The Great British Sewing Bee!

I watched it! Thanks to Karen for letting me know it was on YouTube. I had just assumed it would be blocked because every other video I've tried to watch here has been unavailable in Germany.

(possible spoilers ahead!)

I must say, who won was completely not a surprise to me. Ann had the most experience and was very good at picking projects that were within her capabilities given the time she had.

I was astonished over and over at the difficulty of the patterns Lauren picked, and then even more astonished when she finished them! I only wish I were that good. Or half that good.

I also felt bad for Stuart. He has amazing design ideas, but doesn't yet have the skills to turn them into perfect reality. I hope he comes back in a year or two. I think he could win.

And lastly, I want to be on that show! Maybe I will move to Britain. Just kidding. Sort of.

Capsule Wardrobe, part two

Here is part one.

I put this wardrobe together with the help of my mother. We aimed for compact and flexible. A lot of the pieces can be dressed up or dressed down depending on what I wear them with, for example. Almost everything matches with everything else, and I tried to keep within the same color palette mostly. I picked a pink-purple-blue color palette because that's what I already own most of. For neutrals, I went with gray and black, because I had black ballet flats. Really the only exception to this color palette is my running sweatshirt, and OH WELL if my running clothes don't match!

Overall, this wardrobe has worked really well. I rarely run out of clothes (and when I do, it's my own fault for not having done laundry). One of the things I love about having a wardrobe this small is that when I have nothing to wear, I can tell. At home I would regularly pull open a drawer half full of clothes only to discover nothing that was clean matched with anything else. Here, chances are very high that if I have two pieces of clothing in my closet, they will match each other.

Another thing I love is that I am not struggling to make myself wear things that don't fit or don't look good. Not everything I have here fits perfectly, but I did try hard to bring only things I knew I would wear.

This brings up the age-old question: quantity vs. quality. I have to admit, I don't really have either here! I certainly don't have quantity, but honestly, my clothes are not very high quality either. Almost everything is either from a store like Ross or TJMaxx, or years old, or from Kohl's on sale. I didn't want to buy an entire new wardrobe, but I can really see why someone would go for quality over quantity. In fact, I decided even before planning this capsule wardrobe to be much more discerning in my clothing purchases. I would rather have one dress that fits well and is good quality than three dresses which fit badly and which I won't want to wear.

I don't have the money to go run out and buy a bunch of $100+ dresses, but I do think that as the clothes I have now wear out, I will try to replace them with higher-quality things, if only in the hopes they will fit better. Alternatively, one of these days once I get back from Germany I *will* learn to fit things properly!

Wardrobe design

I'm not entirely sure who reads this blog. Probably about 50% of my hits come from family or friends. But for those who don't know me in real life, I'm going to be spending the Spring semester abroad, in Germany. BUT! I'll be going on the German semester, which means I'll be gone from February to July. And, due to the fact that I am flying on a cheap student ticket, I get to check one bag.

This means I need a very focused wardrobe. It also needs to be very varied, because this is the Freiburg temperature map:

(Image source: weather.com)

In other words, I need to be prepared to dress for temperatures in between 29 and 78, with the possibility of it getting cooler or warmer. Yikes. I don't like extreme temperatures, and both of those ranges sound unpleasant to wimpy me!

So, here are my thoughts, in no particular order.

1. Skirts are more versatile than pants, because they can be worn with tights in cold weather and without in warm weather.
2. Skirts and tops are more versatile than dresses, because with two dresses you have two outfits and with two shirts and two skirts you have four outfits.
3. I should have at least one pair of shoes that I can do *lots* of walking in.
4. I should have a pair of warm boots, which I can do *lots* of walking in. So I guess really I need two pairs of shoes I can walk in, since I won't be wearing winter boots in the summer.
5. I probably need at least a week's worth of outfits, but do I need more? If I do laundry every Saturday, I could theoretically repeat the same clothes every week for six months. Theoretically. That would be pretty boring!
6. I should probably limit my clothes in terms of colors, so pick one neutral color to be my neutral colors for the semester. Then I won't have to bring as many shoes, for example.

Has anyone else done anything like this? Does anyone have any advice? I don't want to be too spartan, but I also am starting to worry about packing, and if I decide to sew a bunch of things I want to know sooner rather than later!

