A · Life

That would be funnier if I could italicize the subject, I think. Sewing machine. It's funny in my head.
I think I am going to ask for a sewing machine from my parents or sisters for my birthday. (OK, only one sister has any money, so... parents it is!) My two antiques are frustrating me and not able to keep up with me. I can't afford to get either one overhauled, let alone both. The more modern one, Gram's, needs a lot of work, I think. It is noisier and doesn't sew as smoothly. Fuck! I forgot to send Gram a card. See? See?
Anyway, the thread tangles and breaks in the bobbin and I don't know why, but when it does it, I have to take the machine apart with a screwdriver. Not only does this waste an enormous amount of time, I am also afraid I'll strip the screws. They're showing signs of wear. It's not OK.
Matilda's machine works well intermittently, but sometimes it gets into a rut of cutting the upper thread with a sharp snap, which sometimes makes the upper spool recoil hard enough to a) startle me badly, and b) unthread the entire machine. Yes, it has actually unthreaded the entire machine on the recoil, that's how far it goes. So apparently when it snags, it snags hard.
It does this on average very occasionally, but when it's in the mode of doing it, it will do it every six inches or so, perhaps less, of sewing. That gets really old really fast.
Oy.
Also, neither machine has a bobbin winder. I have now used up eight bobbins. I'm just sewing with whatever color bobbin thread. A lot of the bobbins have more than one color wound on them, so when one runs out, I'm just rethreading with the next. So the inner seams of these salwar I'm currently trying on (holy saggy crotch, Batman! ... Oh, it's supposed to look like I have a full diaper? Maybe I should've noticed that before I started cutting out the fabric...) have six different colors of bobbin thread.
And I just have this pile of empty bobbins.
If Z thinks she won't mind, I might run over to Z's mom's house, which we're house-sitting while she's out of town, and just wind a crapton of bobbins on one of her seven or eight sewing machines... I don't think she'd mind, but I don't want to arouse her ire. I got enough relations mad at me.

Speaking of which I'm going to go write my grandmother a card now.

I had a really lovely day at work yesterday-- I sold a lot of cameras, gave really knowledgeable advice to some people about photography, felt like I knew what I was doing, and had a lot of fun conversations with co-workers and customers alike. So that was good.
I came home; Z had taken the afternoon off from work to drop his mom off at the airport, and was in a cheerful and talkative mood, which was a welcome change. (When working hard, as he has been, he grows rather taciturn.)
Z listened, with cheerful commentary, to my tale of that day's work. We had an amusing conversation over a departing co-worker, who is vacationing in Vietnam and realized today she neglected to get her typhoid and polio vaccines. We Wikipedia'd them to determine which was worse. Ew! Typhoid has really unpleasant symptoms, up to and including death by intestinal perforation, and literally four weeks of shitting pea soup, but polio still wins by virtue of one day you're fine and the next you're all noodle-limbs. No thanks! So the dubious honor in that one goes to polio. (We cautioned her to absolutely not drink the water under any circumstances. Nothing against Vietnam-- I'm jealous as hell-- but the fact that those vaccines are recommended scares the hell out of me.)
After that conversation, which given that we are terrible people was much funnier than it sounds, Z suggested we go out to dinner. He had a place in mind, a Chinese place that's walking distance away. So we walked. And it started to rain.
But it didn't rain hard. We got there and were the only people in the joint. We drank Mai Tais-- competent Mai Tais-- which wound up costing $3.30 each. OMG we are going back there all the time.
We also had the best damn General Tso's Chicken ever. Holy cow, dude. It was amazing. I mean, it's all garden-variety take-out-style food, but well-prepared. And the interior decorating seems to be frozen in time.
So that was nice. We had thought to go from dinner to dessert at a nearby sundae place that's also walking-distance, but we were stuffed so full we had to waddle home as it was. At least the rain held off a little longer.

Then Z passed out on the couch, only coming to bed after midnight. I had meant to get some sewing done-- that navy blue kirtle I was making went together in like ten seconds. But Z sent me a link to Achewood before I nodded off, so I wound up reading for like two hours. Argh. Oh well.

After all that, you would think I would feel so relaxed and calm, right?
No, for some reason all the muscles of my neck and shoulders are like rocks and steel cables. Dunno. It's quite painful. And I am stressed out and scatterbrained over all the sewing I have to do. And I have been worrying about money. (Z finally got paid, so we could pay our rent, but still, there's not enough money lately.)

And now I'm stressed out because I let myself sleep in until after nine a.m., and have somehow frittered away all this time on the Internet, gathering thoughts and gathering wool (a coworker calls it that when he spaces out-- "I was wool-gathering!"-- I offered to knit him a sweater). Argh! Argh argh. I owe emails to twenty people. And my poor grandmother, my poor stubborn osteoporotic grandmother, tried to take herself down a steep hill alone in her wheelchair, and toppled out and broke a couple of ribs and nearly broke her arm and bruised her face and had to spend half of yesterday in the hospital, and just won't accept that she's 90 and needs more help than she wants to take. She can't go down the hill by herself in that chair, and someone had promised to come help wheel her down, but she grew tired of waiting for them and decided to go alone.
And I am such a bad grandchild that I will forget-- I know it already-- to write her a card. Unless I do it right now. But I can't find a pen and I have to make lunch and... yes, I know, I am hopeless.

Argh. Lunch. Sewing. Cleaning. I'm basically abandoning the garden. Gotta go do something. Ack.

