You need to take this to a tailor and have it fashioned into a kimono.
Mr. Humphreys was by far the best character on that show.
A lesser man would question his commitment to heterosexuality on walking out of JoAnn Fabrics with four yards of purple butterfly-embroidered brocade.
I hate that store.
Did you have a self-questioning moment?
B, what's the problem with the store? I mean, I'm new at this, but I was overwhelmed by all the fabric choices.
I loved Mr Humphries. Harry at CT notes that though some gay activists hated the character, Mr H was a big positive influence on his adolescent views of homosexuality. Maybe this is a topic for its own thread, but I'm interested in how people view campy characters like him, Jack on W&G, and so on.
Joanne's doesn't actually have a great selection. There are lots of bolts of fabric, but not a wide variety of quality or individuality. In my opinion.
Oh, I just think that a lot of the stuff they stock is crappy, and the lighting and box store aspect of it drive me up a wall.
This is one of my favorite fabric stores. Alas....
7: I can see what you mean, in retrospect.
You don't need "Menswear." You need Jack Bauer to slap some manliness back into you. With his terrorist-biting cock.
(I really like the butterflies. But, um. Quit pulling our collective leg.)
Ogged, I suppose I shouldn't tell you about bedazzling the window coverings.
terrorist-biting? Phallus Dentitis?
I can see clubbing...
Look, Jack Bauer bites terrorists to kill them, so his cock probably does, too. Little bites. Suitable for getting the geisha out of FL.
Doesn't "Jack Bauer" sound like grain alcohol?
www.voguefabricstore.com is worth a look for those in the Chicagoland area. It's been years since I've been there, but (for an admitted non-connosieur) I thought there were a ton of choices and very reasonable prices. (Can't not look at the $1/yd table!)
The purple butterflies are very pretty.
3 - Perhaps, but I was always very partial to Mrs. Slocombe.
To the extent the opinion of someone who has no taste and is color-blind helps, Labs, I think that is very nice looking fabric.
16: A whiskey named "Jack Bauer" -- with an ad campaign featuring Keifer Sutherland -- would be obscenely, horrifically profitable.
Labs, what are you going to do with this fabric? And do we get to see the finished product?
Damn, you are way gayer than me. You're not an acquaintance of Garrison Keillor, are you?
This isn't funny, Labs.
This isn't funny: it's fabulous!
When life hands you violet silk butterfly fabric, make Hammer Pants!
Bigotry is so unbecoming, cereb.
No hatin' here. Just observeratin'.
23: For Keifer to return my phone calls. It's weird, though, he keeps changing his number.
And then Keifer could travel over to Japan to make a commercial there and experience culture shock!
I wouldn't try to get the rights from him. Just call it "Jack Bower" and get some Sutherland lookalike to be James Bonding it up in the ads. By "Sutherland lookalike" I of course mean Adam Kotsko.
By "Jack Bower" you mean the card from Euchre, right?
I wouldn't try to get the rights from him.
Oh, he's totally cool with it. At the Toronto Film Festival I pitched him the idea of doing something based on the old Mandom commercials. I kind of had to shout because he was a little busy with other people, but he definitely nodded at me. Or toward me. I'm sure he's just having technical problems with his provider.
24: Pants? I think it'd be much better-suited to a smart robe and wizard hat combo.
If he doesn't agree to let you use his image and likeness in the commercials for a nominal sum, you can threaten to destroy his reputation by covering Youtube with clips from "Dark City" under the heading "SNEAK PEEK OF 24 SEASON SIX: JACK BAUER BECOMES A CRIPPLED WUSS WHO DOES THE BIDDING OF ILLEGAL ALIENS".
8: B, you really must come down to LA, and I'll take you shopping in the Fabric District. Which is right next to the Fashion District and Santee Alley, where all things are mysteriously available and some of them are even real.
We really have to make a date. I'll have to beg Mr. B. to let me get away some weekend....
There is a nice fabric store in Berkeley that is well-lit, well-staffed and the opposite of big box. I've gotten some beautiful fabric for shirts there. I frequently fantasize about taking their sewing classes. Just haven't gotten around to it yet. They sometimes have neat dresses on display. They are very oddly named though: Stone Mountain and Daughter.
