​I'm thrilled to write this post for many reasons. The first and most important is that Funkifabrics gave me some of their fabric to use in exchange for writing about their products. The second is to show the garment I made in action while I joined the audience of the local TV show, New Day Northwest, along with the lovely ladies of Clothing & Textile Advisors and some American Sewing Guild folks also. 

I was contacted many months ago by a PR firm to see if I was interested in receiving free fabric from Funkifabrics in exchange for writing about them. The emails went back and forth many times. I had several questions, but they seemed to go unanswered (the PR contact did the best she could and was very kind). But, I felt the lack of response was odd for a company that portrays itself to be a leader in the activewear fabric world. Activewear has to perform and perform well. If it doesn't it won't get used. Much of it has to handle lots of stress, sweat, etc. and still look good after a performance or race.  Likewise, people sewing with activewear are likely going to want to understand what it can do for them.

Fastforward several months and I was connected directly with a lovely person who works directly for Funkifabrics. She and I had a great exchange that was much more representative of the image their website portrays. She could easily answer my questions.  Likewise, she asked the tough questions like "What can you do for us?", which is what I would expect of any company giving something away in exchange for marketing. In turn, I helped her understand how I could differentiate from others and show their fabric in new and exciting ways. This type of exchange is basic product management work and it felt really great to work with her and get the opportunity to sell my sewing work. Ultimately, we all want to know "What's In It For Me?" no matter what we are doing.  In the software product management world, we called that WIIFM. (whiff 'em). 

Why does this matter to me when considering them as one of my fabric sources? It actually showed me that they believe in their product, their pricing and think it's worth waiting for the right people to blog about them (and worth waiting for the right customer to invest in their products).  That says, "We sell a high quality product that is worth investing in."  If you just give your stuff away, but don't find out how it's going to help you, then do you really belive in your product? And if you don't believe in it, then why should anyone else? The final quality proof comes when I cut & sew the fabric, then one more time when I wear it and observe it's performance and durability. 

The fabric was dispatched and arrived via DHL lickity split. I really didn't expect to see any of it until later in the week, after the New Day Northwest recording day.  But, it arrived the night before the show!  OH! MY! GOSH!  I was giddy. I could hardly contain myself until I got home.  I barely got in the door before I started laying out the fabrics to see how they would play together. 

The top fabric is their flexite base (80nylon/20lycra) printed in TS167 Ikat Tie Dye. I've been in love with it since I received my samples. It's one of those fabrics that goes with everything and actually ties together so many other fabrics in my stash and garments in my wardrobe. I was wonderfully surprised by how many things it coordinated with.

The 2nd fabric from top is their gradient shading print that transitions from FLO264 fluorescent pink to flamenco orange. It's so perfectly paired with the ikat!  I had an idea to run the shading around the body (circumference) rather than vertically. 

The 3rd and 4th fabrics are their fluorescent flexites in NE3057 yellow and NE 3054 pink. These are a little shear, but I didn't intend for them to be a main body fabric, rather to be accents.

The last fabric, their TS582 World Party Black printed on Titan, a performance knit is now being offered in prints. Woo hoo! A few features of Titan per Funkifabrics website are high stretchability, exceptional shape recovery powers, ideal for outstanding sport performance.  Oh my the hand of this is lovely. More on what I do with it in a future post. Likely to be dancewear!  

Before I begin a project, I must layout the colors to see how they behave or fight among themselves. Imagine my surprise when I discovered this Ready to Wear piece from Nordstrom coordinated perfectly with the ikat! Oh, that made sewing a skirt the night before I was going to Seattle worth it.  

The ikat is directional. That means I needed to get the fold exactly on grain if I wished to not have people's eyeballs skew due to a print being off angle or off grain. This was actually pretty easy to get on grain because it's such an angular, geometric print. I just found the center point of several diamonds, then checked to see they were on the fold from edge to edge, this isn't the selvedge, it's perpendicular to the selvedge. So, let the fabric talk to you and be sure to lay out your pieces.  If you need to, sketch the entire piece on the fabric using chalk or a washable marker before you cut. 

The shading runs from selvedge to selvedge. Woot! That means no matter how small or large a piece, you always have the pink to orange shading.  So, it was placed the same way that the ikat was. Though, you'll notice I had a boo boo. I cut with the white edging down and didn't get enough of the print under the pattern. So I had an odd corner of white that would have stood out like a sore thumb. Thank goodness this accent piece is smaller. 

This is what I visualized in my head. The color shading would run around the body. the inner circle represents the circumference around my thighs on the skirt I am making.  This project went really fast because I had already made one of these skirts before and I knew how the fabric worked. Plus, I had a couple weeks of thinking before the fabric actually arrived in hand.  I evaluate all my projects in quite a bit of detail. I like to give them a really good think, so that once I commit to cutting fabric out, I know I'm ready (as I can be) and that my project will have the highest rate of success possible resulting in a garment that I will wear for years to come.

