And then there was one... again

This was his adoption photo

When we lost Harriet earlier this year, I didn't intend to get a new cat right away. I'd never not overlapped before - I've had cats for almost 40 years, without interruption, and I wanted to see what it felt like. Also, with all the eye stuff going on, I didn't want strange cat hair floating around, getting in there.

But according to the eye doctor, I'm healing, and it certainly feels like it. And late last week, my local animal rescue posted a photo of an orange tabby named Garfield, and that was it. I talked to Mario, we thought about it for a day, and then we went to visit him on Friday night.

I've met his foster before - I had attempted to adopt a cat from her back after Nicky died, but Harriet wanted no parts of a new sibling. When we went down to her basement, where Garfield was hanging out, we couldn't find it. Turns out he had climbed into her ceiling and had to be tempted down with a box of treats. Worrisome, I thought, but we don't have ceilings a cat can get into.

He made a nice impression, affectionate, cute little chirping noises, letting us pet him. After we came home, we talked some more, and decided he would be a good fit. I took an extra day to clean, set up litterboxes, and make sure I took up all the glue traps and mouse traps - hopefully any residual mouse problem will be taken care of by our new child.

Watching Marie Antoinette.
Did she say cake?

We picked him up Sunday, brought him home, opened the carrier, and I carried him to the basement to show him the litter box. He then investigated the rest of the basement, climbed a shelving unit, banged his head on a ceiling tile, and climbed into the ceiling. Oops.

He came down pretty quickly. He's food motivated, which helps. And he's fitting in rather nicely. By that evening, he was watching TV with us, albeit from the coffee table. He's since discovered the couch, and I'm hoping that we'll soon be complaining about how much room he takes up in bed.

Also, his name is no longer Garfield. Everyone, meet Rufus.

Archie Update

Hey, Archie here.  I took the 'puter away from mom to thank everybody for their good wishes and crossed paws for my bellyache.

I's better, but I really wish mom would stop chasing me around the house, trying to shove medicine down my throat and putting ointment on my monkey-butt.  (I haz monkey butt, it's embarrassing and it's sore and what she's doing makes it feel better but I hates it). 

She says I'll feel better soon, my insides are sparkling clean and my outsides will look better in a week or two. 

And she says I'll be smaller, too, because the doctor lady said I was fat!  Can you believes it?

I's really hungry because she's cut down my dry crunchies.  But yay, she's now giving me lots more wet food, even though I think she might be sneaking some of that medicine in there too.

That's okay.  If I eats it fast enough, I don't taste it anyway. 

Works in Progress

It was pretty much a non-sewing week.  Work's been busy, and when I get home all I want to do is either crash on the couch or work outside until I'm too tired to do anything but crash on the couch.

Wednesday night, I got tired of myself, and I went in and cut out a dress.  I've decided I need a few more dresses with full skirts; if I can't have a smaller waist (and that doesn't seem to be happening without significant effort on my part), I'll have more skirt and go with the optical illusion instead.  It's my illusion, let me keep it.

I cut out NL 6587, a pattern I've had for years and never made, from a bitter chocolate cotton lawn with tiny peach-colored embroidered flowers.  I bought the fabric in Paris in 2008 (actually shopping with Trena) and it's been sitting.  Now it's sitting again, but on the table and in pieces.

I was excited about the dress when I cut it out, but I spent all day Thursday in work sewing it in my head and when I got home I had absolutely no interest in repeating the imaginary work I had been doing all day.  So I cut out another dress, a repeat of BWOF 2/11 #101, the scoop neck dress that I made in the blue and white striped eyelet.  This time I'm using a black and white border print that I got from Gorgeous Fabrics a while back, and this dress I'm just about finished.  There would be photos, but I'm hoping to wear it to work tomorrow, so I might as well wait for that. 

My other weekend project, aside from gardening and working on dresses, is Sophia.  Sophia is a stray kitty who hangs out on the block I walk down every morning to get to the train.  I've been seeing her for a month or so now, and she's been getting skinnier and dirtier as the weeks pass.  According to one of the neighbors, Sophia  used to have people, but they moved away and left her.  Bastards.  So she needs a home.  And I actually have 2 potential people for her (aside from me; I'd love to keep her), but now, of course, when I'm looking for her, she's nowhere to be found.  

