6.23.2014

prize and punishment


summer for an actress is a weird time, full of strange free days filled with perfect weather, tempered by the stressful reality that YOU MUST GET MORE WORK.  while i'd rather be playing with some truly glorious fabric from a truly beautiful friend that found its way home with me, i'm holding myself back, keeping it in view like a prize.

when a job is on the horizon, it's much easier to use these free days to sew to your heart's content. instead, i find myself taking on the task of Cleaning Out The Storage Area, a task akin to Capital Punishment.  this area, this section eight, already monstrous at its inception, became The Beast That Shall Not Be Named during our years of subletting our apartment.  did i ever tell you about that? yeah, we were super smart and acquired tenants during an LA move.  acting took me back to NY, and instead of reclaiming our digs, i moved five times in two years, to irritating sketchy craigslist find after irritating sketchy craigslist find, occasionally stopping in our Real Home to grab a few things out of storage and chuck ten more things in, doing it all in a mad hurry so as not to disturb The Tenants.  two years later, we moved back in, and five years later, we're still eyeing that little hobbit sized door with dread.

TODAY WE OPEN IT.

and now the winner of the colette guide to sewing knits!  out of 100 entries, random.org chose lucky number 47...


congratulations JAG, ponte tutus and tissue knit belly button dimples begone, luck was on your side! email me your info (just use the handy envelope in the sidebar) and throw a little luck my way as i enter The Beast, wontcha?

36 comments:

  1. You are sooooo procrastinating on the black and white fabric - hobbit door or not - I smell procrastination and it's stinkin' up the joint! *LOL*

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    1. Oh snap! Carolyn is calling you out :) I, for one, would love to see what you make with that black and white fabric. It's pretty spectacular.

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    2. y'all, that black and white fabric was on my mind ALL DAY. um, it wants to be about seven things...

      hahahaaa carolyn!!

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  2. Yesterday looked epic. I bet if you filled the storage space with Carolyn's stash, you could open the door and then ride the ensuing fabric wave to the beach!

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    1. you would not be exaggerating! that was only one shelf unit!

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  3. The fabrics look glorious! I say dive in, sew up a storm, no time like the present.

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  4. Oh, the ubiquitous Goody Room. We all have one, somewhere in our lives. My first one was at my grandfather's house. After their home burned to the ground in the early 30s, they lighted on an 1880s farm cottage, into which they moved with all eight of their children. The room that the boys slept in eventually became the Goody Room. Anything too good to throw out -- or that the children wanted their parents to keep for them after they grew up and moved away -- found a home there. Rain and snow blew in, just as it did on the five little boys who slept in the same bed in that room. Now my whole house looks like the Goody Room ... which was still better than the Rat House. The Rat House was a tiny dwelling on the same property, meant for use by any hired help on the farm. The aunt and uncle who moved in there after a hurried marriage reported that there were far too many snakes under the house for any rats to live there. Goody Room still exists. Rat House burned down decades ago.

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    1. now that's what i call a storage room. A Goody ROOM?! i need one.

      as always, your stories are the best.

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    2. The enterprising, intelligent contingent of my family got themselves into a wagon and headed through a pass in the mountains, going West, in the 1840s. The part from which I am descended stayed behind. I did manage to marry out of the gene pool, but not everyone did. There was some weird stuff in their Goody Room.

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    3. oooh this makes the Goody Room even more intriguing...

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  5. That looked like such a fun day yesterday. Jump in and sew something fabulous like you always do!

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  6. As a former freelance writer, I know that nothing brings on unexpected work like really getting going on a juicy project at home. The second you've gotten all your stuff out and spread around, trust me, your phone will ring with a job. (Or maybe they text you nowadays...who knows? I don't even talk on the phone anymore.)

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  7. Oooh, maybe you'll find Harry Potter? ;-)

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  8. tried to do the same thing with my storage area the other day (brother went to spend few weeks in greece, so i could finally enter the room where storage area is).. that turned entire apartment into temporary storage area, until i decide what to do with all that shit.. and then i just got overwhelmed (ahm.. i lie.. i probably just got drunk) and left it all like that, in huge piles of stuff looking so nasty that my neighbor told me - you're the only hoarder i've ever met! so.. i have until friday morning to clean everything out.. i wonder how we ended up in the same mess, sis? i also wonder why my brother has so many pairs of sneakers, and they all look the same..

