I don't usually think about household appliances...

... until I need one, and we don't have it.

For instance, an iron. I know that not having an iron (and beyond that, not noticing its absence for, oh, just over two years now) probably says terrifying things about my housekeeping in general and the state of my clothes in particular, but let's face it, that's not really much of a surprise. My clothes do better than you'd think - while I wasn't aware that my apartment did not boast an iron, I was cognizant of the fact that I haven't used an iron in several years - so I bought clothes with that in mind. I've never ironed pants in my life, so that wasn't an issue, and on top I tend to favor sweaters and other slightly stretchy fabrics as opposed to crisp cotton button-downs. And even those come mostly unwrinkled if you hang them in the bathroom when you shower and then toss them in the dryer to fluff.

So I don't iron. In fact, the last time I remember doing it was in high school, when I threw a sixties-themed party and lit fifty or sixty candles in my parents' living room. Here's a tip: don't set a shallow candleholder on top of a hand-knit doily and let it burn for six hours. Here's another: after you've ignored that first tip, the only way to remove the wax from the doily will be to press the doily between two layers of paper (lunch bags work well; they're absorbent but not so much so that they stick, like paper towels) and use a warm iron to melt the wax out. Change the paper when it becomes saturated with wax. Ironing for ironing's sake - or, you know for the sake of professional polishedness - just seems like OCD to me.

But it is, for better or worse, a part of making costumes (or any clothes, really). You press seams so that they lay flat. You iron interfacing to fuse things to stiffness. You press collars so they look like collars and not lumpy misshapen... well, never mind that now. I've been faking it so far, but this weekend I really dove headfirst into the costume crafting. And it turns out, you really need an iron.

And, weirdly enough, sometimes you also need a skewer with a hole in the end of it. Now, I'm relatively certain that's not actually the proper technique for inserting elastic, but sometimes you just have to improvise. Actually, I'm completely certain - the pattern instructions said "after sewing on casing for elastic, insert elastic using a safety pin." Here endeth the lesson. Unfortunately, I have no idea what that means, or what you're supposed to use the safety pin for. I had just attached a half-inch wide strip of bias tape all around the inside of the neckline of the chemise I was sewing, and I needed to thread a length of quarter-inch wide elastic through all three feet of it. I tried just pushing it in, but about three inches in it balked, so I pulled it out. Then what? That's where the skewer came in. Tip the third (although if you have a better way, by all means, use it instead): Take a cooking skewer. Strip off any visible splinters. Poke a hole through the non-pointy end with a needle, and thread the skewer. Tie one end of the thread around the skewer securely. Sew the other end of the thread to the elastic. Push the skewer (carefully, especially if you happen to be working with paper-thin, extraordinarily cheap silk essence) through the tube you've made for the elastic. The elastic will be pulled along by the skewer. Now, before the trailing end of the elastic disappears into its tube, pin it to something. Anything. The fabric is a good place to start, but if not that, pin it to the couch, your knee, anything. Trust me. Because when the end of that elastic disappears into the casing, it will be lost forever. You will then have to curse, jump up and down, and maybe throw things. Then you get to pull the skewer all the way through and start over.

This is the weekend I learned about elastic. Also about lapels, the meaning of the word "facing" in sewing jargon, and that throwing your already-cut-out pattern pieces onto the rag pile is not a good idea. Ah, the progress continues to amaze me.

Actually, though, it sort of does. In two days I made a gambler's coat and a Renaissance chemise. They're costume quality, not clothing quality, but I'm still proud of them. And if the next thing I learn is how to post pictures on Blogger, you can see them too.

I wouldn't hold my breath, if I were you.