Restingmotion

 This beautiful fabric arrived in the mail last week, a surprise gift from a friend.   When I first opened it I was awed by the beauty of the strong colors.  It practically shimmers with hot summer heat. I noticed the texture and assumed it was linen, but I was distracted and I didn't really feel the fabric, didn't run it through my hands and assess its drape.  It is not linen; rather it is silk.  And I still think it is beautiful.

But what should it become?  My first thought was that I should make a dress.  But I had a much harder time pinning down what kind of dress.  A shirtdress?  A sundress?  I came up short on ideas.  I thought of things but had trouble visualizing them as something chic and modern.  I thought that as much as I love the pattern, cutting the dress and not ending up with something that looked old or dated or fusty was harder.  Retro chic is not my thing.  What to do? What to do?

I thought I would turn to a master of bright, even ethnic print.  I started looking through the archives of Dries Van Noten's last several spring/summer collections.  As usual I came up with lots of inspiring ideas, although not necessarily for this particular fabric.  I continued to think that a dress might be nice, but that I should play with shape or drape. Perhaps some interesting placement of the pattern would work well.  Tucks, pleats, and interesting folds figure heavily in the 2010 collection and there is much potential there although it would require some playing with pattern and muslin.

 I also thought the pattern might work well as a light jacket or a skirt, or perhaps both, although not to wear together,  worn together I might look more like I was wearing some draperies resurrected from the 1970s.

In the Vogue Pattern catalog, this new jacket caught my eye.  It has the right amount of interest and drape, and is geometric enough to play well with the pattern.  This is a strong possibility.

 Although I was originally thinking of a narrower skirt, one perhaps with a bit of drape or interesting play with line, I also recognize that there is potential in this skirt from the April Burda Style magazine. Actually, I tend to waver on this, worrying about whether it is just right, or if I am once again falling back into old habits and assumptions:  if you don't know what to do make a skirt.

I haven't made a decision yet.  There are several things that are higher on my list of priorities at the moment.  But the fabric is here, and I have intentionally left it out, draped over Matilda, waiting to see what ideas arise. It has indeed captured my fancy and my dreams.

I'm still knitting the silk cocoon cardigan.  I suppose I should have realized that endless patches of stockinette on small needles would be slow and not particularly blog-worthy. I love knitting this yarn, but I really haven't devoted enough time to this sweater, even though I would love to be wearing it right now.  The long stretches between shaping are what kills me.  Since I tend to knit at night, those 7 inch stretches with no decreases between the waist and the armhole or bust are deadly, just deadly.  I more often than not wake up to find my row half knit, and my yarn, if not my knitting, unraveled on my lap.

 Still, I did manage to finish the back.  And I am now up to the decreases and bust shaping on one front piece so all is going well.  

I probably get an hour to an hour and a half of knitting done in an evening.  It is not enough, but I am kind of running around between lots of projects right now.  I just need to get a few things wrapped up.  I am thinking that April will be a better month for fiberly pursuits.

 Sometimes I think that my true avocation is as a cataloger.  Not that I don't do other things, but I do love lists.  I love reading them; I love creating them.  I love maintaining them.  Because I love lists I was attracted to medieval literature.  Who but the medieval author would throw a list of all the known birds or colors in the middle of a poem?  Because of my love of lists I was drawn to early literature, and beyond the Medieval, to 16th century literature and Spenser (portrait of Spenser courtesy of Wikipedia).  Because I wrote my thesis on Spenser, I was hired by a computer time sharing company and discovered my love of computers, and later, my love of databases.  Lists come full circle from the Medieval to the Modern.

How does this relate to sewing, you ask?   Well, I have been playing with databases again, learning Filemaker, a database program with which I have no prior experience, but I do have experience with databases in general.  I started with a simple offshoot, and discovered it didn't do what I wanted, and I am moving on, slowly.  

I am cataloging my sewing patterns (knitting patterns too, and fabrics, among other things).  I have only just begun, and so far I have 365 items in the pattern database.  That is a lot of patterns, and truthfully, I have only scratched the surface.  There are not even two file drawers full.  Now there aren't 365 paper patterns in there, yet.  Some pattern envelopes contain multiple garments but I am only interested in one. Some contain multiple garments and I am interested in several; these get separate listings for each garment.  By doing this I can easily pull up a screen full of pattern illustrations or even of line drawings.  I can search by type of garment, or by recommended fabric, or anything else for that matter.  Do I want to remember why I bought four 2" buckles?  I can search for the pattern.  

There is great potential here.  My brain is buzzing with ideas.  Each time I enter a pattern, either new or old, my enthusiasms are renewed.  But there is also a fair amount of duplication.  I am weeding as I go, noticing how many jackets or dress patterns have the same lines, identical styles.  There is very little new under the sun.  Are the differences enough to warrant storing the pattern, or are they extraneous?  Decisions must be made.

