Saturday, January 24, 2009

Another Old Post from MySpace

Do you need stitches when you sew through your finger (November 16, 2005)

So I have been toiling away, sewing in this sweatshop...okay, it's just the women's dressing room at the Iao Theater, but it is darn hot down there. But anyway, I have been working hard in my free time making nuns' habits for the Meshuggah-Nuns! musical that opens Friday (Nov. 18 - Dec. 11, Fri-Sat 7:30pm, Sun 5pm), and yesterday I managed to not only sew the habit that I was working on, but through my finger as well. OUCH!! Fortunately I missed both the bone and the nail, and because it was a sewing machine needle it was quick and straight, and there was very little blood and almost no wound. But it still hurts and it is making this hard to type. Luckily it was on my left hand, but unluckily it was the pointer finger, and I never really realized how much I use my left pointer finger.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Old Post - From MySpace

Here are some pictures of the quilt I made for my sister Lexy. It was her graduation present.

It took me almost 4 years to make it - although I did take a lot of long breaks.











The Sound of Music

Right now I am neck-deep in costumes for "The Sound of Music" which will be opening at the end of February at the Historic Iao Theater in Wailuku.

So far my biggest challenge has been fabric. There are only a couple of fabric stores on island and most of them cater to quilters or people looking for Aloha prints (Hawaiian prints). The other problem is that in addition to the limited amount of fabric available here, what is available is expensive.

Wal-Mart has some reasonable prices, but very limited stock - and it really irks me to shop there (crowds, global takeover, etc.). So I have been buying basic but important things there like muslin and interfacing. They used to have really great velcro too, but now it seems that all they've got is the adhesive stuff that you can't sew through - useless.

So I have been buying fabric online. Of course buying online can be tricky from Hawaii because there are a lot of websites that automatically charge beaucoup bucks for shipping to Hawaii (like walmart.com - total rip-off). The site that I love right now is www.fabric.com - great selection, cheap (often free) shipping, great clearance and discount fabrics, a neat design wall thing, and they'll send swatches. I bought 30-yards of black poplin for nun-habits and I'm waiting on some cute fabric for the curtain costumes (but that's a whole other story - more on that some other time).

Well, I'm off to buy some satin for a party dress for Liesl.