So today I sat down with some navy blue linen/rayon I got on sale at JoAnn's, intending to make a caftan to go over the pink (eugh) chirka I am almost done with that I need to take in just a titch and put the rest of the hooks and eyes onto, and hem.
And I laid it out, and drew on it with chalk a little bit, and finally thought to myself, "Self, why are you investing so much time and effort into middle eastern garb when you have almost nothing to wear, aren't sure this pattern will work out, and you only have just enough time and material to make yourself maybe one more thing?"
And instead I cut out yet another fitted kirtle, which I know will go together easily, be perfectly adequate to support me, and whipped out a nice navy blue fitted supportive linen dress. It is lightweight, short-sleeved, and will go with the chemises I have finished.

I will try to put together a caftan out of the fabric I bought for that express purpose, if I can. But in the meantime, I will do as much of the finishing work on the new navy blue kirtle as I can, including piecing some bits to make the skirt longer since oops, it's about mid-calf. And then I'll bind eyelets and sew hooks and eyes and hem things, and have my Pennsic wardrobe pretty much set. A few cholis maybe.
I still need to make everything Z needs, pretty much. But I'm not making him anything fancy.
I am running out of time. Bah. I'll get enough done, somehow. One way or another.

Or: On Unhelpful Advice.

This is a phenomenon that I know many of you must have encountered before. It seems to mostly happen on the Internet, but I've encountered it in real life as well.

(Edited to add: OK, the original post that made me start thinking of this years ago is gone, but there's a Making Light thread on it: The Drive-By Mommy Phenomenon. Something I'm not addressing in my post, below, is that this is, not exclusively, but heavily a female phenomenon, and the whole thing is a subtle, or not-so-subtle, ingrained way that women "police" one another: via unsolicited advice containing judgments on perceived failings.)

Someone makes a complaint, or a statement, or a comment, or perhaps asks advice (though often not), or just exists, and Is Different in some way. Has a medical issue, or a relationship issue, or something. It doesn't really matter what.

A respondent replies with a "Have you tried / Why don't you / Have you heard of / Maybe this can help" of some kind. And the thing that they're suggesting is pretty much the most basic remedy for whatever the issue is. As in, it's the first thing that any sane and reasonable human, confronted with this situation, would look into. OR, the thing they're suggesting is something that, if you've ever given the situation any thought or looked into it for about three seconds, you would realize was totally unfeasible.
i.e.: 1) "My boyfriend's beating me." "Have you tried leaving him?"
2) "My migraines are terrible." "Have you tried Excedrin?"
3) "My hair is difficult to handle." "Have you switched conditioners?"

Often this advice is given either in complete and total ignorance, or is based on very personal experience.
1) "I had a boyfriend who was mean to me once, and it was tough, but I just walked out that door."
2) "I had a bad headache and I took Excedrin and that cured it!"
3) "I had tons of trouble with my hair but then I tried X brand and it's perfect!"

Added bonus is when the advice-giver heaps on a good helping of anecdata. Super extra bonus is when the advice carries a nice hefty dose of judgment. And of course, triple word score if the anecdata is thirdhand, or based off almost no experience at all.
1) "I know tons of people with mean boyfriends and some of them just keep going back, but you've got to be strong." [Implying that the asker is weak.]
2) "My mom and my aunts all have terrible headaches a lot, and Excedrin works for them too. My mom read a study that most migraines are psychosomatic anyway so anything stronger is a waste." [Implying that if Excedrin doesn't stop the asker's migraines, she's only imagining the pain anyway. (Side issue not addressed: psychosomata. I know. Another post, another time. I'm discussing the inherent attitude in the statement.)]
3) "Well, I've only been using X brand for like a week, but I just know it's perfect. I can't wait for you to try it." [Implying that the adviser's experience is universal in all cases, and assuming that everyone wants to emulate him/her.]

I am assuming everyone reading this is aware of what's wrong with the example advice on a basic level, but I'll enumerate.
1) Many times, attempts to leave abusers are a) not supported by the abused person's family, b) not feasible for economic reasons, and c) result in fatalities when the abuser, thwarted, seeks terminal vengeance. It's not a question of being strong, it's a question of being rich, lucky, and thorough.
2) Migraines are not the same as headaches. Also, the asker's brain is likely to vary from the adviser's mother's brain significantly. Also, if it was something that over-the-counter pain medication marketed toward headache sufferers could alleviate, it is unlikely that the asker would still be complaining about it.
3) People have wildly varying hair types. What is perfect for one person may be an unmitigated disaster for another. Super double bonus if the asker is of a different race than the adviser.

But concern trolling doesn't stop there. Because all of us have made blunders like this, many good-naturedly. It is a part of being a human that you have a human brain which is not always capable of seeing all facets of every issue. Your well-meaning mouth (or fingers) may blurt out something completely, insultingly banal out of a simple impulse to respond with sympathy, without considering that you're insulting the asker's intelligence.

Concern trolling really gets into full swing when the asker replies. It can go several ways.
1) The asker is nice. "You know what, I tried that, and it didn't work / couldn't happen because X. But thanks for the advice!" The asker is assuming that you meant well, or is used to this kind of shit, sick of it, and wants you to shut up. Impossible to know which.

2) The asker is a bit chilly. "Thanks, but no!" Probably the second eventuality mentioned above.

3) The asker is completely insulted. "Good lord, do you think I'm an idiot?" From the asker's point of view, your suggestion is completely inappropriate and, worse, presupposes that the asker is not a person of reasonable intelligence.

There are non-concern-trolly ways of responding to each of these things, which a normal person, when confronted with the situation and having a modicum of common sense, would take.
1) "Oh gosh, of course you did. I'm so sorry it didn't work. I thought it couldn't hurt to ask if you'd tried it."
2) "Hm, I see. Well, good luck anyway!"
3) "Oh dear, I suppose I hadn't really thought that through. Well, I don't really know what to do, but I'm sorry for your trouble."

