Sew Distracted

An Accounting

Not surprisingly, I did not accomplish as much as I set out to in 2021.  And yet, I have surprised myself.  I made a few things.  I blogged sporadically.  I am still here and can't wait to spend even more time in my sewing room, studio, personal hideaway, or whatever I want to call it.

 

I only blogged about sheets and a few boring household things before my world got a bit upset and I couldn't manage blogging.  I also made a few pairs of casual pull-on pants and a simple boxy top or two, things to get me through the summer and through chemotherapy.  I didn't have the energy to blog, the making alone was enough, and alas all those things are now too large and have been donated, so there are no photos to share.

 

I did bring a stack of clothes up to the studio to altar and repair.  Two coats were included in that stack, one of which you saw in my last, mid-December, post.  That coat only needed buttons.  The other needs a bit more work but it is still a simple repair.  The weather has warmed a bit though, so there is no immediate rush.

The remainder of the alteration pile consists of summer clothes which have not been high on the priority list.  An exception was an off-white polyester-crepe blouse, which I took in so that I could wear it in Tucson over Christmas.  It was a simple alteration as there are no darts; I simply needed to take out a little extra volume at the side seams, under the arm and then restitch the armscye binding.  A bit tedious, but not difficult.  As you can see, I did not get the seam lined up perfectly neatly, but it is good enough.

 

Still, I did more sewing than I have done in years.   I started cataloging my inventory (again) and made great inroads.  I will finally finish unpacking the studio in 2022. And wonder of wonders, at least to me, although I bought some fabric in 2021, I actually used up more fabric than I purchased. I sewed 39.25 yards of fabric and I purchased 27 yards.  None of the fabric I purchased has yet been sewn, but still; I am content; this is still a major step forward.

 

I am looking forward to more adventures in the coming year.

 

 

 

Making My Own Path

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.

 

Practical things

Poncho and I spent a couple of hours in the sewing room Sunday afternoon, and it was a good, successful day.

I managed to fold, photograph, and catalog only a few pieces of fabric. More importantly however, I managed to set up a corner with good light where I could photograph said fabric with pretty good, and true-to color results.  This is something that had eluded me during the summer, so I am much happier about the process of cataloging now and better photographs will be a boon.

 

I also finished the last sheet, the fitted sheet I wrote about in my last post.  I did not successfully manage to photograph the process.  I am not a good enough photographer to show anything useful in terms of white-on-white photography.  But I am even happier with this sheet than I was with the first, mostly because I simply did a neater job, with nicely mitered and felled corners seams.  My hems and seams were also neater and more even.  Admittedly this is simply the benefit of increased practice, but I managed to vary my activity more, balancing sitting and standing, so I suffered less from back pain and the toll that takes on my patience.

 

Once upon a time I was meticulous about things being neat and beautiful, perhaps obsessively so, ripping and redoing and often tossing unsatisfactory projects. But time continues to remind me of the old adage that "perfect is the enemy of good", and I have been out of practice for far too long.  It is enough to have good, functional items, and to see improvement each time I am in the sewing room.

 

Besides it seems that that perfectionism, the process of not allowing oneself to make mistakes, is really all about self-criticism, and makes it more difficult to actually grow creatively and develop pride in workmanship for its own sake. 

 

I did elasticize the entire sheet this time around.  When I went to the store to buy thread I also bought elastic.  Running elastic through the entire seam on the bottom of the fitted sheet was a bit time consuming, but it was time spent pleasantly in front of the television.  Stretching and sewing the elastic to the sheet would have been, perhaps, more annoying, at least to me.  Perhaps there is yet a third option.  I would think the easiest would be to thread the elastic simply through channels in the corners, rather than stitching it down as I did on the first sheet.  Hopefully it will be a few years before I test that theory.

 

It will be interesting to note any differences between the two sheets over time.  Will elastic and elastic placement affect long-term performance?  How will the quality of the fabric affect performance since the sheets are noticeably different?  These are exactly the kind of questions my nerdier side enjoys.  I cannot replace either piece of fabric, but the knowledge gained will still play a role in my understanding of fabrics overall, and future choices, whenever they may occur.  

 

I do love sleeping on my new linen sheets.  I love the crispness, and even the weight of them.  Yes, the feel of these sheets is a bit coarser or more rustic than my previous linen sheets, but I find that bothers me less as I get used to them. And there is something incredibly delicious about being ensconced in a bed that feels sensuous to the touch as well as warm (or cool) and comforting.

