Deborah Makarios – Page 9 – Deborah Makarios

October 12, 2023October 12, 2023

10 Principles for Emotional Health from Miss Elizabeth Bennet

She’s famous for being the Prejudiced one in Pride & Prejudice, but—her misjudgement of Darcy and Wickham aside—there’s a lot of sturdy common sense in Lizzy Bennet’s approach to life which we can all make use of. Here are ten principles which she follows.

Lizzy sits in the foreground, fanning herself. In the background Mr Darcy gives her a disdainful look as Mr Bingley gestures toward her. The caption reads "She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me."

I: Don’t Need Everyone’s Approval

Not everyone you encounter in this world will like you, for reasons which may or may not have anything to do with you. Don’t let your peace of mind depend on the approval of others.
During her stay at Netherfield, Lizzy gets the distinct impression that Mr Darcy dislikes her. “The supposition did not pain her. She liked him too little to care for his approbation.”

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September 14, 2023September 14, 2023

The Ideal Skirt: Adjustable Waist and POCKETS!

Yes, it is possible! One can have a skirt with a waist that is easily adjustable to one’s fluctuating circumference, and also with pockets! Huzzah!

I started with Liz Haywood’s free pattern for a three gore wrap skirt. She has a variety of options as far as gores go, but I went with three, because why sew more seams than I had to? I did make a couple of changes, however. For one, I didn’t bother about a buttonhole to thread the waist ties through. I figured I could just overlap them and live with the minor unevenness at hem that would result.

And for another, I added POCKETS! I cut my own pattern piece from a sheet of A4, basing the size of the angled cut on the pocket bag of a favourite dress. Please note: when actually cutting out the pieces, I decided this was too small and added about five centimetres to the bottom for one pair of pocket pieces. Both pockets are fully functional but I prefer the larger one.

A sheet of paper with an angled cut, marked "Pocket" butted up against a larger skirt pattern piece.

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September 7, 2023September 7, 2023

Gandhi, Chaplin, and the Symbol of Non-Violence

When Charlie Chaplin met Gandhi…sounds like the beginning of a joke. But in fact they did meet, in London, in 1931. Here you see Chaplin (seated, dark suit) next to Gandhi (seated, Gandhi).

Black and white photograph of M K Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu, Charlie Chaplin, and others.

The conversation included Gandhi explaining to Chaplin that his use and promotion of the charkha (traditional Indian spinning wheel, used for spinning cotton) wasn’t a rejection of more recent technologies – Luddite, we’d probably say these days – but rather a rejection of the exploitative system that those technologies were then serving.

Which, to be fair, is also how the actual Luddites looked at it. They didn’t object to labour-saving machinery. They objected to the idea that labour-saving was interpreted by employers to mean not “the machine does more, so now workers don’t have to work quite so hard” but rather “the machine does more, so we can work fewer people just as hard as before (and it’s not our business if the rest of them starve)”.

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