Not my most attractive moment, perhaps

I have worn my Very Hungry Caterpillar skirt several times since I made it. Every time I wear it, I get a compliment on it. Yesterday CUA's honors program went on a fall hike, and I decided to go ahead and wear my skirt to hike in. After all, going hiking with a bunch of academics isn't a very strenuous endeavor, and Rock Creek Park isn't exactly the world's most challenging hiking grounds. Half our hike was along a paved bike path, for crying out loud!

Then I saw the group photo the ranger at Rock Creek Park took of our group.

 

Hmm. Not the most flattering of photos. The shirt length and the skirt length aren't well matched. It doesn't help that I'm not standing straight. But really, I think the worst thing is the height of my socks sticking out of my work/hiking boots. My hiking boots are not a flattering piece of clothing. But they cost $25 at Walmart sophomore year of high school, and they do their job.

Good thing I wasn't trying to win any fashion competitions while hiking.

And maybe someday I should cultivate the habit of looking in a mirror before I leave the house.

Want to see some beautiful costumes?

Ok, this past week has been pretty much hellish. But now it's over. Yes, I know, it's technically still Friday, and still part of the week. But my oral exam in my graduate class and my presentation for German class are both over, and I consider the week survived.

So, I will be sewing soon, I hope. In the meantime, let me throw out a plug for those in the DC area. Come see Hedda Gabler! According to CUA's facebook page, you can get 75% off a ticket with the code Celebrate. I don't know if it's still working, but I honestly think the costumes are worth the $15 ticket price. Every time I see some of the dresses, they take my breath away. I want them! Haha.

I am not familiar with the play, nor the actors who are in it, so I make this recommendation based solely on the costumes, but I make it wholeheartedly.

After the show closes, I will probably have a few pictures of costumes to post.

Costumes and clothes

I am first and foremost a clothing seamstress. It's what I do best, what I enjoy most, and what I find most useful. And yet the vast majority of my sewing these days is in the costume shop at school. I spend 10 hours a week there, plugging away at all sort of things--making quilt squares, fixing stuffed animals, altering patterns, altering clothes, making muslins, and all sorts of things. I enjoy this job, I really do. It enables me to keep up and improve my skills through tons of sewing.

But at the same time, sometimes it feels like taking a path that runs right next to the one I would really like to be on. I am getting better at sewing. Since starting to work at the costume shop, I've learned how to do things I didn't know how to do, like cuff men's pants or make machine buttonholes. These are useful. And yet if I had the choice, I would cut back my costume shop hours and spend more times sewing clothes. Costume sewing is sometimes more and less precise than regular sewing, and I find this to be frustrating at times.

It's helpful for it to be more precise, when it is. I have a tendency to say good enough and let it be. On stage, the bright lights make it easy to see flaws such as poorly done hems or color mismatches. The need to get these things right is good for me.

However, there are times when you can cut corners in a really serious way, and it's fine. Last time I was in the shop, I altered a pair of pants. I needed to make them smaller. I picked them up, and this is what I saw:

 

The pants had been too small for someone else, and had been altered by sewing a triangle of flannel into the back of a pair of dress pants. It looked awful. But in the costume scene, it probably didn't matter--the actor probably wore a jacket to cover it up. Since costumes will be used for specific, designed movements with preordained matching clothes, there's no need for them to be able to be worn in any other circumstance. As long as no one will see it, you can cut corners in a pretty serious way. That, I think, is not so good!

For as long as I need to work this many hours a week, I will continue to be grateful that my job is in a field I love. But if I ever get the chance to step it down at the shop and up at home, I will be, as a friend would say, on it like Blue Bonnet.

Anyway, I'm sorry for the total lack of sewing reports lately. My Very Hungry Caterpillar dress has taken an unexpected and major deviation, but I should be able to report on that soon. Maybe by the end of the weekend? We'll see.

What's a $4,000 Suit Worth?

I really enjoyed reading this article from the New York Times. It's about the custom garment industry, and how it's, somewhat surprisingly, not a very lucrative industry at all. Well, I guess it's surprising, but also not surprising. A gut reaction to a $4,000 suit is that it must be insanely overpriced and the creator must be making a killing. But these $4,000 suits are custom made, so there are no economies of scale, and I am sure the fabric is insanely expensive too. The first man the article talks about only makes about $50,000 a year.

