Snoozy kitty

Copy cat

That’s me, and I’m OK with it. In addition to copying a recipe, I’ve also copied this skirt. To be honest, I didn’t copy the recipe, not exactly. I came up with my own variation but the idea was not original to me.

In the same way, the skirt I’ve made is slightly different than the original one. But I wouldn’t have thought to make mine without having seen hers.

My skirt material isn’t ruffles, although I would have used that material if I’d found any at my favorite fabric store. Also, I sewed my fabric to the elastic wrong side out and then flipped it. My fabric is so very soft that I didn’t end up with any unwanted bulk at the seamline.

But the color is pretty darn close to the example skirt and black elastic was the only way to go. I used navy thread for sewing and while the material isn’t actually navy, the thread still pretty much disappears.

Need sleep

Cats have been particularly noisy and rambunctious the last two nights, especially Wally. We've both been so tense lately due to outside stuff that neither of us is sleeping all that deeply. When a cat gets noisy in the middle of the night, we wake up.

I finished a skirt today, and I'll get pictures tomorrow. Plus I have a possible solution to my very low cutting surface. I did some scouting around online and the recommended height for a cutting surface when cutting out patterns is between 36 and 40 inches. We don't have room for a separate cutting table so the small dining room table has to do double duty. But it's only 28 inches tall and my back gets really tight when I have to cut out things all hunched over like that.

So I ordered some bed risers to use on the table. They arrived today, and I am looking forward to trying them tomorrow when I cut out something else. I am on a roll here!

A moment of silence

Let’s all bow our heads as we ever so briefly mourn the passing of the blue knit dress that never quite was.

You may recall I wanted to make this dress out of the navy knit material you can see in the middle of this picture. However I ordered the material online which meant I couldn’t touch it and decide if the knit were too stretchy. Alas when the fabric arrived, I realized that this knit most definitely is too stretchy.

So I decided to make this pattern instead, figuring it might be kinder to very stretchy materials. I wanted to make the cowl neck view and looked it up on Pattern Review to see what others thought about the pattern. It's only been reviewed once but the reviewer said the cowl neck bodice was absolutely enormous. With that in mind, I cut a smaller size but even so I think Kent could have worn the top of the dress and he wears a 46L in his suit. So I cut out the square neck bodice from the ill fitting cowl neck bodice pieces. While the top fit a lot better, the knit was just making things very complicated. Let me tell you, picking out stitches that have been done on a serger is just no fun at all.

What was supposed to be a one hour dress took me all Sunday afternoon and all of this morning until now at about 11:15 AM Eastern Standard Time when I officially declared the dress dead on arrival. I learned a lot but I won't be finishing the dress, at least not out of this material.

Now I am going to go have a salad for lunch followed by some jalapeno kettle chips. They are my new favorite food indulgence, and the perfect thing to soothe my sense of failure.

Snippets

I asked Kent last night what he would miss from our apartment here in Boston. He thought for a moment and said he’d miss how dark and quiet our bedroom is. That was all he could come up with. As for me, I’d miss our clever solution for the litter boxes.


I won’t ever choose to live in a “garden” apartment again. I’m not a mushroom, I need a lot of light.


If I end up taking a job outside of Boston, the cats would go with me. Kent travels pretty frequently and also the trips can be last second so arranging cat care gets complicated. He said if he got too lonely, he’d get another cat. Um no way do we need FOUR cats! I offered to leave Chloe with him should a move occur. She’s the most laid back of our cats and would adjust to being alone a lot. But as he pointed out, she’s really imprinted to me and might die of sadness.


I tried to refashion my pink dress into a skirt—it’s made from a cheap knit and I couldn’t find my stretch needles for my sewing machine. I’d only sewn about six inches and had to stop because it did awful things to the material. I’m not sure I can fix this problem.


I tried making a baked potato recipe where you slice the potatoes almost all the way through, with the cuts running across the short side, and then bake them with butter and some seasonings. They were good but not entirely baked. I think the key is to make the slices really thin.


Last night we watched the first episode of Walking Dead on DVD. While I’ve liked some zombie books quite a bit, this show isn’t something I want to watch. It had way too much of what I call BOO! scary bits in it. I’m not an adrenaline junkie.


Today is the day for going through all of my clothes and purging, purging, purging.

Why doesn’t Johnny read?

Or maybe it should be Why won’t Johnny read?

First you need some necessary information. My resume, which goes back to 1997, could be outlined like this:

Most recent job: manager of training and development

Next job: highly technical consulting job for a company that needed their learning management and content management systems evaluated and possibly changed.

Next job: highly technical training development and delivery position with a consulting firm working with clients’ IT departments.

Next job: highly technical training development and delivery positions that also included project management on highly technical training development and delivery projects.

Catch the theme? Recruiters don’t. No, I’m serious. Last month I submitted my resume to a recruiting firm that was looking for a technical instructional designer/instructor. I got an email back saying the recruiter didn’t see where I had technical experience.

Yesterday I finally got a call from a company for a technical training position. The only reason I got a phone call was because I have a solid connection to the company (Kent). The utter lack of enthusiasm in the recruiter’s voice was obvious as he told me that the position really needed someone with a technical background who also had training experience. It was pretty clear he didn’t think I had that experience. When I pointed out that with the exception of my most recent job, my experience was exactly what he needed and that I had been doing that work since 1997, he got really excited. I almost asked him if he'd actually read my resume.

What’s worse, later when he called Kent to clear up something regarding relocation (which sort of irritated me that he would call my husband about a job I'm apply for but I’ll set that aside for now), he flat out told Kent he had rejected my application. Holy crap, no wonder people can’t get jobs. The recruiters aren’t even reading the applications.

I’m in the running for two positions right now. Should neither of them pan out, it’s clear to me I will need to reformat my resume into a functional rather than chronological resume, one that spells out my experience using simple, first-grade level language. That way even recruiters with poor reading skills should be able to recognize what kind of experience I have.

Deconstruction

Reconstruction!

I tend to buy clothing because I like the color and feel of the fabric. Only later when it's too late do I realize that whatever I bought doesn't fit all that well. The pink sweater in this picture is a perfect example--I love the color, and it's a cotton/silk knit. But it's just a boxy ugly thing on and I found that I'd pull it out, maybe put it on only to take it off and hang it back up again.

Since I wasn't wearing it anyway, I cut it apart and used a Simplicity pattern to make another top.

I didn't actually have enough material so the top is more fitted than the pattern would normally be. But that's fine by me. It's no longer boxy or ugly.