Pink of Perfection

I used to have a very clear sense of personal style, and it involved a cadre of $20 vintage sundresses. But as my early twenties turned into my late twenties, sometimes these bare dresses seemed a tad too costumey and young. My style needed to grow up, if only by an inch or two.

I have been slow to convert to separates, in part because I do not have that magical skill of grabbing this, grabbing that, and putting something together that is chic and surprising and utterly right. I like the grab-and-go appeal of dresses. But after a long visionary planning session with a friend, I now see the virtue of a-line wrap skirts and crisp cotton blouses and low-v t-shirts. Especially because I am in love with the wrap skirt in Diana Rupp’s Sew Everything Workshop.

This one turned out a little less perfectly than my first try, made last year in a light summery linen. Perhaps I was less confident without my mom at my side to troubleshoot. I did learn some important sewing lessons, though, ones I will swear by on all future projects.

1. Tackle a project bit by bit, an hour here, and hour there (that 5-hour window of free time never seems to materialize anyway).
2. When you start to get frustrated, do not soldier on. Take a break and come back to it with fresh eyes.
3. A sloppily cut pattern will result in sloppily pinned fabric, which will in turn, end up as a sloppily sewn seam. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but slapdash work along the way will turn into a slapdash looking skirt.

Wonkiness aside, I’m proud of this skirt. I am consistently amazed by the miracle of sewing. What sort of genius invented that machine, which makes no sense to me in its separate parts, yet somehow works? I do not, apparently, excel at spatial reasoning, my brain working overtime to envision the flatness of the fabric being transformed into a new form with shape and movement. It is so cool. And then there is that sense of involvement that just never gets old to me: having a hand in creation, actively crafting instead of mindlessly purchasing. I love that feeling of hunkering down into a process, sinking my teeth into the making of a skirt, and in some small way, the making of a life.

A big leap there, I know, and I hope I didn’t lose you. But it’s the same thing we’re always talking about here in roundabout ways but which maybe hasn’t been explicitly mentioned lately. These “lifestyle blogs” aren’t just trying to make you feel like your life should be art directed and perfect, that you should be taking the time to squeeze a gallon of lime juice for your next fiesta and if you’re not you’ve got your priorities all screwed up. At least this one isn’t. This blog is about bringing attention the thing things we care about, creating a life that means something because we’re actively creating its delights.

When we’re making dinner and making things, we’re engaged in a process––slipping in via small, unassuming access points to bring a meaningful attention to our lives. We can certainly bring that same attention to waiting in line at Taco Bell for our nachos bell grande, but somehow––maybe it’s the hairnets and the muzak––it’s easier to tune out there. But when we have the cheese grater and the knife right in our own hands, when we hold the scissors and sharp pins, there’s no choice but to pay attention, to bring awareness to our days and how we’re living them. Which, at their ordinary best, can involve chowing down on homemade Mexican food in really cute, imperfectly-sewn skirts.

Quilting for Peace is, in my estimation, the best kind of craft book. It contains 15 simple, flexible patterns to get you piecing together a quilt of your own. But as creative people know, the magic of crafting doesn’t come from the simple how-to instructions but the stories surrounding the process. In the case of Quilting for Peace, these are stories told by quilters different in every way but united in “a firm belief in justice and people’s responsibility for each other; and a faith in patchwork’s ability to absorb the maker’s care, respect, and on occasion outrage, and to let whoever touches the quilt feel those as well.” To enter a giveaway for the book, click here.

How did you learn to quilt?

About eight years ago, my mom showed me the basics of piecing and tying so that I could make a baby quilt for a friend’s first child. After that I taught myself pretty much everything I needed to know with the help of a Singer machine-quilting paperback from the Eighties. I’m learning how to hand-piece now.

What inspired you to write Quilting for Peace?

