such a geek

So, I'd forgotten what a sewing geek I am. i spent the night cutting out the pieces for my sister in law's dress out of the tissue paper that is packed into the little envelopes that patterns come in. I sat about cutting out all the bits and pieces, and then remembered a little trick I used to do back in the day. i went and plugged in the iron and started ironing the tissue paper so it would lie nice and flat! I used to do this a long time ago - i found it really helped in laying the pattern pieces on the fabric - they would lie flatter, and straighter, and were easier to work with than piecees that were all crumpled and folded. I'd also forgotten how long the preliminary steps take - the actual sewing of a dress takes such a short while compared to the cutting out of the tissue paper, cutting out the fabric pieces, transferring all the marks, and all that. So basically, it took 2 and a half hours to cut paper, iron paper, and then cut out four little pieces of fabric!

Did I then take the pattern pieces that I would not be using for this version of the dress and iron them flat and fold and iron until they fit nicely back in the evelope, making sure all the while that the way they were folded revealed the pattern piece number in case I ever need to use it?

Yes, yes i did.

That reminds me of a story I have from when I use to work at the fabric store a long time ago. There were a lot of older ladies who would come in to buy fabric, who would ask for their cuts in yards. We always made sure to ask "yards or metres?" since often they would mean metres, but just say yards from old habits. So, one time, this lady wanted ten yards of fabric, and so i asked "yards or metres?" and she replied with "oh yes! silly me! of course i mean kilometres!"

heehee. I was laughing so hard picturing 10km of flannel pyjamas, and then she caught on to what she had said and started laughing too :)