Dearest Needleworking Friends!
the ACTUAL colour of the tweed, which my camera epic-fails to interpret
I missed the usual posting on Needlework Monday last: it felt good to let things unfold in a non-rigid way this week, even if I do like to make a ritual of Monday’s writing, photographing, posting. It feels more important than ever now, to listen to the subtle ripples of what is unfolding… and work with it, rather than pushing past the signs that we should s l o o o o o o oo ow d o o oo o o o o w n
After the last project I finished – the Mustard Vintage-Blanket Coat, which was picked up by an ecstatic new owner on Saturday!! – I’ve committed to taking less time in labouring heavily on garments like this!
However, needs must, and I also seem to be in-love with the #slowfashion path; I resigned happily to sewing a very hard-to-sew fabric AGAIN – long, long stretches of sometimes-painful stitches: pushing and pulling the needle effortfully through layers of wool and synthetic… to get to this almost-complete hybrid tweed and down coat (the down part is from the coat that I melted a great hole in, by drying it too close to the wood-burning stove, last winter).
I made some progress on this coat, having baeen able to at least get the lower ‘skirt’ attached to the upper bodice, and adding a thick elastic waistband to the sides and back of it. It feels very good to see the actual shape of it that I sensed might appear, when I first got the idea for this coat…
But I also wanted to begin several other pieces – smaller and easier-to-fit-in-my-sewing-machine ones – so that I can make more consistent finished garments. Because I’ve also been mulling also over the proposition of a friend of mine, who is opening her gallery to a group expo again in May: the last time I showed paintings, and this time she suggested that I exhibit my McMA clothing line.
This kind of collaboration is soooo soosososo welcome. I have been somewhat elbowed out of the community here, after spending many years as a core activist for rejuvenation and transformation of the formerly-abandoned old town.
our beautiful chaotic kitchen table, complete with breakfast - and powerbank that provides all of our electrical needs in The Arthouse
For a multitude of reasons, I took a backseat from the dramas of expats house hunting/ renovating/ intehrating, but also, with lockdown and jibjabbery-pokery, collective psychoses and virtue signalling around medicalisation-of-life, my previously-vibrant interconnections in town have waned, atrophied, and in places been completely severed. This is part of what has led to my health challenges lately: feeling cut out out of the fabric of the collective, and the sense of not being able to sustain myself/ ourselves within a community that should be interdependent – that I was more interdependent with previously....
Being alone as a deeply intuitive creator is not the worst thing- in fact, I’ve often complained about being interrupted by folks when I’m trying to focus! And over the years I‘ve cultivated a kind of Zero Tolerance approach to being intruded upon without a well-communicated appointment! However, when one is really in need of collective holding, nourishing, union and commercial interaction, it is very hard to just push through, and even pleasureable activities like sewing have at times taken on an air of too-much solitude, silence and isolation.
Selling the cappotto last week to my good friend from Caserta however, these harsh feelings shifted significantly: I got super-re-inspired about how to actually holistically embark on new projects, how to organise the workspace and the workday.
the dress that I cut the bottom off of, so as to make the long strip covering the waistband elastic, inside the hybrid coat
Blessedly, I also have my soulman and the most perfect of friends and company by my side at all times, and this even helps enormously with my needlework progress: he is genuine and enthusiastic about everything that I create, and this allows me consistent company and feedback. Which is a more than adequate replacement for the social web that I miss locally!
another project; Michael angel's wool coat: repairing poppers and moth holes - can't show you the specific repairs, because they are so invisible! 😇🥰
So onwards and upwards – into new colour-full garments and possibilities – even reconnecting with the community here by presenting them with clothing made magical again...
It is very beautiful to work by the sound of birdsong this morning… And as 
