Dearest Needleworkers!
I am overjoyed to have my sewing space set up properly: the first time in my life (I just had my 50th birth day anniversary!) that I have a dedicated sewing room, and it is FULL of completed, half-created and potential new projects! Above are the multiple garments that I created in the past couple of years...
Starting with the two 'sweatercoats' or Woolly Jumper Coats if I translate it into Scottish English... These were made inspired by Katwise O'Sullivan's incredible creations, using old felted woolly jumpers, cut up and reconstructed into fabulous-shaped winter garments.
They have been a delight to wear out and about in Guardia Sanframondi - especially in the medieval quarter, where the contrast of bright colours is set off particularly nicely by the stone streets and organic buildings. It is a wonderful photoshoot location for woolly coats!
The current unfinished project of a dress with an old pair of trousers inserted in the sides: I cannot believe that I did one trouser leg the 'wrong' way up, so it has a top hem as the bottom of the leg, instead of the lovely deeper hem that I invisioned when I put the first leg in! Pah! However, it might still just work - I will complete it this week, for sure.
Then left to right, from the top picture of all the garments: this is the black-and-white apron-dress I made earlier this year. I have worn it very little, as I am quite shy about really showing up in all my glory here; I imagine myself wearing this more, when I move to a more rural location. It is a real dairymaid kind of a dress, to me - it will be perfect for inside-outside work, sacred pottering-about in the kitchen and the garden nearest the house...
My orange items! Here you can see also the metal chain that I nailed up, to act as a hanging rail: it works VERY well. The two to the right are from the same big orange silk skirt, and were worn out during the wine festival - to much interest from folks. Hehe! The wee jacket to the left is not so much made by me, but features these pockets made from a small bag taken apart and then sewn in as pockets.
My two red dresses: I am so proud of these, and looking forward to wearing them again in the winter. I really appreciate this review of my clothes - as well as writing about them and sharing them here - as it helps me to recognise how much work I have accumulated, and to keep both my momentum and my confidence up in what I'm doing. Leaving my Art behind is an enormous life change, and it isn't as simple - emotionally and psychologically - as just putting away my easel and paints and picking up needles and fabric...
Though I adore sewing, and making clothing, it has been effortful in places to adjust to a completely new way of working each day!
These are some tarten items which I drastically renovated - both of them in wool and quite vintage - and both with major changing-of-size adjustments.
The rooms needed A SHEDLOAD of work to get them into sufficient order that I could actually begin working again.
And my blessed jeans coat from our #needleworkyourjeans challenge! It sits here pride of place next to my blue dress: maybe I'll wear them soon, now our autumn is coming. For the past months it has been mostly just underwear (or birthday suit!) at home, and the smallest dresses vests shorts out and about... But soon we will be able to wear a greater variety of clothing!
Like a hat, which I made for the summer, but it's actually a bit heavier than I realised, and will be better for the cooler days.
So alongside my setting up the new sewing room, I've been harvesting materials rather enthusiastically! Many friends have gifted beautiful fabrics, blankets, old nighties and suchlike, and they compliment very well my splashing out at the 50c stall in Telese Terme Saturday market. Above are a ton of cotton items: vintage - acutally probably antique cotton, and some other piles of things that I haven't figured out how to store well, yet!
And these glorious blankets from a dear friend who has decided to sell her house here in Guardia... I have winter coat ideas for them, and am rather excited!
And my drawers: my threads I ordered into colour harmony, which helps a lot when I'm looking for a particular one.
These great wee drawers were an investment when I first moved in with Sergio, to try and bring some of my sewing bits into order: now I need much bigger drawers! But some smaller items fit nicely into this wee furniture - like the elastic pieces that I have collected over the years: mostly from my gran's, mum's and aunt's sewing collections.
Some of my bits and pieces were terribly higgled-piggledy and it was hard to either know what I had, or to find anything useful if I needed it. It is a wonderful process to take a sewing room apart every now and again, so as to review what we have and to make sure we're making use of all our fabulous resources!
My ribbon collection is still quite small, but at least it's all in the one place now! I still have to sort out lace and lace-like scraps, but this is a great start to the improvement of their organisation. Before, it was a bit of ribbon in one bag, another bit in a box, and some scraps of ribbon in the back of a tangled drawer: it feels very good karma and feng shui to untangle things!
I even have a wee note on each drawer of this bigger chest, to explain what it in there; this is my 'special materials' drawer, and I also have one for 'underwear related' and 'zips, attachments, etc' - again, it is a very positive process to accumulate all the types of e.g. zips, scraps, same-kinds-of-specific-materials and so on, and to get them into order - so it actually feels like a workshop rather than just a messy set of bags in the corner of a room under a sewing machine.
