Do you ever feel like you keep learning the same lessons over and over? Each time, every time, you think "duh!" Or you say to yourself, "I've got it now"! You know in your heart of hearts that you will remember this lesson and life will get better, but then, once again you forget. Or you know but you don't know, meaning you fail to extrapolate from one situation to similar ones.
Duh!
No, I did not make any mistakes, I did not make any foolish, rushed, and/or silly errors. In fact studio time was happy time this week.
I pressed the linen for the pillowcases. I cut pillowcases. I only had enough for three, rather than four, so there will be more pillowcase making in the future. Luckily I still have two white linen pillowcases in use. They are over ten years old, and until recently, they were used every night I was home, so I don't expect them to hold up for another ten years. But the problem wasn't really that I miscalculated, it was that I started with erroneous assumptions.
I thought about pillowcases, I really did. I knew I was not going to make a traditional standard-sized pillowcase, as I tend to toss and turn and squish my pillow during the night. I hate it when the pillow starts to come out of the pillowcase. I also hate double casing pillows to avoid that problem.
I thought about shams with buttons in the back. But again, I find buttoning and unbuttoning pillow cases on laundry day to be incredibly annoying. Then I thought about making envelope-style pillowcases, you know the kind where there is an opening and an overlap in the back, and you load the pillow from the middle. But I find those annoying as well.
In the end, I opted for sewing extra-long pillowcases, pillowcases that are closer to the size of king-sized pillow cases, although my pillows are only standard or queen sized. Why? Because I like the way folding the excess fabric inside the pillowcase makes a neat little bundle that retains its shape no matter how much tossing, turning, or pillow punching occurs during the night. Also I do not mind stuffing the extra length down into the pillow case to make that neat package. I am happier stuffing my hands down into the pillowcase to make a neat fold than I am buttoning and unbuttoning, or stuffing a pillow from the middle. Pillows encased in this manner are easy to fluff and straighten each morning when I make the bed. They make me happy and are therefore worth every inch of extra fabric.
Decision made, I proceeded, alternating marking and cutting pillowcases with photographing and cataloging fabric, spacing out my time and balancing standing time with sitting time. I serged the first pillowcase. The only reason I did not finish was that I forgot the white thread was back in the house, where I had been using it to mend a few items. There was still some mending to be done so I decided to finish the pillowcase another day.
In the evening I spent a happy hour hand sewing, mending an edge where some soft cashmere had begun to fray. I was reminded how much I love hand-sewing, and how calming it is to me. I would rather sew a narrow hem by hand than by machine. This surprises me because when I was younger I hated hand sewing and wanted everything to be done fast. Perhaps it is time to let go of that image of myself and accept who I am now and how that affects the way I want to work.
I keep telling myself that I don't want to make things in a hurry, that I don't want to work pressed up to a deadline. And yet I continue to put myself in that position. There is no need. I need little. I am fortunate enough that I could buy what I needed if I chose to do so. There is no reason to make myself rush. I can putter and sew, I can putter while I sew. I can set up my embroidery or needlepoint station in a corner of the studio so that when my back is tired of standing, or I've hit a wall for whatever reason, I can sit and stitch and self-soothe.
Why didn't I think of this before? I suppose I simply wasn't ready. I felt like there was a battle between my need to make things, and my competing need to have less not more. But this tension was based on erroneous assumptions. It is not about making more just to have or make more, but about the process, about the making, about who I am in when I am puttering about in my creative place. I suppose I always struggled with this dichotomy. I always strived to be a person who got things done, and yet deep inside I just want to get lost in the doing.
