First things first: my 'sweatercoat' is finished! If 
and I get the chance, we'll do a nice photoshoot in Guardia - we're just prepping to head there now, to show the Arthouse to a Dutch woman who may buy it!
So this week feels like it is beginning very positively! It is also super sunny, the bees are dancing around my feet in the long grass, as I type this... and I/ we've been able to get some (more) serious washing done. The latter especially necessary, as I discovered horrible water damage in my favourite materials boxes😭🤯😓
Initially, having a hard cry about it all, I was feeling like the Universe was telling me not to sew...! The overwhelm was real! It took at least 3 days to move boxes, sift through the worst-damaged, dry the bedraggled fabrics and clothes, and then reorganise them.
The reorganising is still in progress, because moving any one large thing in our makeshift house here on our land, means moving almost everything. Drawers had to be emptied, furniture swapped, floors cleared and cleaned, boxes exchanged with bags, shelves constructed....
And in the end, it was a vast improvement for my sewing life!
This, and the sewing table is on its way to being installed: hallelujah!! This is another huge movement forward in life and work, and we're making steady progress towards a free and flourishing creative life!
Which reminds me how important it is that we make sacrifice for our dreams. All great visions require the letting-go of previously-held beliefs, comforts, even resources.... stuff. The old has to make way for the new.
In the end there was much less damage than I expected; a lot of the fabrics were simply (recently) wet from our leaking roof, and they only needed to be rinsed and dried. Others have mould spots, watermarks, or streaks of dye and suchlike from the cardboard boxes they were in. Urgh: I'd assumed that boxes would allow more air to flow around them, so am now back to plastic crates from the fruit & vegetable shop.
But the most blessed thing about this debacle, is that I got to sort through my fabrics - a vital reinspiring activity. The box of velvets that I uncovered gave me an instant call-to-make, which wouldn't have happened otherwise, and I began a new bag project! 🥰
These velvet items have been sitting for many, many moons as I was fixed on a slightly impractical idea to turn the pink, purple & blue (über skinny) trousers into a pair of wide kecks, with a contrasting-but-very-similar brown and rust velvet skirt (below).
There wasn't enough fabric to make these new pantaloons easily, though... but a bag idea formed quickly this week, and I took the raw materials to my sewing circle meetup, and got stuck in. 😍
It ended up being a good start on the new bag: I cut the inner skirt out of the above miniskirt, sewed up various of its pleats, and added a wide strip of the brown skirt material to the bottom of it.
This is in progress now, so I'll update very soon about it - amidst travelling back to Guardia, working on a painting commission, prepping the Arthouse for an important viewing - and washing myriad items which may or may not be salvagable from the damp! Sewing a funky bag will be a most welcome respite!
May your sewing week be blessed with great learning and growth!
With love and Tante Belle Cose from Clare.
