What Started It All

I used to be afraid of inserting sleeves. 

Easing things in was weird, and raglan was just easier. But with experience comes knowledge, and with knowledge comes the idea that after a while, you just need to suck it up and do the thing that scares you.

So when it came time to confront that fear all those many years ago, I bought Butterick 5246* and decided to try it. It's a basic pullover dress with sleeves, and I figured that since it was knit, the sleeves would be pretty forgiving. 

And it was fantastic. I loved this dress. Sure, it was wearing through the elbows, and sure, it was now too big, but oh, I loved it. It was comfortable, like wearing a nightgown to work. And I hated that I couldn't wear it regularly anymore. 

I knew it would be easy to recreate, and it would be a good way to see if I could find my sewing mojo again. If I could use it to teach myself how to insert a sleeve without crying, surely I could use it to get myself back into sewing. 

By pure luck, I had this fabric in stash. I'm not sure why I originally bought it, but it was the exact amount that I needed to recreate my beloved dress and with the perfect weight and drape.

I like to think that my recreation classed up my former comfy dress. Now, it's comfortable and fashionable -- without looking like I'm an elementary student!

From cutting to finish was just about a week -- and that included the time needed to rip out a sleeve that I'd sewn in inside out!

I don't know what it is about sleeves. 

*For perspective on how old this pattern was: I can't even find it in the out-of-print sections anymore. I had to do a series of convoluted searches on sewing.patternreview.com to find it!

Just Keep Swimming

For the record, I'm not a runner. I've never been a runner. I don't see myself as a runner.

Until that time when I got really frustrated because I couldn't get lane space in the pool (my first love), and my ex was always talking about running, so I figured OK, everyone else is doing a 5K, so I should too. 

That was in the summer of 2012. 

It took me three times to actually finish C25K. Because wow, did it suck. It was hot, and sweaty, and I felt awful about how slow I always went. 

Then, last summer, I made myself keep going. Because damnit, this was a sign of fitness, and every other schmuck in existence seemed to be able to run a 5K. I figured I'd do one 5K, to prove that I could do it, and then I could quit if I didn't like it. 

So I did the 5K version of Pittsburgh's Great Race. A nice, big race, I thought. I just had to finish it at a better pace than 15 minutes per mile, and I just had to not be last. Because being last sucks. 

I wasn't last. And it didn't suck. Instead, I was quite literally smack in the middle of my age and gender division. 

Fluke, I thought. So I did it again.

Smack in the middle of age and gender. Again. Maybe I'm not so incompetent at this afterall. But I don't really run. 

Wash. Rinse. Repeat. A little bit out of the 50th percentile that third go around, but a better pace.

And that's how this crazy girl ended up running three 5Ks in three months, after never having run. At all. 

I figured OK, I can do 5K. How about 10K?

That was easier than I thought -- and still keeping around the same pace times. A little slower, but this one was in the middle of winter and I couldn't breathe, so... 

Now onward and upward to the half! My goal there is more basic: I don't care if I finish last. I just need to finish, and I need to keep pace with the marathon's cutoff time of a 14-minute mile. So far, I've kept my 12:58 pace during a 13-mile training run, so there's hope for this thing. 

But really, I'm not a runner. 

Thank You, Mood!

The Mood Fairy was at my house a lot last week.

Like probably everyone else who is interested in fashion and doesn't live in New York or LA, I first found out about Mood by watching Project Runway. I'd been buying all of my fabrics at Joann or Denver, but got frustrated a lot that I couldn't find what I wanted, and didn't like the selection. 

Mood always felt out of reach, but I dreamed of someday being able to get fabric there. Finally, when it came time to make a super nice dress, and I couldn't find pure silk from Joann that I liked, I bit the bullet and went to Mood's website. And promptly discovered that oh wow, the prices were so much more reasonable than what I was expecting.

And I haven't looked back. Now, with the exception of lining material and notions, all the fabric comes from Mood. 

Which is part of how I ended up with three Mood orders being delivered last week. 

Part I

I'm torn about what this one wants to be. 

I had planned it for Vogue 9199, but it seems like it would also work for Vogue 8379. I think that considering a short sleeved dress will be more of a need for summer, I'll go with Plan A, but keep an eye out for another jersey that works for the wrap dress.

This one has a designated home, and it will be awesome. And let's be honest: It is so totally me. 

It'll be Vogue 8969 -- a nice find from the Vogue out of print sale earlier this year. I keep going back and forth on whether I want to add a lining to it. The pattern doesn't call for a lining, but it's not like pattern instructions have ever stopped me from doing anything before. 

Dealing with the Mixed Messages

We as a society reward weight loss. 

We don't tend to outright complement people on fitness performance, but oh, do you hear about it when you lose weight. Workplaces have "wellness competitions" where the goal isn't who can swim the most, or run the farthest, or accumulate the most steps. Nope, it's who can lose the most weight. 

Thursday wasn't my epiphany in this regard, but it certainly hit home. Earlier in the day, a friend had posted in a Facebook group about losing weight. She was complemented, and indeed, she had worked hard. Someone made a comment about it being great to see the numbers go down on the scale. 