We had breakfast together on Friday morning on someone's front steps.  She ate an entire bag of cat treats.  I know I could lure her into a carrier with food, if only she'd show up when I wasn't running late for work. 

Must get up earlier tomorrow. 

Updates all around

First (and foremost), thanks to everyone who had fingers and paws crossed for Lily. I picked her up after work today with a clean bill of health, though my vet did at least agree with me that the symptoms were worrisome, even though on the geriatric tests they ran , she came up fine. Geriatric? I think she'd be offended.

The best we can come up with is that maybe she ate something she shouldn't have - seam binding, anyone? ribbon? - and it caused enough irritation to make her lose her voice and have some of the other physical issues. Her voice is a little better; she's up to an irritated scratchy whisper at this point, but the tone is as demanding as ever.

On top of that, I heard from the roofer today, who gave me the choice of $500 or about 5 times that, depending on whether I took the low road or went for for major reconstruction. He recommended the easy way out, because it's about 90% likely to work, and if I have to go back within the next year and take the expensive route, he'll knock the original $500 off the bill. That will hopefully get done before Friday, because I have a very exciting houseguest coming at the end of the week and I don't want contractors underfoot!

There has been sewing going on, and if I can get it together to write the post tonight, I'll have it up by tomorrow morning. It's an experiment, but a mostly successful one.

Thanks again to everyone who wished Lily well. She'd thank you, if she could be bothered to get out of the bag of fabric where she's napping.

Silence in the Sewing Room

Not lack of sewing, just silence.

Lily the cat seems to have lost her voice. Normally she has a very loud and demanding meow, particularly when she's standing outside the workroom.

Yesterday, low scratchy meow. Today, nada.

This happened before - about a year and a half ago, when she had the expensive butt surgery, her voice changed. It changed back, but I don't remember when.

One of the many negatives about the internet is if you go looking for something, you're sure to find it; searching "cat voice change" gives you lovely frightening ideas like laryngeal tumors and renal failure.

So I took her to the University of Penn's vet emergency room last night around 7:00 p.m. My vet didn't have hours until Monday and Ididn't know if I could get her an appointment, so even though it might just be something minor, I wanted to get her checked out. Minor has a way of turning major very quickly, and animals rarely show when they're in pain.

When we walked in, the waiting room was overflowing. A tech comes out, asks what's wrong, I give her the symptoms - also licking her lips, a little lethargic, maybe a little weight loss, just not acting like herself - and the tech says they'll probably run some blood work to see what's up.

8:00. 9:00. 10:00. Another tech comes out. "Lily?" she asks. I raise my hand. She's come to take a full history, including all about the surgery in January 2009, even though she's got the chart in her hand - which she obviously hasn't read because she asked if Lily had sustained another animal bite. Two hospital visits, one surgery and several thousand dollars later, it was determined it was never a bite; she'd simply been picking at her own infection.

But whatever. She takes a new history, disappears.

11:00. Midnight. Doctor comes out, with tech in tow. "Lily's people?" We get up, go into an exam room with her. She goes over the history again.

Why did I think my cat was sick? I repeat the symptoms. So that's enough to make me think she's sick? Yes. She's lost her voice, she's licking her lips constantly, she seems a bit lighter than usual, she's not acting like herself and she hasn't slept with me in a few days. The last time she exhibited most of that behavior, she was nursing a $3K infection just left of her tail.

The upshot: her bloodwork is fine, her kidney function is completely normal, her temperature is good, she's a sweet cat and I'm apparently a competely hysterical paranoid mother. That'll be $175 please - and 6 hours of your life.

I'm still taking her to my vet tomorrow, because now she has no voice at all, and I know my cat better than an overworked doctor in a Saturday night emergency room who can't see a (hopefully) minor issue with Lily because she's got way worse problems to deal with.

Fingers, toes and paws crossed, everybody. Even though I complain about her constant yammering at me, it's too freaking quiet in the sewing room right now.

