100 Things

I had seen a blog post like this on the Yarn Harlot's blog, back when I decided to read each and every single blog post that she has ever written (for the curious, I think it was entry made in 2007?). So I decided that I must do one as well, especially since all my posts as of late seem to be a bit impersonal (at least that's what I think). My list was complied over the span of a few weeks and made me think really long and hard about facts that you never really think about in terms of yourself. I hope this helps out anyone that may have any questions and are too scared to ask...since I get a lot of emails asking about what brand of sewing machine I use and if I'd be willing to sew someone something for x amount of money. I will add ahead of time that I apologize that this is so extremely long. Please, proceed with caution!

**Warning: This is a very long post. I did however, pepper a few photos throughout to break up the monotony of all the writing!! You have been forewarned!!**

1. My first crafty love is sewing.

2. I have a university bachelor's degree. It's a Bachelor of Applied Design in Fashion & Technology.

3. I also have a certificate in Fashion Marketing.

4. I used to work as an assistant designer for a small reconstructed vintage clothing label in Vancouver that was sold in New York and Japan as well as in Vancouver.

5. I once had to sew over 200 reconstruction vintage shirts in 8 hours cause there was a major mix up in the order and we couldn't get our regular piece-work sewers to do them because of prior commitments. I plunkered down in front of the really old industrial sewing machine and serger that we had for sewing samples, plugged in my music, and sweatshopped it for the entire work day. In case you're wondering, I did get it done.

6. I used to love sewing days in university (compared to the days when all we did was pattern draft). It was a glorious 7 hours of nothing but straight up sewing.

7. If I had the chance, I would still love to spend the day (and more if I could!) doing nothing but sew.

8. I also used to work as a technical designer for a kids' clothing company.

9. In high school we had to put together an envelope for a time capsule project. I had written down that my dream is to work in a coffee shop while going to fashion school. Little did I know that I would work at a Starbucks while attending Kwantlen.

10. I sew with a Juki DDL-8300N Straight-stitch industrial sewing machine.

11. I bought my beloved Juki back in second year of fashion school, after realizing just how much sewing I'll need to do outside of school. That is, when I was forced to leave the school premises after 10pm.

12. My Juki and my Mac are the most expensive individual things that I own.

13. My fabric and yarn stashes definitely surpass the above in value. By a lot.

14. I use a very old Kenmore domestic machine for buttonholes. I inherited this machine from my mother, who had it way before she had me.

15. I use a Singer serger that I had bought for myself as a high school graduation present.

16. Most of the time I don't like to tell people that I can sew, mainly because I always get asked if I can hem a pair of pants for them or sew a few buttons on a shirt. Or worse yet, if I can alter their pants/dress/jacket cause they gained weight, lost a lot of weight, or had bought the item on sale thinking they can get it fixed.

17. I am not a tailor.

18. I hate hemming things. Even though I went to school for fashion and learned how to do all that stuff, I hate hemming so much that I would rather pay someone else to do it for me.

19. I've been traumatized by hemming when I had to hem 12 pairs of pants. In an hour. The person had assumed I would do it, and just to make sure, they talked to my mom about it. Oh, did I mention that I got no monetary compensation for all that work? And that the person needed them before they took off on a business trip, so they had shown up half an hour after I received the pants and were quite pissed off that I didn't have them all done. Yeah...

20. Brett always wonders why it takes me so freakin' long to try on clothes at a store. Want to know why? While I'm trying on the clothes in a change room, I'm also turning them inside out and inspecting the seams and workmanship. Sometimes it's the deal-breaker of whether or not I'll buy the garment.

21. I love lists and will write a list for everything and anything.

22. Sometimes, just to feel accomplished, I'll write down something that I've already done just so that I could cross it off the list and get the adrenaline rush. Don't tell me you don't do that too sometimes.

23. I severed the optic nerve in my right eye in a car accident that has left me pretty much blind in that eye, and now I'm quite often startled by things happening on that side.