I wonder how much of a market there is for this kind of suit. On the one hand, having something truly custom made must be completely awesome. I have one dress that I did enough alteration on to consider it custom made (that is to say, I have one dress where my alterations actually worked...) and it's incredibly wonderful to wear. But I wouldn't pay $4,000 to have another one like it. I wouldn't pay $500. On the one hand, I am a poor college student, so that probably affects that fact quite a bit. On the other hand, being extremely oddly shaped, as well as knowing how to sew, I know exactly how awesome a custom made dress would be. If I had $4,000, would I consider it? Probably!

It seems even more attractive when you consider that people who wear suits probably need to look professional. I mean, I'm a college student. I try to look reasonably nice, but if I don't, it's really not that big a deal. In terms of work, I could wear anything I wanted to the costume shop, and almost anything I wanted to tutor in--the standards there are obviously a little higher, but still not hard to achieve. I can go with the styles that work around my figure oddities. Imagine if I worked on the Hill, or something! The thought of trying to find a blazer that fits makes me want to cry.

So, what's the conclusion of my ramblings? I don't even know. The more I think about it, though, the more sense this makes...if you have that kind of money, which is obviously a big big if! What are your thoughts? Have you ever had anything custom made?

Make This Look

I ran across this fun site, Make This Look. The author takes a dress from Modcloth, matches it to a sewing pattern, finds appropriate fabric, and then completes the outfit with shoes and an accessory, such as jewelry or a handbag. Click on the photo to find links to the pattern, fabric, etc.

Eric Carle fabric

Did you know that Eric Carle fabric exists? I didn't. Now I need to buy some and sew something out of it. Why don't I know more babies who are lacking in clothing?

Give me your honest opinion, people. This and this are way too not-grown-up for a junior in college. I will have to wait until I have a child of my own. Or find a naked one (hey...wait...). But could I possibly pull off this? I'm torn. I'm seeing it in a princess seamed dress with a gathered skirt, and thinking maybe it could work. What do you think?

Of skirts and shorts

I forget if I've mentioned it on this blog before, but I do a little bit of running in my spare time. I run a few miles a few times a week. Now that it's getting warmer, the long running pants I got for Christmas weren't cutting it. So, me being me, and generally avoiding pants, and entirely shunning shorts, asked on a running forum for advice and recommendations about running skirts.

I must say, I was rather surprised by the response I got. The majority of responses were people asking me why shorts weren't good enough for me! Twelve people responded. Four of them were helpful as to where I could buy or how I could make a running skirt. Two responded to other people in the thread and were neither helpful nor unhelpful. The remaining six questioned why I didn't just wear shorts, told me wearing a skirt was a bad idea, and so on. The tone was, surprisingly, pretty defensive.

Does it really threaten these women that much if I wear a skirt while running? I didn't say shorts were evil. I didn't say they were immodest. All I said was that I prefer skirts to shorts and pants. Surely a modern "enlightened" woman should be able to be secure in her own choice of clothing (workout gear, no less! a place for function over form if I've ever heard of one!) without having to convert everyone else to her own preferences.

Now I'm wondering if this is just a small example of an aversion to things that are traditionally feminine. Is the reaction a reaction to me wearing a skirt to run in, or me wearing skirts in general? I haven't done much discussing of my clothing choices with the general public. What do other people think? For those of you who primarily wear skirts, have you received negative feedback about that? For those of you who don't, do you think other women wearing mostly skirts is weird, or wrong, or just impractical, or something else? Is this, in fact, a societal trend, or did I just run into a cranky bunch of people? Share any thoughts you might have on the subject!

Alteration!

About a week ago, I was shopping at Ross and I found a purple and black leopard print dress. So fun! However, it didn't fit at all:
You know the way when you're shopping, sometimes pieces of clothing call out to you? For me, these are usually things that don't fit. This dress called out to me. However, unlike all the fitted blazers and shoes and other things that are totally unalterable (at least by me), this dress had a seam up each side and no fastenings to mess with. Two quick seams later, here's what I have:

Funny story about this dress: I texted a friend to tell her about it. She texted back, "Really??" I texted back, "Yes, really--do you disapprove?" Her response? "No, I'm just surprised. It sounds like the kind of thing your aunt would buy you and you would never wear!" It's certainly true that my aunt's sense of style is a little more out there than mine in, but I guess she's rubbing off on me!

I'm alive, I swear!

