290

this month i am going to take a cue from my dear + wise friend shari, and do a little reflecting on the year that is drawing to a close. shari writes that we too often tend to dwell on the negative things that have happened when we reflect on the past, + i think that that is true-- i know i do this a lot (oh, i could have done this, why did i do this silly thing, oh, the mistakes that i've made!) while i think there is something to be gained from this-- from looking your mistakes squarely in the face, recognizing why you did something that you regret, + learning from it-- dwelling + brooding are not so helpful. particularly at the holidays, which despite all its cheer + sparkle + sugary treats, also seems to be a time for the unexpected resurgence of memory (both sweet + painful). as we learn from what went awry in the past year, it is also so good to remember what was good + fun + rewarding, + an opportunity for growth.


so following shari + via her, these prompts from gwen bell's blog, during the month of december-- in fits + starts, no doubt-- i will take this opportunity to take charge of the memory-making of 2009. i will remember what was sweet + lovely in this year, what went very very well, what i am proud of. i will likely add a few other little categories of my own. we'll see.


1: Trip: What was your best trip in 2009?
oh... travel. 2009 was such a good year for it! i was so lucky this year to take so many wonderful trips. in may i spent a week in india with my grandmother, two weeks in nepal doing human rights research, and a week in tokyo with my sweetie. in july i visited shari for a fabulous summer weekend in vermont. in august i spent an absolutely delightful week with e in holland, in amsterdam and north holland. the fall brought a trip to asheville, and later this month i'll be headed to louisiana for a few days with family + friends + amazing food. (and the goodness is going to spill over into 2010, too... at the end of january i'll be returning to nepal for follow-up work!) 2009 was full of incredible, eye-opening, heart-expanding travel and i feel deeply blessed.

2: Share the best restaurant experience you had this year. Who was there? What made it amazing? What taste stands out in your mind?

2009 was also full of really good food-- how do i choose? i'm going to copy shari + say that in the united states, our meal together in brooklyn was definitely a standout (and the brick chicken i had was easily the best chicken i've ever had. no joke.) there were also many cozy meals with my e that made his visits to brooklyn so sweet... while we had a lot of good restaurant meals, sharing slices of grandma-style pizza with him at my corner pizzeria is one of my favorite things to do. outside the united states, i treasure each + every meal i ate with my grandmother. i think i took photos of them all too :) i watched her cook + we ate + talked + laughed + she told me stories about her life while i recorded them on a little hand-held recorder. it was so nice. and with e, one meal in particular in tokyo... we ate yakitori (grilled meat on a stick), sitting under a tarp in "yakitori alley," a row of little shops under the train tracks, while it poured rain just outside. the shop was playing american music from the 1930s and 40s, the food was incredible, and we felt, i think, cozier than anywhere else we went in the city.

so i think i'm already cheating just a bit, because i can't choose one best thing. but i think that's a very good thing.

289

on this last day of november:

back to new york after spending the thanksgiving holiday in florida. there was pie, times 3, 2 for the thursday meal with friends and 1 on saturday, for us just because.
pumpkin pie with shortcrust-- i didn't strain the pie filling, just blitzed it in the blender till smooth, and it was the best pumpkin pie i've had. + apple with butter double-crust. then another apple, same as before.
and i had the last of the apple for breakfast this morning before heading to the airport, and it was delicious. i do believe that pie might be the best thing about thanksgiving.


reading and reading and reading some more, on interracial marriage in the early 20th century (for one final paper) and racially targeted advertising (for another). there is so much that is surprising and fascinating and compelling to learn, and i'm enjoying it.


curled up on the couch under my new quilt-in-progress, which i basted in florida and lugged back to new york to tie. at the rate i'm going, it'll be on the bed sometime in 2012 (but hopefully sooner, because i like it, a lot.)

and getting ready for a fun month of december at habit. you know how much i enjoyed my time over there in september-- something about that format just clicked for me, and the project makes me happy. in december all of the guests from the entire year, january through november plus molly and emily, will be posting-- a virtual dinner party (and breakfast table and long walk and all those other little moments of thought and reflection) every day. i am so looking forward to joining in again, and i hope you'll come and visit.

288: my new coat

this is my new coat.


it's been finished for about a month now, but it took some good weekend weather, combined with a visit from my patient husband (harder than i thought!), to get it properly photographed. our beautiful sunday walk in red hook, enjoying the unseasonable warmth and sunshine of mid-november, seemed just about right.


since i've neglected this space so much this fall, it's hard to remember how much i've mentioned of the process of making this. so let me just assume i mentioned next to nothing. back in september, i enrolled in a sewing class at brooklyn general, a sewing + knitting store in my neighborhood. it was an advanced class, and this coat was the project. i was pretty nervous, because my garment-sewing has been limited to some very simple tops + skirts (and even those have been hit + miss), but i thought if i am going to take a class, let's just go for it. i would never have attempted this pattern on my own, and it seemed perfect for trying with an expert teacher's eye guiding each step. (the pattern, by the way, is very easy vogue V8548, View B. i'd beg to differ with the "very easy" part of that pattern title.)

this whole process was frustration + joy, frustration + joy. i love the fabric i chose, echino dots (a heavyweight japanese cotton), until i tried to line up the pattern pieces on critical-to-me areas like the princess seams in front + back, and the seams in the back bodice + back skirt, and they would not match up. at all. the print on this fabric is completely irregular, which is part of the charm, but it makes matching a mess that made me want to cry. i ripped out pieces + recut more than once. finally i eliminated the seams at the back and cut those pieces from one large piece of fabric, to avoid the whole matching problem. and i am glad that i did, because it looks so much better and i am so much prouder of the finished piece as a result.

