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Andy

Golden Gloves to Hemline: Pt. 3 Remedial Class

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Happy New Year! Many men ring in the new year with drunkenness and debauchery, others with time spent in holy reflection at church. Andy however, sits in the Vivat Veritas lab sporting a nice new DUNCE cap! My first day of working through the bad boy Burda behemoth bible (Andy you English genius! Master of alliteration!) was a titanic and mythical success. Not only did I read the first few pages with no problem, I was even able to slyly and coolly write about my exploits into the sewing world. I was truly a King among men (or at least among Michael Korsesque men).

But then…Day 2. I tried to transfer my ever increasing knowledge of notions, sewing space and flat surfaced pattern drafting areas onto BS’s (both meanings are indeed meant) hands on with the sewing machine experience. I was set, I had time, I had a quite house with a sleeping baby, I was locked, loaded and ready to thread my bobbin and sew using both correct all-purpose needle and all-purpose zipper footses. Then, sadly then, I sat in front of the beast herself, that unforgiving task master known as Chie’s sewing machine and engaged in a battle I could not win. We struggled for hours, and I ended in tears having lost a life and death struggle to MAKE….THE…..DAMN…..THING…….WORK!!!!! Sadly, my years of education and my years of boxing training were no match for that vicious beast from Hell. I could not thread my bobbin correctly, nor could I thread the needle in an appropriate amount of time (it took me 30 minutes). I, for all my desire, could not even conceive of how the bobbin thread should run through the face plate. I drank heavily that night knowing that Chie would soon come and mercilessly mock, scorn and ridicule me. True to form my loving wife upon he arrival home proceeded to, with not an ounce of sympathy, do the “Andy is a moron” dance in conjunction with the “Andy is a moron” song. I now know the pain of generals defeated in war. It was a sad night.
Perhaps the most neutering experience is yet to come. Tonight, I will sit with Chie and have basic sewing setup skills taught to me. I am in the remedial class. I have failed day 2 and now must have a personalized program to catch me up. On tonight’s plate is 1)Bobbin threading, 2)Needle threading, 3)Pushing appropriate levers and buttons (whatever the hell that is officially called) and sewing my first straight/curved lines.
After much scolding, yelling, swearing and crying I have completed the assigned duties. You can all see photo evidence of my remedial class completion. Chie kept repeating  (while she hit me) “This is for your own good dummy!”
Ladies, will the shame and failure end? Those of you have learned how to sew, when does the joy begin? When, as Allison says, will I take pleasure in sewing spaces and when oh when will I  take fabric pieces and form them into something resembling a garment?
Off to bed now to lick my wounds and pray for an end to my misery!

Golden Gloves to Hemline: Pt. 2 Threading a Needle

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Shaking with excitement I am about to crack the Burdastyle sewing opus! You dream about days like this…I can only ask how, how did I get so lucky! Chie isn’t here at the moment. She is out getting drunk and dancing on tables with some of her friends in Tokyo. That means I am going at this alone for the night. Let’s begin the journey.

Page 20 (I like this book because there are many pictures, the type is large and it makes me feel like I am reading more pages than I actually am). “Your Sewing Machine” Let’s kick this pig! Alison and Nora (The authors I think) have happy nostalgic memories of their sewing machines according to page 22. They have machines handed down from cute grandmothers covered with stickers and love. My memories of the sewing machine are of Chie yelling “You suck, what happened!?!?”, I guess that’s comparable. Gnarly, there are 2 kinds of stitches straight and zigzag, I would have assumed only 1. We have unfortunately, hit a problem…this book is now talking about maintenance. Sadly, I don’t do maintenance very well…not at all really. Using WD-40 and untangling knots are Chie’s jobs. Yes, I am a poor excuse for a husband. There is a section to ye ol book about procuring your very own magical sewing machine. The book recommends having a professional check the device before purchase, just to be safe. I didn’t know the world had so many sewing machine con artists looking to rip you off that you need to employ a pro! You sewers live a crazy life.

