Category: Musings

Am I that predictable??

You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy)

You’re a great thinker and a true philosopher. You’d make a talented professor or writer.

DAYS

Then all fo them run together
At once, almost identical. 
Someone with a tinted window
Swerves to the right
Attempting a new direction,
And the rest follow as at a funeral,
Keeping a respectful distance.
                        — Kevin Halligan
                            published in the TLS, October 28, 2005

Still catching up on various things around the house.  This caught my eye.  The poem states better than I ever could how so much of life seems to flow on by.

Although sewing is a distraction from life, and a very welcome one at that, life itself seems to offer an endless variety of distractions from sewing: the following is one of them.

Distraction 725: Housepainting
    Subsection A: foundation painting.

History: Having resided the house last year, and having admired how nice it looked, I could not help but notice how sad and pathetic the foundations looked in comparison.  Now foundations are not usually a particularly noticeable thing, but my garage is below my house and as one goes down the ledge from the front door to the garage the foundation grows larger, eventually becoming the front of the garage.  It is a typical foundation, concrete block covered by a layer of rough textured cement.  The color of the cement is fairly close to the taupe-beige shade we stained the siding and is not in itself unattractive EXCEPT…..

In that little word, except, lies all the problems of life.  I need to learn to ignore the exceptions, as in the house looks good except...  The jacket is beautiful except… I love the way that sweater turned out except… you know the problem.

The concrete had never been painted and was its natural aged gray color.  But it had crumbled over the years and in places the concrete blocks were showing.  In other places it had been patched, more than once, and every new patch was a different shade of gray.  It was not a pleasing patchwork like a crazy quilt, but rather more of a “I just can’t get it together” kind of patchwork, and since the garage and foundation are the first thing that anyone coming down my driveway sees, this unattractive feature had been preying on my mind.

The patching was all done over the summer and I had to let the concrete age until it could be painted.  Technically this could have been done in September, but I was doing other things then and am just now getting to the task

It is a sunny week with temperatures in the mid to upper 60s.  I thought I could prime and paint 378 square feet of foundation wall easily.  Easier said than done.  Mistaken assumptions abounded:

    1.    Paint coverage.  The primer said it covered 500 square feet.  I have 378.  The first can got me through 96.  Back at the paint store, the nice clerk said that of course for rough textured concrete that had been aged and never painted coverage would be more like 100 square feet.  Duhh.  I told the first clerk what I was painting, why didn’t he tell me that?

    2.    Painting rough concrete is very slow.

    3.    Painting is very hard on arthritic hands, especially when the arthritis is primarily in the metacarpal joints and first phalangeal joints, the ones used to grip the paintbrush.  I guess it had been a few years since I had painted.  I am much slower now.

    4.      Expect delays for unanticipated occurances like finding a hole under the concrete blocks running into the garage.  Gee I guess that’s how the rat snake gets in my garage bay.  Take time out to clean out, plug up, and seal the hole.  Wait for concrete and caulk to dry so you can paint it.

I suspect my entire week will go along something like this. 

At the moment, after spending hours painting the last thing my hands want to do is grip a pair of shears, or even a rotary cutter for that matter, so the cutting out has been delayed yet again. 

Perhaps it is time to clean out the sewing room.

I spent a good part of this past weekend at the NY Sheep and Wool Festival at the Rhinebeck Fairgrounds. 

One thing I was interested in looking at was rovings, particularly dyed rovings.  I had not been to the Sheep and Wool Festival for many years and it has expanded considerably in my absence.  One thing that really impressed me was the amazing variety and selection of fibers for spinners.  Some of these were amazingly beautiful and I loved the colors of some of the combinations of silk and wool and also some of the tencel blends.  If I knew how to spin this would be an amazing temptation, and as it was I was sorely tempted.

I was looking however for wool rovings or fiber to use for felting and fabric embellishment.  I am totally inexperienced at felting but I have been feeling an itch to try some and I thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to get some fibers to play with and see if I liked the process. It was quicky apparent that the problem would not be in finding materials, but in limiting myself.  Luckily, since I am not sure about felting silk or tencel fibers I quickly eliminated them from the search.  Still there were more than enough options to choose: Here is some of what I came home with:

Both photos were taken in the late afternoon sun but the colors seem pretty close.

The show was really inspirational.  There were several felters present and some of them did amazing work: the traditional thick felt as well as some very sheer, modern delicate looking things crafted into exquisite garments.  There were also beautiful quilted pots and one woman who made wonderful purses and satchels with leather trim and beautiful hardware.  If my budget were not constrained by looming construction costs I would have been far more tempted into purchasing.  As it was the fair was a wonderful source of inspiration.