A little bit of healthy competition with the knitters. I loved Knitting for Peace and wanted to show that quilters did just as much to make the world a better place. I was also inspired by an exhibit I saw at the New England Quilt Museum about nineteenth-century quilters who used their craft to provoke social change as well as to comfort those in need. They used their quilts, for example, as a way to participate in politics, work for social justice, and raise money for the causes they believed in.

You conducted interviews with dozens of people to write the essays in Quilting for Peace. What was that process like?

The quilters I talked to were so different from each other in many ways—women (and a couple of men) from ages 15 to 80-something, on four continents and in 14 U.S. states; quilters who are liberal and conservative, who live on farms and in suburbs, in city apartments and even on a houseboat, some of whom have been quilting for decades and others who have only recently learned to sew. And yet they share a remarkably similar way of looking at the world: a mix of pragmatism, hope, and determination, an instinct for what’s needed in the face of sorrow or tragedy, the resourcefulness to make things happen with little money and on short notice, a sense of humor, and a knack for rallying others. I admire them all a great deal. I wish quilters were in charge of everything!

Continue reading “Quilting for Peace with Katherine Bell” »

eiffel tower fabric at reprodepot

Did you know that something like 98.9% of clutter is from projects you intended to tackle, but didn’t? I mean, haven’t yet. I believe it, because I’m embarrassed to admit what’s coming up in this next sentence, but I’m nothing if not brave (insofar as confessing things on the internet is a sign of bravery):

I bought pillow inserts two years ago with the intention of finding the perfect fabric, covering them, and placing them proudly at each end of the couch. Since then, they have been moved from room to room, closet to closet, and finally, perhaps most embarrassingly, placed at either end of the sofa, uncovered. A year ago.

As long as I’m confessing things, I should probably also share that I bought a chandelier on the street for $20 about three years ago that has been carried into — count ‘em — three apartments but never rewired, painted, or installed the way I originally intended. It was to my great horror when recently, after dessert with some friends, my otherwise kind-hearted man pulled the brass behemoth out of my closet and into the living room, holding it before everyone’s eyes as my crowning failure of follow-through, the ultimate embodiment of my clutter. He, understandably, wanted to let go of the past and gain some storage space. But I had plans for that chandelier.

Continue reading “On Craft Clutter (and the Pillow Covers I Am Finally Going to Sew)” »

image via cglolao

I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m not much of a sewer. And it’s tragic, really, because my heart does little back flips over pretty fabrics. But because I am impatient, easily frustrated, and suck at being “detail-oriented,” I pretty much stick to super simple projects that can be run up in a flash, or are as happy being finished off with sewing glue as they are with needle and thread. This is my way of confessing that I have been struggling with the same black linen wrap skirt from Diana Rupp’s Sew Everything Workshop for over a year. Yeah, you heard that right: 16 months. For a friggin’ wrap skirt. I have half a mind to bring the pinned pattern pieces to my mommy and beg for help.

But as I was stumbling around the web-o-sphere, looking at flickr pools of girls who look so cute in their home-sewn Built By Wendy outfits, I came across Burda Style. Hello, what rock have I been living under? This site is overflowing with inspiration and the kind of breezy, can-do attitude that a woman needs to just wind her bobbin and get on with it already. Is a super simple laptop sleeve calling your name? Do you need a bevy of how-tos for the beginner? Looking for scores of free patterns, including a kickass cape? Burda Style’s got your number. Or, the number of the girl you want to be — the one who actually finishes the wrap skirts that she starts. Maybe with a little help from her mom.

I wish I knew 10,000 different ways to say thank you, because that’s what your comments on yesterday’s post deserve in response. You are officially the smartest, wisest, funniest readers a blogger ever had, and I thank my lucky stars for it. Thank you¹⁰⁰⁰⁰, seriously. You said everything I needed to hear, and provided so much awesome counsel for all the funkifiers out there. I say thank you on behalf of all of us.

