Tag: sewing

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Post Op Part 2

I don’t do sick well. I’m one of these weird folks who actually likes to work and, if I’m not working, to be doing something in general. So, when my surgeon told me I had ten days post surgery to do NOTHING, I thought I was going to go bonkers!

Thankfully, the first five days, I spent mostly napping, couch surfing, and watching my favorite movies to recover from the anesthesia. Several friends checked in on me to make sure I wasn’t doing anything. (Admonishing me is more like it!) The next five days were spent in San Antonio celebrating my seventh wedding anniversary with my husband; thus, it was exceedingly easy to do nothing since he insisted I be spoiled.

Day 11 was a grand day! I was going back to work! Well . . . sort of. I could only do Santa stuff, no bridal. I could cut stuff out, sort of, but I couldn’t do any hand sewing. Forget writing anything–my scribble was so bad, I couldn’t even read it! Eating . . . well, that was left-handed. Actually, most things were left-handed for the first month, and everything took longer to do. I even impressed myself by learning how to use chopsticks left-handed!

Certain hand and wrist positions hurt, so I backed off and tried something else. Eventually, gradually, I could do the things that hurt. I’m now four months post surgery, and I’m still wondering why I had my knickers in a knot about it. The only thing that still bothers me now and again is writing. Most days, it’s fine, but, sometimes, my hand shakes so badly with a pen that I just have to put it down and come back to it later.

The most important bit is that I’m thrilled there’s no pain anymore. I’m ecstatic that fire needles don’t wake me in the wee hours of the morning anymore! I’m over the moon that I don’t have the numb balloon feeling in my fingers anymore. In fact, I’m so impressed by the results that I want to have the left hand done before the euphoria wears off.

It’s funny how fear keeps us from doing some things that are extremely beneficial to us. If this situation has taught me one thing, it’s that bravery comes in all forms and that I shouldn’t let fear slow me down or keep me from doing something I love.

So the next time something scares you, remember a funny seamstress in Texas who faced her fears and “got ‘R done!” There are plenty of things scarier than surgery … like an EMPTY BOBBIN! Lol!

Until next time, dear readers. May your bobbins be full and your seams straight!

Heather

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Santa Jay

I love making Santa suits. Most folks are surprised to learn that I make them all year long. In many cases, when I go to build a Santa suit, it has been several weeks or months since the initial consultation. In those instances, I will talk with the Santa the week before to go over my notes and make sure that I’m not missing anything. As I tell them, “We’ve all slept since then!”

In one particular circumstance, Santa Jay (not his real name) indicated that he had lost a great deal of weight and he wanted me to measure him again before I cut anything. So, we set an appointment for that as well as to go over my notes. When he came to visit me, I could tell that he had been sick–really sick. Not only had he lost a great deal of weight, but his skin was extremely pale and papery, there was no twinkle in his eyes, and his breathing was labored.

I am always there to listen to my clients for whatever they may want to tell me, but I never press for information. Santa Jay didn’t want to share anything beyond the fact that he’d been sick, so I stayed professional, taking the measurements and going over the notes. His parting comment, however, was that he thought it might be his last year as Santa.

After he left, I sat in my studio chair at my sewing machine and just sobbed. Working with mostly older folk in the Christmas performer industry, I know losing a client is definitely a job hazard, but I admit that I’m a bit of a sentimental wardrobe elf and I get VERY attached to my clients. Thus, I was determined to make sure that his final season was a spectacular one, at least in terms of his uniform.

When I went shopping for the lining, I found a really awesome bit of fabric to incorporate–same thing with the trim and the buttons. The old saying that the devil is in the details is true, but it’s also the delight as well. Excited about my project, I threw myself into it with more than my usual gusto and sang to it sweetly about all the lives he would touch this season.

As is my habit, I sent him progress pictures and showed him the lining that I had found as well as the trim. His response was that it looked so good he wanted to be buried in it.

Heavy sigh and lots more tears. Dry off face and paste on determined look. Whatever he was going to do with his suit, he would be one spectacular looking Santa. PERIOD.

I finished my project in a few days and invited him back to try everything on. His breathing was still labored. His pallor was still there, but the twinkle had returned to his eyes.

I helped him into the robe and hat, and he smiled at himself in the mirror. I saw a bit of the old spark come back. He turned this way and that, admiring his reflection, and then turned to me with a big smile and asked if I would put him on my sewing list for next year.

