Weekend garment sewing with Rae and April


I've wanted to learn to make dresses for awhile. This Washi dress in particular. This weekend was the weekend.

I grew up with women who quilted and made dolls, but not garments. This probably saved me from having to wear a lot of embarrassing ensembles, but still, I've always been interested in garment sewing. My first sewing project was a purse that I made out of shiny bubble-gum pink spandex in 4th grade. I used it for trick-or-treating and it sagged all the way to the ground by the end of the night. In 7th grade home ec, I decided to sew a purple jersey knit dress (not an easy fabric to start with), while the other kids made pillows. I was pretty proud of myself for taking on an ambitious project, seeing that I come from a long line of women who sew beautifully, but I hit my final growth spurt mid-semester and outgrew the dress before I finished it! It remained almost done, too tight and short to wear, and taunted me for quite awhile.

Since then, I've planned a lot of sewing projects but haven't followed through with most of them. Collecting patterns and fabric was actually my hobby. Then, a couple years ago someone in my knitting group said she wanted to learn to sew a dress that could become her uniform for work. That idea really appealed to me, and when I saw the Washi dress, I thought it might be the dress. The designer lived locally so I kept my eye out for a class with her.

This past fall I took a work trip to Seattle. While looking for a place to eat dinner after a long flight, I stumbled on a very lovely fabric shop called Drygoods Design in Ballard. I'm not exaggerating even a little when I say that ending up in Ballard accidentally was like stumbling straight into Pacific Northwest fantasy-land, where everyone drove Suburus and bearded guys in flannel and chooks sold organic beet juice at a farmer's market on a street filled with coffee shops. I even went into a dessert shop devoted to molten chocolate cakes and $8 jelly jars filled with handcrafted sea salt dark chocolate pudding. I was a little more than charmed by the whole scene and lost my better sense, walking away from Drygoods with the Washi paper pattern and enough expensive fabric for two dresses and a shirt!

This time, I was on the hook to actually follow-through. So, I signed up right away when the weekend garment sewing workshop, hosted by Rae Hoekstra of Made by Rae and April Rhodes, was announced on Rae's blog. Both women design easy-to-sew patterns with a modern sensibility. Rae designed the Washi Dress, and it's been a bit of a sensation among young seamstresses. April is from Columbus, Ohio, and is quite accomplished - owning a local fabric shop with her mom and designing very stylish patterns that she sells online. 

For the whole weekend, twelve of us - some who came from as far as away as Montreal and Chicago - got to hang out in Rae's studio in Ann Arbor, getting tips from both designers on how to custom fit patterns to your body and learn other little tricks of the trade. We also got to try on their dress and blouse samples hanging on the rack. So.much.fun. It felt like a very low stakes version of Project Runway. Except the phrase "that's so adorable" was used a lot instead of "make it work." You get the idea.

My sewing is a little rusty and I'm not the best at following directions, so my progress was a little slower than some of the other women. Most were away from kids for the weekend and laser-focused on maximum sewing time. Some stayed until 11pm Saturday night. I was in a slower paced mood and stopped for all the demos and asked a lot of questions so I could learn how to trace a pattern onto Swedish tracing paper, make a muslin, adjust the fit (particularly in the bust, which involves finding your apex!), and get some tips on garment finishing techniques like shirring, hemming, pleating, and making bias tape. I also got a tutorial on using my serger, which has been sitting in my basement since I snagged it last year from a neighbor who moved to San Francisco. 


It was also fun to be a bit of a tourist in the college town next door to where I grew up. Rae's studio was next to the pizza place my parents took me to as a baby. Saturday the weather took a turn for the even-worse, and I had to call up a good friend from high school and bum a sleepover on her couch. On Sunday I wanted to finish my dress, but I decided instead to go along on a little field trip to Pink Castle Fabrics and my favorite place to eat in town these days - Frita Batidos.

I love knitting, I love painting, I love papercrafting, but I think for a little bit here, sewing is going to be my main craft.