24. Another weird body fact: I have 2 uvulas. That's the hanging thing at the back of your mouth. Normal people have only one. I have 2.

25. If it weren't for alarm clocks, toddlers, work, commitments, etc, I could sleep whole days away. The last time I did so, I fell asleep on a Wednesday evening and woke up Friday afternoon. I was so confused and was completely convinced it was Thursday for the whole day.

26. I own quite the extensive shoe collection, but my pregnancy had changed my feet so much that I can't wear a single pair any more.

27. No one ever told me, nor did any book I've read mentioned anything about how your feet can drastically change in pregnancy. And can stay that way.

28. I own over 20 pairs of flip flops.

29. I prefer flip flops over shoes any day, and will try to wear flip flops as soon as the weather permits and will try to prolong the flip flop wearing season 'til practically the first snowfall.

30. As much as I dislike wearing shoes, I'm addicted to knitting socks and strive to have a drawer full of nothing but hand-knit socks.

31. I'm absolutely itching to knit up a pair of Monster socks from my leftover sock yarns. The thing is, I don't have that much for leftovers since I haven't really been knitting up a storm that involves sock yarn. For those who don't know what Monster socks are, they are socks made from leftovers resulting in a pair of unmatching "clown barf" socks.

32. I aspire to own a fabulous boot collection. Current boots in collection: 4.

33. I also one day aspire to have a linen closet full of cozy handmade quilts, warm knitted afghans, and classic crocheted blankets. To date, I only have 1 quilt made.

34. I made that quilt in my grade 11 sewing class for extra marks (I was advanced and had finished my garment in a week and was waiting for the rest of the class to finish theirs. So I had 2 weeks to spare.)

35. I'm addicted to coffee and could drink it all day. Whether it be a chugging a huge mug in the morning, slurping a doppio con panna at lunch, sipping a yummy doppio espresso with a square of really good quality chocolate for dessert, or enjoying a pick-me-up cup with friends...I seem to always be drinking coffee.

36. I have an immense phobia of zombies. It's actually called amubulothanatophobia - the irrational fear of the walking dead.

37. Even though I have quite the phobia, I have an irrational love of zombie movies and have seen Dawn of the Dead probably more than 500 times. Yeah...don't ask. I love horror movies to no end.

38. When I lived in Vancouver and I had to work at 5am in the morning, while walking to work I used to scout the area around me trying to plan out an escape route to safely if a zombie outbreak were to happen right then and there. I still do that.

39. After moving out of my parents' house I've never lived in a ground floor suite until I moved to Victoria. My place had very thin insulation (as most houses in Victoria do) with weak, single pane windows. This used to scare me shitless at night. Whenever Brett made the bed he would often find screwdrivers, scissors, lighters, knives, golf clubs, etc either under my pillow or on my side of the bed. He would laugh at me. I've repeatedly told him we'll see who's laughing when a zombie outbreak happens and I'm still alive.

40. I have an unnatural love for office supplies. Especially for Post-it notes and Sharpies. I get weak in the knees whenever I pass by a Staples or an Office Depot, just like I would if I came upon a fabric or yarn shop.

41. I own a huge toolbox full of nothing but Post-it notes, pens, and Sharpies. Enough to last me a life time. And yet I feel like I don't have enough.

42. My knees also go weak for houndstooth, as I've mentioned here and here. I turn into a mass of jelly if it's jumbo houndstooth. Let's not talk about what would happen if it were made in a wool or if it were hot pink and black!

43. I have a thing for tweed. I don't know why, I just do.

44. Oddly enough, I own less than a handful of garments made in tweed.

45. Yet I have quite a bit of it in my yarn stash.

46. I am a compulsive hoarder collector.

47. I collect fabric. One day I will use it all.

48. I collect yarn. One day I will also use it all.

49. I hoard buttons. I'm attracted to buttons like bees are to honey. Especially giant ones. The bigger, the better.

50. I'm obsessed with lipgloss. Once a cousin told me that I needed to put on lipstick cause "it looked like I had no lips" without it. Since that day I've been buying lipgloss like it's going out of style. On any given day I can be found with at least 5-8 tubes of gloss in my bag, and about 2-3 pots of lipbalm.