Progress on the jacket

I'm moving along with the jacket, albeit more slowly than I would like.

Monday night I had the house to myself for the evening, which meant I could sew to my heart's content. On the other hand, I had the house to myself for the evening, which meant I couldn't try the jacket on him every time I felt the need.

I thought about switching projects and starting to sew something for me but I restrained myself, took a deep breath, and sewed the collar.

Last time I attempted this jacket, I knew what I was doing and therefore completely screwed up beyond all rescue (the upper collar was leather, just to make it even more impossible to fix). This time, I slowed down, admitted that I knew nothing and I was powerless against the pattern, and read BWOF's instructions word for word, letter by letter.

The instructions still made no sense, and I followed them anyway. And, apparently while non-sensical, they can build a pretty good collar.

I took all their suggestions, plus everything I've learned myself, from books, experience and Patternreview. The under-collar is two pieces, cut on the bias. The collar bands are also on the bias, which not only looks really cool, but it made the collar fit in much better.

BWOF's instructions were really bizarre. After the basic structuring of the jacket, you attach the facings, but only turn the corner onto the lapel by about an inch (there's a mark). Then you leave it open all around the neck to the other side.

Next, BWOF said to construct the collar, so I did. Collar bands to collars. Collars together, trim seams, turn right side out, press. Admire the fact that I got very nice points since I was so concerned about the rest of the process I wasn't obsessing about my collar points.

After that is where it got truly weird. You take your nice completed collar, which is by now one piece, and you treat it like it's two pieces. Starting at the mark where I left off sewing the facing, I pinned the under-collar to the neck of the jacket. Once that was basted (by hand), I sewed it in and checked for bubbles, wrinkles, creases - all the usual evils. Nada. For the upper collar, same deal in reverse. Starting at the facing mark, pin the upper collar to the facing (there's a back neck facing so the facing goes all the way around), end at the other facing mark.

Miraculously, everything was the same length and fit, end to end, like it was supposed to. I basted, I sewed, I trimmed and clipped. I turned right side out and pressed.
















Ever put so much of yourself into a process that when you're finished you're almost sick to your stomach? When I got that collar right side out and saw the facing and the way the collar fit into it, I was so happy I did a little dance in the workroom.

Of course it wasn't perfect. There were a few spots where the seam was a little off, and I took another deep breath - not entirely sure I'd breathed out since the first one - and carefully unpicked the stitches and redid them. There's one tiny spot at the joining corner of the lapel that isn't as perfect as I would like, but I have given permission that good enough is good enough.

Once he got home and I put the jacket on him and walked a few feet away, I couldn't tell which side it was, and no one else will ever think to look.

And here we have Lily, agreeing with us that those pleated pockets just weren't the thing. She's holding them down for me so I don't accidentallyl sew them back on.

I'm still here

The job's been busy, the sewing's been uninspired, and the sewing room has been unbearably hot. I'm trying not to run the AC too much, but dripping sweat from my bangs onto the fabric is just wrong.

I've also been asked to be guest blogger over at Elizabeth's Trench Sew Along, so that's one other place I've been that's not here.

Parting shot for the night - this is Evil Bear. Youngest cat in the house, last Vlad kitten I took in. Cutest little girl in the world when she was a baby, but at some point around 4 months, she apparently realized that I would continue to feed her whether or not she was nice to me. After having lived indoors for months, she reverted to mostly feral and now she stalks around the house ignoring me to the best of her ability. All of her daddy's attitude and none of his sweetness.

But I love a challenge. Bear's only 4. I'll break through yet.

March - Month End Review

There was a lot going on this month, and therefore, much stress-related sewing was accomplished. I couldn't get my head around any complex projects, so rather than just blow it off completely I settled in and made tshirts, which we both needed and for which I had plenty of fabric thanks to two trips to Jomar.

All in all, I made 10 items, and used up 11.5 yards of fabric. I don't really think of this as a lot of items because 5 of them were tshirts - 3 for me, 2 for him, made out of my TNT KwikSew and Burdstyle patterns. He would have gotten a third shirt if he was willing to wear creamsicle orange, but apparently it's not a manly color. That's okay; more for me.

