Something old, new again

Thought I would give garment sewing another try. Frustrated with the style of pants available these days - I mean, hip huggers and lower are okay for some, but not me - and not able to buy pants in the length I need them, I decided to make a pair. I bought the fabric and pattern several weeks ago, washed the fabric, and stored the pattern in a Safe Place. Which, of course, I couldn't remember when I went to find it. I cleaned off my entire work table, which needed it. I looked in drawers, and found the manual for my sewing machine that I had misplaced and so ordered another one. Finally found the stupid thing after about 2 hours of searching.

So, the body attributes that make it difficult for me to find ready-to-wear pants that fit also make for problems when sewing them myself. Threads Magazine is always printing articles about how to make clothes fit, so I dug out the ones about pants. It's a little difficult to do this fitting by yourself, but I didn't have anybody around to help. I don't think my husband would be interested.

Followed the directions, made alterations in the pattern, cut out the pants and sewed them up. Results are less than spectular. I still need more alterations. And I don't know when this happened, but somewhere along the line ready-to-wear and the pattern industry parted ways in size labeling. It's very disconcerting to discover how much bigger the pattern industry thinks I am vs Lands End.

On an art related note: I have had a sort of love/hate feeling about SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates). In years past I felt I got nothing out of my membership even though I was a Professional Artist Member. I dropped back to an Associate, just as SAQA began to reinvent itself. Things seemed to be improving, what with new leadership and renewed energy. I decided to re-up as a PAM, but now you need to prove that you are at a professional level. Which I could and did.

SAQA still has some bumps and needs improvement but I think it's an organization that could be extremely useful to fiber artists. And today is the start of the Online Auction for the One Foot Squares. SAQA had put out a request for donations of small quilts to be auctioned at the conference in May, along with the Art in a Box Auction. The response was so overwhelming they had to come up with a different strategy so as not to be practically giving away the artwork. I hope this is a success. And I hope somebody bids on my piece (it's in this first grouping)....

There was discussion recently on the SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) Yahoo List about a blog ring for SAQA artists. I volunteered to set it up and spent the weekend trying to figure out RingSurf. I'm pretty computer literate but it took several attempts to get it right. I sent out invitations to a bunch of people who had responded to the SAQA request and have been getting them set up. For some it's gone pretty well, but others have had a few frustrating problems. I understand their pain.

On the side bar to the right is the link to the SAQA Artists Ring. I'm number 1 in the queue (one of the privileges of being the ring owner) and so far there are nearly 15 people in the ring. If you are a member of SAQA and want to have your blog part of the ring, click on the Join link. It will take you to the page where you submit your site.