In that moment, I felt the balloon of hope inflate inside me. In my head, I was jumping up and down and fist pumping, but the only outward display of said hope was the smile I returned to him. Perhaps he’d found his reason to fight. I don’t know. I’m not going to take credit for that, but I do hope that he’s around for many more seasons to bring joy and magic to children of all ages.

Until next time, dear readers. May your bobbins be full and your seams be straight!

Heather

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Post Op – Part 1

I am not a morning person–not by anyone’s wild stretch of anybody’s imagination. Yet I still thought it was just desserts that my husband and I had to get up at 5:15 the morning of my surgery to appear on time for my procedure. His hip surgery required us to do the same.

We drove to the medical center in the dark, making it up to the surgery center in time to watch the sunrise. It was a brilliant shade of red as it made its way through the various layers of haze on the Houston horizon.

Unlike my last visit to the doctor, this time I was making jokes. I had a captive audience, and, since I have the same kind of macabre sense of humor as many in the medical profession, I had everybody in stitches.

My surgeon came in–in a very good mood–and noticed that I was in a very good mood, so when he signed my right arm (as they all do to make sure they’re working on the correct limb), he wrote in big bold letters, “YES!” I really liked that sentiment and felt very comforted by it.

My husband, of course, stayed with me until they rolled me down the hall. It’s a very surreal experience watching the ceiling tiles go past you overhead. I thought I would be asleep by the time I got to the operating room. No such luck.

As I looked above me at the lights, I remembered another situation where I was wheeled into an operating room. That was 50 years ago when I fell on a glass bottle at the tender age of two and sliced all the way through my right arm, clear to the bone. I was unwilling to stay still for them to stitch it up while I was awake. I even succeeded in escaping a straitjacket. (Insert cheeky joke here.) So, they decided to put me under in order to sew my arm up. Still, I very distinctly remember those lights and the doctors in their surgical gowns and masks. I even remember that one of them wore glasses. He looked down at me and told me everything was going to be all right.

Well, this time, they didn’t have surgical gowns on, but they did have scrubs on, and they did have masks on, and my doctor even wore glasses. I don’t remember what story I was telling my captive audience, but I can pretty much guarantee that I fell asleep midsentence.

The procedure was short and sweet, and I felt like I woke up suddenly in the recovery room. I looked up at the nurse, raised my bandaged hand and wiggled my fingers. No pain. Other than the surgery pain, of course. I was elated. I started monologuing right then and there. The look on the nurse’s face was a mixture of complete amusement and surprise. When I took a breath, she said, “No one has ever woken up like that. “

I laid there with a silly grin on my face, humming the entire time while the nurse filled out paperwork and went to retrieve my husband. A single thought kept running through my head. I’m going to be OK.

We’re ALL going to be ok. Until next time, dear readers. May your bobbins be full and your seams straight!

Heather

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Origin Story

Every superhero has an origin story, and, even though I don’t wear a cape (usually), folks are very curious about the origins of The Singing Seamstress.

I’ve been sewing since I was a young girl and performing since high school. The two did not come together in a meaningful way until I was past my opera phase.

My opera career consisted of mostly singing, dancing, and reacting to scenery. I played everything from a nun to a lady of the night to a peasant and everything in between. Because I am a tall woman—a presence with which to be reckoned, if you will–a lot of costumes didn’t fit quite right. Even after the costumer had her way with things, I would often come in behind her and fix things myself.

I got tired of being in the background, so I switched to musical theatre after five years in opera and started getting juicy lead and supporting roles. Now that I was out in front, I didn’t want to settle for just any old costume, so I started making them myself.

People started to take notice. Other actors began asking me to make their costumes as well. It went from two to four to half the cast and then full productions rather quickly. (Costuming a full production is a LOT of work by the way, and it’s a mostly thankless job, unfortunately.)

Somewhere in all of this, a fellow actor asked me to make him a Santa suit. Compared to my more recent creations, it’s a very simple affair–washable but sturdily made. Eight years later, it’s still in use and still looks like the day I delivered it to him.

He was so impressed that he got me in contact with the Lone Star Santas, the largest regional Santa group in the nation. I went to their annual shindig to hawk my wares and received quite a few suit orders. These folks were so impressed that they got me an invite to the largest Christmas performer group on Facebook (over 10k members). From there, I just posted pictures of the things I created. Between this and word of mouth, my Santa business grew by leaps and bounds.

