That was the weekend that was (10/365)

[white_hart]

I'm sure weekends used to be longer. This one barely seems to have started and it's already finished.

Still, in the last two days I have:

Been for a 10-minute swim in water that was somewhere between 3 and 4 degrees (we had two thermometers, which as always gave different answers, but at any rate both read about a degree lower than they did last weekend). It was bracing but utterly exhilarating. I find that cold water swimming gives me the kind of burst of endorphins I normally only otherwise get at the end of a really long walk, or maybe after climbing a mountain, but it does it after five minutes and not hours of slogging.

Been for a 4.5-mile walk down the canal to the nature reserve and back. Unsurprisingly, there was no sign of the otters (I think very early is the best time to see them, and we were there late morning when there were quite a lot of people around) although we did see a very sweet little fieldmouse on the towpath.

Cut my hair (9mm on the back and sides, 12mm on the top, and didn't touch the quiff). It's nearly a year since my last £50 haircut with my old hairdresser; after she left hairdressing to go and work as a teaching assistant I tried going to a barber and ended up with a cut that I liked just as much for less than half the price, but that was at the start of March and ever since then I've been cutting my own hair, having panic-bought a set of clippers online shortly after the start of lockdown. The first few tries were a bit hit and miss and I ended up with a longish all-over buzzcut a couple of times, and tried to leave the top longer once and ended up with it looking rather odd, but I've now settled on something that I'm pretty happy with, and I'm saving a small fortune compared to what I used to pay.

Cut out another set of underwear (Muna and Broad Banksia Bralette; and Waratah Undies). Underwear was my Christmas break sewing challenge, because my underwired bras were digging into my rib cage in a tedious manner and I thought how nice it would be to have fun, non-wired bras instead, and I thought I might as well do matching knickers while I was about it even though I have no complaint about my plain black M&S multipack midis. So far I've been using leftover jersey from making t-shirts, of which I had quite a lot, and in this case also the t-shirt itself, which was made from a free pattern and came out too cropped and too boxy for me; this will be my fourth bra, although the jersey I used for the second one turned out not to be stretchy enough, which meant that it felt more like a binder than a bra (which wasn't really a problem) and started ripping at the seams very quickly (which was), so I've had to bin it already, and third pair of knickers. I've found that cutting out small pieces in stretchy fabric is much easier with a rotary cutter than scissors, and got to use my new A1 size cutting board this weekend, which is much easier than the A3 one I had before which meant I had to keep repositioning things. I have also discovered, that in the absence of fancy pattern weights, the collection of brooches I used to wear when I wore jackets for work make a pretty good substitute. Though I may buy some actual pattern weights too at some point. Or make some from fabric scraps and rice, if we no longer have to horde rice against Brexit and panic buying. (I always swore by pinning, but weighting actually seems to be better for stretch fabric.)

I suppose that's a reasonable amount of things to have accomplished in two days.

Comments

[girlyswot]

I find writing down lists of things I have done very helpful. It sounds to me like you have done a good amount of good things this weekend.

[sfred]

That is a lot of accomplishment!

[mountainkiss]

I'm so glad you can legitimately go swimming.

[callmemadam]

You're lucky to be able to swim. My daughter is upset that her swimming lake has been forced to close by new regulations.

Re hair, can you believe this? Early last year I decided to try a barber's instead of my usual hairdresser. I went into one shop and they flatly refused to cut my hair because I'm a woman. They got a pretty stiff lecture from me but they *weren't nice*. My hair is shorter than most men's! Luckily, a nice young man elsewhere gave me a good chop. I've been cutting my own recently, eek!

[antisoppist]

I've always pinned because that was how Mrs Portwain taught me to sew in 1983 and I didn't know anyone did anything else until I saw Sewing Bee so I'm kind of intrigued by pattern weights but also I am scared of slicing myself with a rotary cutter so I am also worried about trying it. I do one day want to sew my own pants though. But in cotton not stretch.

My sewing opportunities are even more limited by homeschooling going on all over my kitchen table but I am contemplating claiming Eldest's bedroom while she isn't here.

[crinolinerobot]

Oooh, do you have any recommendations for brands of cutter/cutting mat? I'm thinking of getting them to work with drapy fabrics in the hopes the cloth will move less than it does with scissors and pins.

[white_hart]

Yes, it's definitely more than it felt like!

[white_hart]

It didn't feel like much at the time!

[white_hart]

So am I!

[white_hart]

That's the advantage of actual wild swimming - open water venues have to close but rivers and other lakes were never officially open in the first place!

I can absolutely believe that - the one time I'd gone to a barber's in the past I had to argue with them before they would cut my hair. When I went last year I asked around for recommendations of one that wouldn't be funny about it, and they were great and absolutely matter of fact. I'd have kept going there if it wasn't for lockdown, but as it is I think I'm doing a reasonable job with clippers.

[white_hart]

I had seen people mentioning pattern weights on the internet, but it was definitely all pins when I learnt to sew! I bought a rotary cutter earlier this year when I was making masks because I thought if I just wanted even-sized rectangles it would be easier. Accidentally slicing yourself is definitely a risk but I haven't done it too badly, and I am definitely getting better at using it!

[white_hart]

The stretchy fabrics definitely seem to move less. My cutter is Olfa which seems to be the biggest brand, and so is the small mat which came with it. The A1 mat is some random brand off Amazon (I know they're evil, but they're also reliable, and I couldn't see cutting mats in any of the indies I'm familiar with).

[oracne]

I, too, bought clippers back in March and it sounds like I have landed on a similar cut - buzzed sides and back, longer on top.

[perennialanna]

All pins here too, except for quilting (that tends to be squares, so I have a cutting grid with slits in and a rotary cutter). It hadn't ever occurred to me to use a rotary cutter for irregular pieces, but it would make avoiding pin-distortion much easier.

My mother uses paperweights to hold pattern pieces down while she finds the best arrangement, but then she pins them.

[white_hart]

Mine is buzzed over most of the top now, too, so it's just the very front that's longer. I did start by leaving all of the top longer but I couldn't shape it properly so it kept sticking out in strange directions and I decided to buzz that too. And then I had to grow the front again because I didn't like that bit so short. It's been a learning curve, but at least with hair this short any mistakes grow out quickly!

[white_hart]

I have weighted patterns with items of office stationery before now (calculators, rolls of sellotape, the PINSentry device for my work credit card) but the brooches are easier to cut round.

[jinty]

Barbers refusing to cut women’s hair is A Thing. I’m not even quite sure if it is legal or not - I mean you’d think not but I have had a number of discussions about it over the years and I ended up confused... simpler just to choose one that won’t make a fuss, while being aware that some do.

[crinolinerobot]

Cool, thank you!