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Category: Miscellaneous sewing

Cross-Dressing

Silliness. Yes. I love stupid cross-references and playing with words. I don't feel particularly embarrassed or shy about my love of such silliness, even if my references and jokes make sense to no one but myself. In fact, it may be the pure ridiculousness that makes me happy.

More than two, no three, weeks after my episode of silliness, I remain giddy with glee at the memory. If I am thrilled with the sewing, even simple sewing, perhaps I should blog. I may be slow, but that is no reason to be apologetic or to hold back.

But what was all this bubbling silliness about? I made a small, baby-doll sized, dress. Except it was for a cross. And yes, once I thought about dresses for crosses, inappropriate puns did come to mind. I have no regrets.

All that needs saying is that something was damaged and needed replacing. And so it was done. Finding the right shade of fabric took more time than the making; I couldn't find quite the right purple locally and so something had to be ordered. That something ended up being slightly too stiff for the size of the cross and the tightness of the necessary curves, but I managed.

A pattern was drafted and everything was cut out. I naively thought I could do the whole thing in the roughly two and a half to three hours between the early church service and the end of the second. Ha! And then I discovered that half the electric circuits in my sewing studio had blown out in a recent storm. I couldn't get them all to come back on, so there was much running around and clucking, much moving of things hither and thither – even then I was sure I could do it. I almost succeeded.

But, as I was heading over to the pressing table, I held the almost-finished cover up and decided it looked like a party dress. And I burst into delicious giggles. I couldn't stop dancing around my studio like a fool thinking about tiny little dresses for crosses. Absurd, no? And then, because I was thinking of dresses, and because I wasn't quite sure how the hem should lie to best accommodate the stand at the base of the cross, I decided that a fitting session was absolutely necessary.

So I ran over to the church to meet my client, my client the cross, for a little fitting. What party dress does not need a proper fitting after all? The cross might not have cared. But apparently I cared deeply. Nothing is pressed in the photo above but at least the hem is pinned, and it did not end up being in the position I would have placed it without the fitting. Isn't he/she/it/they going to be lovely? Is lovely even a word that applies to crosses?

None of this was complicated sewing, or complicated pattern drafting for that matter. And I've made another since, in another color, for Holy Week. The second version was in a more appropriate fabric. Not surprisingly, I forgot to take photos.

Getting back to sewing, no getting back to blogging about sewing: blogging, about anything really, has too many moving parts in need of coordination. And yet today the whole process makes me happy. This is what I always wanted a blog to be, back when I started these blogs, when I naively knew nothing about blogging. I don't care about marketing, or branding, or even expectation. I think all I cared about, all I still care about, is the joy in the making, in the seeing, in the living, in the entire process of saying "I made this", or, perhaps more importantly, "I am part of this process called life". Blogging has been about the sharing, but also the recording, not as acclamation or acknowledgement, but because of the way that writing brings my thoughts full circle. I don't really know what I think until I write it down.

Apparently I cannot help myself. Maybe if I want to resume blogging I have to stop worrying about what I should be blogging about, and just remember joy, or sadness, the gains and the losses, and the feelings that come with it all. In the seventeen some-odd years since I started this blog, the blogging world has become more polished, more professional, more focused, has become something I actually never actually wanted. I have tried to evolve, but it has been a struggle.

All I wanted was a place to explore my own distractions: successes, failures, and silly puns included. All I wanted was a place to keep it all together. All I want is place that is not a piece of paper that I am more than likely to toss in some future clutter-focused state of pique.

Perhaps tiny purple party dresses for crosses have something to teach us after all.

April 25, 2022
Studio Time

Poor studio. Mostly ignored for the past six months except as a place to pile up hopes and dreams. Those were too often disguised as ungainly piles of things.

The stairs were too steep to climb during the worst part of my cancer treatment. Sometimes I would start out filled with hope only to become quickly overwhelmed. There was the day all my energy was burned up sweeping piles of yarn, fabric, and patterns off the cutting and pressing tables and onto the floor. What a mess that was!

All because I had been looking for the ball winder. Of course, it had been right in front of me all along.

I needed to wind yarn for a shawl, for a blanket. I have been working on both of those since. I have also been sorting through my closet, which had become what felt like a bottomless black hole of things that did not fit. I lost 35 pounds during my cancer treatment. My weight has been stable the last six weeks or so, but my dimensions are continuing to shift slightly as I gain energy and do more. I need things to wear. I need to make things also, but there is no point in working too far into the future. Already a pair of pants I purchased in September need to be altered. This process of reaching a new normal will take months; I should not plan or work too far ahead.

This is the pile of things that are currently unwearable but are also workable. It ended up being about a third of the closet contents. It took me nearly a month to try on everything. The process took so long, and was so exhausting that and a few garments, such as the above mentioned pants, started out in the "keep" pile, and eventually moved to alterations pile.

