So, I took 2 years of Clothing classes in high school. I could have and should have learned more than I did. See, there was this woman: Mrs. LaDawn Porter. She is a genius. Genius I tell you. She knew everything there was to be know about sewing machines, patterns, tailoring, hemming, altering, etc. And what did I learn from her? I learned that if you took your project to her after each step she would pin it for you and tell you exactly what to do. So, instead of LEARNING. I chose simply to do the steps and not remember them. Brilliant. NOT.
And now, here I am with a skirt I made by tracing around another skirt I bought and then adding a seam allowance. My pattern was shoddy. But my craftmanship was worse. The good news is, my pattern was better than one I saw Justin Stubbs use in Clothing 2. He'd traced a pair of pants. Problem: he was wearing them at the time. At least I didn't sit on my fabric and try to trace my skirt. That was the good news.
I started my project on Sunday night. My skirt was coming along fine, I sewed up the sides no problem and then I sewed an elastic at the top. The real conundrum was the hem. So, Monday I showed it to my mom. She told me how to iron up the hem and then she cautioned: "But don't use that white thread on it... your skirt's brown, Megan." So, I went down to my collection of sewing materials. I have piles of fabric collected from my great aunts' various garage sales, DI, and stuff my mom was going to give to DI. I also have a bunch of old bobbins from my mother and mother in law. I have a few (i.e. 5) spools of thread that must be leftovers from high school or else accidentally stolen from my mom. But no brown thread.
I was faced with a decision: wait until I can go to JoAnn's and purchase thread (which would also require waiting until October so I can get my new allowance to pay for the thread) or just sew the hem with my white thread. Since I was already dying to finish the skirt (I just don't get sewing time very often with the cleaning and the laundry and the child and the husband and all) I opted for option 2. I sewed up that hem and it looks awful. Lucky for me, I'm learning to be okay with mediocrity. I might just wear that skirt to school today.
But still, it would be nice to have Mrs. Porter in my sewing room--if only to remind me that the hem really should match the fabric.
5 comments:
Are you getting all artsy-fartsy on me?! What a cool collage of your eyes and nose! How did you do that?
Not artsy, just fartsy. jk. The cool collage was me pretending to be Andy Warhol with my brother's new ibook. I don't covet. I just really really really wish that I had an ibook of my own. Or is that the same thing? Anyway, it has a built in camera and a program called photo-booth. I'm definitely not smart enough to do something like that on my own.
This post is CLASSIC. I loved Mrs Porter. And I love the visual of Justin making his pants pattern.
I am sure your skirt is fabulous. you can always take a brown marker and color the white thread brown ;)
I love reading your blog Megs!
Oh, sewing 2. I took sewing 2 without taking sewing 1. Mrs. Porter LOVED me cause I didn't know ANYTHING about sewing. I tried to learn--honest. :) I think you should post a pic of your new skirt!
Hi!!! I'm back.
So I did the same thing with Mrs. Porter. I actually ended up taking advanced sewing first because it was the only free period I had, so she had to talk me through every little thing and I learned nothing. Wait, I take that back. I learned to thread the machines at school which I promptly forgot. I can't sew a single thing now without using my mom or Kris's mom just like Mrs. Porter and asking what to do between every tiny step! The only bonus is that there isn't usually a line to wait in to see one of my moms. Well, usually.
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