In the meantime new patterns are always available.  The new Vogues are up.  The April Burda Style arrived. Do you think I would ignore these sources despite pattern overload?  Not on your life.  But I am trying to be more careful.  It is easier now.  I look on line at the Vogue patterns.  As I look at a dress, I pull up similar dresses in the background on my monitor.  Sometimes I pass the new pattern by.  Sometimes I don't.

 Which patterns have caught my eye and survived the cut?

This caftan by Ralph Rucci was an obvious and immediate choice.  First it is by Ralph Rucci, although I wouldn't necessarily buy a pattern just for the designer name, Rucci is a long time favorite and I am very biased.  Secondly I adore caftans.  I adore putting on a caftan at the end of a long day.  Perhaps this stems from something in the styles of my childhood, of dreams of women in colorful caftans by the pool, drinks in hand. But to me, an elegant caftan is the epitome of luxury.  

 But what else?  More practical things perhaps?  No, I guess not.

This dress isn't particularly practical.  It is classic, timeless enough that I could wear it for a long time, elegant.  I don't yet have anything like it in my catalog and I doubt I have many patterns in this vein.  This is a style that I didn't think would look good on me when I was younger.  It  might not have then, or it might have been a missed opportunity.  It is an opportunity I don't think I want to miss this time around.  I might not wear a dress made out of this pattern often, but I would wear it, and feel elegant doing so.

 Then there is this dress.  This is much more practical, more versatile.  It is a nice pattern.  It is also similar to others.  It is not that unusual, but there is a bit of difference, small variations in the seaming, the slight crossing at the front.  Is this worth purchasing again?  I could probably duplicate it.  Would I do so?  At the moment I am leaning toward buying this pattern.  If I wait for the sale it is not a large outlay of cash, actually it is more of a storage issue.  But so far I am leaning toward getting this one. 

There are quite a few other pretty, nice usable Vogue patterns this time.  Most of them are small variations on designs that are produced over and over again.  For the most part, I already own those designs. The new variations may show me new ways to work an old pattern, but I don't need the new pattern to achieve this.   That doesn't mean I am not looking at anything else though.

 There is this Miyake pattern.   I like both the pieces.  The jacket is interesting.  I have almost similar short jacket patterns with interesting seaming, but not quite this.  It is interesting enough, and appealing enough that I would buy it.  

As a bonus, I like the wide pants too, althou
gh I would not wear the two pieces together.  My younger slimmer self might have done that, but not my current self.    I see these pants as perfect casual summer pants for entertaining around the deck or the pool, for casual summer parties with a close fitting top to balance the fullness on bottom.   I might even wear them with a little wrap top from this Koos pattern (Vogue 2971). 

 As for Burda, there are a lot of pretty things in the April issue, but to my jaded eyes they mostly look like reconfigurations of the same-old same-old and I will probably pass them by.  This blouse has really caught my eye though.  It is the combination of the ruffles, and the simple deep v-neckline with the stand-up collar.  I passed it by originally, and then a particular fabric came into mind.  I don't know if that fabric will work, more about that later, but it made me reevaluate the pattern.  

 The more I think about it, the more I believe that this one might just have a place in my summer blouse collection.

It took me all day to hem three pairs of jeans yesterday, and I still have the chinos to go. Instead of hemming the pants now, I am sitting here trying to write a blog post and my mind is coming up blank, whirling with all the things I want to do, want to make, the ideas swirling in my brain and not somehow finding their way to my fingertips.

Yesterday made me wonder how I am going to find the time to do all the things I want to do.  It should have been an easy day.  I finished my chores early.  I had planned the time.  But it just didn't work out that way.  It was a day filled with interruptions and questions and general confusion, and each time I thought I had everything settled down, it all erupted right back up again.

There, it feels better just to write it down.  

Tomorrow will better.  And at least I hemmed the jeans.  I wonder why I always put chores like that off.  It didn't take long to try them on, turn them up, cut, turn up the new hem and stitch.  Easy.  What is it that makes me want to start some complicated new project rather than finish some small simple task that will immediately make life simpler?

Last week's mini heat-wave had me itching to be out in the garden and I considered myself lucky that, despite all the running around that seemed to piled on my schedule, I managed to get out for the better part of a couple of days before the weather turned cool, and scheduling demands once again interfered.

Now, there is much to do out in my neglected patch of earth:  flower beds that need to be cleaned out and reclaimed, trampled mud around constructions sites, a brown and overgrown front yard; but I did not attend to any of these.