I'll be done with my first Washi dress within a week. Hold me to it, friends. Because like always, I have a more than a few other projects in mind.
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36 by 36

I'm writing up a post on how it went in 2013 with my 35 by 35 list.

But in the meantime, on this first day of the New Year, here is my 36 by 36 list. This year, like my friend Sarah does with her annual list, I'm going to try for half this time around. I'm getting the hang of this now.

I carried forward #1-23, with some modification. Some are longer term works-in-progress (#2-6, #10, #14).

1.     See a movie at the Ford Drive-In
2.     Blog 50 photos I took on the Polaroid, Yashica, or Rolleiflex cameras
3.     Shoot and print a roll of double exposures with Matt
4.     Shoot and print a roll of underwater photos
5.     Fill an art journal with collages and drawings
6.     Hike #100trailmiles
7.     Kayak in Port Austin, Michigan
8.     Take our bikes over to Ontario for a ride
9.     Complete an encaustic collage series with vintage women in the outdoors photos
10. Finish 6 craft projects I planned
o    Michigan postcards collage
o    Vintage type set drawer piece
o    Washi dress #1
o    Washi dress #2
o    Ruby top
o    Market bags
11. Learn to use my (not so new) serger
12. Buy something at John King Books
13. Finally go to the Detroit Soup
14. Finish decorating the bedroom
15. Hang our art and prints
16. Own a KitchenAid mixer
17. Practice yoga or meditation every day for a month
18. Tour the Rouge factory
19. Buy a last minute weekend flight and travel to a random city
20. Leave or find some art for Free Art Fridays
21. Scan my grandpa’s photos with my mom
22. Volunteer 20 hours at the Earthworks garden and/or Sierra Club Inner City Outings
23. Get into a Project Life habit
24. Take long exposure photos of the stars at the Headlands International Dark Sky Park
25. Ice skate on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa
26. Attend a weekend art workshop or retreat
27. Own cross-country skis
28. Try geocaching
29. Submit one (or more) of my dissertation papers for publication
30. Go camping...anywhere!
31. Learn to play a duet on the guitar with Matt
32. Go paddle boarding
33. Treat my niece to a girls overnight trip to celebrate her 13th birthday
34. Swim in the Barton Springs Pool in Austin
35. List and sell something on Etsy

36. Fly a kite

2014 – ready, set, go!
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Making a clearing

Now is an in-between season for me. I decided a couple months ago, thanks to this prompting, to slowly go through every closet. Every nook of my living space - both physical and spiritual - and to work on a gentler approach to my life. Less of the things I don't need and more of what is essential.

A couple days after I turned in my dissertation in mid-August, Matt and I were in San Francisco and we were exhausted. At breakfast, we met a man - a chatty British expat with black and green hair who flew in from western Australia where he lived to spend a week creating sculptures in a warehouse in Oakland before going to Burning Man. He told us the dust in the desert is corrosive so you have to wear goggles all week to keep your eyes from burning. He went every year.

Without a doubt, he was the kind of person who struck up conversations with anyone his path. I am the kind of person who listens to every person who strikes up a conversation with me. Luckily, he was a good conversationalist so over coffee and toast, we talked about art, travel, culture, and politics.

The second day at breakfast, our new friend was having a conversation with another couple who was headed home that afternoon. The five of us conversed, and we came to learn that the husband had a PhD in engineering. I told him I'd just turned in my paper before arriving in San Francisco for a vacation. He told me confidently that it would take me a full year to "spin down" from six years of graduate school. He'd taught PhD students for many years and he said he'd seen it again and again. It will take a full year.

 He also mentioned that he and his wife had adopted children, and after some thought, I gently brought up our stretch of infertility. I guessed that they might have lived that stress too, and they had. I recognized immediately the grace of crossing paths with someone at exactly the right moment who got how tired I was and who told me: it will take time.

And to cross paths with a wild man who built giant works of art in a foreign country and then burned shit in the desert just for fun. There was a lesson in that chance meeting too.

