scroll down to see progress on this new red coat

Dearest Needleworkers and Hive Friends!

I’m sitting in the back of my new atelier workroom (the old chapel bedroom), and looking around at the tons of fabrics, colours, textures, possibilities…. Excitement mounting and swirling around my mind and heart. Having the ‘new’ space is liberating, after having worked between rooms, and between piles of clothing, which I’ve been accumulating for the past few years. Trips to the 50c stall in Telese Terme, donations from friends and neighbours, items that have been rejected from our own wardrobes. I am overwhelmed, but super-inspired to be beginning a new phase in which I actually have the Right space, and in which I can work with a certain intense focus on the great abundance that I’ve collected – and to make these interesting-but-not-yet-magical clothing pieces….. into fascinating, funky, comfy and enduring new garments.

the new bamboo clothing ladder!

It is amazing to me, every time, how wrong everything can feel, just before it gets wonderfully Right: my neuoroses had been slowing my work pace, and standing like a great wall between my ideas and their implimentation. And the chaos of the house didn’t seem to get fixed since we came back from Portugal; piles of clothing, unsorted (even if they are washed and clean), towering from the corners out into the rooms – a confusing mishmash of stuff that is ours, stuff that needs washed, stuff that might be used for sewing, stuff which is not so inspiring, special materials that need to be kept with attention, etc, etc, etc, etc. It just kept piling up.

I couldn’t even think about how to take it apart and put it back together again in a better fashion. It was even getting less inspiring, as I was starting to wonder if this is a hoarding habit - more than it being a phase of my creative process!

the last of the garments which need to be taken through to the new atelier

It actually took a bit of an insomnia crisis with my Beloved Hive account@vincentnijman before the solution presented itself: we decided to change the bedroom, and to move all of my sewing things from around the house – into one space. Phew…

all kinds of new ideas catching my eye, as I move things around: soooo good to see all the riches!!!!

No small job! But a long day’s hard, hard work and the dismantling of our massive bed, the boxes, bags, railings and hangers, tables and sewing machines, and so on - becoming more and more familiar with every item, as they move – and we had a much better night’s sleep in the sunnier room; the one with the epic panorama. The atelier is now in the cosier and less-distracting room, and though there is less space with more stuff than neatly fits into it, it is perfetto to have a dedicated room, where before there were too many aspects spread out too far.

one of my favourite piles: tartan!

It’s surprising (in the end!) how simple it is to really claim the space, the time and attention, for one’s craft: one simply takes it, occupies it, uses it. But the procrastination, or the neurotic distractedness, can take presidence, and we can witter away hours, days, weeks, years even, before we move glacially into the right lane for our passion to become our daily practise.

I’ve been very frustrated with myself around this. It has seemed impossible to get out of the buzzing everyday foutering and time-wasting – even if we have been revelling in our Love, in the moves to and from Portugal, in settling, in harmonising and maintaining the house, in making plans and even going on a few trips to see new places… It has seemed like the everyday just races by, and grounding the vision of our creativity has required some superhuman intervention!!

At least the insomnia (unpleasant as it was) brought treasure to us: we now have the most luxurious sleeping space, and the rest of the house is kind of obvious. Once we got the bedroom, kitchen and sewing atelier working, we started to chat about all kinds of other aspects of the house that need resolving; moving the woodstove, as the medieval chimney – added on after the first phase of the house construction – is misbehaving quite extremely at times, and we really need hot water for bathing!

But in the meantime, it’s a whole new world for me in my sewing room. I am happy to just sit here and muse on what I can see around me. And I’m finding all kinds of treasure as I move more boxes and bags through here. It’ll take a while to really relax into the space and to put it all in some semblance of order that will allow me to easily grasp what I need. But I feel it more than I felt it before: I feel the ambition that I had when I first considered changing my career from painting to sewing; it feels natural and vibrant, a want to create with cloth that is thrumming in my hands and imagination – I feel energy waking up in me, that wants to express through these soft materials and colours, and to revel in the pure pleasure of textile.