More on the "W's" of my sewing

I've always been told, "never start anything with an apology." Well, don't you just love rules?? I'm sorry if this isn't a seamless transition from the first installment, but if it were i'd have to pay myself for doing this. Oh and seamless, is just a word.

The one question i get asked over and over again is how i got started sewing. While this is a fairly easy question it is also fairly involved. However, as with most things, it is a story.

As many of you know, i grew up in the weeds of West Texas. My hometown is more open desert than urban sprawl and even moreso thirty years ago. When I'd go out to play, most days, I'd end up crawling between strands of barbed wire or sliding down piles of crumbled boulders. On others, I'd hike up the dry creekbed that ran though town or ride my bike along the railroad tracks that ran away from our town in three directions. With all this, i could take a new pair of jeans and reduce them to something torn or relatively crotchless in an afternoon. Given what jeans cost, it wasn't reasonable for my folks to keep replacing jeans and repairing them became the norm. Not to mention, back then they didn't make stone or acid washed jeans and it takes forever to wash a pair of jeans to the right color and feel. At any rate, somewhere along the way mom got tired of fixing my pants and made me responsible for my own stuff. So, someone, probably my grandparents, found a sewing machine at a garage sale and when i got home that day, i got a sewing machine and a book. Along with the machine i got the advice to read the book before i tried to sew anything.

The first few repairs i attempted were less than laudable, but over time i got to where i could do well enough that i rarely noticed my jeans were always fixed. I can still mend a pair of jeans and even hem up a pair of new ones without losing the factory hem. Now that's self-aggrandizing....lol

From these humble beginnings, i moved on to seat covers for pickups and friends cars. Most of my friends in the next town over knew i could sew, but it was a closely guarded secret in my hometown. The last thing i needed was for someone to find out i could sew. I was a terribly wimpy boy back in those days and took quite a bit of hazing for it and knowing how to sew would have just fueled the flames.

After i left my hometown, i didn't sew for a number of years. It was like one of those transient hobbies you have only while you live where you picked up the habit. I didn't have a need for it, so it never occurred to me to get another machine. At least until i decided to marry the most contemptible woman on earth. She wanted a dress well beyond any reasonable budget, short of the guy who owns the country of Dubai, maybe. Here is one time my big mouth got me in deep. I went from a slip of the tongue about knowing how to sew, to yards and yards of taffeta and slipper satin in about twenty hours. I would love to come clean and say it really was over weeks, but it wasn't. It was less than a day and for the next three or four months i made a wedding dress. It was an experience to be sure. When we divorced, I petitioned for the dress, but... i wasn't the bride the judge said.

About fifteen or so years ago i started sewing stuff for me, pillows, quilts, shirts, or anything else i wanted. Sewing had blossomed into something that was part hobby and part obsession. Now, it's arguably all obsession.

My favorite things to sew are probably Martha Pullen heirlooms and quilts. I am asked to sew anything and everything. It seems the more outrageous the request, the more i enjoy the project. All in all, I think i just love seeing the results of what i do.

I'll post a few pictures next time.

Y'all be cool, D

P.S. I also knit, crochet, embroider, cross-stitch, and do leather

The "W's" of my Sewing Part I

Though many of my friends already know the answer to this, i was asked recently what it is that i sew. I guess that's a fair question. I will say this, it's not the usual question. That one would be how i got started sewing. Lastly, there's the why I do it. I'll attempt to answer all three of these the best i can. Sometimes the organization of my thoughts goes a bit far afield and for that i'll apologize in advance. (((On a side note, when i write like this, I usually give the writer the day off, so if my English isn't "spot on" again I apologize))) Now, for the why:

First and foremost i'd say i sew because i love it. There is something about the steps to sewing that feeds my natural attraction to puzzles and problem solving. There are those close to me that swear i am a bit on the "nit picky" side. Perhaps, this means i'm a bit meticulous also, but the important thing is that i love it and if you find something you love you should give it everything you have. Take my wife for instance. I know it sounds like a bad Henny Youngman joke, but seventy percent of her closet is handmade. About half of this is what she wears to work, week in and week out. I can tell if she likes something, it ends up in the laundry weekly. The things she likes she wears out. Like this little dress I made her last spring. It's time to replace it with something just as eezy breezy.

I've made tons of fabric bowls. Here's the one i made her for her desk at work this past Christmas Season. It was the first time i'd ever made a square one, well a square one with sides that were that steep. It was a challenge to get that stitched together, but she loved the end result. Ya know, i think that's what counts the most.

Recently, i made some throw pillows out of otter and elk. The truth be told, the otter was kind of gross. It was greasy and i really had to clean my machine afterward, but the pillows turned out great I thought, and the lady I made them for seemed pleased. Yeah, i forgot, there was rabbit used on these as well. I hope you enjoy what I was going after.

These skins held some sentimental value for the owner and that's pretty much what she wanted.

There are so many things i make and have made, this post could ramble on for days. Some of the things i have made i just couldn't show in this forum. Feel free to fill in the blanks anyway you want as they'll most all be true. French Maid, Belly Dancer, and what would the fetish world be without the Catholic School Girl?? Funny story i may write down sometime. I made Donna one for work last year at Halloween and took everything even remotely sexual out of it. I loved it, but the guys at her work said i was just wrong. Some people have no sense of humor.

To Be Continued... D

Just a few lines to test??

Since i killed my yahoo 360 page i have gotten quite a bit of static from those that read it. I don't miss 360, but i miss scratching out whatever spills forth when i close my eyes with my hands on the keys. I often say that i don't write, i simply chronicle what i see in that other world. If you don't understand what it is I'm talking about, don't sweat it you're not alone. it's hard for me to articulate just what i am saying. However, it's the way i perceive the process.
I was referred to this site by a lifelong friend and i feel a little ignorant for not finding this on my own. On yahoo, i had something in the order of 300 entries and moved a great deal of them to myspace when a friend suggested i may like that site better. Well, so much for that. I'm not really into all of the customizing and flashy, musicy, sparklers and buttermilk that a great number of people are and myspace drove me nuts. Don't get me wrong, i was and always will be grateful for the comments, but all of the flashing and glitter stuff i could have done without. So when i looked at this and read a couple of different blogger's entrys i felt really good about taking LavenderChick's advice and giving this a try.
I'd love to move my entries from myspace to here, but it seems as though that's not going to happen. I'm kind of bummed by it too actually. There is some history there i'd rather not lose, but myspace isn't being very helpful in assisting me with getting into my page. so i say, death to smoochy. I'm glad it's been read and if i get it back great and if not, i will survive.
Please, bear in mind this is a test and any information gathered will be used for that purpose?? Okay, now time to check out spell check and to see what it looks like.

Till then, y'all be cool, D