more about facebook / linen dress update
Jan. 19th, 2009 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7I am in a rotten mood today. I'm quite sore, especially in my neck and back. The neck, I think, might be from my hair, which makes me even crankier, because I had it in a nice stable non-pulling updo for three days so it shouldn't be sore. The other possibility, however, is that our skating coach, a former speedskater, was in a good mood after our scrimmage this morning, and decided to "treat" us to a practice focusing on skating form. Personally I think we should focus a lot more on it-- we have a more experienced skating coach than any of the other teams and we really should let that shine-- but I know Danny and Mia think about this a lot more than me so I should probably let them go with what they do. Anyway, he made us skate backward for probably half an hour, and it hurts all over. When you skate forwards counterclockwise for literally hours every week, going backwards uses all these muscles you simply don't have. It was a major endeavor for me to keep my heels pointed the right way-- the muscles of the inside-backs of my legs are weak and useless, and my hamstrings were screaming. And when you skate backward, you have to look over your shoulder, which is something you should be doing in roller derby anyway, but obviously I don't, or my neck wouldn't hurt so badly this morning!
But my back irks me. To skate fast around a track, especially a track as small and round as a roller derby one (much closer to circular than a regular speedskating oval), you need to take long lateral strides, pushing with each foot in turn toward the outside of the track. The stride, put together, is called a "crossover", because you cross your left (inside) foot quite deeply under your outside foot, pushing off with that little toe. (It looks like this at full speed.)
For greatest stability, you lean forward over your legs, and bend your knees. This means that you can take longer strides, as you can push along the floor to straighten your knees, increasing the amount of time your wheels are in contact with the floor. Most importantly, the lower center of gravity means that you are more stable, which is crucial especially if you combine simple speedskating with a sport wherein people hit you while you're speedskating.
When you are shaped like I am, 215 pounds with 23-inch thighs, 17-inch calves, and a 46-inch bust, there's a whole lot of you to move. When bent over like that, the muscles of your lower back not only have to hold your upper body in place-- which is hard, because your upper body has to shift to hold your balance, and you have to tilt your shoulders in toward the corners, and swing your arms on the straightaways-- but also have to lift your thick, heavy legs in order to make these crossovers. The strain is tremendous. And no matter what I do, no matter how many hours a week I skate, no matter how many workout videos I do, no matter how much time I spend working on my core muscles-- my back is still the first thing to go when I'm skating. It gets sore after maybe five laps. No matter what, I spend the entire practice working through the pain of those muscles being exhausted.
And I always spend the next morning grunting around like an old lady. It's very annoying. So if any of you happen to know a great deal about fitness, I would really appreciate any insight you may have into strengthening one's back muscles. I've been doing Pilates floor routines to work on all my core muscles, and I've been doing bullshit Tae Bo with Billy Blanks on the premise that many of his exercises involve full-body motion and balance, which works your back, but no matter what i do it's not enough.
Grumble grunt groan etcetera.
Facebook has put me into a better mood, though. It's just a nice thing-- everyone puts their weird observations and inside jokes up on it, and you skim over them all and feel connected, feel amused at what witty friends you have, feel privileged to know these hilarious little daily matters, etc. It's a nice thing. I'm not tired of it at all yet. And i actually have seen very little drama thusfar! It suits my current mental state pretty well. Even when people are just posting little complaints, it still lends itself well to humor and wit. So I like that.
And more and more of my kinfolks and people I was close to like 10 years ago are on it. So that's nice.
Linen dress: I have been making much slower progress on it lately. I have it sitting on the arm of the love seat, so every time I sit down I pick it up and sew a few stitches. I finished the body panels, and all the long skirt seams-- I had to pick out some of the machine-stitched seams, which were falling apart, and hand sew the rest. It's really really relaxing to sew a long straight seam by hand, but time-consuming-- it's kind of a luxury. The fact that it's hand-sewn won't even show, but the thing won't fall apart, which was what I was mostly concerned with. I got one sleeve on, though I think I messed up the shoulders of the garment so I made the armholes smaller than the pattern called for, meaning the sleeves were bigger than the sleeve holes. I had to overlap part of the top of the sleeve. So it went together a bit messy, but solid enough, and it fits just fine. I think perhaps the pattern may have had a bit too much room in the shoulders-- at any rate, every garment I've ever had has fit too loose in the shoulders, so I wouldn't be surprised if it did. All it means is that it fits fine now. But it took me a very long time to get the sleeve on, and I've got a second sleeve to do. We're running worrisomely up against the spent-too-long-now-am-bored threshhold of any project, and I am most eager not to abandon this one with the lacing holes undone and one sleeve off. So maybe if my back doesn't feel better today, I'll make a concerted effort to push through and get the facings on the inside of the bodice so I can start on the lacing holes. Lacing holes, like sewing long straight seams, are somewhat relaxing, though i tend to stab myself a lot stitching the holes. I really am considering using embroidery floss on them, though. We'll see. I want badly to embroider something on this garment, but have not done any research into embroidery on period pieces and don't feel like doing research, so I'm stuck in the eternal dilemma of a) having fun but being a total farb, vs. b) Doing It Right and being bored. Eh, maybe laziness will take over and I won't do either.
