Thank you Wikipedia for this nice picture. I sure hope I'm not breaking any copyright laws here! As I suspected, most of my friends have no idea who Madeleine Vionnet is or what draping is. Check out this Wikipedia article for the background, then you'll understand more of the story.
A few weeks ago I came across a link for a class from the Center for Pattern Design on "Draping a Vionnet Bias Skirt". The class was 100 miles away and I was afraid my total lack of experience in draping might cause me to make a fool out of myself, but in the back of my mind I wanted to take the class anyway. Luckily things worked in my favor that day - I told my daughter about the class and she said I should go, then my husband came home and said he'd spent some money on his hobby, so I decided it was my turn, right? I jumped right in and registered for this class that was 100 miles out of my comfort zone (which, by the way, has gotten entirely too small).
I had completely planned on adding more details to this post, but since it's been sitting in my "drafts" for over a month now I think it's time for me to hit "publish" and move on. Just one more note about the My Size Barbie: the instructor told us that she ordered several of the dolls at once to use in her classes. She modifies them by velcroing the feet to a piece of wood, making a fabric cover for the body, and popping the heads off. She said the garbage man must have thought she was kind of crazy that day when he saw all the doll heads in the trash.
Ok, enough of the decapitated dolls. I've got other (less adventurous) activities in the works!
