Sew Distracted

Through the closet door and into dreams: Ralph Rucci Fall 2010

 I've been cleaning out my closet.  This time I am being really brutal.  I must love it.  I must love it on.  No settling.

I am finding that I had forgotten how nice I feel in nice clothes, that I like tailoring, that I love a beautiful dress and heels, nice ladylike flats too, but especially heels.  I like dressing up.  Where have I been?  How could I forget?

Oh yes, I remember now.  Caregiver.  What a terrible word.  What a terrible style.

 I want to repudiate caregiver style.  Oh wearing jeans has been good for me.  I have learned to be casual; this took a long time, and there are days this is all I want.  But more often I want to be in a suit or dress and heels even though this is not the wardrobe expected in my life.  

One must gauge the climate.  One must also gauge the temperature of the woman, and find a meeting point where both coexist in comfort.  I am working on this; slowly yet, but working nonetheless.

I want to wear what I want simply because I want to wear it.

 I'm not far enough along in the closet restructuring to report anything, but I have been inspired to look at the fall collections.  Of course I started at the top, with my favorite, Chado by Ralph Rucci.  You must go look at the collection.  It is amazing.  Almost every piece is gorgeous.  The man is a genious.  Obviously I am stark-raving-mad for this collection.  I like it so much I have looked at it over and over.  I like it so much I haven't looked at anything else.

 I am so inspired I'm loopy.

 There are so many things here that speak to me.  Some are ideas for things to make.  I'm not really planning direct knock-offs.  I stopped that years ago, I'm more interested in stealing inspiration, and Ralph Rucci's work is all inspiration.  Besides, my skills aren't up to creating some of these things, not yet, perhaps not ever.  

But my love of this collection goes beyond just wanting the clothes, and yes I do want them.  It goes beyond just dreaming of making the clothes, or using them for inspiration.  This collection reminds me of something fundamental and basic that is in my style, something with which I had floundered for a while. 

If style is also a reflection of who you are, of the place you want to mark in the world, when the world throws you for a loop it is conceivable that even style can get lost.    But to deny one's style is to deny a fundamental piece of oneself, whether that style be "high" or "low", combat boots or Christian Louboutin.

I love these garments in and of themselves.  They are perfection.  They remind me of what I like, they remind me not to go down frivolous paths following whims.  

Sometimes I just look at something and say that is how I wish clothing could be, how I wish life could be, the life for those clothing.  

Aspirational.  

 Inspirational.

Clothing that makes me wax philosophic. Not a good sign.  Did I not tell you I was loopy? We all know I am not good at philosophy, and I am worse at writing about it.  

Did you know that in college I was told that I "write badly very well", and that I should write the blurbs that you find on the back of novels, enticing the reader to open the pages?  

It is true.  But it is not correct.  I let my mind wander far too freely to write blurbs.

Even in the context of these fabulous clothes my mind wanders beyond "where could I wear this" and "how could I reproduce that" and thinks of blurbs.

These are dream clothes.  They are not clothes for driving the garbage cans up the hill, or doing all those other practical things.  I don't think dreams need to be practical.

Where have I been?

Nowhere.  Here.

What have I been doing?

Everything.  Nothing.

Or at least that is how it seems to me.  I've been busy doing many things that all seem to be the perfect things to be doing at the time I am doing them, and yet I have nothing in particular to show for these things.  Not that having something to show is necessarily what life is about.  But still there are blogs, mine to write, others to read:  so much to say and see and do, and still life sits there either being lived or waiting to be lived.  I'm all for the living.

And so I am living it.  And for me that means I am doing a lot of things.  Planning various things that need done, I like schedules and charts and research.  I like lists.  I've been reading and knitting and cooking.  I've been cooking up a storm, making stock and cheese and just cooking the three meals a day that we seem to need to have on the table.  I suppose we always eat, and I always manage to get meals on the table but sometimes I cook more, experiment more, sometimes I just get meals on the table.  I have fun with this.  I can't imagine not doing it, just as I can't imagine not sewing.