But here's where the concern troll shines.
1) "Are you sure you gave it a fair chance? Because it worked so well for me / the person I saw on the news. You should try again. It really is great." No troll is satisfied with a polite ending. If you can't get someone to snap or flounce, your time has been wasted. Finally the asker may be prodded into at least chilliness, whereupon the troll can whine that h/she "was just trying to help" and can go complain about how rude people are, etc.
2) "Well! Something crawled up your ass and died! I was just trying to help!" Victory!
3) Ditto, perhaps with more flaming. Victory! With any luck you can drag more people into the argument and make it into a proper flamewar. Ha ha!

The thing that differentiates concern trolls from just regular trolls is that they believe that they're genuinely trying to be helpful. They really can't understand why someone wouldn't be overjoyed at their advice, and upon hearing it, wouldn't run out to try it, and cry out, Thank God, CT, Thank GOD you were here to tell me about TV Medicine 101 or Lifetime Channel Relationship Principles! Because I never would have come up with it on my own!

Don't do this. Don't be a troll. I know some people who have a tendency to do this perfectly innocently. Normally they stop short of out-and-out trolldom, but it's still ugly.

So I have this to say. When you are going to offer someone advice, stop. Stop for a moment. Stop and think.
1) Did they ask for advice? If yes, proceed carefully. If no, hesitate further.
2) Is my advice going to be different? I.e., will they have seen the same ad as me? If this is a problem they have had for some time, is it likely that what I am suggesting is something that they will have encountered before, or will someone who has given this thirty seconds' consideration have already thought of this solution? If you think that a reasonable person is going to have already thought of something, hesitate before presenting it.
3) Do I know anything about the problem? Is this a problem I've had? If yes, THINK AGAIN: Is my problem really similar? Even if it seems similar, remember as you present your advice that it's possible that your situation isn't as similar as you think.
4) Does my advice contain some inherent judgment in it? Do I think this person is an idiot for being in this situation, and is that showing through? Do I think it's his/her own fault that he/she's suffering? Maybe, in this case, the best thing is to either keep your mouth shut, or simply offer non-specific condolences. There are a lot of things you may or may not know about the situation; if you are pretty sure that the problem is entirely that the asker is a complete idiot, then you're unlikely to improve the situation by pointing that out.

This post is brought to you by Little Miss Butthurt over on fatshionista, who is still upset that I wasn't overjoyed at her suggestion that no plus-size woman could possibly wear a 32 bra band and I must be totally wrong. Honey, you got upset when I asked if you were concern trolling, but you've pretty much proved me right.

I'm really fucking sick of fatshionista right now. Every single time I see a post that's interesting, and respond to it, I get sucked into stupid fucking drama in the comments. Really, fatshionista? Really? Oh my GOD. One recent notable thread involved someone arguing that fat people ought to be charged extra to ride on airlines if they don't fit into the seat-- but people who are too big to fit into the seats for non-fat-related reasons, like for example having broad shoulders, shouldn't have to pay extra. When I pointed out that this was discrimination, she happily agreed.
On a fucking fat-positive community.
Really?
And I just got a lecture on how to properly determine a bra size. ("In order to really wear a 32 band, you'd have to have a 27-inch chest! That can't be right! I'm not trying to be mean, but i'm trying to help out and maybe fix your problem!"
I said thanks for calling me a liar, and provided her with a bunch of links on properly fitting a bra, and she went on downthread to complain to every other commenter about me. Yes. I am a fucking bitch. Now fucking die, please.

Am I just too sick of the Internet, or what? Ugh, it's not even the SAME shit.
I'd stop reading fatshionista but I can't; it's the only way I find out about places to find clothes that fit my enormous hideous lying disgusting discrimination-worthy fat ass.

OK, Remi, we are SO not friends anymore. 3 am is not the time to be friends. I could have dealt with perhaps a few minutes of any of the things you did, but not all of them for an hour and a half-- purring on my face, powerkneading the backs of my knees-- with claws, walking up and down my body repeatedly, knocking things off my side table (Ok I lied, I can NEVER deal with that shit. Fuck with my glasses and DIE, bitch), futzing with the dishes in the sink, burying the food bowls, dragging rugs across the kitchen floor... Yeah, Remi took a little flying lesson, out the kitchen door, at 4 am.
Then Chita woke up, hearing the door go, and sauntered slowly downstairs to check things out. When instead of everyone getting up like she expected, it turned out that the house was dark and quiet and boring, and Remi was outside scratching my car tires (I am not making that part up) and clinking around, Chita began to ask questions. Noisily. "Meee?" What the hell is going on?
She wasn't as noisy as when she's trying to be obnoxious, but she was really confused.

Fuck it, it's 4:30 and I'm up. I don't have to be at work until noon, since the shop opens late on Sundays. Maybe I'll have time to take a nap before I have to go in?
Or I'll develop a taste for brains and just stagger around moaning a lot.

[eta] That was pretty funny. Neighbor lady (not the old batty one, the one on the other side) came home at 5 am from her night out on the town, and Chita was lying in her driveway back by the garage. I was watching her, and Chita didn't react to the car pulling in (a good 20 feet down the driveway, but in a straight line), or the woman getting out and walking up the driveway, but when she hit the power locks and the car beeped and flashed its lights, Chita leapt up and rocketed back over the fence into our yard. Such a brave cat.

