Attacking the sewing center

[hrj]

Today I wanted to sew some new pants. (Pretty much nothing fits any more except the couple pairs I bought recently.) But I couldn't find the file folder with my pants pattern (I need to alter it -- not recreate it from scratch!) so I started working on the sewing center organization in hopes that I'd find the pattern. So now I have the contents of half the fabric bins in the main shelving cataloged. There are still several bins on top of the shelves and a bunch of smaller bins stacked beside it, so all in all I may be about a third of the way done (or more, since most of the smaller bins have small remnants and I have no intention of cataloging all the little bits). "Cataloging" means creating a database with an entry for each fabric purchased giving specifications and descriptions, along with a small snapshot of the fabric, all linked to a set of "project" records which record fabric usage, and a "cabbage" record giving a general description of the available scraps that don't count as yardage. So if, for example, I want to know whether I already have a piece of blue wool flannel that's at least 4 yards long, I can ask the database rather than trying to rummage through the bins. (Oh, and it also catalogs which bin the fabric is stored in.) I am such a geek.

scotica came over and we went out to see The Last Legion, with the full knowledge ahead of time that this was going to be an unintentional hoot of a movie. And, sure enough, it was pretty much a paint-by-the-numbers fantasy Arthurian cliche, complete with hot sword-wielding chick, multi-cultural band of heroes, and gratuitously complex mechanized weaponry. There were a few departures from the usual cliches: the Romans got to be the good guys this time. The good guys did not deliberately charge out from the shelter of their fortifications. But there were also several burst-out-laughing points, like the first appearance of an elaborately high-medieval (and suspiciously German-looking) castle in the middle of barely-post-Roman Britain. Physics was routinely violated, such as the behavior of human bodies when hitting water at even the most felicitous of angles after falling from a great height. But all in all, it could have been a lot worse, and will delight all connoisseurs of Bad Arthuriana (tm).

After post-movie sushi we returned to my place to continue my quest for the pants pattern. I succeeded in clearing off several bags of projects from the top of the sewing storage cabinets and cleared out 3 of the 6 drawers that had sewing stuff stuffed into them in a rush back last December. Still no pattern, but I have a bag of assorted trim and similar stuff to pass on to SCAdians with less discerning tastes, a pile of worn out hand-made clothes that I'd been saving to re-use the fabric and have now decided it aint' gonna happen, and with scotica's egging on I have formed a pile of "lace-making projects that are never ever going to go any farther than they currently are" and am going to turn them into decoration on throw pillows for the couch. "The pillows of unfinished lace" -- sort of like the island of unwanted toys. And just to prove that I come by my project procrastination honestly, among the unfinished lace projects is a linen placemat with unfinished drawn-work decorations that my mother started back before I was even a gleam in her eye.

And then I remembered that there was a second file drawer upstairs where I kept sewing patterns and found the pants pattern.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I started a crocheted bed throw once, made out of squares. It ended up as a cushion cover.

I also have a back, a front and 1.5 sleeves of a sweater, that, should I finish it now, would be so hidously old-fashioned and early 80s that I would never wear it. I have plans to unravel it and recycle the wool into something else, preferably crocheted, because that grows faster and stands some chance of being finished before I get bored with it.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

The other thing I pulled out during the clearance project was the patchwork quilt top that I started back in high school. The theory was to use it to commemorate various sewing projects (by using the leftovers). I can't believe what awful taste I had in fabric back then. But, hey, it's a lovely souvenier of the '70s.