I also made two of my favorite BWOF A-line skirt in summer cottons. These take an evening apiece, and I'll get a lot of wear out of them because except for working around the house or in the garden, I've pretty much given up wearing shorts. They just don't look like they used to. On me.

Yet another knit top - not the same tshirt this time, but still a TNT - NL 6405, the faux-wrap done in tomato red with white trim, to be worn with one of my new summer skirts.

I also had two recycling projects this month, the linen blouse recycle and the tie-dye skirt-to-blouse recycle, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed doing.

It's kind of freaky; I don't think I've ever sewed for a season this far AHEAD of the season. Warm weather is going to arrive and I'm not going to be at a loss for things to wear. Hmmm, there's something to be said for this organization thing. Shame I can't do it on a regular basis.

The kitty portrait of the day is Evil Bear (really). Bear is the youngest, daughter of Vladimir Putintat, the ex-stray living out his last days in comfort in my guest room, and once upon a time she was the sweetest kitten ever. Then she met the rest of the cats, realized she didn't have to be nice to get fed, and she hasn't been nice ever since. I can't pet her, I can't even touch her; the last time I trimmed her nails I tackled her in the bedroom and got rugburns and scratches for my pains. She looks at me with absolute loathing, and I love her.

2009: The Year of What Next?

So I'm being all domestic and industrious tonight, and I head on down to the basement to do the laundry I should have done this weekend, and when I get down there, I hear this sound.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Nothing should be running. Sink's dry, both stack pipes are dry, the waste pipe along the floorline is dry (and so it should be - it gave out the first year I owned the house). I go to the far front of the basement, pull on the light cord, and the light comes on. And it reflects off the pool of water on the floor.

My first thought is the hot water heater went, which it shouldn't; it's only 9, it got replaced right before I bought the house. Then I see the source of the drip - it's a pipe that's coming out of my heater. Huh?

Upstairs, get the man who has -if not knowledge then more of a clue how this stuff works than I do - and he says it's an overflow valve for the heater. Understand I have a ginormous old house with 16 radiators, and that means there's probably a lot of water flowing through the pipes up there. But why would it overflow?

Called the plumber. He called back a half hour later (I love my plumber) and he had several suggestions. I was not the one to speak to him, or Bill the plumber would be on my doorstep first thing tomorrow morning to cause inconvenience, mess and expense because much as I don't want another bill right now, I also don't want to deal with an ongoing problem.

He had several suggestions about how to stop the flow. None of them worked. Replacing the valve, however, would mean draining the entire heating system so he could work on the pipes. Draining, okay, pain in the butt. Re-filling the entire heating system, probably a $200 water bill. On top of the plumbing bill. His suggestion for living with it is to go down twice a day, change the bucket, and try to nurse it along for a month, until heating season is over, so that then it could be a two-step process: (1) pay him to deal with the pipe, and (2) re-fill the system some time before the heat goes on next November.

That sounded okay, until I went downstairs to put the wash in the dryer and the first 5 gallon cat litter tub was half full. How many gallons does my house hold, and how long is it going to take them to drizzle out of that pipe? And will there be anything left for Bill to drain by then?

Is my house bored? Does it get some obscure pleasure in every once in a while throwing some small part of itself on the floor in a fit of house-ish pique? What? Didn't I give it a new(ish) kitchen? Don't I pay its bills and worry over it?

Sharper than a serpent's tooth is an ungrateful house. And that's all I have to say about that.

I'm going to go finish my jacket and not think about what's going on in the basement.
This is Max. Max is a 10-year-old Olympic champion sleeper. It makes me calmer just to look at him. I share my cat valium with you.

Sewing = Therapy

In January, I sewed because I couldn't not sew. I couldn't keep out of the room, couldn't keep my hands off the machines, couldn't keep my brain from sewing while I was sitting at my desk at work.

