Project 4: Rustic Caftan

As regular readers will know, I made a Celtified kurta for Lingoman for his birthday which went over pretty well! In fact, as I was packing up that weekend he went into the hall closet (not in the metaphorical sense) and pulled out a length of gorgeous unbleached muslin and said "can you make me a caftan out of this?"

"Sure!" I said. He had used the generous length of fabric (about five yards) to wrap a sari at at least one Pagan festival and warned me that there were a few ahem scorch marks on it.

When I got it home and opened it up I found that in addition to the scorched areas, there were holes spaced along its length as if it had been stabbed twice while folded up. That made fitting the pattern pieces a bit of a challenge! Eventually I had to give up and buy a couple yards of very similar muslin to finish the piece. I can still tell the difference, but I don't think many would notice unless it was pointed out.

I started with my same basic caftan / tunic pattern from McCalls. This time I added side-seam pockets, buttonholes up both sides of the front opening for a lace closure, made an optional belt and used the decorative stitches from my sewing machine.

Lessons learned this time out were:

1. do your decorative stitching before you start assembling the garment
2. even if your pattern calls for leaving raw edges on the inside find a way to finish them
3. make double-extra sure that your pockets are in the right place for your hands

Even with the decorative stitch issues that give the caftan the rustic quality I still think it's really cool. I hope Lingoman agrees!

Not Going to the Chapel

My thoughts and feelings about the election results in California, Arizona and Florida continue to evolve. I'm still mad as hell, although I've resolved firmly not to let my pain turn into racism against African Americans or Latinos who want their equality while trampling on mine. Neither am I going to be filled with bitterness when I think of the Californians who prioritized to improve the living conditions for the livestock they eat while worsening the lives of their neighbors. Nope. Not going to go there.

What I am going to do is resume my self-imposed ban on attending mixed-sex weddings for a year. A woman originally from Scotland contacted me because she wants to say her wedding vows in Gaelic. This is what I wrote back to her:

First of all, congratulations on getting married. Secondly, thank you for your interest in Gaelic and for your ambition to say some of the most powerful words possible in a human life in your ancestral language. I truly hope you succeed and that your wedding day is as special as you hope it will be.

I made a decision this morning however that prevents me from helping you. On November 4th three more of these United States passed amendments to their state constitutions to make sure that people like me will never be treated equally under the law. I won't be attending or accepting work related to weddings in 2009, since I am excluded from that institution.

This one hurts because I would love to help this woman and I honestly applaud her ambition, but there's no progress without sacrifice.

So, no wedding work for me in 2009 and no attending mixed-sex weddings in the US.

Hope and Change? As long as you're not gay

Yes, I voted for Barack Obama and I sobbed uncontrollably when MSNBC called the election for him. By the time I went to bed at 3:00am however, I was sobbing for a different reason.

As news rolled in that Florida and Arizona had voted to amend their state constitution to ban marriage equality my heart started to sink. Any victory by bigots is a reason to mourn, but then the news from California defied belief. Californians were voting to eliminate an existing right for their fellow citizens. They were voting to undermine the very concept of equal protection under the law.

After a short sleep I went into the office and checked the news while getting settled in. As it turns out, exit polls revealed that seven out of every ten African American voters supported Proposition 8. Nearly six out of ten Latino voters did as well.

So while President-elect Obama talks about healing and humility I feel like I have discovered two new enemies who want me trampled down. I have African American friends whom I love and respect and who I know would stand up for me in a fight. I'm holding on to that tonight while I struggle to let go of hope that I'll live to see equality for gay Americans.

Lucky for me I'm engaged to a Canadian who can actually marry me and I'm sure we'll get around to it someday. Maybe sooner now that I've given up on the USA.

Hope? No, I can't.

Back to the Golden Calf

Well I'll be. The Christian right has drilled so far down into the old testament that they've popped out the bottom.

Cindy Jacobs of the 700 club is calling for a prayer intervention to put the global economy under Yahweh's control (apparently he can't do this for himself) centered on the bull statue on Wall Street in New York.

No kidding. They're praying to a statue of a bovine for wealth. LCD Seattle thinks it would be fun to show up in Moses costumes and rebuke them.

Read more if you can stomach it. Prayer Needed for Global Economies

What's in it for Mother Nature? Why I think there are gays

I've been pondering this question for a long time, and I think I've developed a reasonable hypothesis.

