There have been some happy hours spent in the studio this summer and yet at the same time there is very little to show for that effort. Much of that was spent in handwork practice that I am not ready or willing to share, or that is not mine to share. Some time was also spent with some older textiles, refreshing my memory regarding textile restoration, hand work, and organizing thoughts and plans. It always seems like the planning bit is the longest part of anything really, and in many ways the least amenable to blogging because it can take me days to organize my thoughts into a path, and longer yet before that path becomes coherent.
Why should it be so complicated you ask? Don't I just want to make clothes? Well, yes. Yes I do, but being myself, I can even manage to turn that into a maelstrom of musings.
First however, I finally finished the bookcase that goes in the Northwest corner of the studio. It had been partially assembled, and I had some piles here and there, mostly on the pressing table, making it unavailable for current projects.
Here is the finished corner now. Well the rubber mallet is no longer on the floor; it has been properly put away. I added four cubes, and shifted the bookcase slightly so it occupies that entire end of the room between window and wall. This required moving the white plastic cubitec unit that I had built in the laundry room, and later found to be less useful than I had hoped, out of the basement and across the way to the studio. Then of course I had to remove all the books, expand the bookcase and put everything back.
This all took place over a series of days. The books were sorted and put in order. Then there was a mad frenzy of searching because it seems very apparent to me that a box, or two, of books is missing, and yet I cannot find them anywhere. I am certain I had certain books, equally convinced that I would not have given them away for anything, and yet they are nowhere to be found. It is completely illogical that, of all the things that could disappear in a move, two boxes of books would be the items that would "fall off the truck". I have no explanation. I probably never will, and really it is irrelevant.
But it was a great deal of fun to reacquaint myself with my knitting, sewing, and fiber books. Many happy. hours were spent reading, looking at patterns, dreaming dreams. I still think I want to come up with some plan for cataloging the patterns in the various volumes and magazines, as well as the notebooks full of patterns I have clipped over the years but I am really not sure if I will ever get to that. The world is full of patterns, and yet, I also discovered there remain many things I still want to knit, or to knit again.
There is still a lot of organizing that must happen before the studio is fully functional but increasingly it is becoming a space that works for me. I really like what I have achieved so far, and it has proved functional and maintainable. There are still some boxes of things to sort through, and the two bins of UFOs are larger than I would like, but at least everything is together in a coherent way.
I did get all the sewing patterns organized, or most of them. There is a small basket of about a dozen patterns that have turned up here and there on my desk waiting for me to get around to cataloging and filing them. I also got about 1/3 of the yarn stash photographed, catalogued, and put away. The remainder has been corralled but I need to work on plans for how to organize the storage closet. I got started, changed my mind, and temporarily abandoned the project. I can't resume cataloging until I have a coherent way to sort and store the cataloged yarn. I rearranged the sewing tables, but haven't yet shifted the way I store tools and small things so that they work with the new sewing arrangement. Actual sewing then, as opposed to cutting and flat table work, is still a little bit of an adventure.
I bought fast-dry foam and sunbrella fabric to make new cushions for the outdoor seating, but then, when I had the time and energy, we were drenched in rainfall. Now that it is dry, I once again do not have the energy. Sooner or later it will all come together. In the meantime the materials are in their own corner, waiting peacefully.
The last time I wrote, dress patterns were on my mind. They still are. I ordered more muslin because I was out but I have not made much progress on the dress front. The five dress patterns are dresses I will wear again and again, and I have no problem with that. I am living in the three dresses I made. They are pretty much worn, washed, and worn again. I am perfectly content. I could simply make more dresses and continue on my merry way.
But I also have a closet, a closet that contains clothes, mostly separates, that need to be worn. Sewing dresses is easy because I don't have to coordinate them with anything else. But what do I do about my other clothes? I do want to wear them. And I don't particularly want a closet full of widows and orphans. In the past I just sewed, and knitted, whatever it was that I felt like sewing or knitting at the time, and hoped that eventually it would go with something in my closet. But I think I want to take a more organized approach. I want a closet where everything works together, or at least with its own capsule of items. And this means both more time thinking about what I have and what I need, and also more shifting to a more organized approach.
It started with these slim stretch cotton ankle pants. They fit now and I very much like them. Except that, as you can see, they were initially too wide at the ankle. I don't recall if that was the style when I purchased them, (whenever that was; I am surprised I held on to them) or if I just have narrow ankles in comparison to my hips. But I don't think the combination of this width and this length is flattering.
So I thought I could take them in, tapering down from the knee. I didn't want to take up too much, because doing that would require dissassembling the entire pant, recutting it and putting it back together. It would be easier just to make new pants. The pants are now about 1 1/2 inches narrower at the ankle than they were in the photo above (see lower two photos). And the blue thread is really not that bright in real life.
I think they look much better. But the process of altering the pants made me think about what I have in my closet and what goes with what. Although I was thrilled to find something I had forgotten that fit me now, I was also frustrated to see a closet full of clothes that do technically fit, but which I have no idea how to wear so that they work for the person I am now, with the body I reside in now. I need to figure it out. I need to let go of what doesn't work, regardless of whether it fits, and I need to have a plan to make and/or buy things that I will actually use together with the things I have.
And so it seems I have a whole new project. I have started working on that: pulling clothes out of the closet to see what goes with what, trying on outfits, photographing them, putting everything back away. It is daunting because I have to try everything. I've been avoiding buying new things or making new things because I didn't know what I had, and opening the closet was overwhelming. It is one thing to add a new item to an existing wardrobe that woks well together, and to create outfits and play with ideas. It is somewhat more exhausting when when I don't know how anything goes together, and many of the things I once wore no longer work for who I am now. Sometimes it feels like this closet belonged to someone else and I am, in some ways, starting from scratch. It is all exhausting. It is also very rewarding as I have a much better sense of who I am now and what I want to wear now in this stage of my life. I am gaining a more focused sense of what I need and what I want.
For example, one thing I noticed is that the above pants look much better with the pointy toed flats than they did with the ankle-high buckled sandals. I discovered that I like a necklace that sits much closer to my collarbone. The 18" strand of pearls in the top photo is too long and needs to be shortened, probably to somewhere near 16". Pearls that are never worn because the lengths of the strands are wrong can be restrung.
I am developing a catalog of sorts of what works, and series of lists and plans. I don't want to make, or even spend money buying, something that doesn't work. Oh one of the things about making is that not everything works, and I am sure I will make many duds, but at least I won't be flying blind. I am not sewing now and yet, finally, I am becoming increasingly focused and excited about the options ahead.