This month appears to be the month of Sewing-As-Therapy. The veterinary saga continues. Lily had to go back to the University of Penn's vet hospital, with an accompanying bill the size of freaking Pittsburgh. Max is over his head cold. Nicky is over his urinary tract infection but has now caught Max's head cold. I have cats isolated in my room, the guest room and the front room, and feel like I spend all my time running up and down the steps, medicating and coddling cats who don't want to be isolated, medicated or even coddled.

Right now, I'd like to be isolated in a room (preferably one equipped with a sewing machine, all my patterns and my stash, plus about a case of wine), but that's apparently not gonna happen.

So whenever I can get away from my life and head for the back room, I feel no guilt at all this month. Not a lot has gotten accomplished - I did make two of the boat-neck tshirt from February's BWOF. It's a fast, flattering, useful pattern that doesn't take too much fabric. I've worn both versions already and am quite pleased with this one.

Valentine's Day has come and gone (can you still say "bah humbug" about VDay when you're in a relationship? And happy?) We did the card thing, the chocolate thing, and made a big dinner for ourselves on Saturday night. Actually, I made most of the dinner before he came home, because I was in dire need of occupation at that point and I knew if I started sewing I'd forget dinner, so I did all the prep and started without him.

At 9:00 on Saturday night I started sewing his Valentine's Day gift, which is - say it with me - yet another shirt. I still find sewing shirts relaxing, don't ask me why, and I've wanted to make this particular one for a while. I bought the fabric back at PR Weekend 2006, at Mood, for more than I care to remember. But I love it. And after the chevron stripe shirt and the leopard-and-black one, I think I have him adventurous enough to wear it.

Nothing too exciting with this shirt, cause the fabric wouldn't stand for it. I did chevron the back yoke, but that's pretty standard. For the collar and cuffs, I actually used the less obvious of the stripes, just to dial it back a little bit. But the inside cuffs are the louder stripe, and cut on the bias, so if he rolls up his sleeves he still gets some flash.

Black buttons for this one, obviously, though I am leaning toward doing the buttonholes (but not the rest of the topstitching) in the hot pink. Gotta jazz the man up a little, right?

It's moving along well. I took some time in there tonight, and all I have left now is to sew up the sleeve/side seams, attach the cuffs, make 14 buttonholes, sew on 14 buttons and do the hem.

Basically, other than the side seams, all the things I don't enjoy. Funny, I've finally gotten to the point where I don't hate sewing the collar and stand first and foremost.
Tomorrow morning, Lily and I go off to Penn Vet to get her sutures out. Trust me, I'd be doing it myself with a seam ripper if they hadn't already charged me for it!

Sir Thomas Gray, 2002 - 2/2/2009

Thomas T, you were a good man, and you will be missed. Rest in peace, Gray Ghost.

Another sick kitty, and random weekend stuff

Well, as weekends go, this one has had its ups and downs.

My original plan was to curl up with the February issue of BWOF, trace a few new patterns and sew until I was cross-eyed. But that was not meant to be.

Veterinary crises seems to come in waves - first Vlad came and got cleaned up and took up residence in the guest room. Then Lily had to go to the ER for her embarrassingly-located abscess.

Now Thomas has been sick for the better part of 2 weeks, and the vet still doesn't know what's up with him. He's lost almost 5 pounds in that time, he's drinking but refusing to eat, his hair's lost all its luster, and he just looks sad. He's had tests, he's had more tests. It's like veterinary episode of House - every test just lets them know what he doesn't have. Right now, they're torn between not knowing and suspecting lymphoma of the kidneys. And because he's FIV+ (for the non-cat-experienced, this is an immune deficiency syndrome for cats which works basically the same way as HIV; it can remain dormant in their system for ages but when they get sick, it more or less welcomes the illness in with open arms and throws it a party).

The vet doesn't approve, but I'm leaning toward letting Thomas go to that big kitty condo in the sky. I don't want to see any animal suffer, but watching him revert from his happy affectionate self to the fearful, feral cat he was originally (because of pain, I'm assuming, and also because he seems to process being medicated and fed as violence toward his furry person) just hurts too much. He's not Thomas anymore, and I can't imagine what the vet could come up with that would turn him back into Thomas. Certainly not the ultrasound, needle-guided aspiration of his kidneys that she wants to do on Tuesday.

