Step One: Promise your darling that you will mend his favorite bicycle commuting shorts.
Step Two: Decide to procrastinate the mending and other jobs by going along on a shoe shopping trip with your 12 year old son and your sweetie.
Step Three: Get bored trying to understand the seemingly minute, but hugely significant differences between apparently identical skateboard shoes. Leave the guys to analyze footwear.
Step Four: Stop in a little clothing store nearby and browse. Innocently admire decorators' samples of fabrics being sorted by shop owner.
Step Five: Accept shop owner's offer to give you all her rejects, thus saving her the hassle of dispensing with them. (Yes, these are all too small for clothing.)
Step Six: Take bags home and sort into piles of fabric to keep and fabric to give to East African sewing group. Touch stuff like silk canvas, embroidered silk,
handprinted Chintz,
silk and linen brocade.
Step 7: Repeat Step Six as desired at least four more times. Exclaim to your husband, "Look at this stuff. I can't even get in a store that would let me touch this!" or "This cotton brocade is 250.00 a yard !" Gloat over the hoard.
Step 8: Pack up bags. Then unpack favorite pieces to admire. Repeat as needed.
Step 9: Create fantasy projects involving small pieces of gorgeous fabrics.
Step 10: Don't get any sewing done at all.
Step 11: Finally check that mending job off your to-do list, possibly staring a new trend in bike wear.