OK, actual sewing procedure 1 ‘Threading the Sewing Machine’! I am now sitting at Chie’s glorious machine about to thread the needle…this is so exhilarating I can barely breathe. There are a ton of instructions for threading a needle, how frigging difficult can it be? It’s been 20 minutes and I still can’t find the bobbin… I need some comfort food. Damn straight! I found it finally! Now the bobbin has been fully bobbinized! I am onto threading my machine! Damnnnnnnnn Ittttttt. The thread never goes through the needle eye. It mocks you at every attempt. Thankfully after much swearing and crying, I threaded the needle. I thought all had been going well but I have no idea if I threaded this stupid bobbin and needle correctly. I only see 1 string and the according to the books picture I should see 2. How and why should there be 2? I really wish Chie were home.

Now I get to learn all about presser feet. Man, this is scintillating. Apparently the all-purpose foot is well, all-purpose, whereas the zipper foot is, shockingly, for zippers. I think that section was unnecessary. On to the wide world of needles. It seems that there is a sizing discrepancy in sewing. The damn Europeans use some kind of weird sewing metric system. Even more problematic are the Germans who sometimes add a letter “H” where numbers should be in their sewing schema! This is anarchy. I have now come to a section describing a ball-point vs sharp needle difference. It says the ball-point is rounder. If i stab myself with it, will it still hurt? Yes, in fact it does. It does not feel any “rounder”. I need a band aid. Well, I have failed. I am looking at the sewing machine and although I have threaded both the needle and the bobbin, I am lead to believe something is wrong. Chie’s machine started smoking when I pushed the peddle….Just kidding. But in all seriousness I am pretty sure something is wrong. i am definitely not in a physical, emotional or spiritual place were I feel ready or confident to sew anything, particularly without Chie’s approval. I don’t know what fabric I am allowed to creatively use anyway so I will wait for Chie or “The Warden”, as I like to call her, to return home and fully check my work and give me the go signal for using the actual device. I’m a little sad and a little depressed at how long this took. I started at 7:30 and it is now 9. I read only 4 pages and still not entirely sure what a ‘throat plate’ is. I do not believe it takes Chie 1 1/2 to thread the sewing machine.

Related post:
Golden Gloves to Hemline: Pt. 1 Getting Started

Golden Gloves to Hemline: Pt. 1 Getting Started

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Hello my sisters in Vivat Veritas land. As Chie mentioned briefly in a previous post, I have decided to learn a little someting something about my wife’s world o’ sewing! God save us. I beg you not to mention this to anyone in my old hang outs or boxing gyms in Philadelphia.

Our first order of business is to crack open the Burdastyle book of which dear Chie is a contributor. On first glance, this doesn’t seem “sew” bad (hahahahahaha)! It says that “even if you’ve never even touched a sewing machine before this book can get you started.” I will test that assertion.

On the first page the book reads “Every time we see a great sewing space, we experience a certain voyeuristic thrill”…..I can honestly tell you that I have never had that thought, feeling or emotion when viewing Chie’s sewing space(a.k.a my bedroom), maybe I’ll have it later. Holy crap the next 5 pages are about the “Sewing Space”. I’m bored already. God please make this better! When do I get to sew myself a suit?

OK, first section done. I did come upon a part I do like, Alison’s  mantra of “Clear the Clutter”.  I’m all about that! The cleaner the room, the less stuff it has the better. I think I would be most happy in a house that had nothing in it but people, beds and a table. There was however, in that section a mention of the room’s “feng shui”. This statement made me sad and made the remaining North Philly man in me cringe a little.The book also used a lot of vocabulary that is completely lost on me, “notions” what the hell are those? “Transferring patterns” What the hell is that? Chie!!!! Come here and define this book for me. It is sad I need my ESL wife to tell me what this book written in English is supposed to mean.

Next is the section on tools you’ll need. I believe I have seen all of this crap in Chie’s feng shuied space. The book said that step one was having the right tools for the job. I’m feeling quite good about this part. The book has labeled pictures which is nice for a caveman such as myself who is still very happy to read ‘see and say’ picture books.

That’s all for this week. 10 pages down and 180 more to go. Chie’s bag ‘how to’ section in the back which leads me to believe that it’s fairly difficult.

I’ve learned excitingly little. I didn’t sew anything but I also did screw anything up or break any of Chie’s stuff, sew (hehehe) that’s a plus!  Next time I open ye ol’ Burdastyle book I will be holding the actual ‘sewing machine’ in the actual ‘sewing space’ surrounded by actual ‘sewing notions’ reading through sewing machine section.

I’ll be on Project Runway flirting with Heidi Klum and high fiveing Tim Gunn in no more than 5-6 months!