Assumption: All aspects of human behaviour are the result of evolutionary process, including social conventions, abstract concepts, and social structures. Nature doesn't keep things around unless they are somehow useful in an evolutionary framework.

Hypothesis: Gays (inclusive) are socially advantageous because they supply a small population of adults who are typically unencumbered by the work of child rearing. At times there are sudden increases to the necessary workload of a social group due to environmental pressures. If all adults were encumbered by child rearing then there would be no additional people to deal with these periodic increases to necessary work without sacrificing the well being of children.

During times of normal activity levels, the population of unencumbered adults are freer to pursue optional activities which advance technology, liberal arts, and other fields of endeavour which are not strictly required for survival and species propagation.

Discuss!

Project 3: Kurta Celtique!

I've wanted to write about my current sewing project, but since it's a birthday present for Lingoman, I have had to wait until today! After two times through the same shirt pattern I felt like I was ready for something new. Lingoman has wanted a kurta that was cut and sized for a North American person for a long time, and his birthday was coming up, and he just gave me a sewing machine: all indicators were pointing in the same direction! Get stitching a Sheumais!

Lingoman, Icon Watcher and I made a trip to Little India to buy cloth. I can't tell you why it didn't set off alarm bells in my head when Auntie Store Clerk didn't want to cut us a length in half-yards. Turns out, when you spend a whopping $2 a yard you get what you pay for.

I started out with the McCalls 4002 caftan pattern because it had the right basic elements and construction method for something like a kurta. I shortened it to knee length by folding the front and back pattern pieces half way between tunic and caftan length. For a more finished look, I borrowed a tab collar piece from a different shirt pattern and added it.

And for that authentic Celtic touch, I added sparkly silver Celtic knotwork trim. Hee hee. The fabric was pretty challenging to work with, and I don't plan on buying that materials quite that delicate in the future, but I'm still reasonably happy with the end product.

Update Lingoman loves it. Yay! Memories!

Happy Birthday Honey! Or Reasons I Love Lingoman

In honor of my fiancé's birthday today, I thought I would take a few minutes to write down some of the reasons why I love him so much. So, in no particular order:

• He cares deeply about issues beyond our daily lives He gets really angry when people are mistreated. It doesn't matter whether or not he knows any of them personally. He cares about the direction human society is going in, even though we don't have any kids. He's keenly interested in minority language revival and all the social justice issues surrounding it. He just cares.
  
  
• He's not scared of the things that scare me I fear adversity. I doubt my own ability to deal with crises in my own life. I'm fearful in new social situations and he helps me with all of those things.
  
  
• My family and friends love him too and he loves them.
  
  
• We share many, but not all interests We can talk about so many things that we are both passionate about, but also share things the other doesn't know and broaden both of our perspectives.
  
  
• He's Canadian which means that we can really get married!
  
  
• He's sexy and a super cuddle bug.
  
  
• He's deeply honest which inspires an abiding trust in me. I know that he would tell me the truth in a crisis. He's already had to more than once.
  
  
• He loves me and that's never happened before. At least not that I could believe.
  
  
• He thinks about his life and changes direction when his inner compass tells him to.
  
  
• He has an inner compass Not everyone does, you know!
  
  
• He's a Gaelic speaker Let's be honest - that should probably be nearer the top of the list! Of course there are the other dozen or so languages, but I'm trying to be concise here.
  
  
• He loves to eat Something we share, much to my cardiologists dismay.
  
  
• We're not threatened by each others religions When we met he self-identified as a Druid, and I as a Wiccan. He's now a Buddhist and I've drifted in a more firmly polytheistic direction. Some people might have tension about that, but we don't

Most importantly, he awakens an ever-deepening love and respect for him in me that is like a campfire, a rose, a waterfall, a sunset and a steaming dish of butter chicken all in one.

I love you, Honey. Happy Birthday.

Project 2: Black Shirt

I finished project number two last Thursday. Having been all the way through this pattern on Big Yella made the second time much easier. I can't believe how primitive pattern instructions are. Hand-drawn diagrams? Why not just make a video of each step and include a DVD? At least they could have color photos.

Anyway, now that I've got this shirt pretty much under control I'm going to make a couple more to round out the winter wardrobe. Yay. (yes, I wear short-sleeved shirts all year round)