Sometimes I look at a pattern like this one (it's a vintage Vogue Couturier from Jean Muir, # 2756.) and quail. Do I really have the chops for all those curved seams? Do I really want to sew on all those tiny buttons? Wouldn't my time be better spent making yet another circle skirt (number eleventy-billion in a series)? What if I mess up the fabric?

Well, sometimes all you need is the news that someone else has freed the pattern from its paper-envelope prison and made it into a real dress. In fact, Carmen did that for this pattern, and even better, sent me a picture! Yep, it looks complicated, but it's doable:

The goat's name, by the way, is Billie Holiday. Just thought you'd like to know. (Look at the shoes too, they're gorgeous!)

I'm glad to get this reminder, because even if I'm not going to sew this particular dress, there are plenty of other complicated ones in my stash begging to be set free. I'm going to get some cheap cotton and really WORK on one of them. Really do a muslin, and take my time with fitting. And if I ruin some cheap fabric, it still won't be a waste of time, as I'll be learning.

Monday night I went roller-skating (don't worry, this isn't as alarming of a segue as you think). I started working on backwards crossovers, and of course went immediately ass-over-teakettle to the floor. One of the instructors skated over to make sure I was all right, and I said "don't worry — if you don't fall down every once in a while, you aren't learning anything, right?" I think I need to extend that philosophy to sewing. If you don't ruin four yards of cheap cotton every once in a while, you aren't learning anything!

Lulu (no website link, she called herself "your classic lazy lurker") was nevertheless energetic enough to send me this … time will only tell if I'm energetic enough to sew it!

It's proportioned for 1" gingham, so that the tucks and pleats make solid bands, as you see here. I would definitely get rid of that tacky black lace on the skirt, but, hey, YTMV (your tacky may vary).

I love it in black, but I would ADORE it in pink, or brown, or grass green … even red, if you didn't mind looking like a picnic. (And who really minds looking like a picnic?) You could even make it in blue, and then next Halloween you could be Dorothy, with minimal effort.

The pattern also says you can use 1" stripes; I'm having trouble visualizing that, so I may have to make it just to see if my imagination is working. Call it a diagnostic test!

Summerset tagged me, so, here goes:

If you are tagged, you
1) Post 5 things about yourself that you have never posted
2) Tag 5 people whom you'd like to know more about

I have no idea what I've posted or not posted … feel free to Google and call foul on me in the comments.

1) I was the first, last, and only (as far as I know) National Junior Classical League Ambassador. This was way back in the late '80s. My "job" was to encourage the study of Latin (and Greek, too, I guess), but there was some kind of power-play between the outgoing student JCL president, who had thought up the position, and the main adult sponsor, who didn't think it was such a good idea, so I didn't end up doing much of anything. I did get a snazzy pin, though, and it looked great on my college applications.

2) Speaking of college, I ran a coffee shop when I was in school. This means that every person who was at the University of Chicago when I was there thinks they know me — I look so familiar! That's because I served them coffee every day. My favorite part was running the express line, with the ritual call of "Express Line: No soup, no pizza, no twenties, no waiting!"

3) Speaking of coffee, I don't actually drink it. I mean, I like coffee-flavor, and I love coffee candy (especially Pearson's Coffee Nips, which will break your teeth as sure as shooting), coffee ice cream, the smell of coffee (if people at the coffee shop asked me if the coffee was good, I would say "it smells great!") … and I will drink the occasional mocha frappuccino (aka the coffee milkshake) but I don't actually like the taste of hot regular liquid coffee. I always assumed that one day I'd be grown up and would drink coffee, but I guess I never grew up enough.

4) Another thing my childish self figured I would do when I was grown-up "enough" was smoke. My folks both smoked; that was just what grown-ups did, right? I even figured I'd smoke gold Benson & Hedges, just like my mom. Needless to say, if I never managed to grow up enough to drink coffee, I also never managed to grow up enough to smoke cigarettes. By the time I figured out that I wasn't smoking, there I was, a non-smoker. And thankfully, both my parents have also been non-smokers now for more than ten years!

5) And speaking of my forebears (well, the ones going back a-ways), I am supposedly a collateral descendant of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas McKean. (Collateral here means "descended from the same stock but by a different line", that is, I'm descended from the signer's brother, not the signer. What I really like about ol' Tom, though, is that he managed to hold multiple public offices at the same time. "One can scarcely believe the number of concurrent offices and duties this man performed during the course of his long career." So whenever I think I can't do everything I've signed up to do, I remember my illustrious forebear, who did so much — in several different states, simultaneously, and without indoor plumbing!

Now for the tagging part. I want to know more about all of you! I know a lot of you don't have blogs, so why don't each of you (who want to, of course, this is not compulsory) post something about yourself in the comments? If you do have a blog and want to do your five there, post a link in the comments. I promise to visit them all!

Oh, oh, oh, you MUST go watch this sewing video right now (click on the still to visit the page). Seriously. Not only does it give pretty good instructions for setting in a sleeve, it also has these perfectly delicious cringe-worthy bits:

— Betty, the star of the piece, asks her boyfriend what color her dress should be, and then has to think fast when he tells her a color she doesn't like (blue)! "Let's see what my book says," and then she uses SCIENCE to talk him into the color she wants … which is red.

— Her boyfriend suggests they have a fashion show! Great idea! What will they raise money for? New sewing machines for the home ec class? A trip to an art museum in the city for the girls? No! The boys' basketball team!

— Betty bastes her entire dress together before stitching it up on the machine! The ENTIRE DRESS! I never even considered such a thing. I barely baste in anything … I don't even mark darts anymore, I clip the legs and pin the point and have done with it. I should probably do more basting, but a WHOLE DRESS? I'm impatient enough as it is!