51. I'm a MAJOR night owl and am most productive late at night. I really miss my old apartment in Vancouver. It was a really old building that was very well insulated, so much so that I could blast my music and have all my sewing machines running at 3am in the morning and none of my neighbours could hear it and complain. Unlike my current neighbour downstairs, who likes to bitch and complain if we even sneeze or drop a Q-tip on the floor.

52. A lot of my ideas and inspirations come to me late at night when I'm lying in bed, or when I'm nursing my son. I've gotten really good at writing in the dark and with my left hand.

53. I'm lactose-intolerant, but whenever I order a beverage with soy instead of milk people think I'm just jumping on the soy bandwagon cause it's the trendy thing to do right now. Which means that out of every 5 beverages that I order, 1 will be made with cow's milk and I'd have to go return it to the person who made it, who is often surprised that I could immediately tell the difference. I usually curse this person a million gassy hellish nights for their so-called "mistake".

54. I'm absolutely horrible at returning/replying to emails. I usually read the email (most likely on my phone) and then have every intention of replying when I either get home or have the time. I then forget because the message is no longer marked as unread or I haven't had the chance to go back online for the rest of the day. By the time I remember or see the email again, the window of opportunity to respond has passed. It's even more worse if someone sends me a message via Facebook. Since the Munchkin has been born I rarely, if ever, go on Facebook anymore. So I miss out on a lot and since I opted to not get email notifications from FB (I was getting way too much spam from them!) messages get missed entirely. I'm sure a lot of people have completely written me off as a friend because I don't make regular appearances on Crackbook.

55. I tribute my lack of craving and eating fast foods to the fact that I grew up in a hippy town that didn't want to bring in the fast food giants. Instead our "fast food" was Subway. Growing up I really hated the fact that I couldn't eat McDonald's. Now, I'm so happy that my little hometown stood its ground.

56. I get extremely nervous and slightly paranoid when I give something I've made away. I have really high standards of craftsmanship and although I love handmade items, I don't really want it to look handmade. If you catch my drift. There are some things that I think look fab by looking crafty, and there are a lot of things that just don't. Mind you, if I was making something for myself then my perfectionist tendencies are kept to a minimum, but if it's for someone else, I'm all antsy about having the perfect looking item. People are always telling me that a non-sewer or non-knitter would never know what the mistakes are, etc...but I will know!

57. I'm always looking inside of things and seeing how well the construction was executed, checking out seams, studying the topstitching...things that Brett thinks no one else does. I figure if I do it, then others must. Hence my OCD towards making a top notch item.

58. Despite appearances and how I am around people who know me, I am actually a very shy person. I think the older I get, the more shy I become around strangers.

59. I always feel awkward and socially retarded when I'm in public. I think it's cause I never know what to say and am usually lost in my own world, listening to my internal dialogue of things taking place. I also think my major dislike of small talk makes me feel ever more socially challenged.

60. Even though I love being out and about and being a social butterfly (around peeps I know), I'm also very contempt at staying home by myself and just knit and sew all day. When I first moved to Victoria and didn't know a single sole, I used to stay home and watch the Food Network while baking treats for Brett, waiting for him to come home from work. If I wasn't baking treats then I was sewing him the ugliest shirts known to man (he's keen on owning the ugliest shirt in the universe).

61. Sometimes I wonder just how different things would be now if I had discovered the Bitchy Bees when I had first moved to the island? At the time, I was living only a few blocks away from the coffee shop that we meet at and had all the time in the world! I wonder just how much better my knitting would be and how much I would have knitted up (and how big my stash would be now) since I was on sick leave from work and then went onto maternity leave right after. I would have been able to make it to both Tuesday and Friday knit nights and would have been able to sit at home and knit to my hearts content!!

