Of Sound Mind’s choices.

From an Ask Amy Column, July 23, 2013
DEAR AMY: I am a 17-year-old woman. I do not want children and cannot picture having any. I am a very bright student with a lot of drive and a full college scholarship waiting for me next year, so it is safe to say that I am taking my life and future career to a far higher level than the ordinary stay-at-home mother.
I have decided I want to have surgery in order to guarantee against ever becoming a parent, and yet family and friends scoff at me for making this decision.
I know that numerous men and women out there have found their children to be the light of their lives and have no regrets (even if the children were not planned), but parenthood is just something I do not want. A baby is not going to make me happy. I am going to be the one to make me happy.
How do I show to the people I know that, although I am young, I am not going to change my mind on the baby subject tomorrow, next month, next year or even when/if I am 35 and single?
If I ever really do want a kid of my own, he or she will be an older adoptee, and I will have lived a pretty fulfilled life; I’ll be financially and emotionally ready to give that child everything they need. How can I convince people I want to be surgically sterilized? — Of Sound Mind
Oh, Of Sound Mind, I’m going to skip Amy’s response, which I found so-so and a bit condescending, and tell you that I completely feel for you.  When I was seventeen, I didn’t want children either.  Like you, I had plans that didn’t involve children and I didn’t want them, not when I was seventeen, and not when I was thirty-five.  When I told people this, they all said “you’ll change your mind.”  It was infuriating, to have them dismiss one of my core beliefs.  It drove me crazy.
In my twenties, I still didn’t want children. Not then, not even when I was thirty-five.  When I told people this, the response was, “Well, I used to think I didn’t want any children. But then I turned X.”  And funnily enough, X was always two years older than I was at that time. It became rather comical, hearing the same story over and over, with the age adjusting just a little bit later as each year went by.  I had finally learned not to spit with rage at their doubt, so I just smiled my Cheshire Cat smile and moved on with my childless life.
By the time I hit my thirties, I still didn’t want children.  Not then, and especially not when I was in my forties.  And people, for the most part, had stopped telling me I was going to change my mind.  Instead, they started conversations assuming I had children. I had to learn to navigate through the slight awkwardness, of the, “Oh no. No kids.” response.  It was tough, letting them know that I myself was happily childless, and that I fully appreciated that they were over the moon with their wonderful children.  But I figured out that conversation.
But here’s what I’m going to say to you, Of Sound Mind.  I fully trust that your seventeen-year-old self knows yourself well enough to know that you have no desire to bring a child into this world.  My own seventeen-year-old self did, and I’m guessing you aren’t so different.  But I’m going to advise you to hold off on the sterilization.  Here’s why.  One of the best things about the stage of life you are in is the incredible amount of choices you have.  You could decide to travel the world.  You could decide to go ahead and get that advanced degree.  Maybe you want to focus on Chemical Engineering and Mexican Pottery.  You can do all of that.  Your world is wide open right now.
However, this limitless existence most likely won’t last forever.  Eventually, the choices you make will narrow your focus a bit, and then a bit more. Pretty soon, the decision to travel the world will be a lot more difficult to pull off.  Not that you can’t, but maybe you would have to quit your awesome job, or maybe your very cool boyfriend you love doesn’t want to come along. Perhaps your parents will get sick and you will have to care for them.  Or, you might have to choose between the Chemical Engineering and Mexican Pottery, making the pottery your sole focus and fitting the Chemical Engineering in here and there with some freelancing.
The narrowing isn’t bad.  You will give up a lot of “maybes” for some good actuals and that will be pretty cool.  But there is no way to be 100% sure at seventeen that you won’t want to have a baby in the future.  Maybe your thirty-one-year-old self will wake up one morning with a grand desire to procreate.  And that older self is going to be very mad at you and your youthful action and then is going to have to do a big old expensive workaround in order to have that baby.  Now for myself, I never did wake up with that feeling, but you, who knows?  It’s good to keep your options open.
But here’s the best part about living in today’s world.  In the realm of sex, you can have your cake and eat it too.  Pretty much like the guys have historically done.  Because you are completely sure you don’t want to have a child, research long-term birth control options and then pick something that works for you and works for a long time, but is still reversible.  You’ve got a bevy of choices. And I would suggest doubling up on the birth control, (a.k.a. use condoms) just to be on the safe side.  I’d also advise you to be very upfront with your sexual partners about your desire to not have children and be very clear that should the birth control percentages work against you and you do become pregnant, that pregnancy will end soon after it begins.  It would also be a good idea to always have money stashed away in case you need an abortion and also to live in a state where you still can get an abortion. (I can’t believe I had to write the last part of that sentence, but it can be an issue.)
Sure, it would be easier to be able to skip the whole birth control stage, but look at it this way:  you are taking care to support the choice you are making today while keeping the potential future choice (that I totally get you aren’t ever going to take) wide open.  You also have the bonus of that if you always insist on condoms, you have a better chance of avoiding disease that sexual shenanigans can sometimes bring.