How am I this stressed out? Oy.
I've just spent several hours going through my fabric stash and picking out things I am going to use immediately, washing where necessary, ironing, and folding the fabric so that it will be ready to cut out. Now I'm affixing labels to each pile of fabric, so that I know what I am planning to use it for. It was all bought with a specific purpose in mind, each individual bit of it. But of course, I don't remember.
I have a weird issue thing, a fetish maybe? about buying fabric-- I always want more, and constantly have to fight the urge to hoard it. It is incredibly difficult for me to use what I have, to take scissors to fabric and cut into it and just go. So in less than a year, i've acquired this huge stash, none of which I can bear to use.
Finishing the blue silk dress has helped-- I had that fabric for months before I could bear to cut into it, but I kept going fairly steadily, and finished a wearable garment I'm happy with, so blah! I have a few bits that I bought solely because they were so cheap, and it's oddly hard to cut into those too-- because most of my fabric, I love so much, it's hard to "waste" the crap fabric on something that might not work!!
Once I've started it's not quite so bad, but that's why I have two finished, usable garments in the same obnoxious ugly baby-pink linen/cotton blend now-- because it was my 'test' fabric, the only fabric ugly enough that I really felt like I could just go for it.
Which means I'll be wearing pink most of Pennsic, of course, because the test garments are the only ones I've more or less finished.
I hate pink, but what can you do?
Today I hope to get a pair of pyjama pants done, as a trial run for the Pennsic trousers I'm making for Z and for redstapler's bf, and in anticipation of the Great Trousers-Making Session I'll be leading here at some point soon. (I should probably invite anyone else who wants trousers to come-- I will have a well-tested pattern or two, and several sewing machines, so we'll maybe all be making the same thing and thus will be able to all follow the same pattern and not get confused. I hope. Right? That's the plan, anyway.)
I also want to make a second trial pair of trousers, for Z, and then get started on an entari to go over the chirka that is in need of three more hooks and eyes, some hemming, and a few more bits of handsewing to get it all stuck down.
Let's not get too ambitious, though; I also need to do some gardening (if it stops raining for a minute) and the dishes and tidy the house and take a shower and squeeze in some shopping, somewhere, somehow. Oy. OK, I'm going to go start cutting fabric out, if I can master my weird urges long enough to get the damn scissors into the damn fabric already.

Remi was a complete tool all morning, burying foodbowls and prowling on my face, starting before 6 am and continuing up until almost 8, whereupon I finally arose from bed, seized her about the middle, opened the door, and chucked her outside, then firmly shut the door so she could not re-enter to give me yet more grief.

The garden has escaped; despite my hundreds of hours of work, and diligent weeding, when I left for Melrose and it rained and rained, the damn thing went insane. I now can't even find some of my plants. It's nuts.
So far I've had turnips and radishes be edible, but I'm not sure I'll be able to find the rest... there must be peas and strawberries out there, though, among the weeds.
Seriously, we're talking insane levels of weed cover, abruptly.
Oy.

The lawn is also like twelve inches tall, with full-grown Queen Ann's Lace blooming three feet tall in among it. It was short when we left, and scraggly, and thinking of curling up and dying. Now it's just completely insane.
It's been hot the last couple of days, too, so I haven't been able to face going outside...
Oh well, I'm doing what sewing I can for now, and hopefully the fact that I woke suffocating in humidity this morning doesn't mean it won't be clear and nice by early afternoon...

I have so much to do and no time for it. I thought I had to work today, but I don't; so now Z has the car for the day. Fine. But there's a wedding we're to attend tomorrow, half an hour away; I don't know when it starts or where it is, and haven't found the gift registry. To add to the joy, Z and I collectively have about $20 to our name, since his employer "forgot" to pay him last month, and this month's check isn't forthcoming; we're waiting for March's paycheck, mind. I'm to be paid today, but one of the two weeks in the check, I only worked four hours. So that's not going to be much. And I'd have to drive out to Transit Ave to get it, half an hour away, and I can't do that if Z has the car. I can get it tomorrow, since I'm working 9-5 (hence some of the angst about how I'm going to get to the wedding in time), but that means I can't deposit it until Monday. Which still means that how on Earth we're going to buy a gift for this person's wedding, I don't know-- but more to the point, when? Argh. I can't walk to any stores from here, unless maybe Target about half an hour each way...
At LEAST I have a dress to wear.
I'm going to have to wear it to work, I think.

Guh. Anyway.

I am almost done sewing that chirka. Using hooks and eyes for closure, since I couldn't find any suitable buttons and don't want to spend time making them, and I think that for an under-layer anyway a flat closure like hooks would work better than a dimensional one like buttons. (Flat buttons are, I believe, out of period. So they'd have to be the kind of buttons with shanks.)
I'll write more detailed stuff about the chirka later. I embroidered part of it last night, not in a well-researched pattern or anything, but more in idle stem- and split-stitch doodles where the seam I sewed to hold the lining to the fashion layer at the front was uneven. I was going to have to go back over it by hand several times, so I figured I'd just go back over it with embroidery floss instead of regular thread. I don't really like the look, but there it is. It'll grow on me, maybe. Doesn't matter; as I said, it's an under-layer.

I am filled with despair as I look at the work schedule; so many people are going out of town or on vacation or leaving the company right around Pennsic time. If I wind up working every other fucking day all through Pennsic, I am going to freak out. But I also don't want to be a prima-donna, ask for the whole seventeen days off, and get completely shot down. I am still holding this fantasy that I can discuss it reasonably, volunteer to work, say, three days on, four days off, two days on, three days off, etc. through the whole thing, and then basically commute.
But the Scheduling girl is kind of not so good at that sort of thing, and anything too complicated upsets her, and any attempt to do it for her threatens her, and you just don't want to get on her bad side. So I'm trying to figure out which co-worker would be most sympathetic and helpful at perhaps helping me figure out how to even go about asking, and what to ask for...

