Project Project Runway: Meet the Model and the Materials

Because I don't have enough to do with just keeping myself and my family fed, clothed in relatively clean garments, and exposed to only a minimum of household squalor, I decided to join my friend Susi and the rest of the designers over at Project Project Runway. We are supposed to sew along with the current season of PR, following the same challenges and rules as the show's competitors, only on a MUCH smaller scale.

Doll scale.

Now, I was raised in a house FILLED with dolls. When I say that there were dolls floor-to-ceiling, I do not exaggerate. In 1996 my brother was almost killed by a new-in-box Dylan McKay 90210 doll falling on his head when he attempted to open his closet door.

As a result I do not like dolls.

At. All.

But in order to participate in PPR I needed a model. My sewing skills are marginal at best, and I had read of how difficult Barbie's petite dimensions can be to sew for. So I packed up my three-year-old daughter (to be known from now on as "The Assistant"), cajoled her with promises of a Winnie-the-Pooh figurine set, and dragged her across the city on MUNI to the Disney store. There, we met the model for whom I will be "making it work." On sale for only $12.99!!

She's a 17" singing Pocohantas with articulated arms and legs. She's a dead ringer for Padma Lakshmi from Top Chef, but I've renamed her Kateri. "Kateri Tekakwitha" is my confirmation name from when I was still nominally a Catholic (my parents shot down my first two choices for a confirmation name, "Perpetua" and "Scholastica," but I got away with Kateri because she's the only Native American in the pantheon, or whatever you call the list of saints). Kateri, in her former incarnation as Pocohantas, also sang whenever you moved her arms, so as soon as I got her home I ripped her little batteries out. Sorry, no more "Colors of the Wind" for you, little missy.

Next we had $10 to spend at the dollar store for the supplies to make our first outfit. My Assistant was just about done with shopping for the day and eager to get home and whoop it up with the critters from the Hundred Acre Wood, so we used the power of the iPhone to locate the nearest dollar store in walking proximity to the Disney store. It turned out to be a Daiso, which is a Japanese chain fairly common on the West Coast.

Of course, it was a truly "San Francisco" dollar store, in that everything actually cost $1.50 and there was a homeless guy sitting in front.

I took my $10 and scoured the place for usable materials. There was a lot of orange. I decided to go with it.

I think the fact that I was at an Asian dollar store rather than an Western one was both an advantage and a disadvantage-- an advantage in that there was a lot of weird crap and a disadvantage because... there was a lot of weird crap. I ended up with a duster, a paper fan, a duck-shaped "cold pack," a CD case, a set of false eyelashes, a "lunchbox belt,' and a pleather pencil case. Total: just under $9.

Next up: what the hell do I do with this?