Back in the Sewing Room (with some Humble Pie)

Now that the vegetable garden is in, the flower beds are finished, and three new English roses found their way into my bench garden, I've had some time for sewing. I finished up another apron this week and will hopefully finish up a dress for my mom before Sunday. Once that is completed, I'm anxious to start on some vintage dresses from patterns that I bought last year. The plan is to make them for the shop, but I sort of fell in love with the designs and fabrics as I was cutting them out. We'll see.

With being home for the summer, I've been looking around for a summer job and the other day a lady from church told me of the local bridal shop that she works for and how they were looking for another seamstress. It sounded a bit daunting, but I got brave and went in to talk to the store owner. The conversation went like this (after introductions):

Owner: You are going to have to be extremely OCD with sewing, because brides can be super finicky about seams that are unseen. Every seam you sew will have to be checked by me for awhile.
Church friend: Oh, Cheri is a better seamstress than me. (She boosted my confidence when it was beginning to melt)
Owner: Can you do a roll hem?
Me: As in on a serger?
Owner: No, like this. (And then showed an example of a 1/8" hem on the edge of a satin wedding gown)
Me: Oh. No, I don't know how to do that.
Owner: Well, it's the one thing a seamstress must do if they work for me.
Owner: Have you done a bustle before?
(Me thinking dryly: never needed one before…haha!)

And then she proceeded on with other things, but it became rather clear that I am not skilled in areas needed to be a bridal seamstress/alteration person. It was humbling for me since I thought I knew how to do most things. Even though I've been mostly self-taught, I've been sewing for others and running a small online etsy shop for several years and while not perfect, 99.99% of my customers have been happy and have returned.

But it's all good. Some seamstresses are cut out to work in a bridal shop and some are for working in a small basement sewing room pulling out vintage patterns, fabrics, and trims.

And I like it.

One of the vintage dresses that I intended to make last year.

The Lessons from a Failed Attempt at Pie Baking

Church picnics are fun. Believe it or not, I've only been to three or four of them in my lifetime. Over the weekend I had picked up some fresh organic blackberries for 50 cents a pint. "A blackberry pie!" was what I was going to contribute for it, since there was little else I could fix or bring.

Saturday was a very busy day of errands, work, and a lovely outdoor wedding and reception of a friend of mine. The only time to bake the pie was shortly before midnight. It smelled heavenly and looked divine as I pulled it out of the oven. I went to bed content and happy that it seemed to have turn out just fine after baking some not-so-fine pies in the recent past.

Sunday afternoon came around, and as I quickly returned home to change, grabbed an old quilt, and the pie, there was gasp of displeasure and disappointment as I opened the Tupperware container. A knife was timidly inserted into the pie and my nightmare had come true.

The inside resembled some kind of an attempt of soup.

Several years ago I could make pies not to far from Grandma's perfect quality, (this side of heaven, that is) and then about three years ago there was one evening of a ruined cherry pie (same soupy results) which has repeated itself nearly a half a dozen times. Yesterday I was struck with the doom of coming to face the fact: Cheri cannot make good pies.

Leaving the disaster at home, I arrived at the park where the church picnic was held empty handed. My discouraged mind was somewhat relieved when the dessert table was covered with all sorts of good things, and the pie would not have been needed after all.

But I was not satisfied with just accepting the title of a disastrous pie baker - I want to know why they aren't turning out. Grandma will be consulted this very day, and hopefully then she can point out the error in which I can learn from. A spiritual lesson can be learned from this, too, as God brought to my attention last night.

Just like my pie, my life can look "perfect" on the outside: I can do all the the right things, say all of the right things, go to all of the right places. It can be so easily to "look the part" of a good Christian woman. I can even follow or obey the Word of God, just as I followed the pie recipe, to the tee - but if I'm doing everything in my own strength or my own wisdom, or follow man's ideas or wisdom, my life will be a complete failure. We need Christ. We need to be Holy Spirit filled and controlled. The verse in John 15:5 comes to mind: "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." (emphasis mine)

May this spiritual lesson continue to ring in my heart, and may Grandma have some insight into the failures of my pie baking!

It Became a UFO

Well my dear ladies, I took the 70's shirt out of the trash to work on it some more, and I finished it up, but it looks like a UFO, ie, an Unidentified Foreign Object on me. I love the front style, the long bell sleeves (!) but the way the pattern is designed, needs some help. I think I'll keep the pattern and use it sometime in aid to draft up another shirt that looks like a shirt.

Now what do I want to work on? Something Edwardian, something Renaissance, something modern, something else? Maybe I should just go to JoAnns to pick up some muslin for my Regency bodiced petticoat.

The 70's Church Choir Robe?

When I was at the thrift store a couple weeks ago, I picked up this cute 70's shirt pattern. I especially liked view D.
And so with some stashed fabric that was labeled "what do I do with this?" I thought I'd use it as a tester to see if I'd like the pattern or not.

::cough:: I think they must have used a choir robe pattern as a base for this. Talk about shapeless. I didn't even bother sewing up the underside of the sleeves and bodice sides.

Well, I tried, and it's going in the trash can right beside my sewing machine. =) I think I'll go don a vintage apron and make banana bread.