A friend’s male assistant is a fake email account she runs because people called her “difficult” and “impossible” for having small windows of availability until “he” started running interference and then people just accepted she was fucking busy. I AM VERY INTO THIS.
Is that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
perhaps, in all likelihood,
he put gently into the earth
some plants which, most likely,
some of them, in all likelihood,
continue to grow, continue
to do what such plants do, like house
and feed small and necessary creatures,
like being pleasant to touch and smell,
like converting sunlight
into food, like making it easier
for us to breathe.
I came of age in the late 90s, when the two mainstream approaches to women’s lingerie were either Calvin Klein (aesthetic: sleek, plain, androgynous) or Victoria’s Secret (aesthetic: feminine, lacy, pink, smelled like fruit or candy). Guess which approach I decided to embrace?
For 25 years I was happy in my plain undies, maybe branching out into Natori (aesthetic: a single piece of lace trim) if I was feeling wild. But in the two months since I realized I could make bras, I’ve gone from this:
Suddenly I am all about pink! and lace! and unnecessary bows!
It started with another Watson Bra and some matching undies. I made the Trixie Briefs on the bottom with mesh paneling and then I made the Rosy Ladyshorts on top that required lace trim.
Shopping for lace for the Rosys led me into the world of stretch galloon lace and all the patterns that were made to take advantage of it, and before I knew it I’d made the Studio Costura Mara Bralette and Stella Panties:
I’m lace-obsessed now. I can’t believe I made something so pretty! The bra is a beautiful fit but the panties turned out too small (and even if they fit, they’d be too low rise for me now). But the rise of the pattern was limited by the width of the lace, so there wasn’t an easy fix. What to do? Combine that full-coverage Calvin Klein aesthetic with a lace overlay and make a high-waisted Watson Bikini for some ENORMOUS Marie-Antoinette underwear:
Sure, they’re big, but they’re big and pretty. And I finally can have matching sets of lingerie that fit the way I want them to, not how the lingerie-industrial complex thinks they should. Hooray for sewing!
A Japanese amusement park re-opened but asked riders to not scream out loud on the rides. As translated, the phrasing they used is to “Please scream inside your heart” and if that sentence pleases you, you’re not alone. You can get it on a shirt, a mug, a poster, a meme…and I want them all. This version, by Sarah Walsh, is nice and colorful:
Ride that roller-coaster stone-faced, my friends, and keep those screams inside.
I was going to write about what’s happening in Portland, how the current administration seems more poised to seize power than to sit through a fair election, but I don’t have words for it. Just fear and anger and grief and anxiety. I’m not even sure a poem helps, but wow do some of the lines feel good to say.
The Conditional
Ada Limón
Say tomorrow doesn’t come.
Say the moon becomes an icy pit.
Say the sweet-gum tree is petrified.
Say the sun’s a foul black tire fire.
Say the owl’s eyes are pinpricks.
Say the raccoon’s a hot tar stain.
Say the shirt’s plastic ditch-litter.
Say the kitchen’s a cow’s corpse.
Say we never get to see it: bright
future, stuck like a bum star, never
coming close, never dazzling.
Say we never meet her. Never him.
Say we spend our last moments staring
at each other, hands knotted together,
clutching the dog, watching the sky burn.
Say, It doesn’t matter. Say, That would be
enough. Say you’d still want this: us alive,
right here, feeling lucky.
I finished this blouse back in May, I think, when going back to the office in June or July seemed like a possibility. (To be clear, I am extremely grateful we are NOT back in the office; I just made this before I pivoted my sewing plans to be more applicable to that WFH lyfe.)
I still haven’t worn it except to make Doc take pictures of it, but I was really happy with how it turned out:
It’s Cynthia Rowley for Simplicity 8636 (again), in a Kokka quilting cotton in a traditional Japanese print. (I’m powerless in the face of a traditional Japanese print.)
This time I sewed the pattern as drafted with the bottom ruffle. I did lengthen the sleeves by 2 inches but that was the only mod. This is a really fun and easy pattern–highly recommend for when we can all leave the house again (or you just want to be fancy at home).
We didn’t hike yesterday but we did hang out for a mini “beach” day at Millcreek:
It was lovely–the air didn’t feel like opening an oven, the water was “refreshing” (numb your toes cold), and messing around in that lovely shallow stream always makes me feel like I’m in The Wind in the Willows.