the other exciting thing about this coat, though you can't see it in these photos, is that it is lined with silvery gray satiny fabric. i have also never lined a garment before, and this made me feel so accomplished :) hand-sewing the lining in was also a wee hassle, but so satisfying to see how good the finished seam looks.

the only thing i didn't do myself on the coat was the buttonholes. i have made buttonholes exactly once-- for an ipod cover for e. there was just no way i could try it when i had put so much time + work (+ money- that fabric ain't cheap) into the coat... i had nightmare visions of botching it completely. so i forked over the money to a seamstress, having brought her the buttons.

things i'd like to remember to do differently next time: the pattern showed loop closures for this view, not buttons. that was maybe a good idea. the buttons gape, and they are really heavy for this weight of fabric. i added one snap to deal with the gaping, which helped tremendously, and i am going to add 2 more. also on the button front, the pattern called for horizontal buttonholes, and i insisted on vertical, because i thought there would be weird horizontal movement with such large buttons. there's weird movement with vertical, too, as it turns out. i don't really know which is best. also, if i did this pattern again, i'd probably do the view with a narrow tapered neck, not a wide neck-- i love how dramatic this neck is, but i look kinda like a house up top. a bright yellow, polka-dotted house. because it's just so happy, i'm okay with that, but i don't know that i'd do it twice.

all in all, i'm proud of this coat and wearing it brings a smile to my face. i am very, very happy that i took the time to rip when needed and re-do. and i feel much more confident about tackling complex patterns, which was something that terrified me. next up may very well be pants!

287

i just love ivy in the fall. these days there is more color on the ground than in the trees... the only bright color hanging on tightly is the bright yellow gingko. this morning was gray and windy, and my walk to the train was marked by crispy golden leaves floating past.

school is kicking me hard this week. but i'm looking forward to a visit from my sweetie, who arrives tomorrow- hurrah! even if we have to do a lot of work (ok, not if, but when), it always seems a little easier when it's together. i also wanted to share a couple of things that inspired me online today:

this cool and innovative (and affordable!) clothing line
this beautiful little project at the purl bee
this lovely slideshow that my dad sent me
and this program that makes me laugh

286

more from my weekend in asheville. i have been so enjoying my new(-to-me) sx-70... its flatness means that i can carry it with me in my backpack! visiting court this week, i checked it in at the front counter and got smiles from all the security guards. "you're taking me back, girl! way back!" i love these little squares, even the strange melty ones like the image in the middle. you never know quite what you're going to get.

this travel, and a weekend with e last week, has been exceedingly wonderful but has left me with a lot of work to do. it's that time in the semester when i have to convince myself to stop resisting and just do it. not quite so easy, when november starts mild and sunny, and when the urge to put on good tunes and sew the day away is remarkably strong. but i am doing my best. today, the work was mixed with just a bit of fabric-cutting, and accompanied by the savory smell of the season's first stew in the crockpot (chicken, with loads of CSA vegetables and lots of herbs). tomorrow it will get slotted in around brunchtime catching up with my alabama girls and a dinner reunion with my classmates from the nepal trip. hope your weekend is sweet!

285

i am posting this to remind myself of what i know:

that sometimes i need to set it all aside and get on a plane to see my oldest friends

that i am always and constantly amazed by the beauty around me

that laughing till you cry is one of the most exquisitely wonderful feelings

that strange coincidences are to be appreciated

that strangers can be generous and funny and kind

that good food shared is more delicious, served from a big pot to the communal table or at the chichi little cafe

that i really should make an annual fall visit to asheville.

284: weekend sewing, 2

it's been quiet around here. but the days have been so full. since i last wrote here i have felt a resurgence of creative energy that was so long in coming, and i am enjoying it so much. i had spent weeks (weeks!) without even taking the cover off of my sewing machine, flipping through magazines and craft books with just a sigh. and suddenly, something shifted, and i've been making with every spare moment i can squeeze in... and so many more ideas floating in my brain that i wish i had time for. it feels so good to be excited about making again, to enjoy playing with color and pattern. i'm going to chalk it up to fall, and the energy in the air right now. i love it.

last weekend in florida, i finally finished a dress i started over the summer, the trapeze dress from heather ross's book "weekend sewing." the fabric is a beautiful, soft italian cotton shirting, gray with a tiny little white pinstripe, that i picked up at mood fabrics. i wanted something a little dressier than the version in the book, but still simple + easy. a few nights of cutting and sewing, and when i tried it on, it didn't fit. at all. it was about 4 inches too big all around, and i'd already nearly finished. i took a deep breath and picked up the seam ripper, and ripped out almost all my work... recut the pattern pieces to figure out how much to trim, and put it all back together again (trying it on much, much earlier this time). i felt so frustrated, but i tried very hard to remember that there was some lesson in this-- measure the pattern pieces if you're not sure. measure yourself. measure them both again. and try on at the earliest possible moment. and if things don't seem right, they probably aren't.


i hit another snag with the straps... just sewed them a bit too long, so they kept slipping off my shoulders. such a quick fix but with no sewing mojo the dress sat and sat. since august in fact (i wore it to coney island and there discovered the strap issue). last weekend i finally picked it up again, and 10 minutes later i had a dress. since we were off to a party, the tights and shoes seemed like the right thing to add ;)

other notes on this pattern... if i was going to make it again, i'd slightly reshape the bodice pieces, which fit me a little oddly in the front. on my figure, i need a belt with it-- to cinch it in and give it some shape, and to emphasize the volume in the skirt part (there's a lot of fabric there!). i bet it would be cute in a really drapey fabric, too, belted, as a fancy top.

there is some other very exciting (to me, anyway) sewing news on the horizon. i have been taking a sewing class here in brooklyn, and a yellow coat with white polka dots is very very near completion. next week, i think. i can't wait to share it.