This is why I was reluctant to start a blog. I had a feeling I would post regularly for a while and then slip off the blogging wagon. I will spare you apologies and rash promises of regular posts. I hope to sew more often during the summer, which is almost here (two classes, two papers, four finals, and then I'm freeee!), but I can't guarantee that.

Anyway, I did promise a post about the accessories I wore. Here's a picture (slightly blurry, sorry) of what the hairband, necklace, and earrings:
The hairband is an extra piece of the ribbon that the sash was made out of. I sewed a line of beads down the middle of it and my mother put elastic in the back. It's a very nice hairband, but it's really too wide for the amount of hair that I have. It didn't work terribly well. As a matter of fact what I wound up doing was getting my hair wet, and then my roommate blowdried it to give it a little more volume. The hairband then spent the evening sliding around and looked rather strange by the end of the night. Oh well. Live and learn.

The earrings and the necklace were made by my little sister. I did tell her that if she writes up a description of them I will post it here for her. So far she hasn't. (M, if you're reading this, it's not too late!) So I will do the best I can. The necklace is simply a bunch of smaller beads with large flat glass beads interspersed regularly throughout. The earrings are a tear-drop shape of smaller beads surrounding a large bead. The smaller beads are the same as the ones that I sewed on the hairband.

I haven't worn the hairband or the necklace since the inaugural ball (although I'm sure I will wear the necklace), but I wore the earrings (and the shoes) to Easter Mass and dinner.

Finished dress!

The dress is finished! Here is a photo of it:
Sorry for the total mess in the background. This photo was taken shortly before we left, so the debris that was created by six girls getting ready in one college dorm room was still scattered all around. However, this is the photo I have that shows off the dress the best.

I am so, so pleased with how this dress turned out. I think this may be my favorite thing I've ever sewn. I have so many lovely pictures that I could post. I will be putting up a couple more posts in the next week or so about my accessories, which are mostly handmade, so you will have to deal with more photos, but I will just leave you with a shot of me and my boyfriend for now:

Making progress

Well, I have only got about 7 steps left in this dress. Of course, the last step in any dress is always "Hem the darn thing," which usually takes me about as long as the rest of the work, but serious progress is definitely being made. I never did find piece 8, and there don't seem to be many people out there with this dress pattern, so I made up piece 8. I traced the shape of the side seams off piece 6, and then added many (many many) inches so that I could be sure that it wouldn't be too small. After all, I can always make it smaller. Last night I wrapped the skirt around myself. It easily goes around my waist and overlaps four inches--and this is with my sweater on. So it's certainly not too small!

In other news, I changed my mind about the color of the sash. I happened to be out shoe shopping with my mother, and she suggested we go look for a pair of shoes to wear, as she wasn't a fan of the shoes I'd chosen from what I already had. We went, among other places, to David's Bridal, and found a shoe from their clearance rack that I really liked. It's one of their dyeable shoes. I had originally planned to buy dye from the craft store and dye them myself, but when I discovered that David's Bridal only charges $4 for a dye job, I figured I would just let them do it. However, I wasn't a big fan of their pinks, so instead I decided on a light turquoise color called "Mermaid." We then went to the craft store and found a ribbon the same color to use as a sash, and also some beads, which my little sister has volunteered to make into a necklace for me.

I feel terribly spend-thrift for buying custom dyed shoes, but even with the dye job the shoes only cost about $30. That is a little more than I had planned to spend, but I think I'll be able to wear them again fairly easily.

Alterations on S2498

Well, even if I'm not sewing the dress until Christmas break, I did do some alterations on my bodice muslin a few weekends ago. I have never understood how people who haven't other people to help them fit manage to fit anything. (On the other hand, I am so asymmetrical that a dressmaker's dummy just can't cut it. Perhaps if I were regularly shaped, or at least symmetrical, I could fit my own clothes.) Anyway, this was an interesting fitting, since the person who was helping me, my sister Teresa, doesn't really sew very much. So she had less practice at knowing how to fix various problems. It worked quite well, though. I made a good deal of alterations:

This picture is not the greatest, and I apologize for that. The first thing I (or rather, we) did was to shorten the shoulder straps of the bodice. (For the record, I'm going with the terms bodice and bodice overlay. Hopefully that isn't too confusing.) They were a good two or three inches too long--I'm not sure if that's a pattern error or what.

