It looks like I'm actually going to be able to participate in College X's Annual Work Day tomorrow, rather than being called away to fight a fire as I was last year. For that reason, I chose to volunteer to be a Spirit Leader for a group that will be planting saplings in an area that badly needs it.
As spirit leader, my job is to make sure people stay safe, hydrated, and cheerful (one can only hope). All of the spirit leaders and group leaders had a big meeting, and at the end of the meeting we were issued pastel yellow shirts with the Work Day logo for this year on the front. Let me say now: we are required to wear these shirts tomorrow.
Problem #1: By the time I got to the front of the line, there were no medium or small shirts left, only several generations of large.
I thought "Okay, this could be worse! Sometimes I fit a larger size; I'm not a pixie." I got home and tried it on for size. NOPE - it fit about as well as a fifty-pound potato sack fits a single potato. It might as well have been a Muu muu.
Again, I thought "Okay, it's not the end of the world. I'll just cut out this hideous neckline, and cut strips in the sides and tie them together! Yeah! That'll be stylish and cool!" NOPE - after more than half an hour of careful cutting, it looked like I was growing yellow tentacles out of my sides.
Expletive, expletive, swearword!!! I tried hard not to panic. There were no more shirts to try this with. I don't own a sewing machine, or have access to one on such short notice.
Problem #2: My only option was to sew up the sides and hope that I hadn't lost too much fabric with my frantic tentacle-making. But I don't own a sewing machine. All I have is a tiny sewing kit with a variety of threads and needles. Fantastic. I also had to be at work in about an hour.
I very carefully lined up the sides, cutting off tentacles as I went, and prayed really, reeeeally hard.
I was about half-done when I had to go to work. Thankfully, I work at the front desk of the campus library, and my boss doesn't care if I sew at the desk as long as I'm available for patrons.
Another hour later, I had finished sewing the sides! Huzzah! Time for a fitting!
Problem #3: I had somehow sewn the top so that it looked like I had the mother of all love handles - big bubbles of fabric on either side. Other than that, it looked okay! I pinned the problem areas, and let out a deep sigh. Almost done.
And Problem #4 arose halfway through fixing this problem... I was running out of thread. I was so close to a perfect product (for a girl who barely knows the sharp end of a needle) and I was out of thread! I started scrounging the scraps of thread I had tossed aside so carefully before, but I was still three inches short at the end. I had to sit on my hands for another half hour before I could run home and get more thread. Blech.
Home at last! I got the extra thread I needed, finished the new seam, and un-threaded the old seam to knot it off to keep it from unraveling. The best part of the whole process was the difference between before and after. Before: ugly yellow potato sack. After: flattering yellow fitted tank top.
My mother was a professional seamstress who made custom window treatments, clothing for our family, costumes for the local high school's theatre program, and anything else she felt like challenging herself to try.
She taught me some basic sewing as a kid (which of course I felt it my duty to rebel against) and I was definitely channeling her mojo tonight. Four and a half hours, sack to chiq!
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