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Golden Gloves to Hemline Pt.7 : A New Path to Success

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So…….Where have you been, Andy? You haven’t visited VV Land in O’ so long. Why is that?

Let me give it to you straight. I suck. Chie told me this before we got married, during the wedding ceremony and most days since. Sadly I must say that I am becoming to agree. I, for all my desire, cannot go through that damn book. It’s too friggin hard. “For those who have never used a sewing machine before…” Bull%$#”$&%’&. Had I continued on my intended  path to completing the Burda book, either myself or the book would have been destroyed (probably me)/ So, I decided to take a new route to the sewing promised land. I will be lead by that great sewing prophetess, my wife, Chie Duncan.

What I will be doing from this point is working on hands on projects under direct guidance. Chie will be assigning me (just like the rest of the day…) little sewing projects while she is  tasked with molding me into a Project Runway worthy seamstress. I don’t know what she has planned but I can’t imagine its any more daunting that damn Burda book.
She tells me our first my project, I will be constructing, from nuts to soup, a skirt for my daughter, the magical Kiko. Chie, being the trickster she is, has decided to let me tackle the first parts on my own. She wants me to read and print out the pattern and then cut out the fabric pieces. From there she will work on the actual construction with me.  Not too bad right?????? Click the following link I have been assigned here   What you will notice immediately is that the language is not English. It seems, that my tricky tricky wife, has decided that it would be much more fun for me to complete this task if it is in Japanese. Thank you, babe it is always an adventure. So Step 1: 12 hours of translation. Step 2: Print out the pattern. Step 3: Cut out the pattern. Step 4: Cut out the fabric pieces. Step 5: Sew the garment. Step 6: Dress Kiko in garment and take pride in my accomplishment. Step 7: Wake up from my dream. Step 8: Stop crying. Step 9: In real life try sewing. Step 10 Start drinking. Step 11: Continue drinking。Step 12: Pass out in a shamed, failed and drunken slumber.
Whose excited!?!?!? This guy 🙂

Golden Gloves to Hemline: Pt. 6 Pattern Tracing

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Image via The Graphics Fairy

Hello V² ladies….It is the I, seamstress( what the hell would the male version of that word be?) extraordinaire Chie’s faithful, lovable and relatively attractive husband Andy. Last time we looked at the Burda books pattern introduction. I got dizzy trying to understand and Chie make repetitiveness comments about my stupidity and general uselessness. Today we will tackle the actual mechanics of pattern tracing. On the list of lives lived to the fullest 1. George Washington 2.Puff Daddy 3.Andy Duncan.

How to Trace a Pattern:
Let us begin…Simple, easy and large flat surface are words used in the first sentence, I am already pleased. For this we need blank paper and colored tracing paper. Check. Does the color matter? Can I use something manly like magenta? Oh the possibilities of my colored paper are endless. We also need something called a tracing wheel which looks like a mini pizza cutter. I have never seen Chie wield this tool, I will ask if she has one when she wakes up from her drunken slumber (oops, I shouldn’t have said that). This set of instructions instructs us to trace every detail. Literally every detail. It screams in a very passive aggressive way “Trace every detail on the page you moron”. Is it realy that big of a deal or are there that many people who skip this step? This seams pretty easy to understand. white paper,tracing paper, pattern pieces, trace absolutely everything and do not for a second deviate from the pattern. It is like dealing with a very anal elementary school teacher.

What is Seam Allowance:
Here is a question that I am looking forward to having answered. I have no idea what that term means…”the space between my seam line and the raw edge of the fabric.) That’s all, kind of a let down.One very frustrating thing is that this book says that it does not include seam allowances. Why the hell not?!?!?!? I need specifics! It seems that I jumped the gun a bit with my screaming at the book. It tells me that I should use a 1/2″ seam allowance. I would still prefer it written down but hey, I aint scurrrrrred. On a side note, I cannot recall having seen Chie do this,…why is that? Is she just winging it or is she doing some stealthy Japanesey ninja sewing? Method one for adding a seam allowance involves rulers, french curves and measuring whereas method 2 involves a double pizza cutter tool and seams much easier….I’m sticking with the double pizza cutter method. Much to my surprise there are now instructions on how to cut. I really thought there were things in my life I could consider myself to be a master of, cutting with scissors was one of these skills, sadly Burda is informing me otherwise.

How to Test your Pattern:
This section opens up with the line “There are plenty of proverbs connected to sewing.” I don’t know where for my sarcasm to begin. One such pearl of wisdom is “A stitch in time saves nine.” I haven’t the slightest idea what tat is supposed to mean but apparently this Allison chicks heartless boyfriend beats her over the head with this saying when she screws something up. I don’t know that this man values his scrotum very much, which is too bad because as far as I know we only get 1. Ultimately this section seems to be telling me to make a muslin…this took a minute as I tried to process why I would want my fabric to have a religious experience….thankfully my iphone has a dictionary and now I know know that the muslin is a practice version of your outfit that you sew with crappy fabric. That kind of sucks that you need to spend time making 2 outfits, one of which is some throw away thing. Chie has a full time job how does she have time for all this crap? The next pages of this section lay out 12 steps for getting from pattern to fabric pieces to actual sewing of muslin and ultimately the real deal outfit. I can tell they meant me to take this section seriously because it was introduced by a quote in huge red font! Burdastyle is not screwing around with me here. Probably good to keep in mind, and Ill be sure to photocopy these instructions and place over me in my fabulous and enviable sewing space.

That was a good use of 90 minutes. It is now time to reclaim my masculinity and continue reading The Hunger Games series….oh wait that was a book written by and for 12 year old girls! My testosterone has hit a new low.

Golden Gloves to Hemline: Pt. 5 Building Blocks

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As many of you know Chie and I went on vacation last week. Chie says that we went because we had free miles but in reality I needed time to emotionally recover. Having done so I know crack open “The Book”. “@&$ Me! I need another vacation.

First let’s dive into: How to Read Patterns. It tells me that I can iron the patterns if there are creases…? This seems like a tragic fire waiting to happen, “In local news white man burns down peaceful Japanese neighborhood. Witness say he kept claiming that the book told him he could do it.” I digress. The patterns in this book looks like a kaleidoscope threw up, are they supposed to look like that? One thing I need the Warden’s (a.k.a. Chie) help with is this seem allowance thing. Why is there not just a standard seem allowance? Oh, I know because this was designed by women.

I’m now reading about following the pattern lines that fit my size. I have a problem because my size does not exist in women’s clothes, my bust is too small :_( all in all I feel more emotionally prepared for tracing patterns. There are numbers and lines and as long as I don’t drink to much before seeing I shoot be ok… but,threading the needle is another story entirely.

Chie just caught me reading the pattern for the “Burda Coat”…she slapped me in the face and said I was too stupid for the coat pattern and I should only look at the skirt pattern. I apologized and finished cooking her dinner. On a happier note, next week I will try and trace my first pattern.

All for now ladies, I will now return to doing what I do best…hiding from Chie!