Things I Did This Week

Things I did this week:

1. On Friday I went and saw my long time friend debut in his first off-off Broadway play. Our paths have traversed since our college days involving copious amounts of beer and cheap vodka (okay, I was the connoisseur of pure rot gut cherry vodka and Pepsi (we were a Pepsi campus) and he was the consumer of Natty Light . . . and yes, Natty Light trumps the swill cherry vodka I poured down my throat for nastiest of the super-fly po man's brews.   Hands down.  Sorry.  Not Sorry.).  We realized after the show that for the first time in our decades plus evolution I got to watch him on stage and didn't have to do anything back stage.

Yea, twisted not-so little secret . . . I was theater tech back in the day.  Haven't done anything with it since some point in my mid 20s I'd guess.

Like a jackass, I forget to get a pic of our mugs but rest assured . . . The Actor's Theater held a great three-day run of Exodus's first play Murder by Hanoch Levin.

In short, Murder was written in reaction to Palestine and Israel.  Remembering that puts the story-line in perspective, firmly making the sub-message of senseless and wasted death and lives come into the forefront.

2. My friend Tiffany works for the Met Opera.  My friend gave me her opening night tickets, in Plaza seating, since she was behind the scenes shuttling people into tights and corsets.  My friends are living up to the name of this here blog.

You should be jealous.  It was a fabulous opening, with a lovely story of love triangles and deceit.

The protesters were something special.  Up in my face . . . it's okay, not the first time this year.  In August I dismembered baby parts and scientifically incorrect photos were blasted in eye view as I, being a women who has never had an abortion, was audacious enough to engage in a scholarly discussion on the culture, culture of suppression, and place of pregnancy termination in modern society.   

At least I wasn't crossing a picket line.  That, now, was a few years back as I was forced.  Another time.  Another day.

The troup of Jewish ladies in front of me, with a overbearing of waft of perfume, were hilarious in their own eschewing of the protesters (in short, the opera's schedule was planned five years ago . . . politics shade the play differently now).  Though, in the course of the evening, before the political discussion occurred the gentle ladies kept offering me les noix while inquiring why I was alone.  C'est la vie.  Yes, nuts.  As I was listening to their French, and not even pretending to have not eavesdropped as one turned with a plastic bag of nuts in my face, I said "No, merci.  Mais je vous remercie beaucoup."  Yea . . . no, thanks.  But thank you very much.  

Her face, her, "Oh my! Where . . . where did you learn to speak French like that?"

I could lie and tell you tales of how I am an eloquent speakease in de langue de mon rêve . . . Ha!  My reply, "Yes, yes, I sound like a fifteen year old in Kentucky.  As I was fifteen, in Kentucky, when I learned the language." 

She chuckled.  I will always be a comedy in any language I speak.  

I've had a good week in those regards.

I choose to focus on that, otherwise this week would be in the bottom of a vodka bottle as I  wash my brain in it.

3. I launched a pattern, if ya missed it.  I did man, I did. 

4. I broke my ten year ban on wraps and made and wore one.  And . . . like my bombshell, it stayed on. Why a ten-year ban? I once had a wrap blouse that came open while at the cosmetics counter...classy I now.

So, as I blabbered on Instagram I made this one from a Vintage pattern that I altered the hell out of . . . as in the only thing original about my dress is the actual wrap action.  Jenny inspired me to make a wrap . . . and she's hosting her own sew along!

The pattern is Butterick 5515, circa the 1970s...

I knew I wanted a classic DVF dress, but A) I wasn't willing to pay the prices people want for those patterns (Google that  and watch your own mouth flap like fly paper in the wind) and B) I felt that I should probably draft this myself.  Well .  . . I got this one for five bucks, and then proceeded to undo it piece by piece.  I took out the tucks on the shoulders and center back, ignored the gathering for the lower back, removed the center seam on the back skirt (which I just cut it on the fold and since I didn't gather the bodice it matched up perfect), hacked off eight inches (after cutting . . . bah!), replaced the sleeve with a Deer and Doe Plantain , and doubled the length of the cuff to make it a a fold back 1970s one.  Oh, I omitted the buttonhole.  

The fabric is an Italian Poly from Mood, and I bought it at the August meet up . . . of course, while standing in line for wool knits Jenny and I chatted, she eyed my fabric, and I then said I'd cut her if she tried to steal it.  Ha.  I do like it, the print is a very me, but . . . it is poly and it filled the inside of my serger with a lot of micro pellets.  C'est la vie.  A mini vac and a brush got those out.  

So . . . I used knit interfacing for the collar and cuffs, and I faced the wrap openings.  No interfacing on those as I needed a slight drape to move with the girls. The facing provided enough weight to balance. 

The Bur took these shots, on a gently rocking ferry. They could be better, or worse. Fyi, there's snaps on each side of the wrap opening so I won't relive my flash counter moment. Also, since life is not like the movies, they also keep the shape and position of the dress all day. 

5. Since I'd been home for nearly a month I got wanderlust or some such.  Schlepted out to Stony Brook, to pick up my sidekick (or am I his?), and haul up to his house in CT to spend a weekend in an early New England Fall and meet his mini.

Yes, pull your chins off the ground.  I do know how to hold a baby.

And that's a wrap.