Sorry, here’s another bad picture of me.

The pattern I used for this blouse was New Look 6598, an old favorite. The fabric is just a cheap cotton I found at Walmart. I think they consider it a “quilting cotton” but it’s more lightweight than what I typically think of as quilting cotton. I love this mustardy yellow color and the simple, sort of vintagey print. The color is more accurate in this close-up.

The gray pants are relatively new, a medium-lightweight stretch cotton twill. Now that I see the picture I wish I’d ironed them and left my phone out of my pocket. Oh well, this is the real me – wrinkled and bulgey.

I’m currently working on a dress. It’s almost finished but when I tried it on I discovered that the pockets are ALL WRONG and I have to take them off and re-position them. #@%$&!

I took this picture of Kiki this morning.

And this is what she was looking at.

Full disclosure: The cat was actually looking the other way, away from the dog, at the moment I took the picture but with a little imagination and artistic license it makes a cute little photo story.

Just something silly.

Last night I saw Katee Sackhoff in my dreams. Or maybe it was Starbuck. She was drunk and getting in the way in my kitchen. Yeah, that was definitely Starbuck.

It’s Monday morning and, as the saying goes, I got nothin’. Oh, the pressure to come up with something semi-interesting to put in this little space! Or, just anything, interesting or not.

Well, let’s see… There’s this. So, the rich want to live somewhere in the vicinity of the poor, but not too close, because it makes their neighborhood look better. I’m still trying to figure out whether or not that makes any sense.

I actually wish I had some of this stuff but where do you get it? I suppose it’s considered “invasive” so no one wants to sell it (and yet they sell Bermuda grass seeds) but it’s slightly less aggressive than kudzu and it smells lovely.

Have you heard about the latest dieting fad? The 5:2 Diet? That’s actually a rather attractive idea. Well, it’s attractive for five days a week, at least.

Speaking of diets, McDonald’s CEO says he lost 20 pounds eating at McDonald’s every day. Oh, and by getting more exercise. Also, (news flash) Europeans are better than we are.

But it is, after all, a concentrate, so you’re not going to use that stuff straight. (Well, I suppose you could, if you wanted to. It’s your nervous system, folks. I’m not the bossa you!) — here

How about “The next level up is severely retarded and insists on multipart forms”? Does that work for you? Because it’s a reality for me. — there

…he didn’t just figure out how to make a 51-star flag. Rather, Garibaldi could make you a nice-looking flag with up to 100 stars—just in case America decides to go on an imperialistic spree. — here

What if the future was all about happiness? If we can have a possibility explosion and an intelligence explosion, why not a joy explosion? — there

I made a cute little blouse yesterday. It’s all finished except for sewing on the buttons so I was going to sew them on this morning and wear it today. Yay! Something new to wear today! I had some buttons, left over from something else a long time ago, that are the perfect color – one full card of four and two on another card. Perfect. I need five buttons for the blouse. So I started sewing on buttons, starting with the two buttons on the one card. And then, as I started on the third button, I realized that the first two buttons are two hole buttons and the other four are four hole buttons. They’re not the same at all. Damn! And a whole lot of other bad words. I guess I’m not wearing the new blouse today.

The Clockwork Man – The first cyborg novel, published in 1923. Hmmmm… I wonder if there is some way to get that onto my Kindle. Must look into that.

Searching for the Ringworld – or something like it

Restaurants for Book Nerds – Ooooo! I love them all (Well, actually the Kafka one looks kinda dull) but if I could pick just one to go to it would have to be Club Verne.

Core77 – a very interesting blog

Premium Water for the Stylish Woman – Really? I don’t have any problem with products designed and packaged specifically for women but… Really?

Full of Sugar – a Tumblr blog with very interesting photos and art

Cat Beard

Medieval – art and manuscripts

Reddit for Dogs – Hah! How about one for cats?

The San Diego Fair – lots of photos. I love the furniture and woodcarvings.

The Internet of Actual Things – Creepy. I love technology right now but someday I’m going to be a Luddite.

