Dearest Friends Who Love Needlework!

This week has been PACKED and I'm aware that sometimes things develop more and more intensely the more we get into summer; heat, socialising and co-creating all accelerate exponentially. I've been sweating my way around fixing up the Arthouse for a house tour yesterday, and got a lot of good exposure for my clothing - and the house for sale. It feels VERY good to have a house much neater, cleaner and harmonious, and I'm JUST getting back into my focus on sewing - feeling into what I want to make next.

I wanted also to finish up writing and sharing about this stripey dress: I don't see myself wearing it - or anyone else really! It's pretty weird! BUT I kind of love how out-there it is! And the process of creating it brought such a new vein of inspiration, that it made me think of how vital experimentation is... Even a lumpy stripey floppy dress can bring a great flow of new ideas and energetic release forwards.

This garment began as four contrasting stripey items - I had more, but as much as I ADORE the thick-striped pink and white sheet, it was a painting sheet and a bit too painted on. The remaining items were; a batwing yellow ugly-shirt, a funny dark-green football-referee-like long-sleeved blouse, a red and white stripey blouse and a scrap length from a blue (thinner stripes) sheet.

I had a strong urge to play with these mixed stripes, and to make a kind of layered dress - to let it all come together easily and organically, and to just accentuate here and there with a contrasting frill. I really loved the primary colours, and had a sense of the dress forming itself from the green stripey blouse downwards - in tiers.

So I chopped off the sleeves of the green blouse, and it instantly took the shape I wanted. It was relatively easy also, to make the three main tiers and sew them together - they mostly needed minimal ruching. The more complicated part was the thin yellow strip of ruffle which went around the waist at a particular angle - lower at the front and higher at the back. I'd wanted to make something of this sort of construct, for a while.

It all came together intuitively (as usual) and without to much wrestling - but it isn't as elegant and neat as I dreamed it'd be! It is however a very fun and refreshing dress, which I may even end up performing in or selling to my friends in theatre. It DID however free up something groovy inside of me, where I got closer to the feeling that I want to make in clothing, even if I didn't nail it.

This felt like a great symbol of how we move forward in true creative mastery: we have to make crappy things! Not intentionally useless or less-beautiful stuff BUT things that are not necessarily for a specific goal - apart from our own growth. As I know from my long painting career, the process is MUCH MORE potent and important than the destination - or the individual artwork. Similarly, I feel this sense of not being too precious about every item I make, as this can really slow down the energy - creating a kind of stagnant pond, or bringing a contrivedness into one's practise.

Ultimately, I am trying to get to Flow. Nothing should be clung onto or worried over too much, if it is getting in the way of Flow. The Flow that I have been immersed in for so many years as an artist, feels like a deep knowing-connectedness-alignment-harmony-vitality. It is clear, in this state of Flow, that we are One with each other, with the world, and with the cosmos and whatever divine intelligence powers it.

So I never want to get stuck in the details, the stops on the journey, or the things I am 'not doing perfect'!

It is very good to talk about this, to write it out and to let it go. The dress otherwise might have really got to me this week! I certainly slowed down my sewing rhythm, though that was partly because of the huge job of having to put the house in order, and definitely heard a wee repetitive niggle in my head about 'you can't do this'/ 'you're only ever going to make crap lumpy clothing that no-one will wear'! Yikes, I let that be spoken out in my mind, thanked whoever had put that in there, and moved on.

I have a much clearer space to work in now, so no excuses! Hehe! I have laid out some ideas for the next garments - one beautiful funky green flowery vintage blanket for an elegant coat, and one vintage-y German Jesus-blessing sort of tablecloth which I want to make a dress from. Really exciting to have sort of images in my mind and heart about the new pieces: let's see if I an keep up this momentum and get stuck into new 'undesigns' :-D

Much love to you all in your worklifelove this week - looking forward to see what you'll all be creating!

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