 

I still need to make pillowcases.  But that will require washing another piece of linen. The pillowcases will be smoother than the sheets simply because the only white linen I have on hand is either a damask or double damask.  I need to do some math to check how much yardage I need, and if either will work, I will simply chose the one that feels the most delicious next to my face. Since pillowcases are smaller, I may be able to manage photos.

I finished up my sewing afternoon by making some washcloths on strings, something like the loofa or back scrubbers you can buy various places. Most of the ones I have found have been too fancy, too big, too rough, or they don't hold up to heavy washing.  The washcloth portion is only 18" wide on mine, but that is enough since I move them back and forth anyway, and the handles are longer than most of the commercially available versions I have found.  In short they work for me.  

 

I keep a supply of basic, inexpensive, white towels in the house in various sizes for cleaning and odd jobs.  They are always white so they can be bleached.  I cut up one 18" wide towel to make four cloths and rather than cord, which I find problematic in that it seems to mildew faster,  I used a white cotton tape I had gotten at JoAnn fabrics during the last sale. I am just guessing that 4 is the right number for use between wash loads.  Since I tend to use cloth towels rather than paper towels as much as possible, there tends to be more than one load of towels each week.  Anyway, it is easy enough to make more.  I think it took less than half an hour to whip up these four, less time than it would take me to drive to Target, which is pretty close, and buy anything.

 

 

Oops. Mail Redux

This fabric arrived before the book.

I was sure I had posted it.  I remember reading my post.  Apparently I did not save it though and I can no longer recreate it.

A selection of cottons. The top piece, the peachy one with the gingko leaves was ostensibly the reason for the order.  I had ordered a small piece, about a yard, for an apron but when it arrived I immediately envisioned it as something else.  

Since I also happened to notice that my cotton print drawer was looking kind of sparsly populated, I took the opportunity to purchase a few other things I thought were pretty.  There are no specific projects in mind for these other fabrics.....yet.

Welcoming March

Although there was a distinct lack of sewing in February, which was never my actual plan, I have to admit that it was generally a good month, despite continued cold dreary icy weather, lack of sunshine, and 10 days of sickness. 

Early in the month I dubbed it "distraction elimination month" meaning that I set myself a goal of clearing up as much of the backlog of household purging, remodeling, and maintenance projects were weighing heavily on me.  I knew that I was incapable of really settling down to sewing when mounds of projects were right outside the sewing room door and the weight of those accumulated projects had really started to overwhelm.

Although I am not starting March with a clean slate, the remaining projects are really small additions to routine maintenance.    Without all these mountains of projects surrounding me, I can see no excuse for staying out of the sewing room.

As often happens when my sewing is more virtual than actual, I have been fabric shopping.  I purchased some things from Ann over at Gorgeous Fabrics  and then, after they arrived and I indexed them and put them away, I found the perfect dress for one of the fabrics, a dress for which I had not purchased enough fabric, so I had to go back and buy more of this beautiful green silk chiffon:

Despite my best intentions, I cannot buy just one piece of fabric, it just seems like a waste of shipping dollars, but I am sure that it just pure rationalization on my part. 

Like Marji  I was inspired by Gigi's photo of the draped pink cotton  but I managed to avoid clicking on the link to Gorgeous Fabrics until I realized that I definitely needed more chiffon.  Dreaming about green chiffon two nights in a row is a strong indication of "need" in my book, and once I was on the site I could not resist this lovely purple cotton or the pink one either.

Spring seems to be nowhere near to arriving around here. I still have a couple of feet of snow on the ground so these might rest on the shelf a little longer, but they will be there, in sight, taunting me and reminding me that spring will indeed arrive.

Meanwhile, I have another sweater almost finished, a new one to start, and a skirt waiting to be cut out. 

Amaranth Purple

There was a package for me at the post office today and I was surprised to see it was from Timmel Fabrics , not because I didn't order something, but because I hadn't expected it so quickly.  I couldn't wait to get home and open it, and in fact I was opening it almost immediately after walking in the door.  Poor DH wanted me to do something, saw I was opening the package, saw it was fabric, and said "that puts me in my place".  Oh well.

Here is what I got:

It is a wonderful purple cotton lycra jersey.  When I saw it on the website, and noted the pantone # (yummy, 19-3526, my favorite shade of purple) I knew it was exactly what I wanted to knock off the Anthropologie "If You Please" dress.

Julie did tell me it was back-ordered and would be a week or so before it came in.  All I can say is that week passed very quickly and I haven't even ordered the pattern yet. 

More shopping for me.  (I'm not complaining).