10 Terrifying Planets You Don’t Want to Visit – I don’t know… in the right vehicle I could see visiting Mars, at least.

I can’t remember how I found this Ladies Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness, originally published in 1860. I expected to be amused by outdated and restrictive rules, and if I read far enough into I probably would be, but, reading the Introduction I was struck by the validity, timelessness, and wisdom of the opening paragraphs.

In preparing a book of etiquette for ladies, I would lay down as the first rule, “Do unto others as you would others should do to you.” You can never be rude if you bear the rule always in mind, for what lady likes to be treated rudely? True Christian politeness will always be the result of an unselfish regard for the feelings of others, and though you may err in the ceremonious points of etiquette, you will never be impolite.

Politeness, founded upon such a rule, becomes the expression, in graceful manner, of social virtues. The spirit of politeness consists in a certain attention to forms and ceremonies, which are meant both to please others and ourselves, and to make others pleased with us; a still clearer definition may be given by saying that politeness is goodness of heart put into daily practice; there can be no true politeness without kindness, purity, singleness of heart, and sensibility.

Many believe that politeness is but a mask worn in the world to conceal bad passions and impulses, and to make a show of possessing virtues not really existing in the heart; thus, that politeness is merely hypocrisy and dissimulation. Do not believe this; be certain that those who profess such a doctrine are practising themselves the deceit they condemn so much. Such people scout politeness, because, to be truly a lady, one[4] must carry the principles into every circumstance of life, into the family circle, the most intimate friendship, and never forget to extend the gentle courtesies of life to every one. This they find too much trouble, and so deride the idea of being polite and call it deceitfulness.

True politeness is the language of a good heart, and those possessing that heart will never, under any circumstances, be rude. They may not enter a crowded saloon gracefully; they may be entirely ignorant of the forms of good society; they may be awkward at table, ungrammatical in speech; but they will never be heard speaking so as to wound the feelings of another; they will never be seen making others uncomfortable by seeking solely for their own personal convenience; they will always endeavor to set every one around them at ease; they will be self-sacrificing, friendly, unselfish; truly in word and deed, polite. Give to such a woman the knowledge of the forms and customs of society, teach her how best to show the gentle courtesies of life, and you have a lady, created by God, only indebted for the outward polish to the world.

The “ceremonious points of etiquette” have changed but politeness never goes out of fashion. And I really think most people do believe in being polite but are often too hurried or distracted to practice politeness.

The Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” can be a bit problematic in our multicultural society because what we would have others do might not be the same as what they would have us do. For example, if you were having a cookout you might consider it polite to invite your neighbor over and offer him a big, juicy steak but if your neighbor, unbeknownst to you, happens to be a vegan he would be horrified at your gesture of politeness. I think a part of politeness is to not be offended by innocent mistakes, or at least to not make a big show of being offended. The fact that it is so easy these days to innocently offend someone makes us wary of reaching out to people. It creates barriers between people. And it causes many people to feel “why bother” about politeness.

Has Climate Change Created A New Literary Genre? Writers are always influenced by what is going on in the world and many try to speak to what people are concerned about. Does that mean that a “new literary genre” is created every time a lot of writers take up a popular theme? Well, I guess that partly depends on exactly how you define “genre.” Is it a broad category or a narrow one? I’m inclined to think that climate fiction is not a new genre but just the latest popular topic. But, yes or no, let’s please not start using the term, “cli-fi.”

You usually don’t have to actually read spam comments to know they are spam but sometimes I see comments that amuse me. A few are even unintentionally poetic. Here are a few recent ones that made me laugh. If you’re a blogger chances are that you’ve already seen some of these.

What a information of un-ambiguity and preserveness of valuable experience concerning unpredicted emotions.
I like “preserveness of valuable experience”. Gonna have to remember that word, “preserveness.” Might be useful someday.

Hi there to all, how is the whole thing, I think every one is getting more from this site, and your views are fastidious in support of new people.
Oooo. I love being “fastidious in support of new people.”