OT and all, but I just want to say this thing about Mitt Romney is really outstandingly funny.
8, 39: can I come? I have to reupholster my couch.
I only wish there was video of the crowd reaction.
I'll take you shopping in the Fabric District
this is definitely a euphemism for something filthy, but I can't for the life of me work out what.
re: 45
Some kind of reference to hanky codes, mebbe.
If Labs made a hanky out of his purple butterfly fabric, what would that signal?
"f Labs made a hanky out of his purple butterfly fabric, what would that signal?"
That he likes to carry his snot around in his pocket?
That he longs for an American sailor named after a detective agency to love and leave him?
New York is a wasteland for non-professional sewers -- trying to find fabric when I was making an effort at making baby clothes was impossible. Patterson Silks in Union Square used to be good, but it closed.
"New York is a wasteland for non-professional sewers"
That stinks.
I dunno, cities served by non-professionally sewers worry me. I'm all for the professionalization of wastewater transport.
New York is a wasteland for non-professional sewers
filled with amateur giant alligators.
"I dunno, cities served by non-professionally sewers worry me. I'm all for the professionalization of wastewater transport"
Just remember to stay upstream and upwind.
Yeah, the word sewer seems regular, but so, shall we say occluded by its other meaning, and pronunciation, that it always causes a double take in print.
Yet it's the kind of word we're bound to see more of, a functional word with the gender ripped out of it. When I was young, women and girls referred casually to their skill or, usually not, as seamstresses, which is an odd locution, referring to an obsolete craft, for which the male version, tailor was distinctly different.
Candace Olsen, on HGTV, refers to Edmund, her sewer. This word is coming up.
There's 'dressmaker' for a gender-neutral (in terms of the subject, not their customers) word. I think I came up with 'sewer' as non-professional sounding; I'm neither a tailor nor a dressmaker because I don't know what I'm doing -- I can just follow a very simple pattern with not entirely ludicrous results.
Roosevelt Island has some pretty professional sewers. (Giving credit to MattF for the link.)
Product placement working wonders -- the only fabric store I'd be able to name in NYC is Mood.
I go to a seamstress who works full-time in a local clerk's office. People have stopped looking at us funny when she tells me, "Go in the back and take off your suit."
As I say, it's a coming word, more descriptive and functional than the words it's replacing—it describes my relation to needle and thread, for instance, which no other word does—which some people are already using. I'll bet there are dozens of those, new in the last ten years, even though what they describe isn't.
As I say, it's a coming word
I usually get "Oh, God!" or "Yes!" I've yet to hear "Sewer!"
So ubiquitous was the obviously-gendered word seamstress when I was young, at least in my circles, that when I repaired clothes, or let them out or took them in, I would jokingly refer to myself as a seamster.
Is "sewer" new? I thought it was old, just not often used due to its stinky connotations.
We could de-gender "seamstress" as "seamstreperson". Or turn "sewer" into "sewperson".
I usually get "Oh, God!" or "Yes!" I've yet to hear "Sewer!"
If you did, it'd be the other pronunciation.
"I usually get "Oh, God!" or "Yes!" I've yet to hear "Sewer!""
A lot of people are shy about gutter talk.
I'm interested in how people view campy characters like him
I loved Mr. Humphries when I was a teenager. I wouldn't call the character a role model but I would say he gave me a lot of reassurance.
42: Sure, we can have an Unfogged fabric expedition. I desperately need to reupholster the torn and disgusting dining room chairs I inherited from my grandmother oh, two years ago....
Trying to imagine super-tall Labs bent over this fabric with a tiny needle and thread (assuming you don't own a sewing machine) and it's not working. Maybe he'll use fabric glue. Or staples. Or tape. Labs, please say you'll show us the end result (I almost said 'your handiwork' instead of 'the end result', but realized that would be fodder for a certain line of jokes. Hmm, 'end result' could be similarly exploited. A person can't say anything around here.)
Here is a lovely post about John Inman
http://www.republicoft.com/2007/03/08/mr-humpries-are-you-free/
39, 42: Let me get my knee Synvisced so I can walk and let's talk about setting a date. Lots of good fabric stores down there.
LB: How about "sewist"? People would either ask for a further explanation or assume it was a New Age cult. "Stitcher" would work, too.