And now, for something not at all funky (except, actually, slightly funky in the olfactory sense)…

The two best care packages I ever received were boxes overflowing with vintage clothes, tinged with a strange haven’t-had-contact with-fresh-air-in-50-years scent. Both sent an indescribable jolt of electricity of excitement down my spine. I love old things, in part, because of the lives they had before they enter into their new owner’s hands. In both of these cases, somewhat unbelievably, these were the clothes of best friends’ deceased great aunts. Not only were these pretty vintage clothes, but they were worn by women who have a very direct link to my modern life through their genealogical lines, and really, that’s pretty cool. When you buy a necklace or sew a dress, do you ever stop to think it might one day end up in the hand’s of your niece’s best friend? That’s recycling at it’s best.

One of these great aunts had lived a creative, cosmopolitan life, had been ridiculously gorgeous and stylish, courted by fashionable and powerful men the world over, and had a brilliant wardrobe that included a kelly green silk cumberbund belt, a white horse-hair purse, gloves of every length and fabric, and a robin’s egg blue bathing costume with figure enhancing boning in the bodice. Her clothes helped my wardrobe make the transition from college to “first job” — whatever co-ed type outfit I was attempting to wear to work, with the simple addition one of her belts and a pair of gloves, was somehow, through a kind of vintage magic, transformed by accessories.

Continue reading “Care Packages, Revisited” »

Erin McKean is kind of amazingly cool. There’s the fact that she is a lexicographer (which means she pretty much takes the “sexy librarian” thing to a whole ‘nother level), and that she loves words and frocks so equally she has been known to make dresses from crossword fabric. But I like her most of all her for whip-smart, funny, oozing-with-personality-and-charm blog, Dress A Day, on which she makes sewing dreamy dresses look not so terrifying. In fact, she even makes it look fun.

How did you learn to sew and tell us about the beginning and evolution of Dress A Day?

My mother, bless her, taught me to sew when I was about 12 or so. We chose a pattern and fabric together. She made the first dress (pink rosebuds, slightly dropped waist, sleeveless) while I watched, and I made a second dress (blue floral) from the same pattern while she watched and corrected. Then I was off to the races!

As, for the blog, I was out with my husband Joey one night and was talking about the blogs I was reading, and I told him I really wanted there to be a blog that talked about a dress every day. And because my husband is the kind of guy that intuitively understands what you really want and then eggs you on to do it, he said “Why don’t you do it?”

I registered the domain name dressaday.com and then sat on it for a year, not doing anything. So when it came up for renewal I felt as if I had wasted a year in which I could have been doing something fun and cool, just because I was “too busy.” I figured I would never be LESS busy, so I’d just have to make time for it. I’m so glad that I did!

No beating around the bush: you’re hilarious. Who or what cracks you up?

Aw, thanks! I’m a huge fan of absurdist humor, and language-y humor. And if you don’t find something to be absurdly funny every day, you’re not paying close enough attention.

What do you think is the essence of great style?

Being yourself — and being fearless about being yourself. You should never be yourself half-assedly. (Go ahead — be entirely an ass!) Also, no one on their deathbed says “I should have worn more black, I would have looked skinnier.”

What’s some of the best advice you’ve ever gotten?

Nobody will notice (insert flaw here), and if even if they do notice, only rude people would say anything about it.

Word on the street is you’re writing a novel. Can you tell us about it?

Um, yeah! It’s about a woman named Dora who goes home to run her grandmother’s vintage shop. And it’s about being brave enough to do what you want to do and not what you think you should do. And it has “Secret Lives of Dresses” in it. And some other stuff. (But no car chases. We’re saving that for the movie.)

What or who most inspires you?

I think I’m inspired most by having an interesting problem to solve. Why can’t we do something in a different way? Why not try a new approach? The worst that can happen is that you still have the problem you started out with, only now you know one more thing that won’t work.

What’s your surefire way to unwind after a stressful day?

A novel by Georgette Heyer, Donald Westlake, or Angela Thirkell, a hot bath, and maybe some popcorn (but not popcorn in the bathtub, that’s weird). Or watching House with my husband while we hold hands.