 Instead I wandered down to the old vegetable garden, abandoned since the end of the season in 2006.  When I tried to open the gate, a task which took considerable effort as it was entwined with dead vines and rasberry canes, this is the view that greeeted me:

I was overwhelmed.  I sat down on the clam bucket I used for gathering weeds and garden detritus and generally considered if I really wanted to tackle this job.  I almost turned away.

I had considered abandoning the vegetable garden, just hiring someone to rip out the fence and come in with a back hoe and turn it all back into level ground and patchy lawn.  I am not by nature a gardener, although when I am gardening, I am fully engaged in the activity.  I will not live in this house forever.  If and when I move I may not want a large yard and there are plenty of other things here that need attention.  Growing vegetables should be the least of my priorities.

And yet.  When the sun came out and the temperatures became balmy, I immediately started thinking about getting my hands in the dirt.  But I wasn't thinking about growing flowers, much as I love them.  I was thinking about vegetables; specifically, I was thinking about peas.  One of the great joys of Spring for me is waiting for the snow to melt off the vegetable garden, which is usually the last part of the yard to hold on to the snow, a little plot of property that is cold in the winter while also being one of the hottest, sunniest patches of the yard in summer.  Then, as soon as the snow is gone and the ground is dry enough to work I would plant peas.

I usually try to get my peas in by Saint Patrick's day, my own little personal celebration of green.  I didn't make it this year, but I did have them planted by the weekend.  Peas don't mind frost or even snow.  If the weather is unusually cold they take a little longer to grow, if it is mild I get to harvest them a little faster.  There is nothing like the early pea crop, in mid to late May.  And there is nothing quite like peas eaten within an hour of being removed from the vine.

I still have to clean out the flower beds.  I will get that done in the next week or so, even though it is colder now.  But I am thrilled by the promise of peas.  I plant flower beds and landscape the yard because I am picky about how it looks, and I don't want the same over-used cookie cutter yard that I see everywhere around me.  I garden because I love art and form and color, not really because I love to garden.  I want my yard to be an expression of this love, not to look like every nice yard in the neighborhood.  I am also far more willing to live with my own idiosyncrasies and failures than I am willing to accept mundane mediocrity.

I plant vegetables however because I obsess about food.  I love to cook.  I love to eat.  I care about the raw ingredients that appear on our table.  When I started gardening, farm stands were fewer and further between and there was no weekend farmer's market.  I don't need to grow as much now, I can easily buy what I need in season.  But I can't buy peas right off the vine.  I can't usually buy peas in May.  Most of the peas come in during June, and if we have a cold spring my peas come in in June as well.  But if we have a hot spell in May or June, and this is common, the peas are worse for it.  It is worth the risk to me, to savor those few precious spring peas.

 It took me one day just to clear out the path and dig up branches and roots in one small 5' x5' planting bed.  It took me another day to double dig that bed, and amend the soil and get it ready for planting.  After all that, putting in the peas was easy.  It doesn't look like much, but it felt like such an accomplishment.  Now I just have to wait for them to sprout.

Oh, and I have to clean out the rest of the garden.  I need to clear some space for Fava Beans next.  And work on the flower beds as well.

Little bits of color started to appear last week.

The days were warm, in the 70s.

 

It is only March.  I am sure there are several cold days remaining.  After all, our last frost date isn't until mid-May.  

 

Of course, we all hope that the warm weather is here to stay, that this will be our reward for putting up with last summer which was cold.  It has not escaped my attention that this past week was warmer than most of last summer.

Spring hit me rather hard last week.  

The temperature was gloriously warm.  The sun was shining, and suddenly all those lovely, newly fitting winter clothes seemed dark and dreary and drab.  Oh I am sure there will be opportunity to wear them yet.  I am well aware that last week was warmer than most of last summer, but spring fever was upon me.

Unfortunately spring clothes are still in short supply around here and I had no real intention of making them all.

 I had already ordered a stack of tees, having discovered that I had only one long sleeve cotton tee, a wardrobe necessity.  The one in hand was a deep blue-purple, nice but limiting.  A supply of black and white was immediately necessary, and few flattering colors wouldn't hurt.  Luckily I quickly discovered that J. Crew's "perfect fit" tees did, indeed, fit me perfectly.

But then, with the warm weather I was itching to get to work in the yard, which has been long neglected.  I refuse to garden in St. John wool knit pants however, or heels, and more shopping was in order, namely for basic pants to get me through the summer working in the yard and running in to town to get mail or make a quick stop at the lumberyard or garden supply store.  

Nothing fancy was required, just jeans and/or chinos.  I could make them.  I have made jeans, although not completely satisfactorily, and I wanted jeans that functioned but in which I also felt comfortable going to town. I also wanted my jeans now, not three muslins from now so I went shopping. Perhaps this is too much to ask, but luckily I continue to be able to find nice jeans.

