-
The Shresh
When I was a teenager I loved to wear long shirts over leggings. We all did, right? It was the late eighties. I remember my Aunt Knittery particularly did not like this fashion. She’d tease me constantly, asking me if I was wearing a shirt or a dress. In the end she called it a “shresh,” said with a layer of eye-rolling and pity. I didn’t care. I thought I looked cool.
Here it is 2010 and I still like wearing long shirts or “shreshes” over pants. I still love leggings too but they don’t look as cute on me as they did when I weighed eighty-some pounds. I like to wear dresses over my old beat-up jeans. However, my husband thinks this is downright awful. I wish he was here to write a paragraph because he could probably sum it up with two or three scathing sentences that would have you rolling on the ground laughing.
I finally found an embroidered peasant blouse! Except it’s not a blouse. It’s a dress. I really wish it was a blouse. I could shorten it but that would cut off all the really pretty finishing stitches on the bottom. I could probably pull it off wearing it as a dress but it’s kind of short and super see-through. Sometimes I’m self-conscious of my knees. Wearing a slip under it would just ruin all the light-airiness of it. The perfect solution? Wear it over jeans!!!
Except Toby hates it. What do you guys think? Hot or not?
-
That Jumper
Remember that jumper I designed, or rather thought up in my head and then sketched, way back in December? I can’t really say I designed it since this sort of jumper has been around since the beginning of time. I just couldn’t find a pattern for it anywhere. Everywhere I looked I found patterns with multiple parts and gathers and pleats…I just wanted to sew a simple jumper for Bug with over-the-shoulder buttons.
Well. I finally sewed it! Praise the Lord.
So many people tell me they cannot draw a straight line and I always think to myself, That’s silly. Who wants to draw a line straight? And what’s wrong with stick figures?… Well, now I understand admiring something you do not find simple. Sewing for me is not simple. This silly SIMPLE jumper was NOT simple!!!
It took me months just to get the courage up to cut the fabric and then when I did, the pieces did NOT match perfectly…and THEN I had to complicate matters by making it reversible with two differing fabrics, but still! How hard could it be? It’s just basically a tube sewed together with wingy strap things at the top.
The linen on top, the fabric you see with the super cool birds and zebras, was a little bit stiffer and less stretchy than the cotton polka-dot calico I chose for the underneath and no matter how much I pulled and pushed, it never ever ever lined up perfectly. Throw in some beginner-style stitching and it just wouldn’t be perfect. It was frustrating. The only way this simple jumper could be finished was with my mom’s help and a zillion pins.
I had visions of sewing dozens of these dresses in every imaginable fabric and pattern. I might even make doubles and sell them on Etsy. Well, phooey on that! I know I probably only need to sew one more to get over my fear and trepidation but I don’t see it happening. I think I’ll stick to computer designs. At least on my laptop if I want a line to go straight or curvy, it does; and if it doesn’t then I shut the lid and come back to it later. No seam ripping involved. I can click and make things disappear.
I know what I really need to do is suffer through five jumpers. The only reason designing logos on my laptop is easy for me is because I used to have to design maps for eight hours a day in Illustrator. It was hard when I started but by the end of my map-making career, I could make a map a minute. Yes, they were basic two-street maps with an “x” for the store, but still I could mask and create multiple lines with just a few clicks. Something like that is probably pretty tricky for a beginner.
I don’t see myself sitting down and sewing five jumpers though. Sewing is too messy and since my living room is my sewing room, I constantly have to clean it all up and put it away. I told Toby I’d sew all the time if we had a sewing room and he said if we had a sewing room there would be a relative living in it so I dropped the subject. Maybe someday.
In the meantime, I will be super proud of this jumper and make Bug wear it every chance I can. Which should be interesting since she’d rather be a rock-star princess.
