in chronological order... starting with the great buttons on this old tunic, which I'm transforming into a longer, wider, dress
Dearest Needleworking Community and Hive Friends,
This week has (again?!) been altogether rather chaotic, emotional and distracting....
... and I love it!
Creative chaos is something ( @vincentnijman and) I lean into; it is the lifeblood of our crafting, and one of the mottos of our very surthrival. If things are too orderly around us, we get to making it just a wee bit disorderly, so as we can glean inspiration out of the spontaneous and the unanticipated.
the bag of stripey garments, which may be incorporated into the new item...
My capacity to thrive in chaos has been tested this week by a major water leak - which we had to call the absentee landlord about - and one check of pipes led to another, which led to an executive decision to overhaul the whole system(s), and we are suitably upheavaled, waiting now for the plumber to arrive, and to take apart kitchen, bathroom and part of the bedroom.
So amongst all this I am trying to sew: two projects didn't get started sufficiently to keep them moving, this week. But another bits-and-pieces garment began (again). This is how it works, with my patchworking techniques of taking apart old clothing and making it into unusual and special new clothing.
I was raring to go, on a rare morning alone in the house, as Vincent went off to write in the village cafe... but spent hours unpicking stitches, a couple of metres of them, before getting to a sticky point where I had to just cut open the seam - which made me quite frustrated that I hadn't done that with the other metres of unpicking! 😋
As a result of that frustration, I ended up leaving pieces of stripey fabric all over the house, amidst new attempts to take it apart and reassemble it. There is no excuse really, this is simply an illustration of how chaos sometimes actually does get in the way of creativity! Above you can see a tiny belt loop, next to my big scissors and a Wild Food book and a notebook, on the kitchen table. Getting in the way of breakfast, whilst I am also writing this post...
... and at the other side of the table, there is the main pile of stripey bits, awaiting the next move.
Whilst another new tool waits in the wings; Vincent very kindly bought me some oven paper whilst he was in the village, which I cannot wait to use as template and pattern paper: it is one of the few things that we can buy which is sewing-related in the local shop (two kilometres down the glen), and I'm thrilled to have this material which will help me translate clothing which I am inspired by online/ in magazines/ on the street. I've noticed my being blocked recently, because there's a chasm of missing expertise that is stopping me diving into a new phase of working: I really need some form-shaping capacity, and rather than buying patterns, I want to be able to free-style them.
😍
haha - sorry, I really thought that the phone camera had behaved itself on this one, but anyway - these are some beautiful new threads that we bought at the seaside last week; yippee!
Mind you, I did invest a few days ago, after Bitcoin went up sooo much, in a (super-indulgent, very unusual extravagance!) subscription to a magnificent indie magazine which has precisely the kind of clothing I want to make in it: in fact, I thought that maybe they stole some of MY undesigns! Check out TAUKO magazine here.
another new thread bought at the seaside: silk!!
So there can be no reason for me not to be diving deeper into a new needleworking lovefest; chaos is chaos, and divine order can and will always come out of it!
In the meantime, here I was this morning, before the plumber arrives, laying out my prospective new garment next to the wood pile at the front of the house. This is the funky sort of street-fashion tunic which I had cut the straps/ neck open in, some months ago... I plan to use it as the main bodice, in an expanded dress, using (even more) contrasting stripes and textures...
The legs of another old pair of not-very-attractive baggy stripey trousers, which I was unpicking stitches on for so many hours. This is me laying the trousers along the bottom edge of the tunic, to see how I can build another length into the new garment, which I want to be a more-coverage dress.
And this is the back-bottom of the tunic, which has this split or vent: I want to in-fill this with a kind of godet, which will help the new skirt of the new dress to flow nicely. I will infill the godet with another contrasting striped fabric from my small harvest of clothing brought from Italy.
the kitchen chaos, just behind (one of) my work table(s)
and the morning sewing-writing-breakfasting chaos!
And that's it - thank you for witnessing my chaos-into-order ventures! It really helps to talk through what I am doing, and to record it, to check that I am actually getting somewhere! Here's to all our endeavours turning into something beautiful, friends - may this be a week of much success in all our crafting!
With Love!
