but it's also true that it's getting long enough to be unwieldy when I go out, and the hairiness of the yarn makes it a bad outdoor project.

And then I saw the Entrelac Hat. Oh wow, it was cool. Furthermore, I could sort of make it an old project: see, I have this yarn. I bought it to make my eldest daughter a Christmas present, but I bought it without inspiration, only liking the colour combination. I had a vague idea for a project, but after multiple attempts, I just surrendered, showed her the yarn, and promised her an item made from it when I thought of a good one. And when I saw the Entrelac Hat, I knew what I was going to do.

My uninspired Bag of Yarn

Entrelac is a knitting technique where you make a bunch of small squares, working back and forth in very short rows, and connecting them as you go. The end result looks like knitted bands woven together. While you're working, it looks very odd indeed. I wasn't so sure I'd picked a good pattern at the start, but after a couple of tiers of blocks, I knew I was on to something. There's no picture with this pattern, so here's the one I made:

I did it slightly differently, of course - I got really bored with the ribbing right off the bat, so I didn't bother with the turning ridge, I just did twelve rows of ribbing and went from there. (Oh, and I had to learn a new, stretchy cast on method in order to make this, too! Yay, new skillz!) Then, I alternated between turquoise and purple yarn for the A colour changes.

My plan was to have a small project for my car-knitting bag (the hat) and a home project for watching TV and drinking tea (the stole). But instead, I started the hat on Tuesday and finished it on Thursday. And got only one pattern repeat done on my lace this week. Again. But that's OK! I have no deadline on my lace. I knit for fun and relaxation. As long as it is fun and relaxing, I can continue to strive for balance between Inspiration and Perseverance. I can't let Bob take it away from me.

Notes on the pattern: I used a worsted weight yarn, and had to use size 9 needles to get the suggested gauge. While I'm happy with the result, if you examine it closely, or you have a friend like Bob who will examine it closely for you, you will see that the gaps in the ribbing are pretty large, and where the squares join together, the edges look pretty ragged, and it wasn't because I knit loosely. I think that this problem could be solved by using a chunkier yarn, or by using smaller needles and increasing the number of blocks in each tier to get the right size. The adjustment would be pretty easy - you cast on 5 sts for each block. Next time I make it, I'm going to use a finer yarn and tiny needles, and see if it comes out baby or toddler size.

Sunday Inspiration (In Which I Send You To Someone Else's Article)

It's Sunday, and let me tell you, I take my Day of Rest seriously. So instead of writing my own thoughts, I'm going to send you to this article instead, which resonated so deeply with my thoughts and experience that it could have come straight from my own head, except that my thoughts aren't that organized.

It's about body image, being fat, and thinking you're worthless for something not essential to yourself (something I struggle with). When I was a kid, I was told I was "Ruben-esque," "Edwardian," or even "voluptuous" (don't tell my mom about that one). I've been actually complimented on my womanly physique, by people who really meant it. But it always rang in my head as mere euphemisms for Fat.

But now I realize something. Ever hear the word "dysphemism?" It's one of my favorite words - it's a mean way of saying something that isn't bad, just as a euphemism is a nice way of saying something unpleasant. A racial slur is a kind of dysphemism. And what I realize now is that "Fat" is just a dysphemism for... all those nice (and factual) descriptions above.

Intro Post - Longer than Usual, I Promise.

Hi, welcome to my blog! I’m Kathleen, and I like real things. I like my toys made out of wood and fabric, my food made out of butter, wine, organic produce and fresh herbs, and my clothing custom made from natural fibers. Because of this, I tend to just make things myself. I find great satisfaction and peace in making things with my own two hands, using only the finest real components. However, I’m also a realist, and to be honest, there’s a lot of plastic in my life, both literal and figurative. I’m not totally hardcore – I make my own deodorant and toothpaste, but I use shampoo and shaving cream. And that’s OK.

Now that you know a bit about me, I’d like to introduce you to my friend Bob. Bob sits on my couch and sleeps in my bed and rides in the passenger seat of my car. He is very clever, and he gives me a lot of advice, since he knows so many things. For example, he knows that if I spent less money on fabric and crafting supplies that I’m probably not going to get around to using, maybe we could afford a bigger house. However, a bigger house would be a bad idea because I’m such a lousy housekeeper. And since I’m such a lousy housekeeper, I shouldn’t be wasting my time on sewing, quilting, knitting and all those other things, I should be doing a better job of what’s important, like exercising and eating right so I can be a valuable attractive person whose body shows no signs of age or the bearing of seven children. But he also knows that that will never happen, because I am a fat and worthless slob who isn’t very good at making things anyway, and I may as well give in, and eat chocolate in my messy house and play video games instead of doing anything “productive” (productive of what, anyway? Silly homemade stuff that no one wants?).

See, Bob is my depression. His voice is very different from my voice, but sometimes he talks so loud I get confused. So I gave him a name to help me distinguish him from me. Now I’m working on ending our relationship. I knew it had gone too far when I didn’t want to make things any more. Every time I thought of making something, I was filled with… nothing. Apathy. Sluggishness. Anything but inspiration (and I’m a total slave to my muse – more on that later). So, to be quite blunt, I shoved myself into therapy and started taking drugs. And now, I’m going to help myself save myself by turning back to my beautiful things.

I named this blog after the ancient Silk Road trading route, a long, arduous and dangerous journey that people took to obtain and trade beautiful things. (Well, and money too, but I’m not focusing on that.) I like the idea that beautiful things are worth pursuing. I also believe in the saving power of work. Making things for my family is better than buying things for my family because making things is a labor of love. (OK, Shopping is labor too, but I grumble the whole time, so there goes the redemptive power.) So, here is a place for me to share my work, delight in beauty, talk about depression, and maybe inspire and get inspired along the way.

This is probably the most personal I’ll ever get. I hope you enjoy my work.