62. I also wonder just how different life would be had I gotten involved with a knitting group earlier in my life. I think I would have enjoyed fashion school had I had something to focus on, rather than feeling like a chicken with my head chopped off the entire time.

At my fashion program's year end fashion show (it was our final project). This was at the show's finale, taking my final bow.

63. I think my year-end project in fashion school would have been much, much, MUCH different if I had discovered a knitting group sooner. I would have done something involving knitting and/or knitwear. Then I would have actually cared about the entire project.

64. I think I need to find a job that will let me sit there and knit and sew all day. Knit and sew stuff for myself, that is. Anyone know of this dream job? Anyone willing to pay me to sit on my butt and knit and sew stuff for me?

65. I have the attention span of a gnat and am way too easily swayed by shiny objects, hence the habitual attack of Starteritis that I seem to catch once every 2 months. One day I will tackle the humongous stack of unfinished projects...one day.

66. When it comes to crafting, I'm a very fickle bitch. Brett finds it annoying that one minute I'll be knitting away on the couch, the next minute I'm ironing a sewing project in the kitchen, and the next I'll be one the living room floor cutting out pictures from a magazine.

67. If I've become "unusually quiet" it's because I'm either counting my knitting, have made a mistake in my knitting and am trying to figure it out, had an idea pop into my head and am thinking about the logistics of that idea, had a stroke of sewing genius, or I simply have nothing to say.

68. I have the mouth of a sailor. My cursing can make even the most jaded construction worker blush. I've calmed down quite a bit since the Munchkin has been born, but that just means I'm violently cursing in my inner dialogue. You wouldn't be able to tell I had quite the potty mouth, unless you've known me for several years.

69. I get really annoyed when people tell me I'm "too young to be knitting". WTF?? What era do we live in??

70. I get even more annoyed when people call me Grandma when they see me knitting. Again, WTF?? Get your head out of your ass and get with the program! Grandmas aren't the only people knitting!

71. I get irritated when people scoff at knitting and insist I'm wasting my time making something that I can just "buy in a store", and that they don't have the time to do "something simple as knit socks". So what, you think those hours you spent in front of the TV is time well spent?

72. I get irate when non-sewers and/or non-knitters act like they know more about the subject than me (and I'm not saying I know all, cause I don't), and then proceed to tell me how to do whatever it is that I'm doing. An example: a friend of a friend told me that I was "a sucker for buying all those expensive fabrics when you can buy broadcloth for $3 a metre. It comes in so many colours, you can make an entire wardrobe for $50!". Another example: "You're crocheting your scarf wrong. You need bigger yarn and should probably learn to crochet straight". I told the ill-informed person that I was actually knitting a sock and the person had the gull to tell me that they know what they're talking about cause their mom crochets. Okayyyy.

73. One of my goals is to own a skein of yarn in every single colourway made by SweetGeorgia yarns. Just from the current lineup, or else I'd drive myself crazy trying to procure yarn from her earlier days.

74. Another goal is to knit an item, be it garment or accessory, out of every single SweetGeorgia colourway. So far I only have the pullover and socks in progress. 45 more colours to go.

75. I'm a craft company's dream customer. When I really get into a hobby (such as knitting) I must to have every tool and gadget that is associated with that hobby. I have to have every single needle size available, every stitch holder, stitch marker, DPN case, and row counter. I could have drawers full of bobbins, scissors, tailor's chalk, zippers, and thread and yet I accumulate more. When I get into a hobby, I become my hobby.

76. Since we're on the subject about being OCD about hobbies, when I get a project in mind, I have the insatiable need to get everything I need for it - regardless if I already have a million other projects in the works. If it's a sewing project, I just have to get the fabric and all notions needed. If it's a knitting project, then I'm on a mission to get the pattern and yarn, and double check to make sure that I have the needles called for and the sizes below or above (cause you never know if you're going to make gauge). Once this is all done, most of the time the project(s) are forgotten about and I'm already planning and buying for the next project in mind. It's a vicious cycle.