I was also fascinated by the work of some of the weavers.  I have thought that I would love to take up weaving, but I never was tempted to work on a small loom.  This means that weaving will definitely remain in the realm of dreams for me.  I know I don’t have the time – I barely have time to sew and knit.  I can’t help dreaming of fiber arts though.  If I could spend all my time on those things alone…..hmm…it would never happen.  Get me started in the yard and I dream of spending all my time gardening.  Put me in the kitchen and I dream of spending all my time cooking.  I will never be able to indulge all the interests I dream of indulging.

But maybe I will get a little felting done.

Friday’s entire sewing output:

Kind of pathetic don’t you think?   I am not suffering so much from lack of opportunity as lack of motivation.  Sewing will come.

Meanwhile, I am about 15 feet along the stone wall for the raised flower bed under the kitchen window.  It is about 2 feet high and the old wall is completely collapsed with stones scattered over several feet of ex-planting bed.    I might have found an entrance to the Rat Snake’s hole, I found a path through some rocks, as I was excavating them, and then on moving one, I saw that it lead to a deep hole under the bed, along the foundation of the house.  Unfortunately when I removed the rock, the soil came rushing down and that entrance was obliterated.  Not so bad for me.  I was not about to explore further.

Otherwise lots of cooking and reading.  I have been wrapped up in escapist fantasy reading “The Other Bolyn Girl” not so much great literature as just a good read that gets one away from all the day to day bother and buzz.

I wonder how I got from product-oriented sewist to process-oriented sewist?  I certainly spent most of my sewing life interested in the clothes, not the sewing itself.  I started off wanting to take the shortest path to the desired goal – something to wear.  I have certainly spent more of my sewing time rushing against deadlines, than embracing the act of sewing itself without regard to the time spent.

And yet, here I am, more interested in the seam, boring little stretch of thread that it is, allowing myself to move slowly through the garment enjoying the process itself.  I certainly enjoy the final product more when I have savored the courses leading to its completion. 

That doesn’t mean it isn’t hard, checking my impatience at the sewing room door.  Sometimes I just don’t have it in me.  Sometimes I have to tell myself to stop if I am rushing too much.  It is not a contest.  Actually no one cares whether I buy a blouse or make one, except me that it is.  If I can’t sit back and enjoy making something, why no just go read a book instead?

The calendar may indicate that Autumn is officially a couple of days away, but Mother Nature has declared it officially here.  The first of the fall fog on the Hudson.

There was a very interesting article in  today’s New York Review of Books  which made me really think about the situation on the gulf coast in a new light.

I will fritter away hours trying to avoid a mending job that will take 10 minutes.  What a waste.  I could have been sewing something fun.

There has.precious little sewing the past two days; in fact the only action the sewing machine has seen has been mending and alterations, two of my least favorite tasks.  Generally speaking I would rather make something new than mend anything.  Unfortunately that is rarely practical.

Michael Bearman of Michael’s Fabrics  called on Tuesday and said he had some wonderful Agnona double faced cashmere in coating weights and asked if I was interested in seeing swatches.  Of course I said yes.  I immediately thought of some of the lovely coats and jackets done by Ralph Rucci in double faced cashmere and wondered if would be able to do something inspired by those creations.  The swatches arrived today, I promised to send them back, so they will go back tomorrow.  Unfortunately the fabrics are heavier than I imagined.  I knew they were coatings but I was thinking of a more plush drapey coating and these are thicker and a little stiffer than I wanted.  They are wonderful quality though and come in some absolutely delicious colors.  I admit I am tempted.  But I have far too many coats as it is.

There is one swatch in a kind of chestnut and black which reminds me of a jacket I made a few years ago, the fall Susie Denison got married.  It was chestnut and charcoal gray, merino wool instead of cashmere, but about the same weight and hand of these cashmere swatches. I took it with me to Washington State for the wedding and I wore it a lot that winter, a simple straight jacket, reversible, with a turn-back collar that showed the contrast and cuffs that turned up.  For some odd reason I did not wear it much last winter though, I don’t remember why.  I was looking at it the other day while I was sorting through the closet and made a note to myself to wear it more this year as it goes with so many things in my wardrobe and is so simple and elegant.

I also received the new Marfy catalog this week, on Tuesday, and I need to refine my choices and place an order for the patterns I like.  I will probably order several.  I love seeing new shapes and seaming and looking at how they are done.  I am not convinced that I will ever become someone who will draft most of my own patterns.  I love playing with other people’s ideas too much.  Anyway the Marfy patterns are so well drafted that I love using them and have no qualms about ordering  these patterns.  I will not regret a one.  I want to place the order this week as I know that orders slack off after the catalogs are mailed and this was the second batch sent out.  I missed the first batch by ordering too late.  I had the mistaken idea in my head that I had a standing order and it would just come.  Well, I know better now.