​​I busted my tail (with great joy and enthusiasm) to get this skirt done the night before going to Seattle. I started about 8PM and finally finished around 1AM.  Not to shabby! 5 hours.  It's easier to finish a project quickly when you've spent as much time planning it and when hemming isn't required like it is with Nylon Lycra's. Funkifabrics Nylon Lycras are no exception. They cut beautifully with my rotary cutter.

I'm tickled with the results. This looks fabulously casual, business like, and I can also see myself rockin' it on the dance floor to a great Bachata or Salsa band.  I really like how the tiny trim (1/2") of orange/white stripe I bought from Pacific Fabrics coordinates with Funkfabrics ikat. If I hadn't just played around with colors and let myself fall into the final results (rather than analyze and criticize and worry), I never would have picked this out. But it's perfectly paired!

The best way to get in and out of the city when you live as far as I do is to hop on the light rail. Then, we just walk to where ever we need to within the downtown area.  Especially because this was one of the 3 days when the Chinese president was visiting Seattle/Tacoma. Traffic in Seattle is really bad on a normal day. On a day when they close off major freeways (where we really don't have good back roads) for officials, can we say nightmare?  Yes, avoid and find thee public transit whenever possible!

The Clothing & Textile Advisors group, who help host Sew Expo through their volunteer hours, were visiting local Seattle TV show, New Day Northwest from King 5. I caught wind of it and just knew I had to go.  It's been years since I visited a TV studio or was in the audience of a show. Plus, how awesome is it to connect with other sewers? 

The lobby was filled with the local reporters and news casters images and King 5 had a lovely waiting room for us all to collect before they brought us on set.

On our way up, we saw several major streets downtown were also closed. Just look at the stacks of police escort motorbikes? Crap! How many do you think there are? 50?

I was so fortunate to have my dance friend, R, join me. She's a lovely human who dabbles in sewing on occasion. We share a love of salsa and bachata dancing and we also enjoy long conversations about all kinds of interesting subjects. I always learn something whenever I'm around her. 

Part of the joy of visiting the city is allowing the day to unfold as it desires. We made no plans other than going to the show and I didn't look up who would be featured.  I was tickled that we got to hear Margaret Larsen interview Olympic Athlete and musician Shaun White. It was really interesting to hear him talk about committing to any trick or flip, and likewise knowing when to walk away because his mom taught him that there's always tomorrow.  I found it fascinating that his mom made the rest of the family ride on their non-dominant side so that she could keep up. That helped him be a better snowboarder in the long run, and also kept their family close sharing time doing activities that everyone enjoyed.  I am really inspired that she made that decision. It speaks volumes to me on what kind of mom I'd like to be one day. I love finding inspiration everywhere. 

Speaking of inspiration, how amazing is it that Shaun had 3 heart surgeries as a child, yet still looked at people doing snow sports on TV and said, "Mom, I'm going to do that."  Reminds me that we needn't let anything stop us.  If you're inspired, find a way. 

Shaun also talked about Halfpops, a local snack that is tasty & easy to take on the mountain for him. All the audience members received a sample and I must admit, it was super tasty! I'd take it hiking, rollerblading, or anywhere really. Low salt which is awesome!

Also on the show was Jordan of Jordan Samual Skin, a Pacific Northwest Ballet dancer turned esthetician and who now sells his own line of skin care. I was infatuated with his look from the moment I saw him walk around the set. I know those are just skinny jeans, but how freakin awesome do they look cuffed with oxfords?!    This is also quite a nice photo of my finished Funkifabrics Flexite Lycra skirt.  See how important it is to get the print straight on the grain, running vertically? 

And lucky me, I got to put my arm around a former ballet dancer. His form is beautiful. Don't care that I'm not his type, this woman can appreciate the beauty he exudes of the male form without needing to take it further.  Sigh, I do love muscular men.  If only I had photos of some of my past boyfriends to share I could show you how beautiful their muscles were. Enough though. Check out what Jordan had to tell us about the kinds of foods to eat to help your skin glow.

Margaret was kind enough to let us take our photo with her. She is a nice, interesting and funny host. I really appreciated her dry sense of humor to lighten things up from time to time. 

R & I finished our day at Seattle's world famous Pike Place Market.  She had never been and I was honored to take her to one of my favorite spice shops, Market Spice. It's been there since 1911. We walked all over, stopped by the original Starbucks, and then tried a new restaurant, El Borracho. Holy yum! Their tacos are amazing!

It was a really wonderful day through and though. I word my new Funkifabrics skirt all day long, easily 14 hours, and I felt like I was wearing PJ's, yet I looked fabulous! How awesome is that?!

If you haven't worked with nylon-lycra fabrics yet, I highly encourage you to try. Start with 1 yard or 1 meter (enough for a tank top or the main part of a pair of swim shorts) and give Funkifabrics a chance. I can say without reservation, that I would choose to buy from Funkifabrics anytime. On my drive home I had even more inspiration on additional projects with this fabric. That speaks volumes to me! While sewing with knits might be intimidating at first, once you get going, you may not want to use anything else!

