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… but I’m also working on other things.

After a thread about cloth diapers on Spindlers list and a self induced marathon of Project Runway bonus footage, I decided that Lexi needed something a little more in the way of cloth training pants and dug out my sewing machine. Haute toddler.

As Tim Gunn would say (after a long pause and with a slight frown of sincere concern) “Well, just make it work.”

I have the feeling that if I were ever selected for a show like Project Runway I would be the first to have the humiliating auffing, based solely on the questionable (yet ambitious) practice of reversing what is normally expected.

Wool/nylon plaid training pants? hmmm. Okay. Nylon-metallic training pants? Sure. Crushed velour with vintage Italian crochet lace trim? Oh heck yeah!

After I quit working for the house of hell as a “designer” (actually they were using me almost exclusively as a cutter and sewing labor, I believe the patterns were stolen from commercially available sewing patterns, but without actual first hand knowledge I can’t make the accusation.) I was pretty well burnt out on machine sewing– by the time it ended I had a kidney infection, daily migraines, I was constantly exhausted and sleep deprived.

Since then I’ve made quite a few things with hand stitching and the odd dress at the machine, but avoided even that when I could. It’s been about six years (almost seven years) since then and I’m just now starting to feel healed from the burn out. I didn’t think about it before, but the migraines ended as soon as I took up spinning.

I don’t have anything finished yet (other than training pants) but I did start scrapping through some of my designs, and actually started working on a skirt. I sold my industrial top-stitcher years ago, so I’m making due with my vintage Morse and my Kenmore (which was new in 1992, a splurge of epic proportions at the time.) And sadly my serger (a darling Baby Lock) needs a tune up, as the timing is off.

When I say ‘making due’ with two machines, I get this look from my husband (and my mom cops a voice on the phone.) Oh sure, some people ‘make due’ with just one machine and don’t whine about fiddly tension– well those people are tougher stuff than me. Sure some people don’t even have the special rolled hem foot, or even the bias tape maker foot thingie and I do. I also have the spiffy pleater foot. Does that make me a bad person? No, it just means that I’ve sewn far to many tuxedo shirts and frilly dresses to mess around with hand basting every teeny detail

I’d much rather spend that extra time spinning, dyeing or knitting anyway. Since Lexi’s rampage on my knitting needles has left my current knitting cue on a short leash, I don’t really mind the distraction of sewing, but I don’t want it to completely eat my creative time.