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Monday, February 6, 2012

Out With The Girls

I mean the grown-up girlfriends, not the kids.

Fun day out with two friends today. Both I've known since we were little ourselves. You guys know them! The first is Eunice, she-who-used-to-love-cows-and-now-shares-her-heart-with-also-hedgehogs-and-owls. I make her crazy birthday gifts like these and this and this. We went shopping at Daiso -where I bought stuff like a pill cutter (it removes the pilly fuzzy bits from fabric surfaces; it doesn't cut medicine tablets in half) and had dim sum at a fabulous Cantonese restaurant. The noodles! The porridge! Oh, how I've missed real Chinese food. And the good company. So much fun to catch up.

Then we said goodbye (till next year) and I zoomed off on the train to meet Jen. Sans kids! We're older now, but we're still meeting in malls like we did back when we were - what - 11? 13? Except now we both had to fly/drive in from our new respective countries to do it. We went sewing shopping, naturally. Not to browse - we both had specific things to buy, and specific stores at which to get them. We went to Spotlight and I gawked at how velcro costs S$10 (about US$7) a yard when it's 99c in JoAnn. Then we went to the haberdashery wholesale stores in Textile Centre, where velcro costs S$2 a yard and comes in every color of the rainbow, and then some, including raspberry and peacock. Stocked up on sewing machine needles, invisible zippers, polka-dot bias tape, tailor's chalk and trims, but no fabric. Hurrah! Very good self-control, no? And Jen and I got to talk about interfacing and interlining and industrial machines and commercial patterns and children and life and it wasn't enough but it would have to do till we meet again.

And then it was home to the family and the kids were pleased to have me back. "Mummy likes me!" said Kate, and kissed my arm. And all three children fought to hold both my hands. Silly, precious girls. 

I have no photos because I didn't bring the camera with me. But I wanted to write this post anyway also to say how odd it is being back in my home country when it isn't my home country anymore. Those of you with feet in two (or more) cultures separated by geographical boundaries will probably relate. It is effortless to slip back into my Singaporean identity and spew words in the colloquial tongue, plus various Chinese dialects, and it is also effortless to slip back into my minivan back in the US, and begin to roll my "r"s in the American way, and cook meatloaf. I am both Singaporean and American now. But it is also simultaneously bizarre to stand on the train on the way to meet friends, as I did this morning, and have this thought suddenly hit you: "I personally know thousands of people in this country - family, ex-students, friends, colleagues - and my toiletries are in a ziploc bag, while in the land where my shower foam sits permanently on the shelf of my bathroom, I know fewer than 50." Not a sad thought at all, just weird. 

And here's another one: I can recall two kinds of phone numbers - yes, just from memory - the 8-digit Singapore ones and the 10-digit US ones, prefixed with the 952 or 612 area code. Both are completely natural to me, because my brain is compartmentalized into two distinct modes with parallel familiar experiences and that same brain is on hyperdrive, comparing and contrasting every single thing through the filters of culture. My two worlds have very little in common- especially if one looks beyond the common language- with the exception of sewing. I sew in both cultures, and apart from the voltage needed to run the respective sewing machines, all my equipment and tools are the same, down to the brand and shape of the bobbins. I've often suspected there was more to sewing for me than it being a creative outlet. Clearly I don't do it for sanity, the way some of you do. I am never sane when I sew - you all know that! But it reminds me of home here when I sew in Minnesota, and it reminds me of home in the US when I go shopping for haberdashery here in Singapore. I think it's weirdly wonderful, but isn't it also just absolutely schizophrenic? 



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Saturday, February 4, 2012

One-sided zippers

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Some photos of the super-simple cordura pouches Dad made for his archery equipment. These little pouches -they're about 9" long - are the free gifts his clients get when they order a custom-made bow case from him.
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Completely lined and padded, they unzip flat.
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The zipper is one continuous piece of zipper tape, not two halves.
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Here's a shot of the end of the zipper, which is actually the middle of the zipper tape.
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Couldn't be bothered to do a photographic step-by-step, since I'm on vacation after all, but here are some text instructions instead.

  1. Cut the length of zipper tape you need (perimeter of the pouch plus about 2" allowance). We like zipper tape by the foot - the sort for which you have to buy separate zipper pulls that fit it. If you are using an actual, complete zipper, remove and discard the zipper stop at the end, and slide the zipper pull out.
  2. Separate the zipper tape into two halves and put away one of the halves.
  3. Leaving about 1" end allowance, sew the zipper to the edge of the thing (the pouch, in this case) to which you want to attach it. Sew all the way around till you reach the point where you started, leaving the other 1" end allowance. 
  4. Close the pouch so the two 1" ends meet, slip the zipper pull back over the two ends, and zip the pouch up.