And if things never do change, if it’s been a few decades that you’ve been of childbearing age and you still don’t want to give birth to a child?  Go ahead and take advantage of one of those permanent measures.  That will feel good too.

Three sentence movie reviews: Bernie

This was a fun, funny, well-acted film that you should see because all the main actors are clearly having so much fun.  But my favorite part was the way the people in the town told the story of poor Bernie and that horrid Marjorie Nugent.  After the movie is done, you can watch the great DVD extras of the locals telling town stories and how Richard Linklater was interested in the story very early on.

Also!  Jack Black in a scene from my very favorite stage musical!

Colette Patterns’ Laurel: Tiny ruffles are hard on the hands. Also, getting bias tape right.

Here they are, three sets of sleeve ruffles, nearly ready to ruffle.
 
And here I am ruffling them.  My fingers ached from all the pulling of bobbin threads.  I do a lot with my hands and they are pretty strong and don’t usually bother me, but something about the pinching and pulling really took its toll.  But there’s no crying in sewing.  (That’s a completely untrue statement.  There is often a fair amount of crying in sewing, especially when you finish a dress and decide the collar is horrid.  Just to take one random example.)
 
Attempt #3 at continuous bias tape was more successful with this tutorial.  The part that helped me the most is in the picture on the screen.  No Big Dill suggests actually numbering your lines so you can match things up and that worked wonders for me.
 
Cutting the continuous bias tape. Very satisfying.
 

Colette Patterns’ Laurel: The day of French Seams. Also, wrong orientation for bias tape.

French seams are awesome.  They neatly encase the raw edge of your fabric in a tube that is part of the fabric and would otherwise just be hanging out, needing finishing.  To make them you sew the seam with the wrong sides together (it feels so wrong, but it’s right), trim said seam, press open (and then over, if you are anal like me) and then pin the right sides together and sew the same seam again, then press again.  Here is a tutorial if you are interested.

If you followed all that, you have just realized that each seam of my three shirts needs to be stitched twice, trimmed once, and pressed twice.  There are seven seams per shirt (two neck, one back, two sides, and two sleeves) and three shirts so that makes 21 seams total which means 42 seams, 21 trims, and 42 pressing sessions.  All that is to say that all I did today was sew french seams until my eyes crossed.  Holy cow.

Here’s an example of the back.
 

The shoulder.
 
And the sleeve.  Still, they look pretty, don’t they?  And they are strong too, which is good for a work shirt.
 
To give myself a break, I started to make bias tape.  Here’s my fabric.
 
And here’s my joined triangle.
 
And here is me realizing that I have the angles wrong.  Blast!
This image comes from Colette Pattern’s book on the Laurel Variations, which is free to download and where I learned about the tiny ruffle variation of the Laurel.
 
To cheer myself, I cut out the fabric for the tiny ruffles.
 

Three sentence movie reviews: The Way Way Back

I saw this movie for Sam Rockwell and loved him, but overall I was not enamored.  I found the storytelling a bit lazy (Really?  Two overheard/random discoveries by the main character at just the right time?) and also I didn’t buy the fact that Steve Carell’s character could be that much of a jerk to the kid and his mom would put up with it.  That said, it’s not a bad movie, and it’s full of a stellar cast, so there are worse ways you could spend your time.*

*Also:  one of my favorite things about the movie was that–with one exception–I felt that both the teenage girls and women acting in this movie had normal bodies.  The lack of overly-starved and unnatural skinny Minnies was quite refreshing.

Colette Patterns’ Laurel: Cutting out the shirts, adding neck facings.

All the fitting that is going to be done has been done.  So now it’s time to cut.  As you can see, my helper arrived right on schedule.  Unfortunately, he decided the best way to “help” would be to race around on top of the fabric.  This resulted in the helper being shut in the bedroom for a while.
 
Shirt pieces were cut.  And cut again.  And again.  It’s at this point that I think to myself, “If I was only making one of these shirts, I would be done by now.”  I’m sure that will not be the last time I have that thought.
 
Prepping the neckline for facings.
 
I used the tutorial from Gertie.
 
Shirts with neck facings.

Important note from the future:  For those of us making the tiny ruffle variation of the Laurel, I think the organza is overkill for the stay stitching.  There’s going to be a ruffle and bias tape there, no need to add the organza too.  Skip this step if you haven’t already done it.  Just do the stay stitching.  I’m guessing that’s all you need.