On the plus side of the weekend, Mario and I went to the movies Friday night to see The Wrestler. It's gotten a lot of buzz and I thought I'd like it, but it was amazing. I watched a lot of pro wrestling as a kid, and seeing some familiar faces from the 70s and 80s just enhanced the documentary effect. I'm not a big recommender of movies, but go see this one. Mario did ask the question, "Why is every movie set in New Jersey a tragedy?" but as someone who was born there, I guess he's entitled to ask.

Last night we went out for dinner for my birthday - yes, 45 got somewhat lost in the shuffle this weekend, and that's okay by me - and it was fabulous. We went to The Restaurant School, which is only a few blocks away from the house (good for a cold night when I wanted to dress up). There are 4 different restaurant options - French, Italian, American and the Great Chefs room. The prix fixe menu there comes either with or without a wine flight that tailors your wine to each course. We went for that, and it was good. It was very good. It was so good I woke up this morning still full.

I'm supposed to be in the workroom finishing up my blouse, but I haven't gotten up the motivation yet. I did the buttonholes last night after we got in from dinner - he fell asleep on the couch, full of wine and French food, but for some reason gluttony made me energetic. It's looking good, I'm really glad I went for the alternative side of the fabric (and thanks to those who gave me that word for it instead of the reverse). Today's work, when I get to it, is to sew on the buttons, do the hem and figure out exactly what I want to do with the sleeves because the elastic just isn't doing it for me.

Nature Abhors a Vacuum

Or something to that effect. Maybe it's just that having gotten away with free vet care last weekend for Vlad, this weekend Lily ended up at the University of Penn's vet school emergency room and came home tonight with antibiotics, pain meds and a ransom equivalent to what I would have spent on Vlad last Sunday.

You never actually get anything for free.

While Lil was off getting her abscess taken care off (little missy has been fighting with her siblings and for once did not come out on top), I went into the workroom to do some stress sewing and finish off a project I started on Friday night - BWOF 11/06 #116, the faux wrap top.

I've been admiring everyone's reviews of this on PR since they started turning up, and every time I saw one, I thought, "I have to make one of these." And when I finally went in to trace the pattern, turns out I'd liked it enough back when the issue first came out that I had already traced it!

I'm normally a 38 in BWOF knit patterns, but I should have thought to cut slightly wider seam allowances this time around, because the gray and black wool double cloth I had didn't have the stretch I would have hoped for. It stumped me for a while how I was going to get this to fit - this was not a top I wanted to give away to a thinner friend after I'd finished it - and then it came to me.

I used my machine's ornamental blanket stitch for the collar seam (which was supposed to be flat-felled), and then I used it to edge the collar, which I turned up instead of under - I just liked the look of the gray edge on the black collar.

When I realized that the top was going to be a little snug, instead of sewing the side seams and then hating how tight it was, I laid them one on top of the other (about a 1/4" overlap) and sewed them together with the blanket stitch. It actually looks like a design element rather than a screw up.

The collar seems both higher and closer than the magazine photo, but this is a plus as far as I'm concerned - it's cold in Philly, it's colder still in my office, and there's just flat out no heat for the first half of Mondays. So this is getting worn tomorrow.

And then there were 12 . . .

The reason for my totally non-sewing weekend: Vladimir Putintat. Big V has made an appearance or two on this blog before, but never before has he made an appearance in my house. Well, that's not exactly true. He's been brought in a few times, but never successfully. He went out one time through my roommate, another time by tearing the screen out of the window. This time he seems content to stay put, but that may be because he's under the weather.

It all started Saturday. I was in the kitchen making soup when the doorbell rang. One of my neighbors was outside. He said that Vlad, who is called Chester on Locust Street (and Butch on 46th Street, and Old Head at the hardware store on Walnut) was on his porch and bleeding badly from an injured front paw. I called around to my vet - who was closed - and several others - also closed. A friend who is a vet tech said she could visit him on Sunday if I could get him inside. So off we went to collect the cat.