I always spent my half an hour to read this weblog’s posts everyday along with a cup of coffee.
Always spent. Well what are you doing with your half hour now? Don’t stop!

I really bought those african american higher Dragon’s prophet gold in the form of Holiday season treasure along with my best mate Really loves it! These folks the best keepsake on her
Wow, that’s just… wow. I’m not sure what to make of all that but the words, “higher Dragon’s prophet gold” leap out at me and I get a feeling there might be a good fantasy story to be made of them if I could get my imagination into gear.

my wife and i is still around vogue very awesome. Love the straightforward style and color.
The post on which I found this highly ungrammatical comment had nothing to do with sewing or style.

You can definitely see your expertise within the paintings you write.
I write paintings? Hey, I write paintings! I had no idea I was doing that. I am so talented! Wish I could see some of these paintings that I wrote.

Hi there! Your post rocks at the same time as being a reputable wonderful comprehend!
“a reputable wonderful comprehend!” I think I’m going to use that in my advertising when I go commercial.

Ruth posted a most excellent rant about factory made vs. handmade clothes.

Why should home-made try to emulate factory production, mass market, RTW garments? What’s wrong with taking time in sewing something? A bit of tacking and basting here and there, listening to the radio and daydreaming; sitting in the sunshine with needle and thread in hand, then drifting off; getting round to finishing it off later…. dreaming of fabrics and patterns and designs and lifestyle suitability. Time – take your time… what’s the rush? Rush is RTW and commercialisation. Why should a garment have mm perfect topstitching? – Know what? That says to me computer/machine – laser guided did it, not a human.

[...]

There’s something out there that says if your sewing doesn’t look like this, then it’s crap! THAT IS CRAP. Oh the starter sewers and beginners and the novices and the nubes – you will be tempted by perfection. This is not a bad thing, but do not even try to make your skirt look like Primark made it. They didn’t make your skirt – YOU did. Take pride in that alone.

For all of my sewing life people have been saying things like, “It looks as good as store bought,” usually in rather amazed tones. I accept the compliment as it is intended but this really means two things to me: 1. That people don’t pay attention to details. If they did they would notice that the topstitching is not machine perfect, that the pattern is not matched at the side seams, and a dozen other minor things that are glaringly obvious to me. 2. That our culture has a twisted notion of quality.

I’m going to do something I never do. I’m going to talk about God for a minute but don’t worry; it doesn’t matter if you don’t believe. I’m just talking about the universal definition of God as perfection or, at the very least, as a being superior to mere humans. Look closely at nature. There is symmetry, yes, but there are also thousands of tiny irregularities. There is unevenness, crookedness, and wonkiness. So, if God’s creations are superior and those creations are irregular why do we consider things that are made so as to eliminate all irregularities to be superior?

Ready-to-wear is not the standard by which clothes should be judged and therefore “as good as store-bought” does not make sense as a compliment. There are several photos in Ruth’s post of the insides of actual haute couture garments – really expensive designer clothes. And you know what? They are hand made! They look like the insides of any hand-made garment. The stitching is not machine perfect.

I’m not saying we should embrace wonkiness, not worry about matching plaids or trying to make our topstitching as straight as possible. Oh no! We should always strive to do our best. But we should realize that not only is machine perfection impossible, it is not even a worthwhile goal.

Here’s the latest thing I completed. The photo isn’t very good. I almost didn’t post it but then I thought, “So what am I going to post this morning?” so here it is.

He likes it. The fabric another Kona Colorworks 2 fabric, which is very sturdy and easy to sew.

Now I’m trying to decide what to make next. I have two planned blouses that I’m feeling enthusiastic about but I keep thinking I really need to go ahead and make those chair cushions I’ve been putting off for months. I also have several things I need to re-work or re-fashion but it’s so much more fun to make new things. And there’s Vogue 8577, a pattern that I was much more excited about before I saw the actual pattern pieces.