I also took in the shoulder seams. Because of the way my shoulders are shaped, the arm hole is the right size, but the neck is too big. So we tapered the shoulder seam on both sides. You can see the new line of the shoulder--it's right where the line of safety pins is:

The third alteration was to fix the fact that the front neck edge of the bodice gapped. Again, we tapered. I'll just move this piece when I cut it out for real, since it's cut on the fold:
The last two alterations I did I haven't got pictures of, although you can see one of them in the first picture. I took in the underarm seam on the right side of the bodice overlay. It makes me extremely nervous that I only had to take it in on one side, because I don't think I'm that asymmetrical. However, there will most certainly be another fitting over Christmas break, so I'm not terribly fussed. The other alteration I did was to add 5/8" to each side of the center back seam. It certainly seems counter intuitive to be taking width out of the front and adding width in the back, but since my shoulders are somewhat rounded, that really did have to happen. Of course, since that changes the width of the waist seam too, I will have to alter the skirt pieces a bit, but that shouldn't take more than about 30 seconds.

I'm hoping that I will stay close enough to the shape I am now that I won't really have to re-alter these pattern pieces come Christmastime. We shall see. Wish me luck!

This is probably a terrible idea

...but I've picked my next sewing project. And it's not one of the ones I already had on my list. It's something new. In very slightly more than a month, there is going to be a formal ball to celebrate the inauguration of the new CUA president. I want to sew myself my dress. I'm thinking to make Simplicity 2498. I would make the version shown in blue. I'm thinking, though, that I would like it in black taffeta, with some sort of pink accent. I'm wondering if there's any way to change that bow in the front to a bright pink sash. Or maybe just make the bow pink and wear a pink necklace? I'm really not sure--what do you all think? I'd love your opinions, and preferably as soon as possible, since I only have a month! Other pattern or color suggestions are welcome as well.

(Don't worry, I have every intention of having a back-up dress. I am realistic enough to know that I may well not have the time for this project.)

Old project

I don't think I have free time any more, but while I'm trying to figure it out, I'll post some old projects of mine. I do go through these sewing slumps, and I haven't figured out a way to motivate myself back into sewing--I just have to let nature take its course.

This dress I sewed myself last summer. The shoulders are slightly large, but it fits fairly well overall, and since it's not a terribly fitted style, it doesn't look too bad.


I apologize; this photo is terrible. However, it's ten thirty, and I have less than no desire to go and change for the purpose of taking an (equally awkward) photo in the mirror on the back of my closet door. I should have another picture of me in this dress somewhere, as I wear it fairly often. I'll try and see if I can dig one up.

What I find intriguing about this dress is that it is far and away the piece of clothing I own that gets me the most compliments. I've never thought of it as particularly attractive or particularly flattering, but everyone else on the planet seems to love it.

When it's just not worth it

There are some things that are not worth the trouble it takes to sew them, in my opinion. For example, this shirt I bought recently with my aunt:

Don't get me wrong, I love this shirt! I would cheerfully have many more like it. But it looks like a headache to sew. In case you can't see cleary in the photo, the shirt has bubble sleeves with elastic in them, a shirred bodice, and a neck edge that is made out of a fabric shirred in a wave-like pattern. The idea of trying to get all those lines of shirring parallel and then sewing all the pieces together is quite daunting, at least to me. And given that I can buy the shirt for $15, it's a no-brainer. Since it's so stretchy, the fit issues that drove me to get into sewing clothes don't apply.

Other things I'm reluctant to sew include things with lots of buttonholes, like shirtdresses or button-down shirts. I find it extremely difficult to make buttonholes look presentable.

What are things that you'd rather buy than sew?

Musings on Modesty

As Peter puts it, "it's modesty week on the blogs!" And while I am certainly not as high-profile as Peter or Gertie or Sal, I did feel like sharing my thoughts, because this is a topic I have thought about a lot.

(Disclaimer: I am a Catholic with traditional sensibilities. I do not intend to preach in this post, or in any other post for that matter, but do be aware that what I will say does come from a religious perspective. You've been warned.)