Have you used any fabric from Funkifabrics? What's your experience been? 

Silly hats, laughing at my own jokes, being silly and singing strange lyrics to popular songs - I've always been a clown of sorts.  But, I never really felt I was funny.  

My family is hilarious.  My brother can get you laughing so hard you'll wet your pants.  My dad, while a serious and talented business man and all around mechanical / can build or design anything genius, is as goofy as they come and he gets us laughing just by being his silly self - I could tell you stories about our trips to Home Depot. My mom, well she wrote the book. Everyone, including extended family, all have big, loud (I mean loud!) laughs that get other people laughing. 

But, I always felt they were funny and I the audience.  I excluded myself.

I never gave myself or my wild, loud, obnoxious and totally catching laugh credit.  Let's just say my laugh is so unusual that my friends record me.  I laugh at absurd times & absurd things.  I break silence.  I think lots of things are funny when others don't.  And, I am the first to laugh at my own jokes. I felt out of place. I felt like I needed someone to teach me how to be funny because I couldn't possibly be as funny as my family.

I decided to go to "clown school".  Or rather, take a class at a local acting school on Personal Clown.  That means you learn how to be a clown through a process of self identifying experiences.

Boy was I in for a surprise.  

Bear in mind as you read, I took this class over 2 years ago. It hasn't been until just recently that I feel ready to talk about my experiences. 

I met the instructor before hand. He said it would be hard work. 

To clown class I went.  

There was very little instruction, but there was much "experience" and "opportunity to fail" offered.  The clown is born in the moment of failure. What we laugh at is usually the breaking point for us as humans. It's the tragedy we laugh at because we recognize and relate to another's failure, whether we consciously realize that or not.  

Oh. My. God. 

This class turned out to be even harder than presenting to corporate executives with extremely high expectations and no room for failure.  I honestly left each class, often in tears, thinking, "Why the hell am I here?  I'm paying for this non-teaching bull shit? Now what am I learning from all of this!?!?"  

But wait - there is something good to be gained from all this. 

I blissfully went to this class thinking, "Oh I can do this hard work. No problem."  Ha!  The universe laughed at me.  Well, at least the universe did even if the class didn't laugh.  Let me tell you, the phrase, "Not Funny Clown" used to haunt me when I would hear crickets" or dead silence from the audience.  

We were told to "Be Funny" and given exercises to try which I always failed. 

I cried. 

I did stupid things, and the other clowns in the audience laughed at my failure.  Oh, that was the point, wasn't it?  But, I was so heartbroken at failing that I couldn't see beyond it.  

Remember that moment in school when your notebook falls open to the page with boy's name you're crushing on written a million times over and with your first and his last name? Remember how embarrassed you felt and how you wanted to run away? 

Yep, that was every moment of this class.  

And I was far from the only one in tears. It was the process of learning through our own failures and our own experiences how to get back up again, put full attention on yourself, and get the audience to laugh.  So much harder than I ever could have dreamed. 

I didn't learn to be funny in those moments as a kid, I just cried from embarrassment.  I can't tell you how many times I said to my parents, "Waaaaaahh they're laughing at me." Oh such a pitiful child. I'm so typically A-Student-High-Achiever-American.  Fail? Me? Never!  Why try if you fail?  Oh right, I did choose to take this class because I wanted to learn how to be funny in those moments of failure.  Hmm... Maybe that lesson doesn't always happen in a month or two.  

Thanks to this class I can actually use that moment of "failure" to see where else it will take me.  I did not feel that way when I finished class.  I was, as George puts it, raw, vulnerable, angry, and unsatisfied.  I was bitter. Angry. I was a victim. My spirit was broken before I went to the class.  I was in the process of healing from some very deep emotional wounds.  

A year or so later ... including several costume changes, many tears, and a few embarrassingly funny stories from my clown's failures... I have come to realize that I gained a great deal from that class.  

It broke me open and allowed me a chance to fail and recover from it in a somewhat safe environment (even though I didn't know a soul in my class when I started).  That is invaluable. It's something I think everyone should have a chance to experience and learn from.  

Lessons don't always come easy and often the breakthrough occurs right after the moment of intense struggle.  If I could have just let go and quit trying so damn hard to please everyone else, I might have had more fun.  

I now have tremendous respect for comedians like Ed Wynn, Dick van Dyke, Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, The 3 Stooges, Doris Day, Joan Rivers, Carol Burnette, Phyllis Diller, Laverne & Shirley, Lucille Ball, Red Skelton, Bill Cosby, Rosanne Barr, Everyone on In Living Color & Saturday Night Live, Terry Pratchett, Mindy Kaling, Miranda Hart, Jimmy Fallon, James Roday & Dule Hill, Jack Black, Vince Vaughan & Owen Wilson and so many, many more. 

It takes a huge act of bravery and courage to put yourself and your flaws on display for the whole world to laugh at.  Even if you're portraying a character, and not yourself, there's still a little part of you in every role.  Thank you to every comedian for playing the fool and teaching, nay reminding us, to laugh at ourselves and our flaws.