Vogue 2609, or How To Halloween

What is the best fabric to make a muslin out of? Just plan muslin? Some old fabric laying around? Or could it be $2-a-yard purple satin?

I went with the last option for this year's Halloween cosutme: Vogue 2609. A 1934 design, I wanted to look my best for the party. Now, I didn't plan this costume out well in advance. Oh, no. I barely knew what I was doing a week before and had no idea what I would be that night. When I found out it was an Edward Gorey-themed party (hosted by the lovely Dances of Vice), this pattern immediately jumped out from my memory. Maybe not so turn-of-the-century as Gorey, but certainly in a fabulous and macabre feeling, if made in the proper way.

Awkwardly brushing out the edges of the caplet featured in this pattern

I've never sewn this pattern before, but I was confident in my sewing skills, so I cut out all of the pieces (including two of the godet pieces the same way - so in the final product you may or may not notice that one of the back pieces is ... not as shiny as the rest of the dress, because it's sewn in backwards) and set to work on sewing it all together.

The open-back design! (That tie at the bottom is supposed to be tacked down - pshaw, it's fine!)

What I noticed, looking at the pattern back (which I did not have the convenience of doing while I was at the fabric store, the pattern being out of print) was that it didn't have a zipper. I had bought one anyway because I figured it needed to be closed somehow. Well, this being 1934, they didn't exactly have zippers. They had snaps. And I wasn't going to put in a whole long set of snaps, because I like simple solutions. So, I ignored that part of the directions and did it my way, putting in my zipper. I felt happy to have bested the patterns of the past with the technology of the future.

The next part that unsettled me, in reading the directions, was the fact that the godet (the skirt part at the very bottom) was supposed to be appliqued on. Again, I was not doing this and decided to do it my own way, which I saw as the correct way. I just sewed the godet to the dress, as one would do - right sides together, make sure to get it all pinned down, sew together, turn right side out. (I was kind of nervous that the applique-style attatchment might not work as well, for some reason, and so I just felt more comfortable putting the skirt in the way I did.)

The last surprise of this dress was the contrast fabric. When I was getting it cut, they told me the price, which was far more than the dress fabric. I thought it was right-side out on the bolt, because it was satiny, and just said "Whatever" and went with it. Well, after I cut the pieces for the dress and went to get them ready to attatch, the two halves of the fabric didn't want to come apart. I took a pin and separated some of the remnants from my cuttings and learned - a bit to my horror - that this was no satin at all. This was some kind of terrible, weird Latex-coated fabric. There was no turning back, though, as this was probably a day or two before and I didn't want to get anything else. I would deal with it and triumph over it, as I had with the rest of this dress.

But I think, in the end, it turned out quite spectacularly in the end. I was happy to tell people that I'd made my dress, and though I personally don't have any photos of myself at the event, I did find one from someone else where I'm in the background:

Photo by Gabi Porter for MetroMix New York
(more photos here)

Yep, right there. On the right, with my lovely open back and my friend who came with me to the most magnificent Halloween party I'll probably ever attend. I hope to go more of their events sometime, just to see all the people who get so done-up! (You should search for more images and just look at all the gorgeous things people wore. Really. I was amazed.)

Key West, or Cayo Hueso

I was invited on a two week vacation to Key West with my boyfriend and his family that I just finished. It's a great place and I think two weeks was probably the perfect amount of time, as we got to see pretty much everything and didn't have to rush getting things in.

I took the plane from New York to Miami to Key West, with a short layover. On the way down to Key West, I was sitting next to the man who would open Hemmingway Days - a playwright from Canada who was decked out in full Hemmingway garb, including a pith hat he had in one of his carry ons. He told me that this was the best way to see the Keys - to flyover and watch the shallow waters change color. And it was really beautiful - I was glad to have a window seat.

Joe drove me back to the house that his brother, John, had rented. It was a great little house in the old town with plenty of bikes for everyone staying there. There were stained glass windows and it was brightly colored. It was fabulous and John gave Joe and I the master bedroom because it was just the three of us staying there both weeks - their oldest brother, Rich, and his girfriend, as well as their parents, were only staying for the first week and their friend Ryan was only staying for the second - so he thought it would be fair to give the two of us the giant bed and adjoined bathroom. Also, so that Joe could clean his gaping moped wound that he received in Europe in peace. There was also a pool and hot tub behind the house which were really enjoyable to have, especially on hot days and cool nights.