To start off with, Gertie linked to this study, which I didn't find nearly as horrifying as some of the commenters did. A lot of commenters, particularly women, seemed to view this study as the religious patriarchy trying to oppress women. This study really didn't seem oppressive to me. Take this quote from the study overview page: "We're not telling you what to wear -- we're just telling you what we, as guys, have to guard against." To me, this study is more about providing information, and less about forcing women and girls to wear something ugly or burka-like. If I know what guys find difficult to deal with, this study can, at least theoretically, give me some information I might find helpful. (It's probably worth noting that although I found it interesting, I can't see myself changing anything about the way I dress based on it.)

However, me wanting to dress in a way that makes it easier for guys to not lust after me presupposes something, and that something is charity. Or kindness, or concern for others, or whatever you like to call it. If I dress is an immodest manner, is it my fault if someone reacts inappropriately? Not really--we all have free will and are responsible for our own actions. But at the same time, if I offer a recovering alcoholic a glass of beer and he falls off the wagon, I did help to cause that. Yes, it was his choice, but I could have been more sensitive. In the same way, while men obviously have the choice to look and whistle and imagine, or not, we can help them by dressing in a modest manner.

Being empowered does not mean that we should be selfish all the time. Peter said, "It seems many of us, scarred by the battles for equality perhaps, are loathe to admit doing something partly for others' pleasure, as if we were in some way contributing to our own objectification." In the same vein, I would suggest that the battle for equality has caused this division that is causing many of these problems, this attitude of "it's his problem, let him deal with it!" or "it's her body that's causing all the problems anyway--not my fault!" What would happen if both sexes changed their attitude and realized that objectification of a person, whether he be man or woman, is a serious problem, and one best dealt with by co-operation between the sexes? What we all dressed modestly, did our best to keep our thoughts under control, and took responsibility for our own actions?

I am very firm on the topic that modesty should be a two-way street, but at the same time I think that rules based on inches are hard to apply, arbitrary, and don't even work a lot of the time. Personally, I am a fan of the guideline that if you would be uncomfortable with someone of the opposite sex touching your bare skin in a certain place, that skin should be covered. (I don't remember where I heard it, though--if I stole it from you, please let me know so I can give you the proper credit!) I like this rule because it allows for personal comfort, while still providing a semi-objective standard. This rule doesn't work for everyone, but it's good for most people. There are obviously scenarios in which this rule can't be applied (bathing suits come instantly to mind), but for regular day-to-day wear, I like it very much.

I should probably add (and then I will finally shut up) that I am not at all a fan of the fashion police. I may think what you're wearing is beyond tacky or horribly skanky, but when you get right down to it, we all have to make our own choices, and forcing people to comply with our ideas of what is modest and what isn't is a very sticky issue. There are very few people, if any, who get up in the morning and think, "Hmm. What is the worst outfit I have in my closet to wear today?" Most people are trying to look nice most of the time. Depending on the circumstances, it may be appropriate to offer advice ("Dear sister, are you aware I can see right through your skirt? You may want to try a slip with that."), but going around judging strangers for what they are wearing only causes negative feelings and more divisions.

Anyway, I have given my opinion pretty strongly here, I think, but don't let that scare you away from jumping in. Agree? Disagree? A little of each?

Where have all the sleeves gone?

I was messing around on Polyvore today, and I figured out why it is that I so very rarely buy dresses off the rack. Besides the fit issues, I mean. Most dresses haven't got sleeves anymore! When did that happen? I'm used to summer dresses being sleeveless, but it seems to me that now all the dresses are sleeveless, with a significant number being strapless.

Strapless is out of the question. As my grandmother said to my mother, and could just as well have said to me, "You can't wear a strapless dress! You have nothing to hold it up!" I have tried on strapless dresses before....not happening. Besides, I honestly don't really like the way most strapless dresses look. I find wide expanses of skin to be not at all attractive, no matter how nicely tended the skin may be.

Sleeveless...meh. I haven't got a huge moral issue with sleeveless dresses or anything like that. Nor do I dislike the genre of sleeveless as much as I dislike the genre of strapless. I have a couple of sleeveless dresses and shirts. I just greatly prefer that my clothing have sleeves, or at least something that will approximate the look of a sleeve.

I guess this is why I sew. In theory, I can make my dresses look like anything I want! Assuming that is, I can find a pattern that's close enough to the ideal to alter. Easier said than done. For example, I can't find sewing patterns that look like this or like this.

I guess I need to learn to draft. Hmm. I don't think drafting lessons and poor college student budget usually coincide, do they?