I liked it, because well, yup. That would be part of the problem at the moment. 

At barre Thursday night, we were working on lower abs, when the lovely instructor reminded us that "This is where you zip up your jeans!"

"I'm already a size 4," I thought as I also contemplated the merits of just dying there. "How much more am I supposed to take off? Bone? Do I shave it off? A size 2? Maybe a 0?"

But that's what society says you do. Someone drops weight, you complement them. They get smaller, and they're seen to have "won." You don't focus on how well you do something, but you focus on how it makes you take up less space. 

What a fantastic headspace to have society constantly place you in.

Especially when on the flip side, I get the angles of people who know what's going on, and they've got loud opinions on it -- and I've wryly joked that mine seems to be the only one who doesn't get an opinion on the deal. I mean, society agrees with my point of view, right?

"I want you to stop losing weight," says the endocrinologist. 

"You can't lose more weight, I don't like this trend," says the dietitian. 

"I want you to think about whether you can be comfortable where you are," says Therapist 3.0.

That's what they say. But society says to keep work toward smaller. My brain? I don't want to be smaller, per se. I just don't want to be fat.

I've found it amazing over the past year how often I am complemented by people who haven't seen me in a while, and who don't know what has been happening in my life. 

"You look great!" they say. Or "You've lost weight!" "Your workouts must be really working!" said the Athleta clerk when I was doing a return, after buying tights that were too big. (Because in my head, there's no possible way that I'm a size small anything.)

The conversation suddenly gets quiet when I say that well, I've been dealing with some health issues. Because I figure that's true. And people don't know how to react to that. Because it goes against what society has told them to do and think. Weight loss being a "bad" thing? Impossible. 

Saturday night at the gala, I think I decided I was tired of just pretending that oh, I won, and that being this size came naturally. A mother of another type 1 was talking about CGM with me, and I was explaining my concerns -- that I couldn't tolerate the site of it on my torso, and I didn't really have the "real estate" to wear it anywhere else. My arms don't have the fat necessary, I explained.

She commented that really, they weren't that bad on the back of the arm, and I... well, I had it. I turned and showed her. 

"Oh! Your arms really are that skinny! Wow! How did you do it?"

"Well, I swim a lot..."

And as my voice trailed off, I decided I really had no more fucks to give.

"Honestly? I've had an eating disorder on and off for 20 years. So I swim a lot, but I think that probably has more to do with it."

Because really. There are only so many cares that I can give about what society thinks and rewards. 

It's Really My Own Fault

Stockinette sleeves are essentially the definition of pablum knitting. 

Because I sometimes am awful at project planning, I now get to knit nothing but sleeves -- entirely in stockinette, and half of them in sport weight -- for the next few projects. 

Sleeves take forever to finish -- I think largely because they are super boring, and because I knit two at a time. Because they are boring, so I want to get them over with at one time. 

I find this an entirely appropriate natural consequence after jumping from sleeves (partially finished) to a new worsted weight sweater because I didn't want to take two-at-a-time sleeves on a plane, and then, the worsted knitted up so quickly, that I just jumped into the cabled front. Because it was more exciting. 

I own that this is a consequence of my making. 

But oh, this will not be fun. Or stimulating. 

Sometimes I Channel Avril Lavigne

Because let's not forget that I am a [expletive] princess.

A handful of times a year, I have the excuse to go all black tie and bling. 

Saturday's JDRF gala was a perfect excuse. 

It was their 25th gala, and July will mark my 35th "diaversary" -- a somewhat funny term for acknowledging that I've been diabetic for 35 years, and all that that involves. They had all of the type 1s come up on stage/center the stage during the Fund a Cure part of Saturday's gala. The MC called us brave. 

I don't know that I'm brave, but I'm certainly a princess. And I love black tie affairs.

But, I do appreciate that nothing hammers home "Cinderella was a princess" like walking back to my car in the rain, on streets under construction, with my dress hiked up to my knees so that I wouldn't get it wet. 

And even my toes are pretty. 

Daylight Saving Time Is for the Birds

And yes, in proper AP style, there's no "s" at the end of Saving. 

I've had "issues" with DST for as long as I can remember. 

In college, I wrote a long diatribe to my mother at well past midnight, describing how awful it was, and how I was morally opposed to it, and why did we have to follow it. 

She later asked if I were drunk when I wrote it. I wasn't. 

It wasn't even during DST. It was while I was booking a train ticket. 

In grad school part I, there was the time when it fell at the end of a two-week period of insomnia, coupled with a flight to the States where I got DST, and back to London, and then... I got to have DST on both continents a week apart. That was not a banner month.

Every year, there's a combination of extreme exhaustion, absolute crankiness (likely thanks to the extreme exhaustion), the delightfully French ennui, and a hair trigger toward everyone. 