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And that's how Dad does his zippers. You've probably seen them on things like those continuous-zipper bags and zip-up-able coin pouches, right? I have too, but I never thought to make regular pouches the same way, a classic "why didn't I think of that?" example of how I've just done things one sad way all my life when there were other, better ways to do them. Sort of like the smoooooooth waistbands on pants and skirts that have revolutionized the way I sew children's bottom garments. Duh.

Not related: Dad and I are thinking seriously of finally getting our industrial sewing machines. So we can sew more, of course, but also so we can sew more of the stuff that is tricky on home sewing machines, because of the size of the projects that makes them unwieldy, and the layers of nylon and packcloth and padding. Now it's a sort of race to see which of us will buy one first. I suspect Dad will, since he's actually selling stuff that requires one, whereas I'm just producing stuffed animals and wimpy totes and toys and random amateurish children's clothes and maybe the occasional neoprene thing. Must start doing my research. Anyone got an industrial machine to recommend? I need mine to do a good straight stitch, is all.   



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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

My Father Sews Zippers Better Than I Do


Shh... we're here in Singapore, and yes, we've been to the beach and some of us are sunburnt, and today we went swimming till the rain came, but this post is not about that.

My Dad showed me his sewing projects, see. Little cordura zippered pouches for archery equipment. His zipper work is stunning. I have to take pictures and blog them when I get home. He uses one side of the zipper tape. Just one half. Per pouch. So each zipper he buys makes two pouches. Incredibly neat, because there aren't the little zipper tails to deal with, or zipper stops, either. So clever. I feel somewhat inferior, looking at my own bags. 


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Saturday, January 28, 2012

Housekeeping While I'm On the Beach

Well, I'm not on the beach... yet. We're probably still on the plane right now. It's a 22+ hour flight, with just one stopover - for about an hour - in Japan. This is as direct a flight as it gets between the snow and the sunshine. Every time we fly, the husband and I seriously consider flights with a few more stopovers, just so we don't land in Singapore at 1 am. And we always fantasize about flying through Europe or San Fransisco, and catching the Singapore Airlines flight into its home airport. But we always revert to our old, boring Delta direct-flight choice: with little kids, shorter is better, even if it means 15 hours at a stretch. We think going stark raving bonkers confined in an airplane is still much better than going stark raving bonkers lugging ALL our check-in luggage+three kids+their small animal friends all over several other airports as we change planes and re-greet customs officers, force-emptying our water bottles as we go.

Think good thoughts for us as we fly! We have Sharpies! We are invincible! 

I just wanted to get this post out about some housekeeping matters while I'm away.

1 The etsy shop
is closed till we get back. Not that there's a lot in there usually, anyway. You can still convo me about things you like, because I will have internet access where I am. Almost all the ribbon ball kits have been sold, save two (Savanna and Mod Orange), so if you're still thinking of a kit, you can think about those, or I can put a kit together in the colors you might want when I get back.

2 The pattern store
stays open, since the hosting site emails out download links automatically upon receiving payment from you. I don't manually need to send anything out to you, unless you run into download difficulties, which brings me to my plea:
Please, please, please, avoid using Internet Explorer, if you plan to buy a pattern while I'm away. Firefox and Google Chrome are better bets, because IE almost always crashes with these big files. Also, please don't be daft and try and check the download link while you're on your work computer or your iPhone or iPad when you actually want it saved to your computer at home. The file downloads immediately to whichever device you are on. While I have internet access and possibly access to my pattern files remotely, I can't guarantee that I can get them to you by email attachment the way I can when I'm in my own house at my own computer. This means you could be left for two weeks with no pattern and having paypal-ed me your money. I apologize in advance if this happens to you, but I've left this same disclaimer on the page from which you purchase the patterns, so you might be reminded before you click "buy". 

3 Autoposts
(other than this one) will not be happening! I am on vacation. And by "vacation", I mean "I am on vacation". I'll miss you guys, but not enough to want to give the impression that I'm still here when I'm elsewhere. I'm going to be away from my sewing machine (hurrah!) and Mum (bless her) says she collected some neighbor's moving boxes so I may do some cardboarding in Singapore. Maybe if I feel like it, I might even pop in to share some real-time exciting seamstressing from the get-togethers with Auntie Laura, Mum, Dad (sorry - seamster) and Jen and the various other sewing relatives, but, otherwise, things will be quiet around here. See you when we touch down here again!


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Friday, January 27, 2012

The Tally


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