Well, I’ve done it. I’ve sewed my new jilb, and I’ve learned that sewing involves a lot more than just....umm...sewing. It also involves-

A bit of mechanical engineering:

“Mom, I can’t get the bobbin back in.”
“Take off the stitch plate and poke around with the seam ripper.”
“I already tried that.”
“Then just beat it back in. Show it who’s boss.”

A bit of math:

Nape to waist, 17 inches. Shoulder to shoulder, 15 inches. Waist to hip slope at a roughly 70 degree angle, corresponding parts of congruent triangles are congruent...

A bit of history:

You made the same mistake last year, remember?

A bit of drama:

She closed her tired eyes and slowly lowered her head so that it was resting on the sewing machine. Could she, would she, ever finish? It seemed as though the sewing machine’s mechanical stutter had been going for hours. She could hear it even now though her foot was no longer resting on the pedal. Oh wait, yes it was, and now she had sewed her sleeve shut again. Nuts.

A bit of aesthetics:

Which shape should I use to trace the neckline, this rectangular grammar book or a scoop-necked dinner plate?

A bit of philosophy:

Abez: How much faith should one put in fellow man? Especially when that man is a tailor?
Plato: The actual is preexistent to the actual in potential.
Abez: True, but couldn’t we give him another chance? Even just to finish what we’ve started and don’t feel like finishing?
Plato: To start and to finish are interchangeable, and The Beginning and The End often masquerade as one another. You must find your own way and see where it leads you and -
Abez: Hey, who sews your togas?

Alhamdulillah, the jilb I sewed turned out ok. I did make the sleeves a bit narrow, but I’m pretending like I did that for effect. It’s a totally simple A-line, in a really deep purple that I refuse to call ‘wine-colored’ for religious reasons. Nothing I wear is wine colored, dammit. It’s really dark 100% halal grape juice colored, ok?

I’d blog more but I’m all tuckered out from sewing, and I still have to hem the sleeves, and I still have to do my class work for tomorrow. But I must include the link for the New American Century Project that I got off of a comment on Tora’s blog. This is the official (and unrepentant) site for that horrible colonialist Neo-Conservative project that I mentioned a few days back. www.newamericancentury.org

posted by Abez @ 5/29/2003 09:00:00 PM