Self Care Saturday

It's a delight to have company and it's a delight when they leave especially if - when they leave - you are home alone. I imagine that the wonderfulness of being home alone will change as my life changes however, right now, while I'm still in the child raising years, alone is the definition of a true holiday for me. As much as I enjoy spending time with my husband and family, when I am alone is when I am completely free of responsibility. I live a high responsibility life. Alone I can do what I want, when I want, if I want. For just a little while, it's a lovely change of pace.

I'd intended to visit Fabricland on my way home from the airport Friday. Instead, I drove back across town, curled up on my front porch, and felt how absolutely exhausted I was. It had been months since my last alone day and thirty days since Howard first went into the hospital. All that lifting, bending, twisting, and reaching was showing. Actually, it was all that being responsible for everything while making sure he takes it easy. Such a high level of alertness.



Later that evening, I drove back across town to pick up McCall's 6164. It's one of the new Fall 2010 patterns so I wasn't sure if Fabricland would even have it yet. Luckily, they did. McCall's was the only fall catalogue in stock. I thought I'd get the pattern sewn over the weekend. I didn't.

Saturday was supposed to be Sewing Saturday. Instead, it was a Self Care Saturday which extended into a self care weekend. Most women are really bad at practicing self care. We tend to do unto everyone but ourselves without realizing that it is our "me" time that gives us the energy to live out the rest of our lives. By taking care of ourselves, we have more energy for our obligations, interests, and those we love. That's a lesson I learned the hard (near breakdown) way but now that I've got it, I've got it. YES YES!

When I got up Saturday morning, my plan was to sew all day, produce three or four projects, and some how - in one short bit of time - make up for all those unproductive days of the past month. Didn't happen. Oh well. What is, is. Those unproductive sewing days were completely productive in a different direction. My life is not all about sewing. Go figure.

Instead, I went for a walk, read a book on the porch, altered a skirt pattern, ate the rest of the peach cobbler, had coffee with a friend, cooked salmon for supper, cleaned my closet, sewed for a bit, researched the changes needed for my daughter's bra, watched the news, and went to bed early. It was a fabulous day.




Cleaning the closet is an experiment that I want to tell you all about only it'll have to wait until tomorrow because I have more than enough to talk about today with my denim skirt. It's based on the same pattern that I used for the black and white print skirt that I made a few weeks ago and the flirty skirt that I wore to my high school reunion - the one drafted by copying the Reitman's RTW skirt. This time, I eliminated the yoke and extended the pattern pieces right to the waist.

The seam line for center back and front were extended straight. With the side seams and the princess seams, I continued the existing curves. It wasn't at all scientific. There was no measuring involved so I had no idea if the garment would actually fit when I was done. In fact, I anticipated it being too tight in the waist. It was PERFECT. Snug as a glove perfect which meant I had to add a zipper instead of using an elastic waistband since I doubted my willingness to inch by inch it up over my hips every time I wanted to wear it.




Worried that the waistband would stretch out, I used a bias binding to finish and a stay tape to stabilize the waist edge. This is the first time ever that I've used stay tape. I wonder what took me so long. Once the seam was stitched, it was serged in order to uniformly trim the seam allowance. That's a trick I use often. Serging over the zipper did something to the tension of one of the looper threads but luckily, the seam was already stitched and there isn't a danger of it coming out. The tension is now fixed for my next project.




To finish the waist edge, I pressed the binding fabric up and then over the seam allowance. The black dotted, silver grey, color blends well with the denim although it doesn't really matter. No one is going to see the waist anyway. I never tuck in and if I did, I'd wear a belt. To secure the binding in place, I zigzag stitched from the right side and then trimmed close to the stitching on the wrong side. Because the binding is bias, it won't fray.




From the front, it is neat, clean, and flat - all desirable traits. I've come to realize that I'm not much interested in traditional waistbands, even on jeans, nor in any bulk around my middle or on my hips. Pockets on pants are bulk enough. A contoured, bound, or elastic waistband works just perfect for me and - luckily - these methods are much faster.




Here's a picture of the finished skirt on Millicent. The fabric is a stretch denim. There's a vent at the back and top stitching along the princess and center seams. The hem is machine stitched. The seam allowances are serged. It may seem quick and dirty but it's actually neat and clean and works well for me, my figure type, and my life style. This is good.

This is the fourth time that I've made some version of this skirt. It's so comfortable that I'm developing the pattern as a T & T pattern with variations for a zippered opening, an elastic waist, and a yoke as well as various hemlines and shapes. Basically, I want to know it fits well so I can use it for design purposes. Designing is something I really enjoy. It makes me happy.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - some alone time and now my family is home again. I missed them.

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Personal Growth - A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of. - John 10:10

This week, I've been reading Life! By Design: 6 Steps to an Extraordinary You by Tom Ferry. In the text, there are a lot of questions to answer so I plan to work through it again with pen and paper. I enjoy pondering. I enjoy thinking about and shaping my life. I enjoying living by design rather than by default as Tom describes it.

In one assignment, Tom asks a series of yes and no questions. One is are you happy? Honesty is such a core value to me that even though I might be 99.9% happy, I'd have to say no because I'm .01% unhappy in some area of life. I'd much prefer if the question asked me to rate myself on a scale of 0-10 with ten being very happy and 0 being very unhappy. That way, I could say that I was an 8 or 9 or some other mostly happy answer.

Yes and no asks you to really look at each specific area of your life and question it - am I happy with my relationships, am I happy with my finances, am I happy with my spirituality and so on. Isn't that a fascinating question? It's so cut and dried, it really makes you think as do your answers. I found myself applying the question to all sorts of areas such as am I happy with my sewing and if not, why not and what do I plan to do differently? How would you answer it?

There are many "thieves" that seek to kill and destroy in our lives. One often unrecognized thief is our choice of focus, our thoughts, and our refusal to deal with the painful things in our life in order to experience more joy. I've read a lot of books on this subject. I've worked through a lot of pain. Tom's approach is different from many I've read about. Specifically, it includes doing the hard work as opposed to a name it and claim it type philosophy. It's so worth it.