77. I hate handsewing. Not only do I think I suck at it and think my handsewing is ugly, but I get overly paranoid that my garment is going to fall apart at the most inconvenient time...like while I'm crossing the street.

78. I hate seaming my handknits. See above for the reasons why. Yet I love grafting seams. Odd indeed.

79. I have a major dislike for unfinished seams in sewn items. Not unless it's something made with leather, suede, or any fabric that does not fray. I think unfinished seams make the item or garment look sloppy and novice.

80. I truly believe that anyone who sews should take the time to iron and press before, during, and after they sew their item/garment. It just makes the final product look finished and professional. If you are willing to take the time to sew the item, have poured so much hardwork into it, the least you can do is take a few extra minutes to give the item a final press. It really does make the item go from craptacular to spectacular.

81. When I say fusing, I mean interfacing. I've been asked about that several times whenever I use the term fusing. It was used in my fashion program, and in all the fashion jobs and internships that I've ever had. The word just carried on into my crafting lexicon.

82. Whenever there's a sale on fusing or notions at a fabric store, I usually go nuts and buy a ton. Usually it's the small things that you always use like thread and fusing that's forgotten about when starting a project.

83. I covet Japanese fabrics. Especially the linen/cotton blends. It's always so crisp and a pure dream to work with. The fabric just oozes high-quality. Just thinking about it makes me drool.

84. Sometimes, when I have the money to spend (on something other than food and diapers, that is) I find it really, really, really hard to decide between getting some gorgeous yarn or some fabulous fabric.

85. Before becoming a full-fledge knitter I had no problems wearing polyester - depending on the quality, that is (cause trust me, a poly rayon garment by Club Monaco is very different from a poly rayon by Old Navy).

86. I now find it funny and very interesting that knitters who are "yarn snobs" and/or refuse to knit with acrylics or other man-made fibers, will still wear clothes made from polyester that they bought from a store.

87. I currently knit with only Knit Picks needles...aside from the odd HiyaHiya needle when I need a second needle (like when I need to hold a lot of stitches), to the point where I'm almost exclusively knitting with KP.

88. I have an insane amount of scissors in the house. They each have a specific purpose: two pairs are solely for cutting fabric, one for thick paper, one for regular paper, one for thread, another for yarn, a general crafting pair, I have pinking shears, decorative ones with different edges...I could go on.

89. I get very disgruntled if any of these scissors are used for something other than their designated object.

90. I love taking naps with my son. I usually wake up before he does, and when that happens I always spend the time watching him sleep and inhaling his sweet breath.

91. I love airplanes and always get so excited when I get to take a plane somewhere.

92. I like turbulence. I'm the weirdo on the flight that has her hands in the air with a goofy smile on their face when turbulence strikes. Look Mom, no hands!

93. I love to travel. I'd go anywhere.

94. Sometimes it's not the destination that I love about traveling, but the actual journey to the destination. I honestly don't mind being stuck in a car/train/plane/ferry for hours on end. Even more so now that I'm taken up knitting.

95. I am a bitch and jackass magnet. And not in a good way either.

96. I could be in a line up in any store, the cashier will be super smiley, talkative, and friendly to the customers in front of me...and then she gets to me. I'll smile and say hello. I will get no smiles back and no response. Just my items rung through quickly. As soon as I'm done, she'll go back to being super smiley, talkative, and friendly to the next person. I'm starting to wonder what's wrong with me.

97. Thing #96 only happens to me in Victoria.

98. I believe that "good manners never go out of style".

99. Good manners are very important to me and am consistently amazed as to how many people have really, really poor manners.

100. I think walking around in someone's house with your outside shoes on is rude and disrespectful. Unless you're told it's ok.

Yay! You've made it this far! I hope I didn't bore you all to death. Ok, now go on and make your own 100 Things list. It's fun to get to know people more on a different level than just the crafting level!