This past week, having finally gone through every drawer and hanger and shelf, having also donated boxes and bags of clothing, it was time for further analysis. The contents of the chair were broken down into three piles:

1. Things that only need simple mending but otherwise work. (3 garments)

2. Things that can be altered or slightly remade into wearable garments.

3. Things to deconstruct and reuse — things that can be reconstructed into something new.

As you can see, piles 2 and 3 are about equal in size, and may in fact be somewhat fluid. The simple mending pile includes two coats and a sweater. Since it is now coat and sweater season, these will be the first things I tackle; they are also the easiest things to tackle. By the time I get to piles 2 and 3, my perspective may well have evolved.

Already my perspective is evolving. Why give away or donate everything? Even though I have a sizable stash of yarn and fabric, why give away clothes that no longer work when they can be made into something else? Just because I purchased an expensive garment and wore it twice, why should I donate it? Is the silk worth using for something else? Why discard the worn? Why not mend? I already have too much to actually suffer from living with less, but is there any reason I actually need more? There are no real answers to these questions other than to wait, to play, to see what evolves.

In the meantime I have started on one simple mending/refinishing project. This was not in the stacks above, but already in my stash. I finished this sweater in April, after it was too warm to wear it. But I did not like the way the front edges curled and felt it needed more stabilization. I spend occasional time over the summer thinking about what I would do, but never actually getting started.

Now, I am ready. Now my fingers are ready (almost) to hold a needle and sew in a petersham band along the inside front edge. I actually don't know how this is going to work out, but it is worth a try. My fingers still struggle with holding the fine needle, but each day I can sew a little more. I always loved handwork and still do, even if I have grown slower and slower.

I will be back as studio time progresses. 2021 has not gone as hoped. 2022 may not either. It is not the speed of accomplishment that matters, rather the fact that work, that play, that the urge to make remains.

November 22, 2021
Re-Entry

Let’s try this again.

2020 was going to be the year I started sewing for myself. And I did. But as we all know 2020 did not end up being the year many of us anticipated, and many of my great intentions fizzled out before they ever really took hold. Yet I am happy. I sewed. I sewed more than I have in more than a decade, and that, in and of itself, is worth celebrating.

Let’s get the accounting out of the way first:

I made two dresses for myself.

I made countless Covid-19 masks.

Although I looked at a lot of fabric online, only 15 yards actually came in.

45 yards of fabric were sewn.

That all feels good. It is a small start, but a start nonetheless.

I made the first dress at a sewing retreat in March. At that time I refined the fit on my pattern and cut three dresses. The pattern was copied from a dress in my closet. When I left the retreat the second dress was complete except for hemming and I had every intention of finishing it. In fact, I had every intention of doing a lot. I had pulled fabric and patterns for 4 summer tunics and 3 more dresses.

Then Covid-19 hit. Life changed. I had no reason to go anywhere and didn’t need another dress. I lost all motivation. Although I initially resisted, eventually I began sewing masks. That kept me busy through April and May perhaps even into June. I had done something stupid and taken a fall in the garden, injuring my back. There wasn’t much else I was doing. I took no photos, well, perhaps one of bias strips.

Later in the summer I wanted to finish the second dress and I pulled it out. But I found some issues and I could not wrap my head around them. Although I had managed to assemble the dress nicely, the hem was incredibly wonky, barely and inch and half in places, 6 inches in others, The lining did not match up. I realized I had made a mistake. At the time I cut the dresses, I tried cutting double, which I never do, and this was especially problematic with the silk. It may have worked better had I layered it with paper, but I did not. At the time I just wanted to get it done, and of course I had excuses. My back hurt (pre-fall, but I have a history of back issues), I was tired, and the cutting table I was using was not the right height for me, making all of the above worse. Never again.

I suspect that never making mistakes is impossible. Learning from those mistakes however, is always a possibility.

Facing that mess of a dress made my head hurt, so I shoved it aside. In December I was determined to finish. This time it seemed easy. In retrospect, it seems my brain was not working well during the summer, when I was experiencing rapidly destabilizing atrial flutter and went into heart failure. Perhaps it is best that I did not work on the dress at that time. Lack of oxygen to my brain might have made things worse.

And so I am content. In 2019 I sewed one garment for myself. In 2020, I sewed two. I have two dresses I love which can be worn once the weather warms up. The first dress, the purple Japanese print, was my test garment. I loved the fabric, but I doubted whether I would love the dress itself, questioned whether it might in fact be a little “becky home-ecky”. In fact it pushes that boundary, but I wore it all summer and it made me happy. I suspect I will grow tired of it before the palm print linen however, which has turned out to be a nicer dress. But at the moment I remain thrilled. These are meant to be simple, casual, summer shifts. Yes I lined them. I find a simple china silk lining is often cool, and keeps the dress from clinging, which is hot as well as unattractive.

I have another project in process, one which uses 7 yards of fabric and which should be finished this month. I will try to keep you apprised.

January 4, 2021