The Compleat And Actual Adventures of Marcella White Campbell

Things I have been doing instead of blogging:

1) Halloween
My son is obsessed with the San Francisco Municipal Railway. (No, I don’t know why, either. We just roll with it.) I thought he would enjoy dressing up as a MUNI driver for Halloween.

I used my sewing machine! I made my own pattern! The funny thing is, the MUNI patch almost took longer than the sewing, and that includes designing and sewing the top twice. He loved the costume, but demanded a BART driver costume almost immediately thereafter. Le sigh.

2) Sewing (!)

Now that I’ve dragged my sewing machine out, and set it up, and kind of learned how to make stitches appear on fabric, it’s seemed a waste to, I don’t know, put it away. So I haven’t. Instead, I’ve been taking out sewing books from the library, and slowly following the lessons in a book I didn’t think I was going to like, Easy Singer Style Pattern-Free Fashions & Accessories: 15 Easy-Sew Projects that Build Skills, Too.

The reason I thought I would not like the book is that I was not a fan of the fabrics used. To my astonishment, using fabrics I liked made the projects look great.

Each project teaches you how to do something, like square corners or mitering. Now I know how to sew square corners and also mitered corners. On a sewing machine!

a) Off-Kilter Pillow

I’m usually all about matching, so I’m pleased with myself that I was able to suspend my disbelief and do something just a teeny bit bananas. In the end I really liked it.

b) Grab-and-Go Bag (large size).

Yes, I am pleased with this, thank you. I bet you can’t even see my crooked topstitching, or that the bag is a little off-kilter. It is still my first bag!

The lovely linen ribbon — and the fabrics used to make the pillow and the purse lining — were all acquired at Peapod Fabrics, a lovely, teeny fabric store in the mid-Sunset. To be honest, I had avoided it because I thought the tiny size would lead to a hard sell. The opposite was true — the owner was super-friendly but not at all intrusive, so I got to look at every single bolt of fabric without pressure before making my tortured decisions. I had so much fun selecting my fat quarters that I went back last weekend with the ninja princess to select more fabrics to make her a duvet cover, which of course will be easy for me now that I am the best seamstress evar and I will be done in like 15 minutes/by her birthday in three weeks.

Yet again, it all comes down to materials. When I was first re-teaching myself to knit, I went and got some Susan Bates aluminum size-15s and Wool-Ease Chunky yarn and was convinced I just didn’t like knitting. Then I stumbled into Imagiknit, got my hands on some Malabrigo, and never looked back. It should be no surprise that sewing with cheap twill was not that enjoyable, however rewarding producing the MUNI costume was.

When I was looking for fabric, I first haunted Joann and was saddened by how many kinds of Nascar fleece there are on the market. Now that I know where to get darling owl prints and mod florals, I will soon be bankrupt.

3) Season Finale of Mad Men.
Yes, I am working on this blog post. I guess it had better be a doozy. Which is why it is taking so long. No, it has nothing to do with…

4) 14,275 words of a novel.
NaNoWriMo! NaNoWriMo! National Novel Writing Month, in which I pledge to write 50,000 words by November 30 (thus I am, at this exact moment, 29% done). I know, I have already written a novel. But I’ve been getting lazy on the fiction front, and I thought NaNoWriMo would be a good time to kick myself in the proverbial pants and get writing aggressively. I’m actually working on a story I’ve been daydreaming since high school, which is really exciting. It’s fantasy, and kind of steampunky, and it is fun.

Mad Men foodcap is coming, I swear. So much happened in the past two episodes that I really want to think through this. Ta!