For some reason, a few weeks ago, I conceived of a determined obsession to make and wear lounge pants. Perhaps it was a side effect of my nose-to-the-grindstone, finish-the-novel push these last two weeks, resulting in a profound desire to, well, lounge. But whatever, I've now made two pairs, have another half made, and a fourth ready to go.
Observe, Lounge Pants #1:
PIRATES!! Skull and crossbones! Woo hoo! Indeed, this whole thing started with me coveting Luc's little pirate pants. I had to have a pair of my own. And now I do! Isn't this fabric funny? Do you see the awesome piratey red and white striped cuffs? I did that! [beams proudly] Honestly, I wasn't sure I would remember how to sew, but it came right back to me.
Here is my gorgeous 100 year old machine:
Although this is not my grandmother's old Singer, it looks very much like hers and makes me think of her whenever I use it. All the women in my family have one of these. It's like a Lassiter Woman Birthrite or something. I actually got this one at a thrift store for $20 bucks! Works like a dream, super smooth, sturdy, a workhorse. It's good to have it back.
When I first hatched Plan Lounge Pant, I did what anyone does these days when they want to do/know/remember/explore something: I googled it. And I ran across a bunch of pics of people showing off these cool, wide-legged, draw-stringed pants and learned they they had all used a pattern in Amy Butler's In Stitches. I picked up a used copy for a couple of bucks at amazon, got my sewing machine serviced, bought the fabric and notions, and I was in business.
By the way, there is a ton of cool fabric on Etsy. Vintage, new, quarters and yardage, everything you can imagine. Type in any sort of thing (cats! teapots! tv dinners!), plus fabric, and you get all kinds of funny crazy fabric with that theme, plus an assortment of items that people are making out of that sort of fabric. Very fun.
Also, have you heard of Spoonflower? It's a company based in a town about an hour from here that does fabric printing on demand. Meaning, you can design your own fabric, up load your design, and they will print a few yards for you on their fancy ink-jet (dye-jet) fabric printers. Or, heck, you can open your own textile design business and sell directly through a Spoonflower storefront. They'll print your designs as people order them from your site. How cool is that? For example, the wonderful SF writer Nalo Hopkinson, designs weird, quirky, fabric, like her weird, quirky stories. I love that!
The internet, plus anything, equals cool.
But anyway. Back to the pants. Lounge Pants #2:
Cupcakes!
But when Paul first saw the fabric, he dubiously said, "Are you sure you can pull that off?"
"What do you mean?" I said, a little offended, "I think its sweet." And I'm thinking, he didn't doubt my ability to wear skulls on my pants, for heaven sakes.
"Well, yeah," he said, "but sweet isn't exactly the first word that comes to mind when I think of you, you know? You're more…sardonic and bitter." At my expression he quickly waved his hands in the air adding, "In the best possible way, of course!"
Humph.
There's this old Walter Mathau movie called House Calls where this widower goes on a quest to find the perfect woman and ends up falling for a fiercely intelligent, no-nonsense Glenda Jackson. There is this great line where Walter is talking to his buddy and he says, "I wanted someone tractable! Instead I got someone noisy, spiky, stubborn, opinionated, and just plain impossible!" Paul loved that line. He says it all the time now. "I wanted someone tractable!" "Watch out or I'll go find me a tractable woman!" So, you know, I get what he means about me not being, um, sweet. I mean, lately when we were watching Tim Minchin and the Heritage Orchestra and Tim started singing a song called "You Grew On Me Like a Tumor," Paul and I got all misty eyed. I'm serious! Sweet but also kind of…dark.
So, okay, there is an undeniable ironic and mocking quality to Paul and I, I admit it. Maybe sweet isn't my primary flavor.
But so what! "Hey. I can wear fucking cupcakes pants if I fucking want to!" And I harumphed off to the sewing machine. Fucking Paul, what does he know. Fucking cupcakes.
But really—could I wear something pink? Out in public? I wear black yoga pants nine months out of the year! Me? and PINK?
Whatever, Sophie and I set to work. And while we were cutting and sewing (we're going to have to find one of these old Singers for Sophie, she's a Lassiter Woman, too), we found ourselves discussing what is this "sweet" thing anyway? I mean, no question, say, Henry, our puppy, is sweet. And Luc it totally sweet. Generous? Kind? (Hey, I can be those things!) Maybe that's it, but Sophie said Luc wasn't always those things, which is very true. Sophie said, "It's something in your heart, like when you see Henry looking up at you with his big brown eyes and you just love him."
"Open-hearted?"
"Yeah."
Hmmm. I looked out at the yards of pink and added a funny green stripe cuff to the cupcakes to slightly mitigate the pinkness, a kind of clue that these are ironic cupcakes. Or something. Maybe I will become sweeter, more open-hearted, if I wear these pants?
Or maybe I won't. [stamps foot] Maybe I'll wear my fucking cupcakes in grim mocking cynicism, okay?
(But they aren't ironic cupcakes, not really. I just like them.)
(Maybe I'm sweeter than I let on?)
Lounge Pants #3 are Alice in Wonderland pants. Six impossible things before breakfast! Like me being sweet! It could happen!
This is the fabric:
Isn't that fun? So, you know what I have to say to anyone who suggest I ought not be wearing such cuteness.
Eat me.
(It's even written on the little cakes Alice is eating, can you see it? I love that!)
Will my new lounge pants help me relax? Will wearing pink have any effect on my spiky, noisy, intractable nature?
Can we be open-hearted even as we are aware of the darkness in the world?
