Category Archives: Sewing

Dusting Off The Sewing Machine

In other non-ranty news, I made over my corset on Tuesday night. I’d already unpicked a couple of seams and removed the peplum and straps about a month ago, so Tuesday night’s work consisted of resewing the bottom seam, encasing the seam in velvet ribbon trim, taking in the side panels by an inch, putting on the eyelet ribbon, grumbling a lot, taking off the eyelet ribbon and unpicking the side seams because it still wasn’t fitting correctly, and redoing it all. Then I sewed a velvet ribbon halter strap on it, and put tiny darts in the two front seams to make it fit even better.

So! I have a new-old corset for the gig in two weeks. Now I need to decide what I’m wearing with it. I’m liking the jeans idea, although if I can find my flirty little black wraparound miniskirt I may wear that, because a skirt allows me to wear my funky high-heeled lace-up boots. There’s just no point to wearing funky lace-up boots if no one can see them.

(Two weeks! Eep. But we kicked the collective ass of our set list at last night’s rehearsal, and with a little more work on my own I’ll be more comfortable with the final two new songs that I need to polish. The general consensus seems to be that we’re feeling pretty good about things, better than we did leading up to last gig in October.)

Ups and Downs

We discovered last week that the purveyors of fine teas in the nearby upper-crust borough had closed up shop.

This is bad — where am I going to go pick up Dragon Well on a whim? — but not bad, because they were snobbish prissy shopwomen who belittled their clientele instead of welcoming them and educating them. We drove past a tiny tea shop up on Monkland a while ago, so one of these days I shall have to take a walk up and check it out in order to ascertain its value.

Saturday night after dinner out with friends my stomach and digestive system decided to stage a protest about something (it certainly wasn’t the food), and while I’m much better, they’re still unhappy about life. We leave for Pennsylvania before dawn tomorrow, so I wish they’d hurry up and settle. We picked up the camping gear from Hiscock’s Fine Camping Supplies and Laundromat last night (and also obtained a nice anti-skip personal CD player with tape convertor for the trip, huzzah), so all that remains is to:

– get photocopies to take with us
– pick up gallon jugs of bottled water
– finish packing clothes
– pick up black cord for my dress
– pick up the first-aid kit
– finish hemming Gob Anarchy’s robe for the band’s first unofficial tour (unofficial because a third of the band will be missing, alas)

I succeeded in creating the body of the robe and put it on to show HRH. It’s designed for someone who is about six inches taller than I am, so the sleeves flopped way past my fingers, the hood almost obscured my face, and the hem dragged on the ground. “‘S a bit big,” I said, flopping my hands about. HRH turned around, saw me, and tried to hide his laughter behind a hand. “Wot?” I demanded. “You look like a cute Dementor,” he said, his efforts turning his face red. “Give us a kiss, then!” I siad, stepping towards him. “That’s just creepy,” he said, “no, thanks.”

All three of my female fur-children have staked out this robe as The Best Place To Sleep. Hope Gob Anarchy appreciates how they feel.

To the sewing machine!

Get Thee Behind Me, Deadline

Done. In two days, the first half of my manuscript has been edited and sent back. Yes, it was an insane deadline. But it’s done. It occurs to me that sooner or later I’ll have to stop performing miracles, or I’m going to get myself in a tight spot some day. Right; from now on, the Scotty method of evaluating engine-repair jobs. (Although it occurs to me that delivering material before my estimated time of completion is how I got myself up to celebrity status. Hmm.)

And I have suddenly remembered the possibilities held within the addition of simple underarm gussets, which just might make this ritual dress a go instead of simply a learning experience. Of course, I have no more black thread on hand. I’ll pick some up tonight, because right now, all I want to do is rest after driving myself mad with edits for forty-eight hours.

The Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Authors

I finished my new ritual dress last night, and, naturally, I’m unhappy with it. The lack of sleeve/bodice stretch is a bit inhibiting, and the errors hidden inside it are driving me mad. If I stand, I look good, but if I have to move around or lift my arms, I’m sunk. And the fabric I chose is nice and light, yes, but it’s so light that it doesn’t hang correctly. So, as the original fabric only cost me fifty cents a meter (I love sales!), and the construction only took about ten hours, I decided I’d head up to the fabric district on St Hubert street today, and get some black linen to do it over again with all the pitfalls firmly in mind and plans in place to pass them without disaster. And maybe I would stop by L’Esplumoir‘s new location (conveniently located in the fabric district!) and poke around. (You can dye natural-colour linen black, you know. Yes indeed. Actually, you can dye any pale colour to black. And dark colors too, but there will be a slight tint of the original colour to the final black, which is kind of neat. And if you factor in the cost of fabric, notions, and time spent on the project, well, personal energy invested in the ritual vestment aside, the cost is often equivalent.) Besides, there’s a package I have to go pick up at the little postal outlet in Monkland village that I could get on the way home.

