The second session of my April Utah trips is almost full! There’s still plenty of room in the first session. Sand! Slickrock! Cross-country navigation. Bats at sunset! Deets and the application are here. If you applied and you haven’t heard back from me yet, check your spam folder!
There are still a few spots left in my February beginner trips, which sold out this year. You will eat so good you’ll feel ill. KK’s cooking is the best I’ve ever eaten in my life, no exaggeration! She’s like a magician with dietary restrictions. Deets and the link to register are here.
It’s been raining and the low sky is making me claustrophobic. I ordered a new alternator on amazon, got some tools at lowes. While I was at lowes I bought a big roll of brown paper, contractor’s paper that was on sale for $5. I’ve been looking for some big paper to make patterns on. I wanted to make a micro-grid fleece dress. Are you even a basic Alaska bitch if you don’t have a micro-grid fleece dress? I didn’t like any of the styles online so I thought, I’ll make my own. I traced a hoodie I already had to make the pattern, just lengthening the bottom. The hood wasn’t as hard to copy as I thought it would be. The internet told me to switch the all-purpose needle on my sewing machine for a ballpoint needle, so I did that. Joanns was having a sale on needles. The joanns here is like a fallout bunker, no windows so it’s hard to figure out how to get back to the front of the store, there’s no light to orient yourself to.
Working with fleece is so much easier than making bags. While sewing I listened to My Brilliant Friend, the first in a series of three novels translated from Italian about two friends growing up broke in Italy in the fifties. I thought the novel was tedious and overwrought until the very end when it really picked up, and now I have the second in the series on hold on Libby.
The pale blue micro-grid fleece I found on sale online was much thinner than I’d expected, and the finished dress hung like a sack, giving grandma’s nightgown. That’s the problem with ordering fabrics online, you can’t really tell what they’re gonna be like. Especially polartec micro-grid fleece, which is classified in strange ways. I did some googling and Reddit told me that the specific polartec micro-grid fleece Melanzana uses is manufactured just for them, and you can’t find it for sale anywhere, although some redditors had found seconds on etsy. I found something on etsy that looked similar, and thicker than the pale blue stuff I had and ordered it. Aside from the thinness of the fabric, I feel pretty good about my first efforts with the dress. I’d like to make pants too. Hyperfixating on my winter layering system is a good way to soothe my anxiety about the coming season.
Everyone loves fall and I’ve never really understood why. I like the first bit, when the yellow leaves are still on the trees and there’s some nice days. But now it’s just muddy and grey and dark, with no bright snow to play in and reflect the light. The season of the sticks, as they say. I’ve been feeling restless, the kind of restlessness that makes me want to claw my skin off. I’ve been having dreams about the desert. This cuffing season is hitting me hard too- it’s cold and the dark is encroaching and suddenly I really want someone to cuddle with. I want to be in a relationship. The fact that I didn’t feel this way a few months ago makes me suspicious of the feeling. Is it real if it’s only happening because the season is changing? Is it real if it comes and goes with the heat, the dark, the sun, the moon? What is real? I am certain of nothing but the heart’s affections and the truth of the imagination, said Keats. I know so many people in unhappy relationships. Happiness, contentment, doesn’t hinge on one’s relationship status, and this fidgety longing to go to pound town is easier to endure than the despair of being in a relationship that’s not quite right, the kind of relationship where you’re still lonely and so the loneliness takes on an existential edge, verges on hopelessness.
I do not feel lonely in an existential way, and I am so grateful for that. My life is so, so good right now and it’s easy to lose sight of that. I have my cozy cabin with my dogs, I have friends, I have my jobs and my hobbies and even my health. Always my pre-frontal cortex is trying to tell me that however I feel at the moment is how I’ll feel forever, and I have to remind myself that this itchy feeling will pass. I think about which pants of mine I’ll trace to make a pattern, check the arrival date for the fabric I ordered on etsy. I’ll channel this energy into my work and hobbies and eventually the snow will come, and skiing, and then everything will be better.
Cool thing- the woman who put up game cameras in a park in Anchorage has uploaded new videos to her youtube channel here- brown bear cub triplets, foxes fighting over a moose carcass, etc.
That’s all for now,
Carrot
As the owner of two Melanzana dresses who wears literally nothing else all winter I am obsessed with your dress making exploration!
The first draft of microfiber dress is a great color, and will still make a good layer. When I sew from scratch the first one is like the first pancake, you can still eat it, but the dogs dont mind a bit if its burnt a little. The second take will be all kinds of amazing. Thanks for sharing!