I think tomorrow I'm going to bring paper print-outs of calendar pages, and sit with the schedule and sort of work out what the possibilities are. I think if I figure out who can work what days, not only will I be less totally confused about my own current schedule, but I will also perhaps be able to request off just the days I need (instead of "any block of 4 days during this week", which is probably more than she can handle conceptually) that I know I can actually get, as opposed to, say, days when the one person who could fill in for me always works elsewhere. Etc.

Oy. Dunno. Why am I so stressed-out when my life has been somewhat-carefully constructed to minimize stress since I totally can't handle it? Argh.

Also my aphasia is getting pretty bad. Yesterday I became completely confounded between "phone", "camera", and "cash register" and absolutely could not keep them straight all day. You can see how in my line of work that might be a problem. My only saving grace is that people mostly don't listen to what other people say anyway, and you can make up for a lot of these things by smiling and gesturing.

Worked steadily on the chirka. The body is together, including gores-- despite a delay when I cut all the gores the wrong shape (awesome!); neckline and armhole facings hand-stitched down, quite tidily if I do say so myself. Have inserted boning channels at front, but will need to turn back fabric artistically. Then must work out whether to use buttons, or hook-and-eyes. Still worried it may not be adequate for support. Then it will need to be hemmed, and will be done. Next I need to make about eight pairs of trousers-- by the end, I should be quite good at it, no? starting probably with PJs and thence to some sort of harem-type pants, and then I might set trousers aside until Sunday? when maybe I'll be having a Pennsic Garb Craft Nite? Dunno yet. It will be Trouserfest '09, since everyone and their boyfriend needs some dang pants to wear.
I will bang out an entari at some point, and then I need to get sleeves on the black wool kirtle, hem it, and hopefully make a couple more chemises, some tunics for Z, another chirka if this one really supports my bust, a couple more lightweight caftans, a nice full skirt or two, and then a whole buttload of cholis.
I had kept thinking I have ages to work on Pennsic stuff, but really, i don't. I sat down with a calendar today and worked out all of the dates Fi is traveling until she moves. Then I have to figure out what days I need to be here, and what days I can ask off. Hopefully the Scheduling Manager will be in a less fragile mood, and I can sit and talk to her about what days she'll really need me, what days I can ask off, what days I can trade for, and what kind of schedule I'll have long-term. This week I'm all on longer shifts, mostly mornings to midday, which is great. I hate dragging my ass in for a closing shift because it's only 4 hours and I miss dinner and am always late getting out and don't get to do anything, plus I waste the day beforehand because I don't have time to do anything. I much prefer 9-5, or 10-6, because that's actually worth the hour of commute time. (I'm a wuss. I know.)
Anyway. Gotta get to bed; Fi's to the airport super early tomorrow, and I need to be ready because I'll have to kill an hour, then go to work from there. Hm, how early does Jo-Ann's open? I know it's a terrible idea, but I need buttons...

So my informal goal for this upcoming Pennsic is to not have to wear sports bras with any of my garb. That was how I got through last year, with my rudimentary tailoring skills: I just wore a sports bra under most of my garb.
It was sweaty and somewhat uncomfortable, and cramming myself into the same old sports bras I've been skating in for three years kind of killed the mood.

So I've been working ever since on creating garb that circumvents the need for modern bras.
I had some success last year with cholis, and corsets. But I want to look better this year, and I want to be more comfortable, and I want to... well, I wish that I could spend more of my life without a bra. Unsupported boobs are uncomfortable, especially in the summer-- all that boob lying against my chest wall overheats me, and the sheer quantity of sweat produced is uncomfortable. I'm not happy with unsupported breasts-- not even really to sleep, though I do because I have so few garments that support my breasts I can't "waste" them on times when nobody can see me.
So I'm also hoping to come up with garments I can wear other times besides Pennsic, of course, to reduce my dependence on $100 imported bras that never fit properly in the first place and then I have a weight fluctuation and they don't fit at all and I'm out $100 that I don't have. (In a good week, I make $100. My health insurance costs two weeks' salary, per month. My cellphone is half a week, and my rent is a week and a half. Good stuff, no? Easy math! Not so easy lifestyle.)

Anyway. Long digression.

So far I have one success, in the Gothic Fitted Dress by chargirlgenius's method. I wore the silk twill knee-length sleeveless version last night to a banquet and it was well-received. It still needs a bit of tweaking, but it is presentable.
I have two Pennsic-ready versions of it completed, one in pink linen/cotton and one in black wool gabardine. The experiment has been well and truly a success: two to three layers of medium-weight linen, or one to two layers of linen plus a layer of either silk or wool, is adequate to support my breasts in a comfortable and flattering fashion. It's a bit corset-like, and gives me a bit of the boob-shelf effect, but it is not eggregious and could even be deemed fetching.

Next up: Turkish. I want at least one Turkish outfit. Cholis are not necessarily period; I can't get a good answer on them, and don't have the wherewithal to do a great deal of research on my own. (I am not a researcher type, sad to say.) I plan to knock out a few of them, but since I will probably be using scraps from other projects, and also they are small enough to hand-sew, I will save them for last, perhaps even to do at Pennsic.

So, today, I am combining 13costumes's research/pattern/tutorial posts over on her journal with the pattern chargirlgenius made for me and a few things I have learned on my own, and am attempting to make a version of this chirka pattern.