Throughout the two weeks we were there, we went to the Hemmingway House (mostly to pet the cats - we didn't take the tour, I'm personally not a big fan of Hemmingway but I do love cats), did a Duval crawl (the major tourist/bar street in the old town side of Key West - full of all kinds of bars, including a clothing-optional one, and all kinds of dumb stores selling the same T-shirts), biked all over the Old Town, the Key West Butterfly Conservatory (you can buy some pretty amazing butterfly "sculptures" - actual butterflies arranged in plexiglass cases to hang on your walls), went to beaches, kayaked, took two different sunset cruises, chartered a boat (which I got seasick on... unfortunately), went and watched all of the different street performers at Mallory Square (including the Cat Man.. he's crazy), going to a drag show (always a great thing to do, I promise) and all kinds of other things. Oh, and we saw the Today show being filmed. We left after like half an hour because 6 or 7 am is way too early and I wanted to sleep.

One of my favortite things in Key West were all the great restaurants. I think probably my favorite was a little "mostly vegetarian" restaurant we went to three times. It was always really good and really filling - and I'm not even a vegetarian! Cooking some of our own meals turned out really well, too.

It was nice to go someplace different, relax, see people that I haven't been able to for a while, and just have fun in such a crazy and unique place as Key West. It was good to bike everywhere, too, because here in suburbia it's cars everywhere. Having bike lanes is also nice, when you can get them.

The trip back was a bit stressful as Joe and John left before I did and I had to take the keys back and also make sure I got back in time for my taxi. (I was supposed to leave the day before, but my flight was cancelled for some kind of mechanical problem and for some reason I got booted to the next day. They told me I could rent a car to Miami but I wasn't about to drive 3 or 4 hours. It gave me another day with Joe, though!) The flight was fine and I got more of my amazing book (Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o [Kenyan]) read.

Now I'm home and ready to get back into the swing of things and hopefully get sewing again! (And maybe knitting, too!)

Me on the weird foldable bike I rode around Key West more photos of Cayo Hueso

Vacationland

Last week, I took a trip with Joe to Maine. We visited our friend Meredyth on Westport Island for two days and then went up to Acadia National Park for a day and a half. It was a trip to be remembered.

After spending just a couple of days in Connecticut (after our 10-hour drive from Ohio and the Wooster graduation), we headed out for Maine. The 5-hour drive took us through Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire before finally reaching our destination. What that means was, for me, it was my completion of visiting all the states in New England (I've been to Vermont before - on a spur-of-the-moment trip to Bennington College) which was exciting in a silly way. We had lunch on our trip and were glad when we finally drove down the dirt road to our destination and saw our friend in the doorway.

From Maine

The first night we got a round of meeting and re-meeting everyone and a tasty chicken dinner. We played Apples to Apples into the evening and then went to bed - Joe and I slept on the couches in the front room. It was already a fun trip by then, everyone had great stories and we all were in the same frame of mind and sense of humor.

The next day was the real treat, though. That morning we decided to go out to a place called Big Al's and pick up all kinds of cheap stuff for our fun later - shooting it with a 10-gauge shotgun. We picked up a three ducks playing instruments, an octopus ring-toss game, the head for a baby doll kit (yeah, just a head - no body or limbs at all), a ceramic house that was apparently a candy dish, a plastic tank, a stuffed whale (they'd never shot a stuffed animal before), a plastic or semi-plastic sculpture of lemons and a sunflower fly swatter, which we had thought was simply a plastic flower to go in the ground. We also got a deck of cards (52 reasons cats are better than men), some bizzare postcards and some other things just for fun. Then, we took all our cheap finds (which were all about $10 or $15) out into the yard. To destroy.

From Maine

The baby doll head was by far the strangest thing - it seemed to absorb the shot and loose shot would fall out when you turned it upside down. It became weirdly imbedded in the skin. We finally finished it off by shooting a 12-gauge slug into it. It was rewarding for all the times we shot and couldn't do anything do it, really.

From Maine

Then came the ducks - those pretty much just exploded into a cloud of smoke when you hit them. The same went for the lemon sculpture. That was only half-destroyed, so Archie (our gracious host) shot it as kind of a clay pidgeon - we threw it up in the air and he shot it and hit. Candy dish house - another explosion of ceramics. The tank wasn't too exciting as it was small and pretty hard plastic. The octopus ring-toss game was inflated and we didn't notice until after we'd shot it 3 or 4 times that we'd hit it - but it was riddled with tiny holes from the shot just going right through it. The whale exploded little clouds of stuffing when you shot it - which we did twice because it was cool. Finally, the fly swatter, which wasn't really that exciting. It just kind of broke apart.

