Dearest Needleworking Enthusiasts and Sewing Friends!
This has been another full-immersion week in the sewing room, and has brought with it several beautiful moments of feeling very aligned with my vision and dreams...
I tidied the sewing (area of) the room much more, gained a sack-load of new fabrics, and almost-completed a couple of items; lots of small jobs which were extremely satisfying - like sewing a zip into my gran's pencil case, which I've had since I was a child when it was already vintage.
The pencil case was sitting in a bag of lingerie which I also took some items out of to help with other jobs... There was a suitable grey-brown metal zip in my collection, which was an even better suited one than the previous plasticky invisible one!
I had left the job for a long time, because I thought it actually wouldn't be possible. When I looked at it, taking some time to clean inside and around the seams, it was clear that there was a strip of fabric that a new zip could be attached to, so I immediately (after only 40 yrs or so!) got on with it. What a glorious achievement, getting the case ready to use again after sooo long.
It is one of the few items that has travelled with me around the world and stayed all this time, and it is what I wanted to use as my outside sewing case. It is perfect for a set of needles, some threads, stitch-unpicker and scissors. It makes me happy, next to my pink leather bag, when I sit in the coffee shop and sew.
the bare materials: an off-cut from the silk skirt I made two dresses from, and a table mat with appliqué that I ADORE on it
Another project I got into this week is my new bra-lette or "summer top"; it is not really one or the other, and I love this space of creating things that I need and love, but which do not have to conform to conventional labels or structures!
It helps when I have free rein/ reign, and can let whatever wants to come into being to flow...
With underwear(ish type things!), this is particularly pertinent: conventional underwear has never pleased me and usually it has caused my body to complain.
I love looking at better ways of draping and protecting my intimate parts but without having things dig into my skin and lymphatic system... I have thought such a lot about WHY conventional underwears are so profoundly unsuitable for the job, and it's a complex weave of multiple influences - from economics and using the cheapest materials and shapes, to patriarchal ideas about how women should look (rather than feel!), to women having compartmentalised perceptions of their bodies through the societal and medical projections onto them... and a lot more.
Taking all that away and looking purely at the function and beauty of wearing precious undergarments... this is an act of divine revolution back into the sacred feminine!
I am almost finished this special project, and am taking an extra long time about each step: it needs much rumination about precisely how it should sit, how the straps should attach at the back, how and what it should close with, and how easily it will be taken off and put onto the body.
I like very much taking a longer time than would be expected, on such aspects. I think elementally: allowing the vision-feeling-skills to weave together harmoniously, so that the right solution can present itself through the doing. Domestic alchemy.
The more I get into my muse and my flow, the easier it is and the more joy-full it is to go to the market and pick out what I love; to know quickly and efficiently what fabrics will be useful - to feel into the possibility and then discern whether there is sufficiently exciting potential in a garment...
I take a lot longer than most other folks at the now-wildly-popular 50c stall! Some women there have quite lax etiquette about circumnavigating the huge long table: there is some huffing and puffing and muttering, elbows and pushing past in frustration.
The rush to get to what we want and love seems a tad perverse! There is no scarcity of clothing on the stall, and each of us can gravitate in good time to our size, our pleasure, our right moment for this piece.
I try to avoid the worst offenders, and will move to the other side of the stall if there's a more open space: I am not comfortable with others pressing into my space - especially if they are aggitated.
I love to -invece - to slowly lift every item and look at it all around, tune into its form, colour, texture, and immerse myself in what it could be: what it can be paired with, how it can be deconstructed and remade, what closures can be take off of it or added to it, how it can be frankensteined into an ambitious project or two....
sewing at the coffee shop 😍
I really get into my imaginal realm at the market and I try to position myself next to someone with a similar pace or piu dolce approach - and often exchange encouragement, advice and general happy-enthusiastic chiacchiera with the next woman.
SO I had a ton if inspiration this week: I'm honing more into ideas for pieces that might eventually be sale-able, and not just for my own enjoyment!
It is really lovely to think about how things might go out into the world, and I'm already chatting with co-creative friends about how I can return to mainstream SOLELY focussed on my clothing - so as not to get censored again.
I've had some fab conversations with friends this week around how conventional social media can be used just for specific areas of life (rather than trying to get across a panoramic perspective or to express oneself fully!) - and I could use that visibility to help lift my work upwards and begin a new phase of connectedness, and even to earn more in order to invest more in my creative endeavours.
A lot of new (and old) ways seem to be opening up right now, all aligned and ripe and calling to be connected.... It is a fascinatingly, tantilisingly potentialising time!
I hope that your sewing work and whatever you are creating this week is going well...
