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By Root 477 0

due to graduate from high school during sequestered shooting, and I was about eight weeks pregnant. I might already have been knocked up at the audition, but it seemed so unlikely that I would get to the second round, much less be cast, that I conveniently ignored my compromised condition. I instantly made up my mind that I would put Cleo first if she wanted me to, and that nothing I did for the show could imperil the baby. I’d had five uncomplicated pregnancies at this point, and could certainly tell whether anything was amiss. I decided not to mention the bun in the oven until absolutely necessary, assuming that productions of this scale have certain liability concerns—I worried that if the producers knew they would replace me at this point in the game. On the other hand, if I made it through enough rounds to start showing, they would have to work the pregnancy in, like when a soap opera star has to spend three months of shooting behind a potted plant, or is “suddenly impregnated by her own evil twin.”

I called Cleo, who had been just as nervously waiting to hear from Tim as I had been. She was thrilled.

“I’ll miss your graduation,” I said, heartsick at the words. “It’s your choice. If you want me there, I will turn down the show.”

“Are you nuts?!” she yelled at me. “This is so exciting! You have to do it.”

With Cleo’s blessing, I moved ahead and followed the shows orders to the letter, and prepared my family for my departure. The older boys were happy to see me go: Peik because he was always happy to see me go anywhere, and Truman because he was my partner in crime. The younger two didn’t really get it—being three and four, they hadn’t yet grasped the concept of time—and I knew that their collective amnesia would pave over any hurt feelings in the long run. I packed a couple of suitcases and my own sewing kit, and moved into an apartment six blocks from my home. I could literally see the boys’ bedroom window from mine. We could have used a flashlight to communicate, if they’d only known where I was.

Moving into the apartment with its tiny bedrooms and even tinier bathroom was a snap after my six-people-to-two-bedrooms lifestyle. Many of the other contestants were used to living in houses and had trouble getting to sleep in the middle of noisy Manhattan. I had that edge from the beginning, as I am indifferent to regular sleep patterns—and can fall asleep practically anywhere and wake on a dime. Years of babies do that to you: I haven’t slept through the night in ten years. I wear sleep deprivation like a navel-baring cocktail dress—anywhere, anytime.

Our first challenge started the minute we walked into our apartment: make an outfit out of something in the suite. For as much as I had been looking forward to the challenges, tearing apart my apartment was not exactly a thrill, especially when we returned exhausted to the demolished apartment that night, one designer already Auf Weidersehened off the show. Though tired, I was proud of my sexy little mattress ticking coat with its bathmat collar: It was the first garment I had ever sewn for someone other than myself. In a way I think that my lack of formal training was an advantage. I wasn’t restricted by the “right” way to do things, so I just figured out the fastest or easiest way. Other contestants wouldn’t dream of leaving raw edges on the inside of a garment because they had been taught that it was unprofessional. I had no such hangups, and could better spend my time executing more-intricate ideas. As long as my design passed the runway test—does it look good to the judges at thirty paces?—then finishes be damned.

If you think what the designers go through on Project Runway looks hard on TV, in real life it’s even harder. Trust me. First of all, “this week’s challenge” did not give us a week to recover each time. We were given a new assignment every day or two, back to back to back. Remaining creative was nearly impossible at that pace, and it’s no wonder that contestants started to crack so early in the competition. I’m not very good at faking how I feel, and