Thanks so much to Julie W. and to Lisa for the link!

Thanks to Jonquil for the link, from the great site Pink Loves Brown!

This is a 2" x 2" pin — adorable, right? If I wore a jeans jacket covered in pins (or 'badges') then this would have pride of place. I often wish I wore a jeans jacket covered in pins. Or maybe an army jacket? Olive drab canvas bag? Same genre …

They also have a needle and thread and scissors.

By the way, more than you ever needed to know about me is up at Norman Geras's blog — he asked me to do one of his profiles, and I happily agreed (I love questionnaires).

Several of you (Emily, Mel) have sent me links to this artist, Liz Tran, over the last few weeks — thank you very much! Of course I love her work.

There's a nice article about the artist and her work here. I especially liked this bit:

She's even painted dresses she wanted but couldn't afford, like a red strapless taffeta number with giant white polka dots. "After I sold the painting, I bought the dress," says a victorious Tran.

Now that's a woman after my own heart. And I love the idea of trading a representation of a thing for the thing itself … imagine going up to a hot dog cart and trading a sketch of a hot dog for something warm and covered in mustard. It's just so intellectually satisfying!

Tran's art isn't terribly expensive — the biggest ones seem to run only about $700 — so if you have an art jones this would be a good away to satisfy it!

The Sewist sent me a link to this knitted Duroesque dress … it's on a eBay auction that is ending momentarily, from seller kate_e_didit, but that seller has so many other wonderful knitting patterns that I was, momentarily, tempted to take up knitting. (Or rather, to pick it back up again. I think I have two sleeves and the back of a sweater around here somewhere.)

This pattern, however, does not inspire me to knit. It does move me to sympathy for the woman with the tight smile in what looks like a very heavy and itchy dress, and for the poor guy in the odd tunic sweater, who is thinking "Man, that summer roofing job is sounding a lot better than this modeling gig right now."

Does anyone know when the models in these kinds of ads started to look so self-conscious? There are models from the 50s doing equally goony things, if not even more so (lots of those ads involved men holding pipes!), and they look completely unaware of their potential to be targets of ridicule. When was the moment when people realized that pretending to dance in front of a camera was inherently silly, and stopped making a good-faith effort?

Anyway, check out the seller's author pattern auctions, if you are of the knitting persuasion. There are some incredibly sweet cardigans there, that if I were going to knit, I would jump all over. Especially that short-sleeve pointelle one …

By my count, there are at least 64 days left until spring, and I'm resenting every last chilly one of them. I've never liked January, February gives me a pain, and March is just one long muttering under my breath of "in like a lion, out like a lamb." By the time I've eaten all my Christmas chocolate (which can often happen before New Year's Day) I am already thinking about spring.

Yes, thinking about spring, and dresses like this one above, which is Oscar de la Renta, and adorable. I think the gray dress would be stronger without the floral embroidery, but you have to admit those motifs look great on this one here:

And look at all the pockets! If you click on either of the images, you can hie yourself through the whole slide show, and pretty much every dress has pockets. That Oscar, he knows what women want. Or at least what I want, which is to turn off my space heater and put on a floral dress, shove my hands in my pockets, and walk outside without a coat on (without that being an act of foolhardy bravado). (In fact, I want to not be able to remember where my coat IS.)

Forget Advent calendars; I want one for Spring, where behind every door is a crocus, daffodil, or just a brief glimpse of warm sunshine and the smell of thawing earth …

Marian went to see a languid Mr. Worth to order a new gown. "He was standing pensively by the window in a long puce-colored dressing gown with two exquisite black spaniels—twins—sitting on two green velvet chairs. This is what he wants me to have: the main dress gold color, the velvet only to lay the lace on and at the bottom in front. I have become bored with the idea of getting any new gowns, but Henry says, 'People who study Greek must take pains with their dress.'"

from Henry Adams: A Biography.

Marian is Marian Adams, Henry's wife (also known as "Clover"). Marian committed suicide in 1885. I'm afraid to say that Henry Adams, for all his scholarship, sounded quite difficult to live with and a prime example of the kind of man who believes women make fine ornaments or pets, but are certainly not people. The statue above is the memorial Henry had built in Rock Creek Cemetery; click on the image to read more about Marian and the memorial——both are very interesting.

I'm heading home today, and while I can't wait to be home, I love traveling. It's not just the possibility of finding new and amazing fabric stores, and seeing friends I haven't seen in a while, or even just the appreciation that yes, the light IS different in different places, even though it's all coming from the same sun. What I like about traveling is that it seems to reboot my brain a bit. I have a lot of good ideas while traveling, including the idea to buy this fabric, which I can't wait to make into a skirt. (With brown piped pockets, of course.)

I also love hotels. (Well, I don't love the one I'm in right now, because even though the room is HUGE and there was really nice soap, I have the heat set to 85 degrees and the vent is still spitting out a tepid exhale. But hotels in general, I love.) There's something about the anonymous and low-key surroundings of a hotel room (combined, usually, with an unaccustomed late-day ingestion of caffeine) that flips a switch in my head, which means that about five times a night, JUST as I'm about to drop off to sleep, the thermostat in my brain turns on the fan and I HAVE to wake up and write something down. Luckily, the hotels provide little pads and pens for just this purpose! Also, I can write in the dark.

Of course, the things I write down tend to be highly metaphorical (one day I will have described everything existing in terms everything else existing, and will then be stuck in the bell tower of my own personal tower of Babel, looking down at the disarray below), like the title of this post. But it makes sense to me! And that's what matters, right? That, and having the idea to make this fabric into a skirt.