Sewing.  That is what this blog is supposed to be about isn't it? Well yes.  And the distractions from sewing, the things sewing distracts me from.  

I've been working with my muslins, working on them a little here and there.  Don't think I have tons of muslins lined up and garments will just roll out, they will, but I'm not there quite yet.  I've been working a little bit but mostly I've just ben absorbing the process, working on things and wrapping my head around what they really mean.  And I have not been subjecting you to the small variations and details that I play with, but the results will eventually be apparent, or at least I hope they will.  They are already starting to show up in my knitting. 

I seem to have needed

 a long time to just flounder about, wondering what I wanted, wondering which shelf or box I had placed put my true "self" in when I got busy taking care of other things that were more important.  When those other things settled themselves down again, I found that I wasn't quite ready to put myself back together, or I was but I didn't remember how to do it.  And somehow I opened the right box and there I was.

Hello self.

I'm comfortable in my skin again.  It is not weight, although I am losing weight and am back at a weight where I feel more  comfortable with myself.  I'm growing my hair out again. I am exercising every day and that takes a big chunk of time. Somehow, amidst all this, I've rediscovered my old sense of style, rediscovered that I do have a sense of style, discovered that I don't have to look for it, struggle over it, fret and ponder.  It is just there.  Where did I lose that knowlede?  

I'm glad to have it back.  It is very calming. 

What I want now is a plan.  

I remember now:  I do love clothes.  But I want the clothes I want to wear.  And I want to sew the things I want to wear, not sew something just to sew something.  Some of the things I want to wear and sew are simple, some are not.  Some of the things I want to wear I will not sew.  That is OK too.  

And the days are just all too short.

Alexander McQueen

I was very sad yesterday to hear of the passing of Alexander McQueen.  Here is a link to an article in today's Wall Street Journal.  Wendy Brandes has links to more news coverage on her blog. 

Of course I didn't know the man, but I admired his creativity and talent.  His runway shows were inspiring, and his tailoring was beautiful.  I never bought a suit by McQueen because by the time he was making a name for himself I no longer needed suits, but I had thought that once I get my own personal reconfiguring settled, I could treat myself to one of his tailored pieces. 

 Alas, it shall not be.

I will however, wear one of my favorite sweaters, a little red McQueen number my sweetie gave me a couple of years ago to dinner tomorrow night.

New Vogues Have Arrived

I ordered the new Vogue patterns after the last sale and have been haunting the mailbox.  Is it just me or did they seem to be taking much longer than usual to ship them out?   I don't know, but fretting about it certainly kept me somewhat dithery.

 

As for my January goals, I actually did pretty well with those.  The goal was to get back into a routine and also to carve out some time that was my time alone to devote to solitary pursuits.  I am not exactly putting in an hour each day on everything but we have a system and a routine, and most importantly I am getting to the things I want to do.  I have not been in the sewing room every day, but I have put in about 6 hours a week the last two weeks and there will be things to show eventually.  I am mostly working on muslins now, and it gets a bit repetitious.  Besides I had abandoned several projects in varying stage of muslin-fitting and it has taken some time to recreate each process and figure out what I was doing before, and if it is worth continuing the project.  And frankly, I am perfectly happy with my progress even if that means that at this point I am more devoted to my gym time than my sewing time.  This too shall pass.

Unfortunately, this week has been absolutely devoid of sewing time.  Granted it is only Wednesday, so I do have time to make that up; and I did spend some time catching up with blogs and internet sites from which I had been absent.  I'm not trying to pull the plug on my internet activities, but I am trying to find some kind of balance between living my life in my life and following  all of your activities online.  Balance is difficult for me in a way.  I tend to bury myself in whatever I am doing and let all the rest slide, but I am trying to be more balanced and I think it is paying off.