I'm using very lightweight cotton as my innermost lining layer, since I have it. I may have to sandwich another layer in the middle somewhere. But so far, we're going with the was-$2-at-Joanns mockup, and seeing how that goes.

I wonder when "home" stops being one's parents' house. Eh. It may never, unless they sell the place or something.( big family party-- no pics yet ) OK, I'm wandering off topic so I'll make a different cut, or not.

One of many of the things I had meant to do at home and didn't get to, which means I will have to make another visit soon, is to snag time on Mom's sewing machine to wind some bobbins. I'm collecting all my empties and next time I visit someone with a fully-functional sewing machine, I'm going to wind them all, probably with either black or white thread-- I am just not so much into matching the thread on things I sew. Historic stuff it seems... I don't know, I just don't think it was commonplace to have a whole rainbow assortment of perfectly color-matched thread to every fabric you bought. And modern stuff I just don't care that much about. Curtains, yes, I'll bother if I can. But nothing else seems that important, when it means I have to hand-wind bobbins. Screw that!

I also looked at Mom's canning supplies. She won't be canning this year, since she has no garden. I want to borrow her stuff, because if she's not using it, then I can give it a try. And then if I like it, I'll buy my own set. And if I don't like it, or wind up just not doing that much of it, then I'll know not to waste the money on a set of my own.
She offered to get me a set for my birthday, but here's the thing: I'm broke and there are a lot of things I want to ask for, some of which I am far more sure I need. So no on the canning set.

The things I have to decide among to ask for:
1) Eye exam and new glasses. I am deeply concerned at my continually-deteriorating vision; it went through a phase last year where everything rapidly became blurry, and now the anti-scratch coating is flaking off my glasses lenses so they're always foggy. I think I'm going through another rapid deterioration, but I can't tell, since everything was blurry before and so whether it's blurrier now is hard to say. I am effectively blind at any distance greater than about ten feet, now, and that's getting really old, especially when I drive. I've had one traffic ticket already when I simply had no idea there was a stop sign in a little windy-street neighborhood in the dark in the rain-- there just wasn't any way I could have seen it. (I was going ten miles an hour so it's not like there would have been an accident, but traffic laws is traffic laws.) The ticket cost me over a hundred dollars-- over two hundred, in fact-- so there goes the money I'd've spent on new glasses... The cop was a real jerk about it too. I said, honestly, "I'm sorry, I just didn't see it. Which street was it on?" and he just sort of looked at me and rolled his eyes. Dude! I'm fucking blind, OK? I passed the minimum vision test to renew my license last year and that's all you require, but it doesn't mean I can see that well in conditions like this. At least I wasn't breaking the speed limit or, you know, shooting somebody.

2) Sewing supplies. I've got a hardcore fabric fetish and nothing brings me more pleasure than sewing. But it's expensive. I want more than anything to order a 20-yard bolt of midweight linen from fabrics-store.com for $99, but I don't have $99. I also want more of the silk twill I made my blue dress from, or more of the wool gabardine I made the black kirtle I'm allllmost finished with from, but 4 yards of either would set me back at least $35, which I still don't have. (Fashion Fabrics Club had a huge sale last week and it made me so sad that I couldn't order anything. I know, I kind of have a problem.)

3) A clothes tree. I need to revamp my laundry line, but I haven't been able to find one of those clotheslines that's a metal tree with plastic strings threaded through. I have no idea how much they cost or where to find them. It's a shame.

4) Photographic equipment. It's tragic, but true: I need a new battery for my Canon Digital Rebel, and I want very badly to get a waterproof, shockproof small pocket point-and-shoot so I bring it with me more and remember to take more pictures. Olympus makes a good one and I have my eye on it but don't have the cash for it.

Oh, there's more stuff, but those are just the things I have shortlisted to ask my parents for, for my birthday. I have to think it over more. 4 seems especially dumb but I really want to be able to take pictures at derby events and at Pennsic and the like, and the Rebel is too bulky to bring along, and too expensive to risk taking out if there's drinking or, y'know, rain. 3 I could potentially find on Amazon if I was sure what it was called. 2 sounds silly as well but I've promised clothing to several people and have to finish clothing myself, and while I have a reasonable fabric stash, a lot of it isn't really as suitable for historic things as I'd thought, so I'd prefer to save it for something modern. Not that I have time...

OK, I've gone on long enough. Hopefully I'll get pictures up today. But don't hold your breath. Everyone knows I'm slow.

whew. caught up. I think. Did I miss anything really important?

Remi got in a fight with That Fucking Orange Cat. She chased him and cornered him in a neighbor's overgrown backyard; Fi went in barefoot with a flashlight and hauled her out. She had him cornered and he was at bay, unable to flee because if he did she would attack his hindquarters; when Fi grabbed Remi, he turned and jumped the fence to escape.
This is the cat that did $125 worth of damage to Chita a couple of months ago.

Chita had already come inside, and so wasn't involved; she has been quick to flee at any sign of Orange Cat lately, which is good. She beats up Remi, but it's light-hearted on her end, and Remi doesn't retaliate much. Which is good.

Now both cats are inside. But the noises haven't stopped; a cat was yowling plaintively, for a while. Then a dog was barking-- a big, close dog, which we haven't heard before. But just now another cat began shrieking, audibly a catfight, in one of the neighboring yards, probably across the back fence. It sounded bad, and went on quite a while. We had seen Orange Cat slinking around the other yards across the back fence, and had perhaps seen another.
Both our cats are very restless, now closed in on the back porch.

We are considering going and knocking on the kitty-corner back-fence neighbors, who we have seen interacting with Orange Cat, and suggesting to them that perhaps they should monitor their cat's outdoor time a little closer. But it's hard to think how to be tactful about it!!
We're just worried we've given the neighbor a heart attack-- Fi went crashing behind this woman's garage.