Sometime after the Santa suit, another actor friend contacted me to help her BFF with his daughter’s wedding gown. They had originally taken it to “a lady at church,” and the gown needed a lot of work still. I had never worked on a wedding gown (unless you count the gown I found at Goodwill and modified to be my Halloween costume as the Bride of Frankenstein). Though nervous, I figured it couldn’t be all that complicated.

Well, I was both right and wrong about the last bit. All the fundamental parts were there, but the only garment more constructed than a bridal gown is a man’s blazer and some cosplay costumes. So, it was a steep learning curve–and I only had a week and a half to sort it out.

I managed to get everything in the right places, but, to this day, I still hate strapless mermaids. I also think I consumed a whole bottle of wine on my own to calm my nerves. After recovering, I realized that I could really make a go of this and decided to start networking in the local bridal industry.

I have since won six industry awards for my bridal work and am in The Knot’s hall of fame. It’s super cool to be recognized for my work when I love it so much.

I am more than blessed to love my life’s work. It has taken me a long time to get here, but the journey has certainly been illuminating. I eagerly look forward to all the new suits, all the new dresses, and all the new friends I will be making in the future.

Until next time, dear reader. May your bobbins be full and your seams straight!

Heather

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F.A.R.T.

If you’re a quilter like I am (when I can get a few moments away from my other projects, that is), then you are probably familiar with the tee shirts depicting a large pile of folded fabric and the initials FART across the top. They stand for Fabric Acquisition Road Trip. In recent years, quilting has taken off again as a hobby and so has the “shop hop” or “FART” as individual quilt shops get together and offer specific parts to a collaborative project and freebies in an attempt to drum up foot traffic. It works so well that its part of every quilt shop’s marketing plan.

When I travel, I make it a point to go to every quilt shop in the area. I always find something interesting whether it’s a local themed print (like turtles sunning on the beach in Hawaii, orcas swimming with their babies in Seattle, or barnyard animals doing yoga in Wisconsin) or a really cool Christmas print.

If you follow my Facebook pages (The Singing Seamstress –Houston and The Singing Seamstress LOVES Santa), you know I like to make all my Santa suits unique. A lot of what contributes to this are the details–interesting buttons on shirts and vests, distinctive trim and embroidery, and different prints for all parts of the suit.

In my travels, I’ve come across a few interesting quilt shops. One of these is The Sewing Basket in Prosser, WA (www.prossersewingbasket.com). They have a HUGE Christmas fabric section year round . . . AND it also happens to be the next town over from where my mom lives.

It’s always an adventure when I mix business and pleasure on these trips. Mom tends to do her own shopping, while I attempt to video call my clients in the spotty Wi-Fi of the old house and detached garage that functions as the shop. That’s all part of the fun! I think I amuse the owner and her employees as my use for her materials is definitely outside the norm. That and I usually spend over $1,000 adding to my stash.

This year, I had to divide and conquer. I visited the shop over several days to accommodate the number of clients and even met one of the local Santas there. This local Santa brought his wife (still trying to talk her into being Mrs. Claus) and his daughter, who very proudly and precociously introduced herself as “Elf Pearl.” All four of us helped Santa decide on his vest and shirt fabrics, and we even got both employees to help hunt down the perfect candy cane print.

A few years ago, I attended my cousin’s wedding in Wisconsin. While there, I also went looking for materials. I figured there would be plenty of quilt shops in the Midwest, and they certainly didn’t disappoint. In addition to finding all sorts of Christmas fabrics to add to my stash, there were all kinds of fun farm themed prints, including the aforementioned barnyard animals doing yoga. The hubster just had to have this made into a shirt, and it’s still one of his favorites.

Another memorable shop I found was In Ketchikan, AK, called Whales Tale Quilt Shop (https://whalestailquiltshop.com). Mom and I found this one while on a cruise to Alaska. The shop in Ketchikan was interesting in that the GPS showed it as being in the water. It wasn’t until we found the shop that we understood; it was on a pier OVER the water! It is a tiny shop but stuffed full of native prints, Tlingit glyphs, and local fauna. I didn’t find anything for Santa, but I did bring home many prints for the camp shirts the hubster loves to wear and fabric enough to make myself a quilt. Mom and I will be going again next summer, we’re taking the hubster this time. I think I may need another suitcase for all the fabric he will find. LOL!

Traveling and meeting new folks and learning about new cultures is a ton of fun, especially the micro cultures we have here in the U.S. I love how the local quilt shops reflect those micro cultures and how their distinctiveness helps me add magic to my projects.

Until next time, dear readers. May your bobbins be full and your seams be straight!
Heather