I went on-line to check the new address of the shop before I left, and I thought I’d check my e-mail too. And thus, the best-laid plans…

The first half of my manuscript was sent back to me this morning for edits and rewrites, with a return deadline of noon on Friday.

It’s not the end of the world; so far there’s a lot of good encouraging stuff in feedback, and the edits are easy and far fewer than the other manuscripts I’ve edited. I have just over forty-eight hours to do two hundred pages. I should be fine — more than fine, actually. If I get enough done, I might go out to the fabric district tomorrow morning. And it’s a good thing I checked, otherwise I’d be in a bad position for editing it on time.

So I’ve put the first Moulin Rouge CD on, made myself a strongish cup of Cherry Vanilla tea, and to work I go. I think Mission: Impossible 2 is next. And likely The Hours will make an appearance later on.

Advanced Witchcraft, Devolving Production Values

After a coven discussion yesterday afternoon on the power of words and how form affects the content, I came across this spelling/editing error in Advanced Witchcraft: Go Deeper, Reach Further, Fly Higher, a book that I’m reading for review:

“He sites the example of […].”

(This, coveners, is what made me throw the book across the room yesterday evening and sit down to write that lengthy e-mail about form and content. Blame the author, Edain McCoy (who ought to have caught these in revision), and her editor, Rebecca Zins, for my mood.)

Siting an example would be surveying the surrounding land and establishing a latitude and longitude for it. If you quote something, you cite it. It’s not the same thing.

Gods! Errors such as these in published material are unforgivable! Gritting my teeth, I moved beyond it. I bristled, but I knew what the author meant. (Just to add fuel to the flame, she was referring to Jean Markale. My indignance on his behalf knows no bounds.)

Apart from this textual slip, the labels on the chart of elemental symbols were scrambled, so that the symbol for Air is identified as Water, the symbol for Fire is identified as Air, the symbol for Earth is identified as Fire, and the symbol for Water is identified as Earth. Errors like this make me mistrust a text identified as “Advanced Witchcraft.” I know they’re layout problems, but still; a production team can make or break a book, and the production team allowing spelling errors and chart errors is doing nothing to support the content of the text. My ultimate review will reflect this.

Apart from this, the book’s not bad. It’s about walking the walk, and talking the talk. It admits that what we did in our first two or three years is nothing like what we do now; in fact, lots of the info we wrote down back then no longer is part of our practice. It compares making magic with spirituality, the way of life that magic becomes as you progress in practice and study. Lots of philosophical musing; not many exercises, which of course is one of the things advanced practitioners are looking for. I’m only halfway through. I’ve yet to find new information that I don’t already know, or have come up with on my own. (That’s one of my standard measures: Does this book tell me something new? Or does it re-state something I already know in a better fashion?)

Today I get to go into the bookstore for a meeting. The newly-arrived four-volume set of Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology, unavailable for years, a price of over $200, and a must for anyone who studies a Nordic path, is there, and I don’t know if I possess the self-control to ignore it until my next cheque comes in. Perhaps I’ll distract myself with the 8×10 colour posters that my publishing company sent out to promote the new series I’m editing. They have a picture of me and the first two books being released this fall on them. I’m glad I was warned, otherwise when I stopped in on Friday night for a workshop I might have seen them, panicked, then turned and run away. Mentioning this to the editor of the local Pagan journal, she kindly told me that the same info was in the books & publishing section of the issue that had just hit the newsstands. I have good friends. They know that I love what I do, but they also know that the whole using me to promote the series thing is still freaky to me.

I think I’ll go downtown early and poke about the dressmaker’s supply shop.

Note to Self

Sewing Rule #1:

Cats cannot distinguish between the bits of crumpled paper which you throw for them, and the fragile, crumply pieces of tissue paper pinned to the fabric.

Sewing Rule #2:

Even when you think the floor is clean, when you have cut out your pattern pieces, there will be all kinds of detrius stuck to the fabric when you lift it up.

Sigh.

In Which She Meets And Accepts Her Destiny

The problem with going away for a week and a half is that when you come back, you have a week and a half of work to catch up on, as well as doing your regular daily stuff.

Naturally, I slogged away yesterday, and am experiencing severe “nuh-uh” today.

So I opened my new sewing machine.

*blissful pause*

It has thirty stitch modes. And a clutch. My sewing machine has a clutch.

Goodbye, everyone; it’s been nice, but the siren song of my sewing machine beckons. If you don’t hear from me again, you’ll know that wherever I died, I died with my arms curled protectively around my Kenmore 385.12312100….