Time to Sew the Good Stuff

Is everyone else as tired of the recession as I am? It has taken the fun out of everything. My favorite Sunday morning activity is reading the New York Times, but lately the paper has shown a certain lack of ambition. All of the bad financial news must have broken their spirit. Today they suggested vacations in the United States. Whatever happened to trekking in Bhutan? To staying at the ever popular Tuscan villas? It was fun to imagine that we might do those things. It was aspirational, for Pete's sake! Don't take that away from us and start getting all practical!
In the book section there was discussion of making your own bacon (!). What's next, articles on Urban Deer Hunting? (Make Your Own Venison Bacon, shot right in your own backyard!) Will articles on weaving our own cloth be far behind? (I read that vegetable gardening and canning are hot now. Who could have predicted THAT a year ago? Although I am all in favor of growing vegetables and making jam. I do these things myself.) But I am worn out with being worried. I've had enough of that. It's been long enough and I've decided that it's time now to cheer up now. No more panic. No more gloom and doom.
Radical steps are necessary. I decide that it's time to break in to stash. It's time to sew the Good Stuff. After all, don't I deserve it? After making three shirts in a row for Mr. Hunting Creek, all with the dreaded buttonholes -which all came out perfectly after all the procrastinating - what was I afraid of? I decide to make a silk blouse. It's not practical, it's not frugal, it's not recycled or any current thifty-chic trend. And it's not for anyone but ME.
Isn't this pretty? So sweet and girly, so old fashioned, so not like anything else in my entire closet.
This silk chiffon is as impractical as it gets. I bought it from Gorgeous Fabrics a year ago and it's been waiting for its close up ever since. I think it wants to be something floaty and feminine. I'll have to search through the patterns and Burdas to find a worthy pattern.
So go ahead. Break into your stash. If you're a sewista, I know you probably have one. If you don't, then you have my encouragement to get yourself something pretty to sew for summer. It will help the economy and make you happy, which will in return make others happy and then - like magic! the recession will disappear. That's right - it's your patriotic duty!
What lovely thing will you sew for summer?

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Fourth of July to everyone, and I hope you all spend the day as our founders desired - picnicking and celebrating with family and friends.

I've been thinking about personal independence days as well. By this I mean when I learned how to do something that allowed me to be free to make my own choices, culinarily, stylistically or otherwise. Here are a few of mine, which I will be privately celebrating today:

Bread Baking Day! Way back when I was a student at Berkeley, the future Mr. Hunting Creek and I used to combine our resources and cook together. We were always broke, but had high culinary standards. I decided to teach myself how to bake bread. In true Berkeley style, I went to the University Library and checked out books on this subject and read all about it. My first attempt was disappointing - somewhat like a brick and ugly too. However, with further study and a little practice, on my second attempt I made bread that looked and tasted like BREAD. There was no turning back. I was then able to make our own rolls, pizza dough, pie crust and sandwich bread for pennies. I felt like a goddess.

Making my first blouse: I wanted to learn how to sew, so my mother took me to visit a friend who had a teenage daughter who sewed. She felt like I would learn better from someone my own age. This girl was older than I, and one of the cool kids, but she was nice enough to show a ten year old the basics. However, her working style was somewhat slapdash, and when we got home, my mother cast a critical eye over the finishing details on the inside and said, "that's not the right way to make a blouse!". My young teacher had just had me sew the seams together with all raw edges everywhere and no finishing, right in style now with many avant-garde designers, but anathema to my mother's generation. Out came the seam ripper and we redid everything until it was done right according to my mother's high standards. To this day I am unable to do anything in the "quick and dirty style"; even a costume has to be finished correctly. I'm sure Dr Freud would have plenty to say about this! Once it was done correctly, even a sullen preteen had to admit it looked better. Thanks, Mom!

Learning how to fit: after I had had my children and was a busy working mom, I was unhappy with the way patterns fit. I was no long the young skinny thing who could make patterns right out of the envelope, but I was unhappy with the patterns made according to my measurements. They were sloppy looking, too big or just plain wrong. Then I discovered PatternReview and read a few reviews by women who were also large busted. When I read the tutorials they had added showing how they did the full bust adjustment, you could have knocked me over with a feather - OF COURSE! That's what was wrong! There was a secret I didn't know! Cue angels singing and the trumpets blowing! I would especially like to credit Ann at Gorgeous Things , Debbie Cook and the Sewing Divas for their generous tutorials.
After that, there was no turning back. I could make my own clothes that fit correctly. I was no longer a slave to RTW.

Happy Independence Day!