Who had vanished, leaving what looked like a pool of red paint on their porch, and little sticky red paw prints down the sidewalk. I looked for that cat for hours. I got in around 4:00 p.m., chilled to the bone, and finished the soup. Mario came in around 5:00 and when I told him what had happened, he suggested one more walk around before it got too dark - it was starting to sleet, so it would be even worse for him to be out then. And of course the cat was right back on the porch where he'd been earlier. So I brought him home and stuffed him full of food to keep him happy until he could get his visit the next day.

Yesterday my friend Jean came and looked him over. He wasn't precisely injured - the index claw (I guess you'd call it that) on each front paw had curled and grown into the pad and became infected. So she knocked him out, cut the claws, extracted them from his pads, soaked his little hands in disinfectant, cleaned his ears, put drops in his eyes, looked at his teeth - and informed me that he has two small, inoperable tumors in his mouth. They were easy to see because he only has about 6 teeth.

The original plan had been to let him back out once his paws healed. He's about 12 years old and a confirmed tomcat. I'm not the only person who has tried to bring him in unsuccessfully. I think he really likes it outside - he was an indoor/outdoor cat in his kittenhood but his people left him behind when they moved away more than 10 years ago.

But if he's got something that's going to carry him off sooner rather than later, then I'm keeping him in. Vlad's been a part of my life since I bought my house in 2000. He's produced way too many kittens over the years, 4 of which live with me and about 12 of which have been farmed out to my friends.

The least I can do for the big guy is give him a peaceful end. Until that time, there will be much love, plenty of ear scritches - and cans and cans of his favorite cat food.

It's that time again

The local theater company is gearing up for its new season (Kafka's The Trial, which I read in high school and am probably still recovering from), and at this point I'm making two dresses. Thankfully, I can do both from the same pattern using different versions.

Right now what I'm looking forward to is getting together on Sunday with the actress who will be wearing both dresses - she lives around the corner from me and would be very accessible if only she didn't have rehearsal 5 nights a week.

So this is the dress: the first one will be version A, in a sky blue cotton with white rickrack trim and pockets. This is for the ingenue character. BTW, the play is set in the 1930s, so I think the general lines of the dress will work well.

The second version is meant to be a uniform, and will have a round neck, long sleeves and a narrower skirt. It's going to be olive-greenish (it's a court uniform but I'm assuming the idea is vaguely military) and it's actually supposed to button on one side, but since it's a stage costume and won't be looked at closely, I'm going to just extend the princess seam to the shoulder on both sides, add binding to the side that's supposed to be the opening, and add buttons. It's probably not the best solution, but with limited time and budget, and having worked out the fit already on the first dress, it's the solution I've come up with. Pictures to follow.

Sorry for the radio silence lately; I've been in the dumps about the roof mess (repaired to the tune of $550, not bad except I was saving it to go to NY), very busy time at work, a wadder or two, and a good case of the general blahs. I've been at the gym a lot trying to sweat it out of my system.


Today's photo: Thomas, one of my best boys.

The Orange Monster Tote

One of the first things I found during of the last few evenings of fashion magazine inhalation was this purple Dior bag.

It's not exactly like the Hotpatterns Metropolitan tote, but it doesn't have to be for my purposes. First of all, I'm going to reduce the size of the tote so it isn't quite large enoug to carry my cats around in, so I could definitely slant it more in the direction of this Dior bag. I like the seamlines on the Dior - there aren't any on the Hotpatterns bag, but I was neither here or there on that; I knew I could always add them if I wanted.

The orange leather I purchased at Leather, Suede, Skins is actually in large enough pieces that I could make the bag without piecing, but I think this would give a more interesting effect than just flat leather, especially since mine isn't textured. Why did I think I didn't want textured leather? (Probably because it cost the earth, and this only cost a mid-size continent?)

Now I'm off in search of the perfect lining. I do have a ton of home dec stuff in stash, which would add a bit more stability to the bag, and if I put the lining together first, I can muslin out the size of the bag. There must be something with a little orange in it . . .