Oh well, maybe I’ll take a break and just think about it for a few days.

Sorry, only two this week and late because I had mouse issues on Friday.

In times of dire emergency, lots of things are said, some of them stupid. — here

I wonder if Pillsbury knows they have a recipe on their site called “Donkey Balls?” — there

This is only the third piece by Sarasate that I have heard.

In the comments on the Dustbury post that I linked yesterday I found a link to this interesting set of 22 maps. (By the way, as a southerner who has tried to avoid saying “y’all” all my life to keep from sounding like a dumb southern hick I find the attempt to legitimize the the word deeply disturbing.)

Besides the second person plural map there is a map for the ever divisive “caramel”. (It has 3 syllables. Because I say so.) There’s one for how people pronounce “pajamas”. Interestingly, I say it the “wrong” way for my region of the country and I never noticed. Pecan – I have doubts about the accuracy of this one. It is pronounced pah-CAHN. People only say PEE-can when they’re trying to be cutesy.

And of course there’s the popularly controversial Pop vs. Soda vs. Coke divide. I grew up in a region where all carbonated soft drinks drinks were referred to non-specifically as “Coke”. This used to drive my grandmother crazy. She had talked to someone who worked in a Coca-Cola plant who had told her about the corroded pipes in the plant and from that she somehow got the idea that Coke (but not other carbonated drinks) “will rot your stomach.” so every time one of us would say “I’m going to go get a Coke,” she would get upset and explain how Coke was going to rot our stomachs so we would have to explain to her that by “Coke” we really meant Dr. Pepper or Pepsi or whatever. Growing up in Texas I also occasionally heard “sodapop” or even “soda-water”. Now I mostly say “soda”. I sort of wish I said “pop” because that’s kinda cute but I can’t get used to saying it.

The Hitcher – Sort of nifty art

Chatelaines – Victorian accessories

The Drunken Botanist – a book about plants used in fermented and distilled drinks

Travisty’s Beard – An artist’s blog.

The Texas Bible – and the second person plural. (via)

Unforgetting Women Architects

Creepers – a word of the week and some really ugly shoes

Not sure – I’ve had days like that. I don’t see why you can’t be both at the same time though.

What Happened to Zoltar – A little bit sad

Memes Against Censorship – People will always find a way.

Erin has 100 Dresses and she’s showing them off at the rate of one a day. Dress #2 is really cute.

I don’t have anywhere near 100 dresses and I’m glad because it means that I don’t have to worry about having “too many” for a long, long time.

I have been getting hundreds of spam comments with the name Annie Oakley, apparently a bizarre attempt to distract me from the fact that they are really trying to sell overpriced sunglasses. One of these comments asked the question: “Did Annie Oakley have any children?” No. No, she did not. She was born Phoebe Ann Moses. She married Frank Butler. They did not have any children. Oakley was just a stage name.

Annie lived into the silent movie era so I wondered if there were any films of her and found this one made in 1894.

I feel like such a big ol’ meany after watching this. (No, I don’t.)

This might be taken as slightly ironic since the temperature this morning is in the 50′s F.

I continue to find and bookmark sewing, fashion, and craft blogs. It’s really rather exciting to me that there are so many people out there showing off their sewing. It makes me feel a wee bit less weird. (Not that there’s anything wrong with being weird, right?) This time I’m just going to link to these without comment because my comment on each would be pretty much the same: “Nice” – “Lovely” – “Awesome” – “Great” and that sort of thing.

