When I was a 16 or 17, and learning to sew, my mother gave me a pattern for a halter top.  I loved it and set out to make it, even though I’ve learned in the intervening years that heavy-chested women shouldn’t necessarily wear halter tops.  I got all the pieces cut out, set up the sewing machine, and went to work.  I probably worked on that top, a fairly simple pattern, for four or five hours and when I was done, I ran to the bathroom to try it on.  Imagine my surprise when my awesome halter top didn’t fit right.  No, that’s an understatement, it didn’t fit at all.  It gaped open in the front, showing my ta-tas to the world, while the armpits were restrictive to the point of painful.

Rather than taking it off, I stormed into the living room, one arm over my chest, and frowned at my mother.  Mom burst into laughter and when she got that out of her system she informed me that I had sewn the armpits together in the front and the front to the armpits.  You see, the top was three parts, the torso and two breast pieces. The breast pieces had a long side and a short side.  Rather than sewing the short sides together at the front, I sewed the long sides together, which accounts for the gaping chest area. I spent an hour and a half ripping out all the seams on the top and pinning it back together the right way.  I got it fixed, but that story’s stuck with me.

So, why am I regaling you with my tale of halter tops gone wrong?  Simple, I’m going to dip my toes in the sewing pool once more. I’m going to attempt to learn (re-learn?) to sew!  I don’t currently own a sewing machine, but I plan to buy one this week.  I’m going to get the Brother XL2610 from Amazon.com.  It’s gotten excellent reviews and it’s pink (that’s it over there on the right), what more could a girl want?!  I’ve been looking around and I think this is the best machine for the money.  I thought about getting a Singer, which is what Melanie has, or a Kenmore, which is what my mother has, but I really like the Brother the best. I consulted with my local sewing sage (read: Melanie) and she agrees that it’s a good machine.  Yay!!

I’m ordering it from Amazon, rather than buying it locally because it’s not available here and the Amazon price is great.  Once I get it, I’ll go shopping for accessories, like scissors, pins and pincushion, things like that.  I can’t wait, I’m really excited to pick this back up.  While I never was great at it, I think that now, with a bit of attention to detail, I could be really great at it.  I find I’m much better at things now a days then I was when I was a teen.  I mean, I couldn’t cook and now I’m a really good cook.  I couldn’t cross-stitch and now I’m pretty okay at it, even though I never do it. I think this will be the same.

I plan to start small, with straight seams and make things like bags, aprons or simple skirts, things like that. I also don’t plan to wear anything I sew until I’m good at it and can have faith in my ability to make something that will hold up. I’ll definitely take pictures when I finally do get started making something!

Ultimately, a lot of the reason I’ve decided to take up this particular hobby is my grandmother.  My grandma Wilma was a great seamstress, she was really, really great at it.  My mom is also a great seamstress, though I don’t think she’s sewn anything in years.  When we were kids, mom use to make us these really cute baby-doll shirts that we loved.  Now that my grandma’s gone, I feel myself drawn toward this hobby because it’s something I can learn that will help me feel close to her.  I’ve been assured that doesn’t sound creepy by both Matt and Melanie, so if it does, I’m sorry, blame them.

Besides, screwing up simple patterns has been a fond childhood memory for me.  You should hear the story about the palazzo pants!  I’m the only person I know who can repeat the same damn mistake over and over.  I kept sewing one leg on inside out, I did it four times before finally giving up on those stupid pants. Never making pants again, no joke there! No really, even now… never making pants again!

Off to shop for sewing books and dream of my first sewing project.  Good night!

I wanted to share these pics I took on the way home from Plainview. We were on Texas Highway 6, between Carbon and Gorman when I spotted a rainbow.  There had been a summer storm in Central Texas just before we’d made it there and  Matt said he had been able to see the rainbow from the Interstate, but I’d been asleep.  I took some while the car was moving, but none of them came out well. So, because Matt had driven the entire drive home and was tired, we stopped to switch drivers at the side of the highway and I took these pics before moving on. We were only about an hour and a half from home.

As always, you can click the images to see them larger if you like. I thought they were pretty and honestly, I felt very encouraged seeing that rainbow given that we had just attended my grandmother’s funeral. When I downloaded the pics from my camera today, I felt fairly encouraged again.  So, I wanted to share. I used photoshop to balance the photo’s levels so it would be more crisp, but overall my camera takes pretty good pics!

I slept in late today and woke up thinking how grateful I am that this last week is over. Its been a long, hard week and though its meant being able to see my family, something for which I am always thankful, its also meant grieving. Grieving makes me tired, not just physically, but also emotionally, never mind the long drive to Plainview and back, only to turn around and have to go to Waco. All trips were fairly nice, as short trips go, and taken by themselves would have been fine, but all together made for a nightmare week. I actually feel bad feeling like that, though, since my folks left home last Saturday, drove all the way from California to Texas over the course of two days, stayed two days, and turned around to drive all the way back to California. They had a much more tiring week than me, I’m sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m tired.

Part of the problem, I think, is that its been such a terrible summer.  Matt and I have struggled these last three months more than we ever have before.  The weekend after I decided not to go to school over the summer, which meant for the first time in 5 years we wouldn’t have summer financial aid money, our range/stove died.  I should have taken it for a sign of horrible things to come, but as pissed as I was and as little as I could ignore the irony that literally days after I decided not to go to summer school for the first time in years something bad happens, I still went ahead with the plan to work all summer and skip on classes. Classes I didn’t at all need, mind you, as I’ll already be well over the number of hours required for my MA by the time I graduate.  No point in paying for something I’m not going to need anyway.

It’s not even just the stove, it’s the fact that my glasses have been going out of prescription for nearly three months but I’ve not really had the time, or money, to go to the eye doctor.  Work has been jerking me around, school financial aid has been being uncooperative, and my tooth got so infected that I had to bite the bullet and go to the doctor only to find out that I need a root canal, which are very freaking expensive!  My grandmother’s been very sick, which meant taking trips to Plainview.  Those trips were actually one of the higher, and lower, points of the summer because I got to see my Grandparents, my folks, my sister and my aunt, but the circumstances sucked.

School’s finally back in on August 30th and I’ve never been so happy to see a semester coming, especially one where I’m going to be taking 9 hours and working as a grad assistant.  I’m going to be busier than I’ve ever been before, but maybe that’s what I need.  What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger… right?  So maybe running the summer gauntlet has prepared me for what’s to come?  Yeah, okay, I don’t really believe that saying, I also don’t think this summer prepared me for anything but being thankful that it’s nearly over!

I’m taking this next week off work, I need the time to recoup from the summer from hell before school’s back in.  Instead, I’m going to do the laundry, clean the house, and go through the dresser and get rid of old clothes I don’t wear to make room for the clothes I do.  It isn’t like I’m going to be sitting around all week doing nothing, I’m just not going to be sitting in front of the computer all week.  Maybe I’ll also work on my novel some.  I might write a little bit, I need to get an article submitted for Blissfully Domestic so I can stay active with them, and I might write a bit for demand, but only when I feel like it. That way, it’s less of a job and more of a hobby… ah, the things I tell myself to get by.