What’s in your fridge right now?

Olives, pickles, roasted red peppers, mild yellow peppers, giardiniera (basically anything that is steeped in vinegar and comes in a jar) and every possible thing you can put on top of ice cream. I like condiments.

Last but not least: Maryanne or Ginger (from Gilligan’s Island)?

Oh, totally Maryanne, but you have to let her raid Ginger’s closet. That’s the best of both worlds. (Also, I’m totally Betty, but I wish I were Veronica.)

One of my favorite things about blogs, hands down, is how you can feel like you can count people as your friends who you might never get the chance to meet in real life. Amber Karnes, of the super fabulous My Aim is True, has long been that for me. Her craft room is a site to be seen, and I’m constantly inspired by a life that seems to be a flurry of friends, good food, creative fun, and lots and lots of colorful, meaningful beauty.

Amber (looking the happiest) with super cute hubby on the last day of her honeymoon

Tell us a little bit about your blog and what the name means.

Well my site is sort of my life in notes and photos, if that makes sense. I talk a lot about crafting, cooking, my grumpy dog, music that I like, stuff like that. The name is a line from an Elvis Costello song called “Alison“.

How did you first get into making, crafting and cooking? Any particularly memorable flops or successes?

I was homeschooled for most of my life, and my mom always encouraged creativity and artistic pursuits. We made a lot of crafts when I was younger, everything from teddy bear bread to a heck of a lot of t-shirts covered in puff paint. I guess I grew out of it for a while, then after college I decided I wanted to learn to knit, just out of the blue. I showed up to a stitch ‘n’ bitch night, and the rest is history. I love teaching myself whatever new thing I want to tackle and making things myself so it was a great fit. I taught myself to cook mostly by experimenting, then from cookbooks and the internet after I went vegan in May 2007. Vegan cooking is a totally different game.

I think my most successful DIY projects have been things around the house. I can follow a craft pattern pretty well but I feel like I’m more creative with interior design and making just so-so things into really special things.

Flops? Ask my husband, I’ve cooked some pretty awful things. A lot of it involves eggplant. Why are those suckers so hard to cook properly?
Dude, I hear you. The craft scene in Norfolk seems really vibrant. Tell us about the 7 Cities Crafters.

The 7 Cities Crafters are a group of crafters and visual artists who sort of represent the indie art scene in the area. We’ve been a group for a few years now in one form or another. We’re a pretty diverse group, most of us are in our 20s and 30s but we have had everyone from high schoolers to 70 year old women come to our get-togethers. We have a monthly meetup where we bring food, hang out and craft together. We also host free skill-sharing workshops where one member of the group will hold a demo and teach the rest of the group a skill like knitting, photography, whatever. They’ve been very popular and we just scheduled several more for the next few months. I got the group going out of a totally selfish desire to meet more creative people in the area, sort of bring them out of the woodwork, and it worked!

What do you think the significance of the crafting movement is particularly for young women?
I think the coolest thing about the crafting movement is the information sharing. I am a big advocate of knowledge sharing, skill sharing, making or doing something and then getting the word out about it so others can do and enjoy it too. One of the
things that makes the DIY/craft movement most appealing is that someone can look at something I did and say, “Hey, I can do that too!” Then they might take the technique I used and put their own awesome and unique spin on it. I love that! I think the craft movement has been a great outlet for young women to be a part of something bigger than themselves. I am going to have a hard time articulating this, and I’m sure some women’s studies major could do a much better job, but I feel like young women have a hard time bonding with other women a lot of times. Men seem like they are just born to support each other or bond with their “bros” but girls are bred by society to compare themselves to one another and compete with one another. I feel like the craft movement has been one way for young women to find their own voice, express themselves creatively, and be a “team” with other girls just like them.

I think you hit the nail on the head — and very articulately, I might add! So what most inspires you?

Continue reading “Amber Karnes of My Aim is True” »