This time I had to realize that sometimes it is more about the learning process, then to end with a finished product… or the project that made me question what my Hive blog should be all about?
I was hesitating to share this recent sewing project with you, because I wasn’t satisfied with the result. But I made up my mind and that’s why I am here now sharing with you my latest work, that I started and probably won’t finish. But even if there was quite a bit of despair involved, I did learn a lot in this process, and I think sharing that with you is worth the article, even though I don’t have a proper result to share.
I was hesitating to share the project with you, because I failed in the sense of not being able to finish with a piece of clothing that would be wearable. I didn’t fail regarding what I learned, about my patience about my workflow and ways of dealing with problems and failure. And in the end, it also made me question what it is that I want my hive blog to be about... (so, there is actually a lot of things that came out of that project, just not the expected)
Well so far what I shared with you, where projects I started and I finished, and where I was happy with the outcome. But this is only half of what goes on behind the scenes... I do have a lot of never started Ideas in my sketchbook, plenty of unfinished projects in suitcases, a bunch of materials I adore and still try to figure out how to acknowledge them best, the things I learn with every steps and new techniques I get into, the ideas in my head I never put on paper…
All of that is part of my working process, part of expressing my creativity and my resonation (and not just the finished “end-product”) so why should I not talk about those aspects of my artistic work?
After going through those thoughts, I came up with my own answer to it. Which is, that I do not want to pressure myself to have to come up with a finished product every time, but that my Hive Blog can be a lot more than that, it could be my actual sketchbook. A place where I can share the process, the Ideas, the failures, the stories behind the objects I am creating and those I am working with and within that still share the finished things I am proud of as they came out. I can actually be more honest about my work in the sense of showing different aspects of it and telling the whole process it takes me to get there. And I am very excited to see this Blog in such a different way now, since I really appreciated all the interactions and inspiring feedbacks and discussions, I got so far with you guys I think it is very well worth it to open up a step further and also talk about further aspects of my work and my ideas.
So welcome again and back:) to my new way of calling this blog my sketchbook the sum of my thoughts and inspirations that I love to share with you and get into conversation about with you.
Now let me start getting into the process of failing a dress and learning about my workflow.
All of what I just wrote about I did not know nor expect, when I found a dress (or pieces of it), I started sewing last summer.
I remember that I was telling myself to make a simple dress that would take the least effort to wear it as it would take to make it (lol so there I am one year later).
It should have become a long dress with lots of fabric to float in the wind and keep a fresh breeze around your legs in the warm days. The back should be completely open. That’s what I remembered. What I couldn’t recall was what the measurements of those fabric pieces, where about. What was supposed to be where and how much was just addition (for the finishings or for me to have supplement fabric to have space for fuckups)
Since I didn’t know I thought it would be better not to stick to the old Idea but create something new out of those left-behind sewing pieces. (little did I know where that would bring me)
At that stage I remembered a dress I saw once that I wanted to reproduce. Some sort of cut out long dress, with stripes and strings holding things together. All in all, a long dress covering up to the ancles up at the same time showing parts of skin on the sides, the legs, the back.
Usually, I do not use the internet for inspiration, here I did, some proper research actually. Looking up different dresses in the stile I was imagining and then I even made a sketch about it. (That was a moment when I loved the project, I felt super prepared and really figured out how much I enjoyed putting more effort in researching the design, instead of going for my initial Idea straight away. Later I doubted the use of Internet though, I think it leaves me with too many impressions, adding up to all the thousands of ideas in my head...))
Another thing I fell for, as I realized afterwards, was that I just started to cut the fabric pretty much by no calculations but by pure intuition. Which work sometimes, but maybe I created too much of a gap between my detailed research and sketching and then just work on with my intuition instead of following the plan.
At that stage I was still in the beginnings, still really excited about how amazing I thought this could turn out.
Choosing fabrics that would fit into the color theme I wanted to go for. (I wanted this to become a summer countryside dress to walk over fields, buying bread or milk being all covered and comfortable but sexy at the same time. Casually and easy wearable but dressed up at the same time.)
(making linen strips for the edges)
I spent a lot of dedication on making everything look clean from any side you would turn it on, finishing all the edges really nice and proper.
(...and what it feels like to have to open it all again because I had to shorten the top)
So-on I made all the strips that should connect the different parts of the dress.
The bottom part was a disaster, I realized I didn’t have enough fabric. And that’s where I started to fix one problem that left me with the next one.
(I tried to cut out some parts and replace it with that lace, looked beautiful so far)
(even with all my worktop I got attracted by the floor again..haha)
(how is this supposed to work? and loosing my focus..)
Already at that stage you can tell how I switched between being to organized of myself and going completely random and overconfident almost at the same time.
(trying to find some solutions, again)
Overall, I never lost my intention and will to keep those edges clean, a dedication I was positively surprised of.
After almost a week of work (I still had other things to do as well, as much as I would like to spend all my time in front of a sewing machine lol) I gave up. It wasn’t a bad resignation though I just felt that I didn’t have to drag this on any further, and that this was fine.
I learned, that I can’t force things, since I did put in the dedication, that it doesn’t resonate with me to fix problems caused by badly fixing others. That I can also gain something “just” from the working process without having a result to show. And it made me question (as I mentioned before) what it actually is that I want to share with you in this blog. Where I am very happy about all those thoughts and emotions this project brought me through.
Since I still have some stubbornness left about having some sort of clothing to present, I thought of just using the top by itself as a crop top and not a dress... that’s what you get to see here and the glimpse of the dress, how it could have been.
And the top...
Now the whole project went back into a bag though, maybe I’ll try again next summer hahah
Well If you managed to get through all those thoughts and expressions I had to share this time (ended up to be a really long post oups) I thank you even more to stop by once again. I really appreciate you lovely feedbacks, comments and the exchange! See you around and have a good time until then!
