For the past few weeks Mr. Life Partner and I have been discussing whether there is a good word for ‘when you get burned by your own cheapness.’ Hate to admit it, but it’s something that’s been known to happen in our household, even though I’m assured by Mr. L-P that I’ve “never really been cheap.” (laughing… I’ve always been cheap, but never as cheap as Mr. L-P!)
If you know of such a word (I must believe this word exists… Urban Dictionary? Yiddish? somebody??) let me know. In the meantime, the best term that we’ve invented so far to describe this unfortunate phenomena is the neologism “cheapsnapped.”
I offer this as a preface to my latest sewing project: I am participating in what the sewing blog world calls a “Sew A Long”– where a bunch of bloggers/blog lovers all do the same project at the same time. I’ve never participated in one, but I’m a huge fan of this blogger, pattern and fabric designer Rae Hoekstra who blogs at Made-By-Rae.com. She has a new pattern out for groovy summer pants, and even though I’ll probably look awful in them, I couldn’t resist getting in on the fun by participating in the “Luna Pantsalong“!
Now, back to to ‘cheapsnapped…” I like to sew. But fabric is expensive, and one of my many (many!) flaws is a seamstress is my tendency to under-purchase fabric. I have done some crazy (CRAZY!) things in the past (sewing together random scraps and then cutting them out per pattern, cannibalizing otherwise acceptable garments for parts or extra fabric to finish projects, you name it). In addition, I rarely ever purchase fabric for projects. Just like my cooking, my sewing is generally motivated by a desire to use up leftovers from something we had the night before. I’m the most excited for something when I get an idea about how to re-purpose something for greater results. My life in sewing is like like the ‘cat-in-the-hat’–one project leads to another ad infinitum.
And so, dear readers, you will not be surprised to hear that I have decided to sew a pair of pants with a mere 1.5 yards when 3 yards were recommended. For 3 years I’ve had a big plan to make a quilt for my bed. Embarrassingly, I have purchased FOUR of the wrong shades of yellow (well, one is going to need to be the right one) on my way to trying to get all the materials together. These misbegotten cotton purchases are now leading to other projects.
Which is why, at the top of the page, you will notice me trying to squeeze enough fabric out of the yard and a half I have to make these pants. As you can see, I have literally ‘cut a corner’ of the pattern. The corner I’ve had to cut is the crotch, and so the results may be very bad–especially since I generally need extra ‘ease’ in the hips of my clothes to accommodate my pear shaped figure.
But what is life if you aren’t living on the edge. So, Luna Pantsalong, here I come day 1! The goal is to get here:
Cheapsnapped? Probably, yes.