In this year's Top 10 List of Things DST Made Me Do:

1. Four Diet Cokes in one day.
   
2. The infamous tulip comparison.
   
3. Attached a sleeve to a dress ... inside out.
   
4. Gave The Look to the physical therapist when he forced me to do balance work during a session.
   
5. Promptly then wanted to burst into tears over guilt at giving the poor PT The Look. (I'm still not entirely sure that he didn't deserve it, but there you have it.)
   
6. Contemplated the merits of joining the circus ... until I realized that nope, they'd still have exhaustion, and then I'm stuck dealing with animals.
   
7. Wondered why we haven't evolved in logistics enough to make online purchases arrive at my door by end of day.
   
8. Baffled by the appearance of white powder on my coat, only to realize I'd brushed up against my car.
   
9. Had a protracted discussion with American Airlines because they cut my layover in half for an upcoming trip.
   
10. Debated the idea of moving to Arizona, where there's sun, and no DST. 

Guilt-Free Trend Follower

I've felt guilty about liking barre as much as I do. 

Let's operationalize that a bit. 

I started out fine, just one class a week. And then, on a week when I couldn't go to my regular Saturday class, I went to a Thursday class. And found that class, while somewhat less intensive than Saturday, to be more laid back. 

So then I started going twice a week. 

And then I realized that for cheaper than the cost of two classes a week, I could get an unlimited pass, thanks to getting a 12-month contract. 

And that is how you give a mouse a cookie, she spends half of her clothing budget at Athleta, and she goes to Pure Barre four days a week. (She has not set foot in Lululemon, because they seem to excel at body shaming as a corporation, and body shamers don't get my money.)

But I feel guilty because barre is so damn trendy. And I've never exactly been a fan of that trendy thing, because apparently I've always felt better than that. Or something. 

Yet here I am, happily going four times a week, feeling guilty if I don't, and feeling somewhat bashful when I start discussions about fitness with "So, at barre," or "I went to barre," or "We were doing this thing at barre."

My first class started out innocently enough. I was going to run my first 5K the next day, and I didn't want something super intense. (I learned my lesson quickly...) 

The instructor greeted me, and laid out the expectations pretty cleanly: I was probably going to feel awful at it at first, and everyone does, and that's OK. She was going to correct me, and was going to touch me when she did so, and she was going to correct everyone. It wasn't just me. But that after a few classes, I'd start to feel better at it. 

The first 15 minutes? Sucked. Sucked hard. And it was a harder workout than I would have imagined (literally, I thought the rest of the day that I had some GI bug, because my abs had never hurt like that before).

But I realized I loved it. I loved how my body felt when I did it -- and that part was the shocker. 

I liked that I felt competent at something. And that I didn't feel like the fattest person in the room. And that here was something positive I could do with my body, without fighting my body.

That combination is what's kept me going back. Trendy clothes, activity, and all. 

Starting Out

Crazy things go through your head when you're doing a 10K in 28-degree weather, with a ~20 windchill. (Although ironically, not, "I really should go back inside.") 

Sunday's thought?

"I really want to make that dress."

For reasons that I can't explain -- maybe it's body related, maybe it was grad school, maybe it was just "I can't focus on anything that isn't work, school, or not going crazy" -- I'd lost my sewing mojo.

I haven't sewn for close to a year. I've knit, but it's all been pretty pablum.

Sure, cables and basic stitch patterns look nice, but they're not really mind intensive. I don't have to think while I knit those, and instead, my brain wanders to all sorts of dysfunctional places and all sorts of not-too-fantastic depths of the Internet ether. 

And what I've learned over the past year of pablum knitting and not sewing is multipronged:

1. I need to find that balance between no stress and OMG ALL THE STRESS, because whoa, do I not do well at either opposing end of that spectrum.  
2. Brains and bodies are weird, and food is weird, and fitness is weird, and the recovery process doesn't actually help make any of that less weird. At least not yet.
3. But at least I can dress myself while my body is being all weird and I'm fixated on what stares back at me? And I know how to plant a seedling, and I'm pretty sure I'm a better cook than my dietitian.
4. Finishing a thesis, graduating, and dealing with a so-called relapse doesn't mean that I've stopped liking things. It's just made it a little harder to find that path back to figuring out what I've liked.

So back to Sunday.

I really wanted to make a dress. I wanted to remake a dress that was getting pretty worn at the elbows, since it was one of the earlier dresses I'd made, and I wanted a nice knit dress that fit my current size.

I found the pattern in my stash before I went out, and as luck would have it, I had three yards of fabric in the right weight, and the right width. And in the back of my head, there was Therapist 3.0 saying that we needed to find me a distraction, and what did I think about starting a blog. 

I'm not generally a believer in signs from the universe, but something remarkable happened when I got home from my run, tossed some laundry in the machine, and went up to my craft room to start the dress.

Julia Child happened. 

And it was the French Onion soup show. 

Julia. The French Chef. My craft room. A dress. All at the same time.

Things that I love. Or loved. Or used to love. 

Then MST3K on a different channel later that night, and they were mocking one of the 50s educational shorts that I adore. (Although MST3K on Create would really have been something to behold.)

Thanks, universe, for giving me a Gibbs smack.