After this past weekend of Thanksgiving, Matt and I took our dog on a walk in a small bit of woods over the border in Canada. After we got back, the word 'retreat' kept popping up for me throughout the week.
When I finished college and before I got married, I had the incredible fortune to spend time at a Quaker retreat center for four months. I was desperate for time away from home since I never studied abroad or interned in D.C. during college like I felt I should have. A professor was encouraging me to get a PhD then, yet after college, all I wanted was a break to learn how to not work for awhile. Though I had some chores at the retreat center, like mopping floors after dinner and preparing egg salad for weekenders, I spent many nights in the art studio at the potter's wheel. I made so many bowls and plates I couldn't pay the studio back for the clay at the end of my time there. Some of those pieces have broken. Others we still have.

On the cusp of adulthood, I somehow figured out that I needed to learn how to slay back the overachieving forces within me. They are strong. Having new letters behind my name now comes with new pressures, and after six years of too much work and a couple bitter doses of heartbreak, I find myself wrestling against ambition again.

I am fully rooted in adult life though. That's the difference between then and now. Hitting the pause button and retreating for months...well, it's not going to happen.

What I can do is make a clearing. With that open space, I can weave retreat back into my daily life. I can find more moments for leaves to crunch underfoot, for my hands to be full of clay or paint or clothe, and for time to just be. Time to take photos again and to find words to write in this space.

Thirteen years after that long retreat, I still have a sense memory, though distant, of what it feels like to slow down.

I am giving myself a year to relearn how to spin down.
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Currents: One last study break








I started this currents list during a short study break last week, the final week of working on my dissertation, while on vacation with my family. My 5-year old niece above kept saying, "Aunt Sara's still working." I told her, "Next time I see you, I won't be working." I think my whole life will feel like a vacation from now on.

 Location: Up north.
Watching: My nieces play - their smiles, their expressions, their curiosities. The oldest is all about dolls, bugs, running faster than anyone else and shaping this hot pink goop her grandma bought her into a million imaginary things. The youngest is all about dolls, opening and closing doors, giving kisses, starting to say her words versus signing her words, and zooming around as fast as a lightening bug.
Wanting: To have this dissertation monkey off my back once and for all.
Reading: I finished Parties, Work and Pain: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 the other week which was a very fast and easy read. I don't think I've finished a book in over a year. I am now starting The Bell Jar, which somehow I never read in college.
Loving: That I'm off of work for August, and that my family can be hang out in close quarters for a long weekend and not get that sick of each other.
Working: On final revisions to my dissertation before I file it. The final pain. Edited: It's filed now and I'm officially done. I cried from relief when it was accepted.
Creating: Nothing yet, but I've gathered supplies from thrift stores to make some of these wee stuff animals. I've been itching to sew the most, maybe because it seems quick unlike a dissertation or knitting, so I have a list of sewing projects for the fall.
Listening: To my brother call my nieces darlin'. He's such a good dad.
Dreaming: I dreamt last night that I was in a dance crew competition, and after we won, we ran a race around a track under bright lights. Matt said my mind is longing for my body to move, which is very true after a whole summer of sitting still.
Thinking: Given how this year has gone, most of my 35 by 35 list is going to going to have to be converted to a 36 by 36 list.
Eating: Blueberries and apple pie.
Drinking: Lemonade and red wine. Edited: Champagne.
Wondering: What the fall will bring.
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Coping with Infertility and Pregnancy Loss: Blogs, Books, Movies, Music and other Resources


In the past couple years, I've benefited so tremendously from other women sharing their stories online. Now after I've had time to deal with things privately, I feel a responsibility to 'out' myself as infertile and as someone who has experienced pregnancy loss. Plus, keeping quiet it is tiring and I'm tired enough. Our prognosis is good but we've had really painful setbacks in the last few months. We will just keep trying. I know that someday, some way we will be parents.

 I might share my story a bit more later, but in the meantime here is a list of resources that have helped me cope.

