I’m not sure there’s a delicate way to bring this up but its a topic that should discussed with frankness and maturity.

It’s called ‘muffin top‘ (and no we’re not talking about delightful baked goods) and it’s a plague. A pandemic. A very big problem.

A few years ago it seemed restricted to the 13-23 year old female population of this country, so I didn’t do much more than make the sign of the evil eye and avert my gaze. But now it’s infecting women my age, and I’m concerned, horrified, appalled, filled with fear and dread.

The cause of muffin top seems to be that women are no longer aware that they can buy clothing which fits some areas (namely the butt or waist areas whichever needs more room) and take them to this person called a tailor, or (gasp) an alterations seamstress. Seriously. Honestly. Hand on heart sincerely.

For as little as $10 a muffin top tragedy can be averted and pants can be cut and hemmed to the right length. All it takes is $10 and the will to survive, or at least the desire to live a somewhat normal life, and about an hour.

I bring this up because my neighbors teenage daughter has been a long time muffin top sufferer, but more recently this trend has affected her mother. Its so sad– now muffin top has infected a whole family.

I don’t know what I as a neighbor can do to help these poor people, so instead of maturely addressing my neighbor, woman to woman– I have decided to blog about it and expose the truth. Tailors (and perhaps some moderate diet and exercise) are the only known cure.

My camera can’t seem to comprehend the real color, but I assure you it’s much more fluorescent than it appears. There’s actually streaks of two colors “fire” and “mandarin” so the color is also deeper than pictured. After a few weeks it’ll tame down into a more faded traffic cone color.

Why orange?

• It’s easy to spot a hair in my food, and identify it as mine or not mine.
• My children *never* lose sight of me at the grocery store.
• I come in handy during traffic emergencies.
• My conservative friends rarely ask me to baby sit.
• If I am lost in the woods I will not be shot by hunters.
• My friends don’t ever accidentally mistake another person for me at a distance, and accuse me of ignoring them later.
• People remember me.
• I like the irony.
• It looks good with pinks, neutrals and earth-tones.
• I’m never accused of being a fully domesticated housewife.
• Makes my Pokémon and Hello Kitty stuff seem not so weird by comparison.

Which means you understand that I’m reduced to knitting bulky acrylic yarn on large bamboo needles which have proven to be virtually indestructible and sewing. I just don’t tend to spin bulky yarn, I could break into the mohair I suppose and knit a lacy scarf but I tend to frog a lot when deciding on lace patterns and don’t want to torment the yarn in that way.

I have yet to devise a Lexi proofed system for knitting. I think it’s going to require moving all my knitting stuff into our bedroom or digging a super secret underground yarn and needle bunker under the house. Lexi is quite sneaky and very cunning, in order to thwart her plan for world yarn domination I must think like a three year old.

Anyway, my darling husband is good at consoling me so he bought me a book to keep me entertained as I start rebuilding my knitting needle collection. The book is Omiyage by Kumiko Sudo. Matt knew that I’ve been trying to talk myself out of buying this book for at least the past two years. He is also smart enough to figure out that this required a trip to the fabric store for supplies. Clever clever man! (It will still not get him out of digging my underground knitting bunker.)

I love the projects so much, I’m working on the Avalanche Lily pattern and have made two different babies, and have a distinct need for a new pin cushion, and all the pictures are so beautiful and the instructions are so clear. I got distracted (inspired) yesterday to sew some pretty knitting and spinning related gear. If we can keep the camera and sewing machine away from Lexi I’ll take some pictures to post when I’m finished (ha ha, I jest, I’m at the mercy of a three year old.)

I finally have a doctors appointment for my migraines, and I’m worried that if the headaches go away so will my insomnia, and with the insomnia my creativity. If next week I am boring and uncreative, and I start following patterns stitch by stitch– promise me that you’ll hide my medicine and keep me sleep deprived. Please?

If I even look at a plastic canvas toilet paper cover– kill me.

I know it’s not good to feel brain twisting pressure behind one’s right eye and not sleep, but aren’t all the greats somewhat off kilter or tormented in some way? There was Monet, going blind. Mozart, deaf. Opal, yarn dysmorphic disorder.

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.

Bead Jewelry designer Patricia C. Vener wrote a beautifully illustrated color treatise for Autumn 2006 season, even though Winter ’06/’07 is almost upon us her vision for Autumn is still very contemporary and can easily carry though until Spring 2007 if you are (like me) a color junkie.

After Vogue Knitting convinced everyone that crayon bright colors were “in-in-in” they did a really unsubtle about face and are pushing grays like crazy. Sock knitters will really enjoy the newest issue though, as there are some incredible patterns for socks.

One bit of advice, a lesson that I learned in my short tenure in the fashion industry, it’s much more important that you wear what actually looks good on you than to follow the whims of couture. Fashion trends are just trends, beauty and style are eternal. If you look fabulous in apricot wear it. If you look like a walking tomato wearing those washed out grays, then don’t wear them, or create a non-tomato illusion with the right accessories.

If you like color, then use it and ignore the trends.