Now a cat is doing that deep purruping brag-meow they do when they've caught a prey animal, somewhere behind the garages. Mrrow! Mow! Purrow! Yow!

Remi is not impressed.

Writeup on Giant Family Party to follow, no worries. Photos too, just have to get them off the camera.

At my parents' house on dial-up-- can't read the f-list, stealing moments here. Things are awesome. I left a lot undone in Buffalo so I apologize to anyone who was waiting on anything from me. Had to go.
Nephew is ridiculously adorable. He is running, climbing, jumping, laughing, and making a lot of speech-like noises, but not talking-- rather resolutely. He understands sophisticated sentences to an alarming degree, but only says "Aahh!" or "Ungh!" or "Ack!", and rarely "Meow!" and "woof!" and "moo!" when the spirit, and considerable Mom prompting, moves him.
He loves trains and tractors. Today we took him to the farm where Dad works intermittently, to see big tractors. As it poured all day, the farmer and his workers were in the big shed, doing maintenance-- an oil change on a tractor-trailer, as it happened, but there was also a small tractor in for maintenance. Baby sat in the seat and turned the wheel, and the farmer started the tractor up, and it chugged excitingly away. Then Baby picked up the screw driver and walked to each of the tractor's four wheels and stuck the screw driver into the holes of the rim, apparently "fixing" it. The farmer, very kindly, thanked him, and prevented him from falling headfirst into the pan of exhausted oil from the tractor trailer-- it takes 15 gallons of oil, for the record.
Baby was rather too intimidated to sit up in the tractor trailer's driver's seat, but Dad went in and looked at it, as he was interested.
Expecting a whole lot of people on Saturday. Rain or shine; we have tarps and shade flys to set up , and are prepared, except that the new parking area will be muddy, and the improved but old parking area inaccessible if it's too wet. Oh well. Dad and Baby Sister's Husband were out with shovels and pickaxes when I arrived Weds., improving the old parking area out by the barn. It hasn't held up well to the nearly an inch of rain we've had here.

Made margaritas. Am honing my recipe. It's a work in progress. Tonight's were pretty good. Gotta work up a good mojito recipe for this weekend. Already made the mint syrup. We'll see.

Baby needs to go Jeeping tomorrow. :)

So the blue silk twill supportive dress I was making for Baby Sister's wedding reception-- remember that one? Using the Mathilde pattern?
I finished it and then decided I needed to make the skirt less full in the front, and ripped out two panels, then left it. So today I finally closed that front seam back up, and stood and had Fi put pins all around the hem of the underskirt so I could trim and hem it to a consistent length. I figure I'll do the underskirt by machine, then in the car I can hand-hem invisibly the outer skirt about an inch or two longer.

I hate the way the front closure looks, though. Since it's a modern garment with no chemise... I'm going to wear it over a shelf-bra camisole, to make lacing it easier. It is nearly impossible to get it to lace without a gap under the breasts, not because it's too tight but because it's very hard to get the right leverage. Fortunately I happen to have a well-fitting scoop-neck shelf-bra camisole from J.Jill that's a perfectly coordinating pale blue color. But the problem is that if I use ribbon to lace it, the bulky edges around the eyelets bunch up around the thin ribbon, and the whole front just looks kind of ridgy. So I should ideally lace it with something a little bit thicker and a little bit softer, perhaps, but what?? I can't find anything suitable-- whatever it is has to be narrow enough to thread through a yarn needle. Maybe I could braid some ribbon or yarn into something a wee bit thicker, and just braid in a yarn needle on the end, to act as an aiglet. I have silver-colored metal yarn needles that will work. I don't have time to order anything like aiglet tips or bodkins online, though perhaps for Pennsic I will-- it would be great to have lacing cords that have some kind of integral end, so that I don't have to always be searching for yarn needles to re-lace my bodices. I mean, not like I'll often be getting undressed away from my tent. I have yet to have any adventures of that sort at Pennsic. Odds are better now that Z's coming along.

Anyway. I am glad to be on track to actually finish something. I also hope I can get some things cut out to bring with me and sew while at home, because Mom's sewing machine is in better working condition than mine. (I think she has two. I wonder if I could borrow one......... Evil plots.) It's frustrating, having two mostly-working sewing machines, but being able to rely on neither. I really wish I weren't pretty much totally broke. That's getting old. (I made $20 this week. Special.)

Urrrgh. OK, way too much to do and here I am still on the computer. I'm busy on the computer, but I think it's not as important as I think it is.

And yes, i'll take pictures somehow. I'll probably be the one taking pictures at the wedding reception even though I said I wouldn't this time, but I'll try to make someone get a picture of me in the dress.

Ran around today. I got out of bed because i was in too much pain to sleep, then sat on the couch paralyzed for 2 hours. Zonked out for a 30 minute nap, forced myself awake, had to sit there dizzy for about half an hour while my brain rebooted. Hauled myself out of bed, washed the dining chair cushions since one had been vomited upon*, looked at the rest of the laundry, tested my painful shoulder, and said fuggeddaboutit. Conspired with Fi over Little Sister's wedding present, Dad's Father's Day gift, and Mom's retirement gift. This involved two phone calls to Georgia. Got the car washed and detailed, since it was naaaaarsty in there and it just hit the 100,000 milestone and we have to take it on a long trip and it'd be nice if it wasn't totally gross. And we had some coupons to the car wash place so might as well.
Got home, made some preparations for dinner, and finally said, OK, I really, really, really need a nap. I was too exhausted to think straight and was getting that kind of thing, what's it called, when you can't think of the word for something. Aphasia. I was just that tired.
So I went and lay down on the bed in the attic and stared at the ceiling a while, slooooowly letting out the accumulated stress of um like several weeks of having way too much shit to do. Ahhhh, I said to myself, OK, I can deal with this. I am going to lie here for two hours, and then I am going to make dinner, and then I am going to go to bed early. Yes.

