Fake it ’til you make it

Legit, someone texted this to my phone yesterday:

“Nell, how are you fairing this winter thus far?”

And the answer is: it’s tough and I’m cold and the city seems overcast and covered in a film of salt–so everything kind of looks grey for a lot of the time. And, while I enjoy wearing grey as an accent piece, I prefer color, generally, both in attire and in life.

We knew this going in, though (aside: if you love winter, teach me how to winter. What do you do that makes you love it? Or is your body temperature just naturally higher than mine and therefore you now feel cool and collected?), and we went in with a plan. The plan being: get to the other side alive, doing whatever it takes.

My mom bought me a pass to Jazzercise, and you can judge that, and you probably will judge it…until you try it, and then you’ll be like, “Dang. That just challenged me a little and now my abs are crying.”

I’m also crafting, though. I’ve been working towards a cute pattern for fingerless gloves featuring upcycled sweaters and buttons (when available: dinosaur buttons. Oh, yes).

And, also, I went to the fabric store on Monday.

And right away I picked out a fabric that I loved–a muted navy with a smoky blue paisley-esque pattern–IN CORDUROY. Oh, hello, compiling of many things that I love. I put the bolt in the cart.

Now, my cousin, Hanna, was in town for the week, so I had asked her to come along.

Have you ever been to a JoAnn fabrics? They’re not the greatest, but they kind of operate a monopoly on affordable fabrics. So I shop there. Hail, communist-fabric-supplier.

Anyway, here I was with the bolt in the cart, looking for other fabrics since I want to make this skirt a layered skirt with a variety of materials. And I was pushing the cart about the tight corners and dusty floor, pulling other bolts off of the shelves to hold them up to the corduroy bolt.

At one point I said to Hanna, “Do you think these match?”

And she was like, “What does it even mean to match? I think that everything matches.”

And that was kind of deep and trippy and it tinted the rest of the experience.

I eventually found another heavy, cotton-blend material that I liked for an accent material. It’s a-little-bit-youthful, kind-of-loud, slightly graphic-y floral. The colors bounced off of the corduroy. So far: so good. But! I still wanted another bit…for the underskirt layer. So, around and around I filed through the aisles, until my mom was like, “Oh, and flannels are in the back.”

So then I was like, “FLANNEL. Yes. I want this to be a winter skirt, flannel will be perfect.”

So I wheel the cart back there and I start pulling bolts off of the shelves, but then replacing them since they weren’t working. I looked through the solids, the muted prints, the print featuring whiskey bottle labels, the print about foxes.

And then. I saw this one flannel. And the pattern was: bugs. And not subtle, either, navy bug silhouettes on a grey background. And not cute, either, this one has spiders and roaches (? I think, I’m not an expert) and dragonflies and houseflies all featured.

But, you guys, the color match was spot-on.

Right as I was looking at it, Hanna walked up to me and I said, “Hanna, this matches so well…but it’s bugs, what do I do?”

And she said, “Wow, that does match really cute. You need to buy that.”

So I marched it to the cutting counter to be measured. And, as we were standing there, Hanna said to me, “I hate to do this to you, but I need to make something out of those exact same materials, since they’re so cute.”

Of course I said, “Of course!”

And now we have our own little sewing challenge ahead of us for this weekend.

How will two different bug/ paisley skirts turn out? Only time will tell! Stay tuned.