 In fact the day I went jeans-shopping last week, my first stop ended up being my last stop.  I walked into the Gap, pulled two pairs of jeans off the shelf in two different styles and made my way to the dressing room.  Both pairs fit fabulously.  

I ended up with two pairs of "Always skinny" jeans, one in a dark wash for going to town and one in a medium wash which will hopefully function for all casual activities.  I've been without dark wash jeans for a few months now, and I've missed them.  I seem to have come late to the appreciation of dark jeans.

As for the medium wash.  I promptly got online and ordered two more pairs as they only had one pair in the store in my size.  I've already hemmed the first pair and worn them in the garden all weekend.  And I am quite grateful that The Gap uses a fairly standard jeans-type topstitching thread so that the thread in my stash matched the thread used on the jeans.  It really bugs me when the stitching at the hem does not match the rest of the jeans, even in the garden.

As for the other pairs, they too are necessary, even though I am trying to get away from buying too many multiples.  After all I would like to have two pairs of jeans lest one pair be covered in mud or grass or what-have-you, and I prefer not to have to wash my jeans every night if I am working in the yard.  Every other night is often enough.

And I also need a pair to leave long to wear with heels.  Yes, I wear jeans with heels.  I wear medium wash jeans with heels.  I used to feel guilty about this.  I am far too prone to guilt.  I don't wear my dark wash straight (read skinny, although the skinny jeans are not nearly as skinny on me as on the model) jeans with heels, but I do wear the medium wash jeans.  It finally occurred to me that my issue with jeans is not dressing them up by wearing a dark wash, my issue is using jeans to dress a more formal garment down.  I wear the medium wash jeans to take the formal edge off a too formal or too dressy jacket so that I can wear it around town without feeling like I've gotten all gussied up.

I am completely relieved to have that settled in my head.

 I also came home with a pair of dark wash boot cut jeans. I haven't had a pair of dark wash jeans since November when I finally recognized that my old pair was unflatteringly large and I have missed them terribly. They are my preferred silhouette, along with trouser jeans, as they make my legs look longer.   I don't really need multiples of these.  Or perhaps I wish I did, because I think I could live in them.  But I don't, need them that is. And having too many pairs of the exact same style is boring, except when they are needed of course.

A nicely fitting pair of chinos seems to be  more problematic.  Perhaps I will end up sewing those.  But then again, perhaps not.

The problem is, if shopping is so easy, a couple of issues pop into my head:

If I can go to a store and get clothes that fit and I like easily, why should I bother trying to reach my weight loss goal?  Isn't the whole thing about feeling comfortable with myself?And if I have clothes that fit and flatter, I tend to feel comfortable with myself.   Of course that is the same thought that got me started gaining weight in the first place. 

Secondly, if I can buy jeans or chinos, why should I sew them?  Luckily I live in an age when I can run to the store and buy manufactured clothes.  I do not have to literally clothe myself and my family.  This is a good thing.  Besides I would rather sew something I enjoy sewing.  Actually, finding clothes I like is rather liberating.  It takes the pressure off.  That sense of desperation, of not having something to wear is gone.  Now I can just enjoy.

What a relief.  Suddenly I don't worry about style.  Who cares?  I think fretting about style was a symptom of something else.  It is not that I don't worry about these things; I love clothes, they are never far from my brain it is true. And I still think about what I want, what would look good, what goes with what.  But I don't need to force the issue.  I know what I like.  I know what I don't.  There is enough room in the world for all of us to be whatever we wish.

 I finally realized that the basic dichotomy that follows me in everything I do and love remains a constant.  I love the simple.  And I love the incredibly ornate.  Simple predominates, except when it doesn't.   Simple, isn't it?

I think I was trying to be something in-between, something not me.  I was trying to pain that picture and then trying to live up to the portrait I had assembled.  Not so simple at all.

I realize I need jeans again.  I mentioned somewhere that I was going to need jeans soon, when I reached a certain goal.  That point has come and gone.  And spring seems to be approaching rapidly.  I need jeans.  I need simple clothes for every day. I need clothes I can wear to work in the yard.  If they are also up for going to the post office all the better.  I have been known to work in the yard in some baggy old worn out thing that I loved but with which I was not quite ready to part.  That is no longer a possibility.  Those old things are gone.  Really, they were too big to wear anyway.  I don't need to hang on to the past.

And now Spring is coming and I cannot live in cashmere and wool forever.

Isn't that why I was working on a shirt muslin?  yes.

Isn't that why I was working on pants?  yes.

Am I going to sew everything I wear?  not on your life.

Seems like it may be time to get a move on.