From Maine

After a photoshoot of our carnage and picking up more of the pieces from around the yard, we went on a hike through Archie's backyard / nature preserve. It was really beautiful and pristine on this small island where not a lot of people lived. There were lots of pines, really pretty coast around the island and even some lichens growing. It was a nice relaxing trip through Maine's scenery. Afterwards, cards were played and I took a nap. Meredyth's father told Joe stories about Europe. We had another tasty dinner, this time it was ribs and a little bit of venison burgers. Archie let Joe and I sleep up in his bed and he took the couch after we watched Cigarettes and Coffee. The next morning we left for Acadia.

From Maine

It was another couple of hours up to Acadia, but we did stop and had some lobster rolls and lobster stew. We got up to Acadia and decided to take a hike before going and finding a campsite, as that would be further on down the one-way loop road. We chose the Beehive Trail - which has iron rungs on exposed granite cliffs. For me, that was absolutely terrifying and not fun. Once we got to the top, it was nice. But those exposed rungs were more danger than fun. I didn't want to go back down that way, so we decided to take the Bowl trail - around a large lake surrounded by the mountains which was eerily totally silent when we were there - and then climb to the top of Champlain Mountain. It was along trip and we thought we might be able to take the Precipice Trail back down, but it was closed for the nesting Perigrine Falcons. We took another trail down and walked back along the road to the car. Though we couldn't see anything at the top of the mountain - probably a visibility of 50ft, we could see great views as we got down below the cloudline on our way down. I took a small piece of the pink granite back with me. It's really quite pretty, and I'm sure it's really great right after a rain and you can see all the colors in the stone.

From Maine

We found the campsite and found an empty spot, pitched our tent and made a fire and went to sleep. In the night I woke up several times in my really uncomfortably tiny sleeping bag (it was a mummy bag that I barely fit into) and heard that it was raining outside. We woke up and it was pouring and I didn't really want to hike through the pouring rain and it wasn't going to let up until late that afternoon, so we decided to pack up and leave and drive up to the top of Mount Cadillac. Where we also didn't have any visibility. But there were cool waterfalls because of all the rain!

From Maine

We drove back home to Connecticut and stayed there for almost a week more before Joe left to go back to Ohio. We did do some other hiking and it was fun and pretty, but Maine was definitely an experience.

The Return to Ohio and IS Monday

Yesterday was IS Monday, a holiday at the College of Wooster celebrating the achievement of seniors on their completed theses. This always occurs the Monday following spring break - the last day that seniors can turn in their independent study theses.

On the 13th, though, Joe showed up to my house in Connecticut. We spent the weekend and the following week exploring Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York and having lots of fun adventures. We went to museums, stayed in an NYC hostel, ate Mystic Pizza and had fun times having dinner with my parents.

From Spring Break and IS Monday

On Friday, we left Connecticut and headed up to Rochester in order to break up our trip back to Wooster and see some of our friends who had graduated. The trip was around 6 hours long, but we did get some beautiful views of the Catskills as we drove through them. We arrived in Rochester pretty late, but got some delicious late-night dimsum and slept on the fold out couch in the living room. The next morning, we woke up, had some bagels, and departed once more.

The drive to Ohio took around 5 hours, but we had a great three-state tour. We got back and had dinner with Joe's parents, a late St. Patty's day dinner of corned beef and cabbage. The dorms didn't open until Sunday, so we stayed there Saturday night after visiting Laura for some welcome home fun and moved in to Kenarden on Sunday afternoon. We hiked in Spangler with Laura that afternoon and then went back to Joe's for a meal cooked by his brother, John, of lasagna and chocolate lava cake, both of which were delicious.

From Spring Break and IS Monday

Yesterday was IS Monday and it was a crazy day of plenty of drunken 21 and 22 year olds celebrating far too early and falling asleep too early, as well. I marched through the parade and ate some free pizza at the end of the march, and I was glad that I could be here to celebrate with all of my friends. After the pizza, we went back to Bryan House and sat on the roof, played music and ate cake. Fell asleep pretty early, but that's okay.

From Spring Break and IS Monday

I'm going to have to find my new routine in this place, but it does feel kind of like I'm home again.