AAAANNNDDD~ WE’RE BACK.

Among all my many interests, one of the few things I have never been interested in (along with sports) would be the mysterious inner workings of the computer.  Though I love tools of all kinds, the computer is one that I don’t really want to understand.  I want it to just work, dammit.

And so of course, three days into writing a blog, I lose my internet.  For a week.  Zip, zilch, nada.

Three strong men came to fix my system; three strong men failed.  Thank God for my-son-the-computer-genius, who came over, on his day off from fixing computers no less, and tinkered with it until he found the culprits. A wire with an incompetent head, among other stuff, and so he fixed the thing.  That kid has a big red S on his chest, as far as I’m concerned.

Speaking of tools, one of the tools that most fascinated me when I was very young was the needle and thread.  I remember watching my grandmother, dear Gramma Iney, doing the mending.  That motion—pulling the needle through the cloth, far up and to the right of her body, the little twist of the wrist that made it tight and ensured the thread didn’t tangle—the entire process captivated me.  When she finished, I’d take the needle and thread and “sew,” stitching through paper towels, over and over, just to be able to copy that motion. It was completely satisfying.

In those days, almost all women sewed.  I had many lovely clothes and costumes courtesy of my mother and grandmothers.  I learned the basics of sewing in 4-H Club.  I made a few things, then lost interest until college when my friend Bev taught me approximately nine million embroidery stitches on the bank of a lakeside park one sunny day.  Embroidery became my relief from studying, and rapidly escalated to an obsession. Briefly.

Throughout the years, I sewed curtains, slipcovers, and baby clothes.  But, since I am so  extremely distractible, I have done very little sewing in the last fifteen years.   

And then last December, the San Francisco Chronicle printed an article entitled, “A Sew-Sew Approach.”  It starts:

“First you make skirts. Twenty-three skirts. Then you move on to bodices, darts, necklines, collars, sleeves, pockets and finally, tailored pants and jeans. You'll make 130 muslin prototypes and about 10 to 15 garments in fabric - plus an eight-piece ready-to-wear collection. And that's just for starters at San Francisco's toughest fashion school.

Oh dear.  I’m already hooked.  Apparel Arts wants to “bring back San Francisco's once-proud apparel production reputation now lost to fast fashion and offshore manufacturing. And pattern making is the core.”

Is there anything more appealing than becoming absolutely expert at a practical skill? Especially if you love clothing, and have definite, specific ideas about what clothes you want to wear, even though they don’t seem to exist anywhere??  COME TO MAMA.

The course is not just rigorous, it’s expensive.  Drat.  Can I justify the $? Well, let’s see; I could start by clearing off my art table; it would convert to a sewing table pretty easily; then I could find a pattern  approximating the kind of thing I like, make up a muslin version to adjust it to my needs…and see whether I can sustain interest long enough to finish an actual garment.