 Some of these might be helpful to anyone who is working through some hard stuff in life. If you are reading this and have other resources that have been helpful to you, I'd love it if you would share them in the comments.

 Blog Posts on Infertility
  • The Journey: Part Two at Super Hero Life - Andrea captures it. The coffee guilt. The stress guilt. The Western medicine/alternative medicine guilt. The things people say without (usually) meaning to be insensitive. It's all here. This post is how I learned about IUI and that there were options before IVF that might work for us.
  • I am Infertile and The End of Infertility? at Yeah, Write - Angie does a wonderful job of sharing what it's like to be infertile in her first post, and then in the second post about how adoption cured her childlessness but not her infertility. She includes a couple beautiful poems on grief. "Grief remains one of the few things that has the power to silence us. It is a whisper in the world and a clamor within." - Anne Quindlen
  • On Being In Your Thirties at Elements of Style - A friend posted this on Facebook. Erin wrestles with how much emphasis to put on trying to get pregnant in light of other goals, and the hard parts about not having children in your thirties. "The inevitable follow up question came…'Do you have kids?'"

 Blog Posts on Miscarriage or Pregnancy Loss

 Resources
  • Resolve, The National Association of Infertility - A friend's mom recommended Resolve to me, so I joined the online support community. It has made a HUGE difference in my mental health. Every day, someone else is going through what I'm going through and this is the place to connect, to vent and to get some encouragement and information. They also have in-person support groups across the country and provide information and advocacy for better health insurance laws regarding infertility. We've been lucky that so far our treatments have been covered, but living in Michigan we will not be so lucky if we need IVF.
  • The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust in the United Kingdom has a very comprehensive website. The FAQs page is particularly helpful.

 Videos and Podcasts

 Books
  • One Good Egg: An Illustrated Memoir by Suzy Becker - I love everything about this book. It's really funny and so right on. And I love that she's a lesbian and she went through so much of what I am going through as a straight person. We're all human. The book is illustrated too - amazing. She covers the very scary ectopic pregnancy experience which I read and then re-read recently.
  • A Field Guide for Now: Notes on Mindfulness and Life in the Present Tense by Christine Rosalie - She writes short, thick descriptions of her everyday life and her attempts to live in the moment, even when life is scary or messy. And she's a talented multimedia artist, which I love. This one is actually a lot about motherhood, so it may not be the right book for someone who is infertile but I read it with the mindset that someday this will be me while centering myself on my here and now.

 Movies
  • Away We Go - The first time we watched this a few years ago we related to it because they were trying to find their home, a place to start their family. We watched it a few weeks ago, and halfway through I said, "The couple in Montreal with the adopted kids. I forgot that she had miscarriages." The scenes captured it, both the woman's and the man's perspectives. It's really brilliant.
  • The Other Woman - Natalie Portman takes her pain out on everyone around her and it's delicious to watch. Warning though, this one is about infant loss. It's raw. There's an interesting scene between her and a friend who experienced infertility and miscarriage.

 Music
  • So Hard by the Dixie Chicks. And who doesn't have a guilty pleasure for celebrity mag articles, especially when they are truthful.
  • I Was Made for Sunny Days by The Weepies - For when you need a pick me up and a good cry all in one. "I may deal with gray, but I didn't stay." (She does mention a baby, but again I listen to it with the someday-this-will-be-me attitude.)
  • Bad Day by REM - For when you need to rock out a little on a bad day. And watch Michael Stipe play the harmonica and dance a silly dance with blue paint on his face.
Hang in there. Luckily I've had a ton of support from family and friends and hope you do too.

 If you have a friend or family member who is struggling with infertility and miscarriage, all they need from you is a message every once in awhile to let them know you're thinking about them. She (or he) might not want to talk about it. Or they might want to talk about it, and just might not know how to bring it up to you. Mainly, they need you to listen and not give too much advice, unless they ask for it. In general, an email or text or card to let them know you are thinking about them is all you need to do to be supportive. This post on Rage Against the Minivan about talking with an infertile friend has some good tips.
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