Parting shot today is Lily, my feline sewing assistant. She's almost the only cat allowed in the workroom - she's very well behaved, except when I'm working with linings. She loves to chew on the slippery fabric and then spend the rest of the night wandering around the house, coughing dramatically and giving me that guilt-inducing face that only a cat can give ... "you made me eat the acetate, you forced it on me, and now I'm choking and it's all your fault." That face.

Isabel Kitty, one year later

Every once in a while, things not related to sewing come up. A year ago yesterday, I lost my Isabel kitty and she's been on my mind all day.

Izzy was a challenging girl - she was a street cat, probably about 3 years old when we met, and I worked harder to bring her in than any cat since (and there have been a few since!). We met in May, 2001, and she didn't finally consent to be put in a carrier and taken home until nearly Thanksgiving. During that period, I fed her every day on my way to work, either cans of Super Supper or handfuls of dry food so that she would get used to being petted. I got a lot more punctual at work after she lived with me.

Once inside, she became the queen of the house. I had another female at the time, Lily, who still thinks she's in charge, but Izzy took over, no question. All the other cats catered to her, and she took well to any kittens who came through. One, Nicky, became her devoted minion and when she died last year, he licked all the fur off his right side. He's still not completely over her, but then neither am I. In a house with 11 other cats, you wouldn't think the loss of one would be felt so clearly, but Izzy left a big hole behind. Stands to order, since she had a big personality.

She used to hang out in the workroom with me, rambling around and sniffing at the bags of fabric, chasing the occasional thread spool when there were no other cats around to witness such undignified behavior, and curling up on the trunk under the window during nice weather. She was always welcome in there because she was so well behaved.

Izzy had a little grooming problem: she was the matt-cat. No matter how much she bathed, or how often the other cats groomed her, her fur always looked awful. She got matts and dreadlocks and just flat out nasty wads of fur that had to be cut out. Being brushed was one of the few things that made lose her temper with me. During those times, her nickname was Isabella Butthead.

It happened quickly when she got sick. She'd had dental problems in the past - the vet said a lot of street cats have them because of poor nutrition when they're young - and one day she started drooling. I thought it was another infected tooth and made an appointment for her, but the doctor called me at work and said that she had a tumor in the back of her mouth. They took a biopsy and sent her home. The next day, they called me at work and said that she had squamous cell carcinoma and because of where the tumor was located, it couldn't be removed without putting her through a lot of pain. She wouldn't be able to eat for weeks and would have to live at the vet on a feeding tube, and because it was a fast-growing type of cancer, they couldn't guarantee that they would be able to get it all and that she wouldn't go through all that for nothing.

I couldn't do that to her just because I didn't want to lose her. So my roommate and a friend went with me to the vet that night and we said goodbye to Isabel kitty. She purred right up to the end, knowing that she was a loved girl.

The house just isn't the same without her.

I Do not need a Pressing Ham, I do not need one, Sam-I-Am

You do not want one,
So you say.
Try it! Try it!
And you may.
Try it and you may, I say.

Sam!
If you will let me be,
I will try it.
You will see.

Say!
I really need a pressing ham!
I do! I need one, Sam-I-am!

Sometimes it really is the little things that make life better.

One of those sewing gadgets I never thought I needed was a pressing ham. Except I hate to do set-in sleeves, and I hate easing, and everything I've read has told me that I would have an easier time with set-in sleeves if I had a pressing ham. So finally I ventured out into the wilds of Ebay, and lo and behold, someone was selling a June Tailor pressing kit with a ham, a sleeve roll and a ham holder, for $16 including postage. Guess who's a happy girl? I love me a bargain, I do.

I used it a few times after I got it, and wasn't impressed one way or another, but last night I did a set-in sleeve on BWOF 8/2007 #112, otherwise known as the woolly mammoth coat (full review to follow) and suddenly I got it. First of all, this pattern had one of the best-drafted 2-piece sleeve I've met from them thus far. It took really minimal easing and would have turned out okay without pressing tools, but once I draped the sleeve head over the ham and steamed the heck out of it, it looked . . . like a coat. Smooth and rounded and shapely, not like something I'd just cursed a blue streak over setting a sleeve into.

My first - and best - cat was named Sam, and sometimes, when he was particularly superior, I recited Dr. Seuss to him.