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    1. how's your mess going? mine is surrounding us, waiting to go out for recycling. my neighbor knocked on the door yesterday and for some reason i told him i didn't have a bra on. i have no idea why.

      maybe you should welcome your brother home with a YOUR TURN!

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    2. it's out of control! i gave up for today, and went to sew in my friends sewing studio, so i don't have to look at the mess.. now i'm back home, and i'm so gonna drink some wine and watch football instead of dealing with mess.. and, apart from sneakers and archery equipment, it's mostly my mess, so i'll have to deal with it eventually (well.. knowing me, that would be thursday night, cause i'm heading to the mountains friday morning)..
      btw, that's the best excuse ever, hehe! gonna use it for everything from now on! "sorry, can't talk to ya right now, don't have my bra on".. "sorry, can't cook a dinner tonight, don't have my bra on" hehe

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    3. i hope you are bra-less in the mountains RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE.

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  9. This FABRIC!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! So gorgeous!!!

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  10. Any possible way to find a shortcut to the west coast through that closet?

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  11. Wow, I am diggin the fabric. Congrats Jag.

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  12. I'm painting my dining room right now, somehow the alien green I painted it six years ago while my then-husband was going through chemo/radiation just didn't hold the same appeal anymore. Because you HAVE to take everything OUT of said room to paint it it is now all over the REST of the house and the dining room was where I put everything I didn't know how to/didn't want to deal with to begin with! My sewing room is currently housing our latest rescued kitty so I can't even go in there without being mightily distracted by blue eyes and purring.... And I'm trying to do double the work since I'm hosting a 1920's Miss Fisher sewalong so yeah, I feel yah....

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    1. you need a guest house. like a junk closet only bigger. and not for junk. just for the extra stuff.

      i can imagine the green would lose its charm...

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  13. We're currently in our fifth home in six years (sixth if you count a hellish two weeks living with the in laws, which I do, actually seventh if you count a hellish two weeks living with my parents, which I do). Anyway, the point is that we've actually got pretty good at clearing stuff out, and there's only one shelf filled with mysterious boxes in our apartment. However, I feel your pain - our first landlord in Brussels forgot to move his furniture out, so we shoved it all in a cupboard and the cellar, along with our own stuff - imagine the fun we had trying to work out what belonged to who.

    We're moving to a smaller place soon (with a garden for Alfie and a mortgage for us!!), and I'm currently putting off the whole clearing out thing. Even worse, the selling furniture thing...

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    1. EXACTLY what we did! such. a. bad. idea. but it feels nice when it's done (erm, well, halfway done).

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  14. oh wow, if anyone hasn't still hasn't picked up the colette guide to sewing knits, allow me to tempt you with this unexpected feature:
    the cover has a spectacular velvety matte finish and it is GLORIOUS TO TOUCH HOLY WOW

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    1. interesting, i never noticed that! must go have a feel...

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  15. I hate the dreadful task of jobsearching in theatre, and I'm in the same boat right now. I feel like I can't have any fun because of it.

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    1. ugh. i feel ya. while summer is the best, it can really be the worst.

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  16. Ah! I can feel you on the storage. I just moved and the ONLY good thing about it was that I purged half my life. Felt so good.

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  17. Oh, lord. Part of my summer vacation needs to be spent decluttering the tiny space charitably called my office but is really more of a dumping ground for binders full of notes on courses I am currently teaching, courses I have just taught, and courses I have not taught in years but might teach again some day, plus all the courses I took at one time. This is in addition to the various texts that go with said courses. Plus various other things that We're Going to Find Room For in the Rest of the Apartment now that it has to double as the DC's closet. Best of luck to us!

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  18. OMG! You just rang some major bells! There is this corner of my living room and these bags of "things to refashion" and the attic. When we moved in, I chucked everything in the attic as the house wasn't finished and I never went back up there...

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i thankya truly for taking the time to comment, i love a good conversation-- and hope you know my thanks are always implied, if not always written!