Gotta get that other sleeve on. Unless I want to go all Beyoncé on this.
But my back irks me. To skate fast around a track, especially a track as small and round as a roller derby one (much closer to circular than a regular speedskating oval), you need to take long lateral strides, pushing with each foot in turn toward the outside of the track. The stride, put together, is called a "crossover", because you cross your left (inside) foot quite deeply under your outside foot, pushing off with that little toe. (It looks like this at full speed.)
For greatest stability, you lean forward over your legs, and bend your knees. This means that you can take longer strides, as you can push along the floor to straighten your knees, increasing the amount of time your wheels are in contact with the floor. Most importantly, the lower center of gravity means that you are more stable, which is crucial especially if you combine simple speedskating with a sport wherein people hit you while you're speedskating.
When you are shaped like I am, 215 pounds with 23-inch thighs, 17-inch calves, and a 46-inch bust, there's a whole lot of you to move. When bent over like that, the muscles of your lower back not only have to hold your upper body in place-- which is hard, because your upper body has to shift to hold your balance, and you have to tilt your shoulders in toward the corners, and swing your arms on the straightaways-- but also have to lift your thick, heavy legs in order to make these crossovers. The strain is tremendous. And no matter what I do, no matter how many hours a week I skate, no matter how many workout videos I do, no matter how much time I spend working on my core muscles-- my back is still the first thing to go when I'm skating. It gets sore after maybe five laps. No matter what, I spend the entire practice working through the pain of those muscles being exhausted.
And I always spend the next morning grunting around like an old lady. It's very annoying. So if any of you happen to know a great deal about fitness, I would really appreciate any insight you may have into strengthening one's back muscles. I've been doing Pilates floor routines to work on all my core muscles, and I've been doing bullshit Tae Bo with Billy Blanks on the premise that many of his exercises involve full-body motion and balance, which works your back, but no matter what i do it's not enough.
Grumble grunt groan etcetera.
Facebook has put me into a better mood, though. It's just a nice thing-- everyone puts their weird observations and inside jokes up on it, and you skim over them all and feel connected, feel amused at what witty friends you have, feel privileged to know these hilarious little daily matters, etc. It's a nice thing. I'm not tired of it at all yet. And i actually have seen very little drama thusfar! It suits my current mental state pretty well. Even when people are just posting little complaints, it still lends itself well to humor and wit. So I like that.
And more and more of my kinfolks and people I was close to like 10 years ago are on it. So that's nice.
Linen dress: I have been making much slower progress on it lately. I have it sitting on the arm of the love seat, so every time I sit down I pick it up and sew a few stitches. I finished the body panels, and all the long skirt seams-- I had to pick out some of the machine-stitched seams, which were falling apart, and hand sew the rest. It's really really relaxing to sew a long straight seam by hand, but time-consuming-- it's kind of a luxury. The fact that it's hand-sewn won't even show, but the thing won't fall apart, which was what I was mostly concerned with. I got one sleeve on, though I think I messed up the shoulders of the garment so I made the armholes smaller than the pattern called for, meaning the sleeves were bigger than the sleeve holes. I had to overlap part of the top of the sleeve. So it went together a bit messy, but solid enough, and it fits just fine. I think perhaps the pattern may have had a bit too much room in the shoulders-- at any rate, every garment I've ever had has fit too loose in the shoulders, so I wouldn't be surprised if it did. All it means is that it fits fine now. But it took me a very long time to get the sleeve on, and I've got a second sleeve to do. We're running worrisomely up against the spent-too-long-now-am-bored threshhold of any project, and I am most eager not to abandon this one with the lacing holes undone and one sleeve off. So maybe if my back doesn't feel better today, I'll make a concerted effort to push through and get the facings on the inside of the bodice so I can start on the lacing holes. Lacing holes, like sewing long straight seams, are somewhat relaxing, though i tend to stab myself a lot stitching the holes. I really am considering using embroidery floss on them, though. We'll see. I want badly to embroider something on this garment, but have not done any research into embroidery on period pieces and don't feel like doing research, so I'm stuck in the eternal dilemma of a) having fun but being a total farb, vs. b) Doing It Right and being bored. Eh, maybe laziness will take over and I won't do either.
Gotta get that other sleeve on. Unless I want to go all Beyoncé on this.
