Sewing Market

I have just returned from a 3-day sewing conference. Well, I didn't really stay away, it was just one hour away in Arlington. I left my house early in the morning, and returned late each night. All day I was exposed to more creativity than my mind could wrap around. I have so many projects whirling around in my little brain. I am currently in the middle of 4, and am anxious to start 4 or 5 more. I am hoping to crank out most of them in the next two weeks. Perhaps I will share with you along the way.

I must tell you about the funniest thing happened on the second day. I slipped in late to the first class (I know that is hard to believe) and caught just the last 15 minutes of a skirt-making class. After sitting a few minutes in this class, the speaker asked, "Is anyone here wearing a skirt?" I sat motionless, trying not to look obvious, when she asked a second time. People started looking at me, and so I raised my hand. She called on me and asked me to come up to the stage.

Wearing a long tiered white skirt, I made my way up the stairs and on the stage facing a group of about 75 sewers. The speaker asks the question, "So, is she wearing her best look? No. First of all, we would never put tiers around a skirt horizontally. White is never good on the bottom, and knee length is much more slenderizing. This long, flared, tiered skirt makes her appear short and wide. This is NOT her best look. Would she wear this to her 30 year high school reunion??" At this point I had taken enough, and called out, "I would have been 10!"

She pulled my skirt up to my knees and tugged it tight around my thighs. Now, I have had plenty of opportunity to analyze this body in a variety of garments, and I have to tell you that what they saw could not have been a pretty sight. She said, "Now, doesn't this look a lot better? If you can't see that this looks better, then you need to just stick to the rules because you are not seeing right."

Hmm, how presmptuous of her.

When I returned to my seat, I turned to the person behind me and asked, "And why did I just volunteer for that??" I was thinking, first of all, this didn't help us in skirt-making. Secondly I was thinking, this is not the way to win friends and influence people, and then I thought, this woman has no people skills.

I could tell the ladies in the class felt bad for me. Apparently they didn't know that I wasn't all that fragile. When the class was finished a sweet lady came up to me and said, "I think your skirt is beautiful, and yesterday I heard you tell someone that you had a 17 year-old daughter, and I could not believe it." How sweet of this lady to help me regain my dignity.

The comical thing was that all day long, about every 3 feet, someone was stopping to tell me how beautiful my skirt was. The icing on the cake was when the director of speakers stopped me the next day to say "Your white skirt yesterday was just darling!"