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I hope that soon this will be about books, but right now, it is about sewing.  Got better.  Set in sleeves.  Perfected the skirt.  Have made one bright blue cord A-line skirt, one brown twill narrow skirt, one blue narrow skirt (no yoke), one brown linen top with dolman sleeves and three mother of pearl buttons, one brown twill top with a black yoke, one black wrap top from a vintage pattern. Learned the key to everything was not the time spent on the machine but the time spent with a needle in hand. The plan -- perhaps naive -- is to sew everything.  Or rather, to spend a year learning to sew well, after twenty years of sewing badly, and then sew everything.  I will always wear what I sew, even when it is not so nearly good as what I didn’t sew.  This is called “Slow Clothes.”  I can’t believe the logic behind it. There is only the pleasure of having made things.

Yesterday decided against the American Pattern Companies.  Many people hate the American Pattern Companies.  The American Pattern Companies have some awful thoughts about the women who sew.  They take awful pictures of awful models in awful poses wearing awful clothes. One can imagine terrible things about a life spent wearing these clothes. One must look at the technical drawings and do a lot of imagining.  One must stare and imagine a lot.  Hazel can’t do it.  She looks at the photos provided by the American Pattern Companies and says no thank you.  She has the best style, bought a little lime green vintage 40’s jacket with country western details and glamorous buttons and wears this with her bob and a brown plaid scarf.  The hairdresser told her, “I can tell you are not a normal ten year old,” though of course she is.

Vintage patterns work the opposite way:  the illustrations are so lovely that one can only imagined oneself so glamorous, wasp-waisted, etc.  I have many of these patterns, but none in the right size, always too big or too small. The clothes aren’t always as good as the illustrations of women wearing the clothes. I suspect the Japanese pattern books are the same.  Many times these are just basic shapes, but the women wearing the shapes are so lovely that one wants to sew the shapes only to be that lovely.  Sometimes I read a French Bulletin Board devoted entirely to sewing Japanese clothes, and I think “Oh French women, why must you want to dress Japanese?”   It’s like how I am always looking lovingly at Marie Claire Idees, as if it is okay to make doily crafts if these aren’t American.

My thoughts were that the American pattern companies are awful, and the Japanese books are for tiny women who look excellent wearing architecture but not for me, and so my only hope is with the Europeans.  I’m waiting for my first copy of the famous trans-European pattern magazine.  Goodbye, American Pattern Companies!  The next time you see will be dressed more like this.