Then Z came up the stairs with my cellphone. "This just rang," he said. "Recognize the number or anything?"
I looked at it. It looked really familiar, like a number I'd seen somewhere or recited, or something. Hm.
I called it back. Scheduling Manager answered with the store name.
Shit.
"I'm supposed to work tomorrow," I said, panicked. "Tuesday. Four pm."
"Nope," she said. "Today."
It was 4:15.
"Shit," I said. "Well, it takes me half an hour to get there." I did not say, "And I'll have to put some pants on," but I did.

Ah well. Stress. Blargh. Ick. Eek. Ugh. I hate fucking up, I really do. I looked at the schedule and realized that I had seen the time written on the second box of the week and written down "Tuesday"... but the schedule starts the week with Sunday. So the second box, needless to say, isn't Tuesday.
Yeah, I'm a complete jackass.
Oh well.

Which means that I'll have more time tomorrow for errands than I'd thought.

But yeah, I'm going to bed now.

__________
* Ed note: By a cat, for the record.

It's all caught up to me. Friday rushing around cleaning, little sleep, Saturday working, skating, socializing, and then Sunday to Rochester for Pennsic planning, drinking beer in the sun all afternoon: I got home, took out my contacts, attempted to take a nap, was awakened by Cat Drama (apparently Remi kicked the ass of the large orange tom that tore the shit out of Chita a couple of months back-- huzzah for her), was actually incoherent but successfully made homemade blueberry ice cream, and then collapsed into bed. This morning I awoke because I was in too much pain to sleep any longer, and have spent over 2 hours now sitting on the couch in a tiny miserable ball of misery.
Some of it's sunburn-- my lips are sunburnt, which is surprising. The rest of me hurts, but isn't visibly red, so I think it's tiredness.
But the derby soreness is the worst of it. Both thighs, naturally, but my right arm for some reason, all through the shoulder-- mostly in the muscles, I believe-- is basically unusable. And then my right hip, but not the joint, the little fat bit above it, is wickedly sore, affecting the abdominal muscles a liiiiitle bit on that side. It feels like a muscle strain, but it's totally in an area that's almost all fat, so I don't know where there'd even be a muscle in there.
My knees are creaky-- they hurt during the bout, but not quite bad enough to seek out an ice pack, and they're almost totally fine now. So that's good.
But man. My shoulder. I can't use it for anything.

I should probably go work out; that's usually the best approach to muscle soreness. But I am so tired, so very very tired. Today may have to be a day of recovery. Except that I sort of have a whole lot to do... gotta clean out and get the car washed, do some preventative maintenance on the poor thing, since it's just turned 100,000 miles. Gotta work out what i'm bringing to Baby Sister's wedding thingy. Gotta finish the dress I'm making. (I hope I don't have to drive to Troy, since I may need that five hours to sew the hem. Oh yeah, need to figure out what we're getting Baby Sister for her wedding, what we're getting Dad for Father's Day, and what we're getting Mom as a gift for her retirement. Need to buy liquor and package homemade syrups attractively. And need to decide if I need to snag any new photographic equipment to get pictures at the reception. I had said I wasn't going to be The Photographer, but I still may feel obligated to try. I really ought to get a new battery for my camera...

At the moment I am so tired I feel like I am not capable of anything. But I had such a wonderful day yesterday and am looking forward so much to Pennsic and am so motivated to do things about it, I can't sleep for thinking about it.
And also can't sleep for worrying about how I am going to get the time off. I am only part-time; I should be able to ask the manager, who schedules apparently at random, if she could group the three days I work per week consecutively, right? I mean, she schedules pretty much at random and it's never the same one week to the next, so if I ask if I could work a chunk of days all together instead of, say, Tues-Thurs-Sat as I have been, would that be unreasonable? But I did before and she kind of flipped out. So I'm really nervous about it and know I have to time the request correctly. I'm worrying about it for more than Pennsic, though-- I also want badly to go visit Katy in August, since she's going to be 8 mos pregnant and her husband is going to be in Korea. AND, i am thinking I really ought to get a second job, since this one has settled into a pretty consistent 20 hours a week-- but if I don't know my availability, how can I do that?
So maybe I just have to pick a day when the manager is in a good and receptive mood, and just bring up the topic in general. I don't want to be a prima donna or anything-- I hate people who feel entitled to have everything their way even at the expense of others, and it's unreasonable for me to assume that five other people are going to rearrange their lives for the convenience of mine. But I also think it would be really nice not to have my entire life ruled by a job that isn't enough to support me; I need to be free enough to use the time they're not willing to pay me for, either for my own ends or for other gainful employment. And for that I need more than a couple of days' notice of my availability.
But it's early yet; two long-term part-timers are leaving in the next month, and I haven't settled in entirely yet. (I'm worried I'm learning too slowly, though people are being nice and supportive when I express this worry.) So I may just bring it up casually, asking whether things will settle down and expressing that I don't want to ask for time off if I can just work around a predetermined schedule instead. Of course, having to drive back and forth to Pennsic four times would be really annoying, and commuting to Georgia is unfeasible, but having an absolute minimum of requested days off would be a reasonable and worthy goal, I think.
And then I'll know what I can reasonably expect to get as a second job.