The Garment Farmer

Mrs. Hughes – Sewing, DIY, and Dogs

Comprehensively Quirky

The Amazing Adventures of Taracat

My Happy Sewing Place

Three Hours Past the Edge of the World

mystitchnbitch

Her eyes are so bright- she must have fed recently. — here

If all the things we always cite as reasons we should be doing better aren’t getting it done, what does that tell us? — there

That’s outstanding! If something’s wrong, it’s wrong, period. It doesn’t matter what party affiliation one espouses… — here

Do you hear me? Enough doesn’t exist. You can either spend your whole life trying to meet a measure that is always going to be out of reach because you’re ALWAYS going to move it before you get there; or you can stop asking the stupid effing question. — there

Still, I take a childish pleasure in mixing it up. Of helping the natural in natural selection. Of kicking up a little dust on the tangled bank. — here

Beyond being cute, this t-shirt also proves that pandas really can save the world. — there

Earlier this week I was at Walmart and saw someone who needed to be on People of Walmart but unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to take a picture. This was an older woman. Her body seemed to be rather barrel shaped and she had long skinny, wrinkly legs and she was wearing a very short, hot pink knit dress. In fact, I’m fairly certain that it was meant to be a top. To be fair, it’s possible that she had short shorts on underneath but I didn’t see any and it looked like she just had on an extremely short dress and that with the next gust of wind her sixty-year-old hoo-hah would be on display for the whole world to see.

So of course I started writing this post in my head but before I could get around to actually writing it I saw Peter Lappin’s excellent post, Should We Dress Better? It’s a very thoughtful post and there is some great discussion in the comments.

I am very conflicted on this issue. I honestly do believe everyone should have the freedom to wear whatever they like. However, it drives me crazy that so many people choose to dress like Larry the Cable Guy or the female equivalent. You know… I don’t expect everyone to wear hats and gloves to the grocery store…

…but it would be nice if most people would at least try to look like they own a mirror. People claim they dress down because they want to be comfortable but I think there is more to it than that. I blame the 70′s. I guess it really started in the 60′s but I remember that one was still expected to at least look decent in public if not “dressed up.” But it was in the 70′s that society started piling on the rules and we haven’t stopped since. I’m talking about “political correctness.” Some of these new rules were good and needed but soon it wasn’t enough that we respect everyone equally regardless of race or gender. We had to have all these specific rules about what we could say and do and even what we should think. And it never ends. Everyone is always trying to add more rules and even if some of them are good rules it gets tiresome.

But we can dress however we please and so we do. We feel that it’s one of the few things in our lives that we can control. The old rules about how to dress in public remain with us at least in our minds and we dress to defy those rules. It’s the one area of our lives where we can say, “Screw you. I’ll do what I please.” But, as it happens with most rebellions, what was done in defiance of the old set of rules has become the new set of rules. If we dress in a way that was once considered proper we risk being ridiculed for being “overdressed” or even “dowdy”.

Right now it seems impossible that the pendulum could swing the other way and people would once again dress as if they care – that exposed bra straps and boxers would once again be taboo and that clothes, even if they are casual, might fit properly. And that people would once again feel the need to dress appropriately for special occasions. But every movement starts with just a few rebels. Those of us who believe in dressing decently to go out in public are the new rebels. Or maybe we’re just old farts, but I don’t want to believe that. I want to believe that there are a few young women out there who want look nice, not skanky. Be bold! Dress up a little and go to Walmart and when a slovenly person asks “What are you dressed up for?” give them a puzzled look and say, “I’m dressed up to go Walmart, of course.”

UPDATE: I know part of the problem, at least in this area, is that, for people who don’t sew, decent clothes are hard to find. It seems like most of the clothes I see in stores are either sloppy or skanky, with the exception of western wear, which is not everyone’s style. It certainly isn’t mine.

Spam has been hard to keep up with lately so I am going to try one-time comment moderation. You leave a comment, I approve it (unless you’re a spammer) and from then on you can comment and it appears immediately.

So come on… get it over with. Say something. Let’s have a comment party. Talk about how much we hate spammers, or how much we love ice cream, Mozart, Firefly, books, shoes, fabric, or whatever it is that turns you on, or talk about the weather. I don’t care as long as it’s clean and polite.

UPDATE: Well darn! That’s not working like I thought it would. It isn’t holding anything for moderation and I’m still getting spam. Hmmm… the option I checked is now unchecked. Trying again…

(Psst… Don’t go away. I’ll try to be more interesting tomorrow.)